Overall Equipment Effectiveness, otherwise known as OEE for short, is all about one simple concept: understanding the overall productivity of your manufacturing operations.
It does this by taking a look at three core qualities that are totally industry agnostic: availability, quality, and performance. The higher your OEE score, the better you’re doing – which is always the desired end result.
Yet at the same time, many people can get caught up in the “math” of it all and assume that OEE is a lot more complicated than it really is. Yes, the data being used to help calculate this score and illustrate where things can be improved is sophisticated – but automation and visualization in particular still make this all so easy that virtually anyone can do it.
Real-Time Insights Create Real-Time Progress
When you have the right OEE tracking software like Thrive at your side, you have more than just a way to ingest historical data and calculate a rudimentary OEE score. You have a tool that you can use to unlock the past, present, and future of your business.
Automation helps with not only data collection, for example, but also reporting. Remember that your OEE score is ultimately only as accurate as the data you feed into the solution. Poor quality data will yield poor quality insights, which could send you in the wrong direction without realizing it.
But more than that, automating data collection and reporting helps you see the results of any changes that you’re implementing in real-time. You don’t have to spend weeks wondering if some new initiative is making the impact you need it to build links. You’ll know, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The same basic idea is true in terms of visualization – something else that OEE software like Thrive does well. Data is only complex if you allow it to remain in its unstructured original form. By taking that data and visualizing it – meaning, by presenting it in a way that makes it easy for nearly anyone to understand regardless of background – you can begin to tap into its full potential.
Suddenly, organizational leaders have instant access to trends and patterns that likely would have gone undiscovered. You can even visualize things on the shop floor, allowing different departments and even employees within those departments to take more ownership over what they’re doing on a daily basis.
By simply making this essential context available to everyone within an organization through visualization, you increase your workforce’s level of engagement with your improvement projects in an instant. That almost always yields better results for operators, team leaders, organizational leaders, and everyone in between – which is always the name of the game.
If you’d like to find out more information about why automation and visualization are two of the most invaluable assets you have throughout your machine downtime tracking efforts, or if you’d just like to speak to someone about what OEE software can do for you in a bit more detail, please don’t hesitate to contact Thrive today.
