Can you be a world-class manufacturing operation without a world-class focus on equipment reliability and performance? It hardly seems so, given the wealth of risks that accompanies poor or missed maintenance. The consequences can range from production losses and customer losses to horrendous safety or environmental mishaps. Not to mention missed opportunities.

And, quite frankly, manufacturers have no margin for error these days. A global economy seemingly in a freefall, worldwide competition for every potential new customer and utter uncertainty about the future make it more imperative than ever that manufacturers make the most of their physical assets (and human, as well).

Many manufacturers are doing just that when it comes to maintenance. Over the past five years, for example, more than three-quarters of IndustryWeek's Best Plants winners and finalists report their machine operators perform routine and preventive maintenance on their equipment. More proactive still are predictive techniques, such as vibration analysis, which seek to prevent unscheduled machinery downtime by collecting and analyzing data on equipment conditions. The analysis is then used to predict time-to-failure, plan maintenance and restore machinery to good operating condition.

Tips for Implementing OEE Stroud Consulting's Ryan Hale offers these tips regarding an OEE implementation: Prioritize all potential OEE improvement areas by dollar value and relative complexity, paying particular attention to challenging the reasoning behind high value and high complexity. Challenge your technical experts on equipment run rates. Multiple experts may present a variety of opinions on the best run rate achievable on the same piece of equipment. Apply a cycle time reduction tool (such as single-minute exchange of dies, or SMED) while challenging assumptions to reduce the elapsed time of preventive maintenance.

At Baldor Electric Co. in Weaverville, N.C. (a 2008 IW Best Plants winner), a maintenance excellence program introduced in 2001 began with an assessment of the plant's current state. As a result of that initial assessment, the facility, which produces mechanical power transmission components, made changes that included a new computerized maintenance management system, technical skills enhancement and the use of predictive tools. And at Harley-Davidson Motor Co., extensive maintenance and reliability activities include a best practices circle for the company's maintenance leaders. The circles hold in-person meetings -- at least that's preferred -- that encourage the sharing of maintenance best practices across the company.

And total productive maintenance (TPM) remains an important practice for many IW Best Plants winners and finalists over the past five years. Indeed, more than 90% report practicing TPM, a comprehensive program to maximize equipment effectiveness. The aim is to involve the entire company in the effort. Similar to the concept of lean, goals of TPM are to eliminate waste, reduce defects, maximize productivity and engage the workforce. Teams are an important component.

A Measure of Focus

Data drives decisions, which begs the question: What performance metrics aid in the effort to improve equipment performance? Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) frequently earns a mention, given that it is a key measure to gauge the benefits of a TPM program. OEE tells users the percentage of time that equipment, when running or required for production, is producing good-quality products at an acceptable rate. It is the product of three ratios, or submetrics: machine availability rate, performance or run rate, and the quality rate. It is calculated by multiplying availability rate by production rate by first-pass quality rate. In addition to providing an overall measure of productivity, OEE provides insights into where losses are occurring via the three submetrics.

View article on one page