OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is a benchmark score. It answers: of the time this station was planned to run, how much value did it actually produce?
The three factors
- Availability: was the station running when it was supposed to be? Downtime, changeovers, and breakdowns eat this.
- Performance: when running, was it running at planned speed? Minor stops and speed loss eat this.
- Quality: of what it produced, how much was good first time? Defects and rework eat this.
The multiplication is important
OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality. If all three are 90%, OEE is 73% - not 90%. Small losses across multiple factors compound. World-class OEE (85%+) requires ~95% on every factor.
How to get better
OEE improvement is almost never about buying faster equipment. It's about reducing changeover time (Availability), stabilising cycle times (Performance), and eliminating rework (Quality). All process work, not capital work.