What is OEE?

June 7, 2013
OEE is a measure of three components: availability, performance and quality.

Availability, commonly known as uptime, is the percentage of scheduled time that the unit is available to operate. Performance is the speed at which the unit operates, expressed as a percentage of the speed at which it was designed to operate. Quality is the percentage of “good units” produced compared with the “total units started” or “first pass yield” in non-OEE parlance.

Multiplying these three percentages gives you an overall performance score. It’s a simple concept that can be applied to any machine, cell or line in the plant—or even to the entire plant itself—shining a light on areas that need improvement.

The goal of OEE implementation, says Tom Jensen, program manager, OEM business development for Lenze Americas, “is to drive productivity while maintaining a stable state of operation.” In other words: Wring more productivity and value out of existing assets.

>> Read Automation World's OEE feature story: OEE in Packaging: Deceptively Simple 

Companies in this Article

Sponsored Recommendations

Why Go Beyond Traditional HMI/SCADA

Traditional HMI/SCADAs are being reinvented with today's growing dependence on mobile technology. Discover how AVEVA is implementing this software into your everyday devices to...

4 Reasons to move to a subscription model for your HMI/SCADA

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) gives you the technical and financial ability to respond to the changing market and provides efficient control across your entire enterprise—not just...

Is your HMI stuck in the stone age?

What happens when you adopt modern HMI solutions? Learn more about the future of operations control with these six modern HMI must-haves to help you turbocharge operator efficiency...

AVEVA™ System Platform: Smarter, Faster Operations for Enhanced Industrial Performance

AVEVA System Platform (formerly Wonderware) delivers a responsive, modern operations visualization framework designed to enhance performance across all devices with context-aware...