Best practices for improving OEE

If you’re reading this, it’s because Astn’go has already collected data from your workshop, and highlighted the major causes of non-performance. Now you’re wondering how to improve your OEE?
Unsurprisingly, the best way to improve OEE levels is to start by working on the three ratios that make up OEE. These are Availability, Quality and Performance.
It’s worth noting, however, that each workshop has its own specificities and therefore its own problems. The priority is therefore to use the data collected by Astn’go to define the areas for improvement and the causes of losses to be reduced.

Nevertheless, here are a few universal tips for increasing your OEE:

Increase machine uptime

The operational availability or uptime rate is concerned with events that stop production. In other words, it assesses the percentage of time a machine is actually running, compared with the time it could be running.

The causes are generally breakdowns, malfunctions, but also staff absences, lack of parts, etc.

It’s by reducing downtime as much as possible that we can increase equipment availability.

• The first thing to do, therefore, is to ensure that all production equipment is operating at optimum efficiency. Ideally, preventive maintenance practices should replace the usual “failure response” behavior. This reduces the risk of machine failure, and hence downtime.
• It is then important to work on organization, and in particular on optimizing set-up times, tool changeover times and production runs, using a method like SMED for example.
• Finally, to ensure optimum use of available resources, it’s important to define the right scheduling.

Increase quality

Quality, or quality rate, is the ratio of good quantity to quantity produced. It highlights the production of rejects.

These rejects are generally caused by set-up problems, usually at the start of a production run. However, they can also occur unexpectedly during a “stable” production cycle, either due to machine, raw material or operator failure.

It is by reducing these rejects that we can increase our quality rate.

• Optimize set-up, series and tool changes by reducing their frequency and simplifying them.
• Draw up clear procedures to guide operators through these stages.
• Ensure the quality of raw materials.
• Ensure that the industrial process is adequate, and improve it where necessary (review tools, equipment, methods, etc.).

Increase output

Cadence, measured through the performance rate, compares the actual production speed with the theoretical speed (or nominal cadence).

Using software such as Astn’go, it is often possible to detect cadence deviations in real time.

It’s by increasing the actual cadence that we improve the performance rate.

A few keys to success in improving OEE

• Ensure that the theoretical production rate used on the shop floor is the correct one (as announced by the manufacturer), and that it is achievable with the industrial process in use.
• Identify bottlenecks and implement improvements.
• Provide operators with further training to enhance their skills.
• Support operators at their workstations with rapid access to OFs, contextualized documentation, display of operation and performance data, etc.
• Standardize tasks to specify operations.

All these actions to improve your OEE are facilitated by the implementation of Astn’go MES software, and can be the result of a continuous improvement action plan. Improving the OEE means producing more without having to invest in a new production line.