Fresh focus on overall equipment effectiveness

31-May-2011 - Last updated on 10-Jun-2011 at 15:28 GMT

Food manufacturing and packaging firms may be investing less in new machinery, but they are looking to overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) analysis to hone their competitive edge, according to Bosch Packaging Technology.

Launched at last month's Interpack show in Germany, the company's OEE consultancy service aims to enhance productivity for food industry customers.

OEE consultant Roland Pichler said: "During the 20092010 crisis in particular, manufacturers were especially careful about new investments, but at the same time they had to take action because of increased competition. They asked what they needed to do to bring their older equipment 'up to speed'? They had support in terms of technology, but less in terms of methodology."

Bosch's version of OEE calculation and analysis builds on both Lean and Six Sigma strategies, and starts with production data. Calculation is based on three types of loss: availability losses (downtime), performance losses (reduced speed and throughput), and quality losses (scrap and reworking).

"Our focus is on these three loss categories, and that's where we can find the necessary improvements," said Pichler. If there is a problem, he added, it can usually be traced back to the root cause. "Once you realise where there is room for improvement, that's when the real, structured consulting begins, with a deep dive into the system."

But OEE values could only be compared where there is the same definition of what constitutes unplanned downtime, he said.

If the bottleneck in the line is pinned down to non-Bosch equipment, the consultancy team can make suggestions to the client, but cannot perform the same type of root cause analysis that it can with its own equipment.

According to Pichler, the approach can be applied to small as well as larger businesses, but larger companies are more likely to have the detailed data necessary for analysis.