The six big losses OEE helps to resolve can be hard to spot in the day-to-day operations of your company. These losses cause a domino effect, causing you to lose money and time in ways you might not have considered before. Luckily, there is a solution! OEE software will save your business from these six big losses by improving efficiency throughout all areas of your organization.
You should aim to have the availability, performance, and quality of your equipment settings at the top of your priority list because these are the areas in which all losses that you can easily avoid.
OEE saves businesses from these six big losses:
Breakdowns
Equipment failure can cause production to come to a complete stop and lead to expensive repairs. Equipment that’s used more than it should be can result in costly replacements or repairs.
Furthermore, poor quality control often means defects creep into the production line, resulting in high inventory levels of low-quality items and manufacturing delays. These chain reactions may seem like small unplanned downtime, but unplanned stops for items such as material jams or faulty equipment can snowball into a costly nightmare.
You want to identify and eliminate these manufacturing maintenance issues as soon as possible to ensure there are as few small stops and losses as possible.
OEE helps you to prevent these losses with production monitoring, checking your assets on production lines in real-time, predicting issues before they happen so that any action needed may be taken at the earliest possible time which will prevent unplanned downtime from starting or continuing.
Machine Setup/Adjustments
When you need to make adjustments to a machine (even minor) you must have the help of a technician. And this costs money! Having to make equipment-based tooling adjustments can mean huge costs.
If your products are not monitored in real-time, then you will lose inventory because of a lack of visibility and control over the flow of materials through your production lines. You also risk losing customers to competitors by missing planned orders or letting them run out without notice.
When your machines need attention, this process can lead to downtime between how long it takes for the issue to be resolved, to the startup again once the improvement has been implemented. This could just be a simple adjustment that your operator needs to implement, but it can affect overall productivity.
However, OEE software offers downtime tracking, allowing you to track your machine adjustments, a technician is alerted and can respond accordingly to minimize any downtime. This saves on expensive repairs and minimizes production delays that would otherwise take place if it weren’t for OEE system alerts.
Minor Stops
When your equipment is not running effectively for a period of time, it’s a major loss for your business. Unplanned stops are when the machine goes through a short period of reduced output.
Minor stops can often be mitigated when using OEE, as they’re sent to the technician in charge who then has time to prepare and respond accordingly. In cases where there is more serious damage or need for immediate attention, OEE alerts are also forwarded on immediately.
These types of unplanned stoppages are often the easiest to resolve, as they’re sent directly to a technician who can then fix them and get production running again. A major loss is when your equipment has been offline for an extended period of time, or if there is more serious damage that needs to be resolved.
The aim is to have an ideal cycle time and to mitigate small stops that can lead to reduced speed. Using OEE allows managers and operators to make adjustments accordingly while still receiving live alerts about production conditions as well as any anomalies that may occur along the way.
Reduced Speed
Slower speed from your machines can cause reduced quality, higher production costs, and uneven product levels. With OEE, you can track the speed of your machines just as easily as any other metric with no technician assistance required.
Utilizing system alerts about machine adjustments and minor stops in addition to a reduction in speeds across the board will bring more efficiency. Downtime tracking can help to give an insight into items such as equipment failure and reduced speed that is affecting your equipment.
Utilizing your machines to their full potential is a key factor in maintaining efficiency. With OEE, you can be confident that the time spent on machine maintenance and repairs will be reduced greatly due to increased utilization!
Slowdowns due to equipment failure, assembly-line stoppages, and changes in product mix will be tracked accordingly. The idea is that you can see the bigger picture of your manufacturing process in real-time so as to make any needed adjustments quickly. You’ll know when there’s an issue before production even begins!
Reduced Yield
This is in relation to the parts that may need to be destroyed or disposed of as they do not meet your standards. OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) will continue to alert you as the yield decreases so that you can make the necessary adjustments.
When you find that you are producing substandard materials you need to account for planned maintenance and the reduced yield. Your OEE system will alert you when there is a need for more maintenance or if more adjustments are needed in order to improve your production and increase your yield.
Nobody wants to be producing sub-quality products, and if you know that your production is not meeting the standards required by your company then it will be a much more expensive process to replace bad parts than if there was an alert from OEE. Undetected issues can also result in delays for customers which means they are left waiting longer.
This can lead to canceled orders, which is a serious issue. It doesn’t take long for this type of loss to skyrocket and become even more costly in terms of additional labor, production time, or machine downtime. When you incorporate OEE into your manufacturing process, it’s possible that it can be avoided.
Process Defects
When defective parts are produced, reworking them is costly and time-consuming. With OEE software, you can integrate data from your machine controls so that the system tracks any defects during manufacturing or assembly line processes.
You’ll be able to find out which machines are defective at a glance without having to wait for someone in the factory to enter notes manually into another system. Process defects can be resolved before they cause further issues or lead to a material shortage.
You want to eliminate defects at the source and prevent them from being reworked. The cost of quality is a direct consequence of not investing in OEE software or other process improvement tools to identify quality issues before they occur, which can lead to excessive scrap rates, poor customer satisfaction ratings, and overall higher costs for your company.
OEE software can also help you with changeovers and processes within your factory by allowing teams to identify when their area of the process is ready for production again, eliminating downtime in the manufacturing line.
Contact us today to discover how utilizing OEE software in your business can eliminate the manufacturing issues mentioned above.