A comparative study of overall equipment effectiveness measurement systems.

Nakajima defined the 'Overall Equipment Effectiveness' (OEE) indicator to measure the performance losses of a company. Since then, variants have been proposed by authors and standardisation bodies to make it more suitable for new production contexts. OEE allows measuring performance losses and is used to determine improvement projects. The use of different OEE measurement systems can lead to different improvement projects; i.e. the use of inappropriate measurement systems leads to the resolution of wrong problems. It is, therefore, necessary to understand OEE and its variants to choose the most appropriate measurement system and thus focus improvement efforts on the least efficient processes. This need is initially specified by a French-Spanish industrial group. However, to our knowledge, there is no comparative study of the different OEE measurement systems. Our review of the scientific literature and international standards revealed four measurement systems widely used and commonly applied in industry, namely, Nakajima, ISO, SEMI and AFNOR. We analysed these different measurement systems in depth, proposed a reference taxonomy of loss families, and compared them all. These measurement systems were then applied to the case of one of the industrial group's plants to determine their adequacy and compare them with the existing OEE measurement system of the industrial group. An OEE calculator offering these different measuring systems has been programmed and installed in the factory. The main results of this research work are as follows. First, a reference taxonomy of loss families is proposed. The effective comparison carried out for the four widely used measurement systems is the second tangible result. Finally, this study made it possible to determine and validate the main characteristics to be taken into account in the final choice of an OEE measurement system in a real case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]