Produce significantly more efficiently with the vital figure OEE

Why do we need Industry 4.0? The answer to this question is straightforward: we need Industry 4.0 for our prosperity and our children’s future.

Leading experts assume that in 2025 there will be around 8 billion people living on earth. The majority of them will belong to the so-called “consuming class.” If we continue to produce as we do now – taking into account environmental and resource conditions – we will not be able to meet the needs of this demand.

Conclusion: Enormous increases in efficiency in manufacturing companies are necessary to take advantage of the growth opportunities of the future. The tool for this: digitalization of manufacturing, known under the buzzword “fourth industrial revolution” – Industry 4.0 for short.

OEE – the most important key figure for successfully optimizing production

If you want to increase efficiency, you need a metric. Companies must focus on the data relevant to them. Because if a factory’s machinery is digitally connected, a wealth of signals are available – Big Data. The desired signals must be filtered from these and converted into usable data – intelligent data. This forms the basis for real-time analyses.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used to evaluate intelligent data. The best-known KPI in the industry is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

OEE helps companies to identify and eliminate losses in production. The following values are included in its calculation:

• Availability: How long was production?
• Performance: How quickly was production carried out?
• Quality: How well was production carried out?

LESER GmbH & Co. KG: 12 percent utilization rate increase for bottleneck machine tools

Significant performance increases can be achieved with an OEE index control. Kai-Uwe Weiß, Head of Global Industrial Engineering at LESER GmbH & Co KG, the specialist for safety valves: “At eight complex bottleneck machining centers, we were able to increase the degree of utilization, i.e., the OEE, by over twelve percent with FORCAM.”

Good OEE values are at least 80 percent, usually higher. Machines that are not digitally controlled typically have a value of around 60 percent and need to be optimized accordingly. A 100 percent OEE value cannot be achieved in reality, as plant utilization is affected by regular machine and process losses.

Factory Work 4.0 enables the factory teams to work autonomously

Digitally recorded and visualized OEE helps to empower factory teams to act on their own responsibility to the maximum extent possible. Working independently according to transparent and objective vital figures has a very positive effect on the motivation of the factory teams.

Denis Shoshi, production manager at the Swiss furniture specialist Peka-Metall, says: “The close information and training of our production staff was and is very important. As a company, you hand over responsibility to the employees; in future, they should control their machines on their responsibility.”

The Smart Factory at a fixed monthly price

FORCAM offers digitally controlled production with precise critical figures as a completely standardized solution for a fixed monthly price. The MES LITE solution – Software as a Service – is primarily intended for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that want a simple, cost-effective, and quick-to-implement solution for the Smart Factory.

Set up in a few days, the solution collects the signals from different machines, converts them into usable data, and sends them to the cloud. There, the data is analyzed, and the operating states are sent to the users’ screens in real-time.

Due to the modular character of the solution, different scenarios for continuous improvement processes (CIP) can be implemented. The MES LITE solution includes the following components:

• Machine connection with hardware components
• Standardized evaluation and visualization of data from the cloud
• Standardized use case: machine data acquisition (MDE)
• Learning videos & documentation

Additionally available are the standardized use cases:

• Overall Equipment Effectiveness OEE
• Employee time management OLE (Overall Labour Effectiveness)

More on OEE: The critical figure OEE and its significance – FORCAM

More about the solution: MES LITE