How to Measure Manufacturing Equipment Efficiency to Optimize Production

Measuring manufacturing equipment efficiency is a critical part of optimizing production. By tracking equipment effectiveness manufacturers can identify problems reduce waste, and improve processes. This leads to increased throughput, reduced costs, and better utilization of assets.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to accurately measure and improve manufacturing equipment efficiency

What is Manufacturing Equipment Efficiency?

Manufacturing equipment efficiency refers to how well machinery and equipment are utilized during production. It indicates the actual output versus the designed capacity of the equipment.

High equipment efficiency means assets are running as expected with minimal downtime or quality issues. Low efficiency points to underutilization of capacity and potential process problems.

There are a few key metrics used to track manufacturing equipment efficiency:

• Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) – The gold standard for measuring asset utilization. OEE looks at availability, performance, and quality.

• Availability – The percentage of scheduled production time that the equipment is available to operate. Lost time due to downtime, setups changeovers impacts availability.

• Performance – Also called speed efficiency. The ratio of actual production output versus the equipment’s designed output. Running below design capacity decreases performance.

• Quality – The good units produced as a percentage of total units. Producing defective parts negatively affects quality.

• Utilization – The percentage of time an asset is actually operating versus total available time.

Why Measure Equipment Efficiency?

There are several compelling reasons manufacturers should actively measure production equipment efficiency:

• Identify underperforming assets – Efficiency metrics spotlight problem machines. This allows for troubleshooting and corrective actions.

• Reduce costs – Inefficient equipment results in higher energy, material, and labor costs per unit produced. Improving efficiency directly lowers costs.

• Maximize capacity – Low utilization of equipment capacity leads to lost production volume. Improving efficiency increases throughput.

• Minimize downtime – Increased availability limits disruptive downtime. This leads to higher and more predictable production output.

• Enhance scheduling – Understanding realistic equipment capabilities allows better production planning and scheduling.

• Drive continuous improvement – Setting efficiency targets motivates improving utilization over time via process improvements.

How to Measure OEE and Manufacturing Equipment Efficiency

Let’s take a deeper look into how to calculate and analyze the metrics that compose overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

Availability

Availability measures uptime or production time as a percentage of the total time available:

Availability = Operating Time / Planned Production Time

• Operating time is minutes produced excluding downtime losses

• Planned production time is total minutes scheduled minus planned downtime like breaks, lunches, and scheduled maintenance

To calculate availability:

• Step 1: Define the time period to analyze such as a shift, day, or month

• Step 2: Subtract all downtime occurrences from the period’s total operating minutes to get operating time

• Step 3: Subtract planned downtime like scheduled breaks from total period minutes to get planned production time

• Step 4: Divide operating time by planned production time to calculate availability percentage

Performance

Performance communicates a machine’s speed efficiency:

Performance = (Total Count / Ideal Run Rate) x 100

• Total count is the actual produced parts over the period

• Ideal run rate is the machine’s designed speed capacity per time period (e.g. parts/hour)

To find performance:

• Step 1: Input the total pieces produced over the selected period

• Step 2: Input the machine’s ideal run rate at full speed

• Step 3: Divide total count by the ideal rate to get speed efficiency ratio

• Step 4: Multiple ratio by 100 to convert to a percentage

Quality

Quality represents the percentage of good parts:

Quality = (Total Count - Defects) / Total Count

• Total count is all units produced including good and defective

• Defects are pieces scrapped, reworked, or rejected

To obtain quality:

• Step 1: Input total number of units produced in a period

• Step 2: Input total units that were defective in the period

• Step 3: Subtract defects from total count to get good units only

• Step 4: Divide good units by total produced to calculate quality percentage

OEE Calculation

OEE brings together availability, performance, and quality. It is calculated by multiplying the three metrics:

OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality 

• All three components must be expressed in decimal form (60% = 0.60) before multiplying

This blended metric provides a comprehensive snapshot of manufacturing equipment efficiency. World-class OEE is considered over 85%, while many manufacturers benchmark for continuous improvement to reach over 90%.

Collecting Equipment Efficiency Data

Accurate data is imperative to properly measure OEE and manufacturing equipment efficiency. Here are the key types of data needed:

• Planned production time – The shift schedule details when equipment is planned to operate. This sets total possible production time.

• Downtime events – All downtime occurrences must be tracked including time, duration, and categorized cause like mechanical, material, staffing.

• Parts counts – Total units produced including both good and defective pieces must be counted and recorded.

• Defects – All defective parts should be logged along with the reason for the defect.

• Machine speed – The equipment’s designed production speed or cycle time is required to calculate performance.

Ideally, data collection should be automated as much as possible for accuracy and efficiency.

Methods to Improve Equipment Efficiency

Once you have visibility into metrics like OEE, you can take action to optimize manufacturing equipment efficiency. Here are some of the top ways to improve asset utilization:

• Reduce downtime – Extend maintenance intervals, perform preventive maintenance, and shorten changeovers. Streamline material replenishment and tooling availability.

• Standardize processes – Document procedures and optimize all aspects from cutting parameters to quality checks.

• Change production planning – Level load production schedule. Optimize job sequencing and batch sizes.

• Improve maintenance – Investigate root causes of repeated failures. Adopt predictive maintenance practices.

• Train workers – Ensure proper training on equipment operation, setups, changeovers, and maintenance. Institute tribal knowledge transfer.

• Leverage automation – Use automated data collection for efficiency metrics. Implement monitoring technology to centralize data.

Using Software to Track OEE and Equipment Efficiency

Software provides manufacturers an efficient way to calculate OEE and monitor efficiency. Solutions like MachineMetrics equip teams with real-time datacapture, reporting, and analysis capabilities.

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