Create a True Path Forward to Improving Your OEE with machiNetCloud

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, IL, April 14, 2022 - 

When it comes to operation optimization many manufacturers are still left wondering the best ways to move forward. Utilizing spreadsheet and clipboard methods are still commonplace, but unfortunately lacks the detailed data that factories need today to quantify and understand OEE (overall equipment effectiveness) in order to make improvements. 

Measuring OEE is not only a manufacturing best practice, but the gold standard for measuring manufacturing productivity. It identifies the percentage of manufacturing time that is truly productive. An OEE score of 100% means you are manufacturing only quality parts, as fast as possible, with no stoppage. While achieving 100% OEE is nearly impossible, by measuring OEE you will gain important insights on how to systematically improve your manufacturing process.  

As digitization continues to change the landscape in the industry, the proper real-time Industrial IoT applications bring the potential to truly understand the factors affecting OEE. Shibaura Machine’s machiNetCloud Industrial IoT platform allows manufacturers to understand the performance of not only a single machine, but the entire factory full of machine tools, die casting, or injection molding equipment. 

The OEE dashboard found within the Customer Portal allows users to easily understand the machine and overall factory availability, performance, and quality which in turn creates an overall OEE score. This data allows factories to structure their approach and process, allowing operators adequate time for operations, planning for downtime, and more. All the information shown allows management to create a true path forward in improving OEE. 

How 3 Scores Provide True Reality to OEE

The automated OEE dashboard in the Customer Portal provides accurate, real-time information at the user's fingertips. Most importantly, the dashboard breaks down the factors that influence the OEE score, providing manufactures complete visibility to areas that require improvement. 

AVAILABILITY SCORING | What are my planned and unplanned downtimes? 

A simple question that oftentimes gets an inaccurate answer. It can be difficult to understand each machine's true availability through the manual operation of checking hourly. Utilizing machiNetCloud, unplanned and planned downtimes are continually tracked in real-time, creating not only an accurate score but also providing additional insight into downtime reasons. 

The Downtime Tracking app can be used for tracking planned and unplanned downtime events and also downtime reasons. For example, you can pull up and see the machine went down because a part was not ejected or a mold or tool exchange was taking place. Further, the downtime tracking shows the time the stop took place and started back up providing a way to quickly address issues and improvements.

PERFORMANCE SCORING | Is your machine running the maximum cycles per hour? If it's running low, how quickly can you be alerted?

In injection molding, a mold goes into the machine, plastic is injected into it- each time the mold is changed, the speed, resin, or a variety of other factors might change. The machiNetCloud solution will recognize these changes and automatically capture the accurate production cycles for each job. 

Via automated machine data acquisition, not operator reliance, you can know how many cycles the machine ran based on what was captured in the performance data and putting into a parts per hour component. This calculates a performance score that tracks parts per hour number to see if the goal is met. 

QUALITY SCORING | How many quality parts are you producing? What are the issues with the bad parts?

Using machiNetCloud not only has the ability to understand when a “good” or “bad” part is made based on the process parameters entered into a job and also, alerts users when deviations occur. This could include high temperatures, different pressures, or other criteria your factory deems important to making that specific part with the required quality. 

While Injection molding and die casting are very similar, it is important to note that those using machine tools will likely need to account for OEE scoring differently. The machiNetCloud solution can be configured around the elements of the specific equipment, such as spindle speed for machine tools, in order to calculate the availability and performance scores. 

Understanding World-Class OEE

The OEE score is calculated using the equation shown below.

            Availability x Performance x Quality = OEE

This equation makes achieving an OEE score of 100% quite challenging. However, a world-class OEE doesn’t necessarily mean a perfect score. 

• 100%: Perfect production with no stop time and only quality parts
• 85%: Reflects world-class operations for discrete manufacturers and is often an achievable long-term goal 
• 60%: An average score for discrete manufacturers, with room for improvement.  
• 40%: A common score for manufacturing companies just starting their OEE scoring process. It can easily be improved. 

Depending on your industry, this score could have different weights. The important point is – don’t focus on the absolute value, focus on your ability to improve the score.

Improve Your OEE

Calculating OEE for each machine and the overall factory has become such an important KPI in manufacturing success. Furthermore, understanding how the scores were calculated and what influenced them allows for factories to improve their processes and in doing so, revenue and productivity.

Our machiNetCloud solution digitizes the process and computes OEE for each machine enabling quick visualization of factory performance. Manual methods of monitoring these scores unfortunately don’t offer an accurate source of data

If you are looking to improve your OEE consider the seamless and secure solution offered with machiNetCloud. Contact our Digital Services team to learn more.

iot@shibaura-machine.com