In the current ecosystem of industrial machines and processes, data is becoming more important every day. Information is power, good management of the data provided by the machine can improve the efficiency of the machine.
One of the parameters that is most demanded from machinery manufacturers is to be able to show the OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), which is used to measure the efficiency of the machine. It is the ratio between what a machine could theoretically produce and what it actually did.
To give an example, let’s imagine that a machine that produces muffins has an OEE of 75%, this means that of every 100 muffins that the machine could have produced, it has only been able to produce 75 muffins, therefore, the higher the OEE, the greater efficiency the machine will have.
The OEE is made up of three parameters:
- Availability: (Stops/Breakdowns or Configuration and Adjustments): The machine has been stopped for some time, for example due to an alarm that forced the machine to stop to perform maintenance or a format change had to be made.
- Efficiency: (Small Stops or Speed Reduction) The machinery has been working at a lower capacity than the total, for example some incident that does not force it to stop but does force it to work slower than it could.
- Quality: (Rejections due to Start-up or Production Rejections) the machine has worked but manufactured defective products.
Why the OEE of your machine is important
The OEE concept is beginning to be heard more and more by factory managers and is one more characteristic that is taken into account when choosing one or another machine. Customers will ask for this OEE data from machinery manufacturers to get an idea of the efficiency of the equipment they are purchasing.
The machinery manufacturer must design and program their machine to improve this OEE. For example, an important point is to achieve quick format changes in order to achieve less machine downtime. In an industry where shorter series are often manufactured, a major format change is one of the keys.
Another aspect is having a very intuitive HMI and in the event of an alarm, the information is clear and precise, this helps to locate and resolve machine alarms as soon as possible. Adding predictive maintenance features will help minimize unscheduled downtime.
Generate the OEE of your machine
Reviewing automation forums I have seen that it is a topic that many machine programmers are beginning to ask. The most logical thing is to create a Function Block to calculate the OEE
Some automation system manufacturers have realized that things must be made easier for programmers and are generating these FBs for the calculation of OEE, for example, B&R offers its Maps 1TGMPOEE.10-01 function block for the calculation automatic OEE of a machine in this way the overall effectiveness of a machine’s equipment is quickly and easily calculated.
Start and end times, as well as planned downtimes during a shift, are pre-configured. These can also be adjusted and modified at runtime. Based on these parameters and real-time data from the machine controller, mapp OEE automatically calculates the OEE value and additional statistical data.
This year, OMAC began working on updating PackML and developing new tools and standards to simplify OEE calculation and HMI navigation. The organization targets May 2019 for the launch of the new OEE calculation tools.
Another example is Mitsubishi’s SCADA MAPS, which has an OEE calculator. Progea with Pro.Lean or Rockwell with FactoryTalk Metrics also offer integrated solutions for its calculation.