Cascades Canada
Assembly Line
OEE as a Tool for Continuous Improvement
OEE also delivers valuable trending data for Hunter Industries to evaluate subtle losses and gains over time while providing measurable performance targets that can be harnessed to drive progress. “It helps to have something that can compile data for short or long periods of time so engineers can stay on top of putting out fires as well as making long-term progress on process improvement projects,” Corbett says.
The micro-level OEE calculation helps evaluate how many parts are rejected against whether a machine is down because it produced too many parts or it’s running at too high a calibration. Calculating OEE at this level is particularly important to ensure the automated production workflow runs smoothly on two lines pumping out 2,000 units daily without sacrificing quality of output. “Our process is highly statistical and the parts we mill are very fragile,” says Kunal Patil, manager of automation engineering for Glidewell. “Any bit of wear on the tools can generate inconsistencies on the part and any tiny bit of calibration change alters the performance of the machines.”