Industry 4.0 is the industrial slogan of the current time. One of the key ideas is to increase productivity by analyzing data. Analyzing data in order to increase the productivity of plants is also the concept behind the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Modern Industrie 4.0 tools are inexpensive and make it easy to capture the necessary data for OEE and noise analysis.
Industrie 4.0 as a Driver of Innovation and Productivity
The fourth industrial revolution keeps all manufacturing companies on their toes. Industrial production is to be integrated with modern information and communication technology. Machines, devices, sensors and people are networked together. Information is available transparently throughout the entire value chain. Assistance systems support people with the help of aggregated, visualized and understandable information – and decisions and optimizations are made and executed decentrally. These are the four core organizational design principles of Industry 4.0, all based on data. The importance of paper and pencil, the central tools of lean production, is decreasing. A Lean Production supplemented with Industry 4.0 begins to fulfill its promise to make decisions based on figures, data and facts.
The aim of Industry 4.0 is to increase productivity and increase competitiveness. But where does one begin when day-to-day business needs almost all available resources and respect for the complexity of information technology has increased even more since the last failed – or at least delayed or more expensive – IT project?
The answer is simple: you just start. “Simple” in the sense of starting and learning. But also “simple” in the sense of small, little complex, with little investment. It’s like any change process in a company: Make a tangible change, make a success, talk about it, and get more people involved in the idea of an actual data-driven improvement process.
OEE and Loss Analysis as Industrie 4.0 Application Case
For investment-oriented companies, the OEE is the ideal Industry 4.0 use case. The concept is usually known to the professionals in production. Often you measure the OEE as a KPI already. The philosophy of continuous improvement (CIP, KAIZEN) is also practiced in workshops with production engineers and production staff. If you add oee.ai now, all the ingredients for an Industry 4.0 success are there:
- The solution installs and powers up to any equipment in less than 15 minutes.
- The equipment is not changed, the own IT does not have to send an employee into a project. The necessary data acquisition is done by own sensors in the mobile network.
- Both the OEE and especially the reasons for the losses (separated according to availability, performance and quality) are calculated to the second.
- The causes of loss are visually and easily prepared in the form of Pareto charts or Top 10 lists.
- All data is available on-line and on any mobile device. If required, they can also be prepared in Excel.
- In improvement workshops, a qualified decision on the optimization activities can be made on the basis of the measured data.
- The effectiveness of the measures can be understood, one can calculate a return on investment for the improvement activities.
- The use of the system takes place without investment for monthly rent as a fixed price – no surprises.
This is the “easy” entry into Industry 4.0. The basis is a qualified staff and a functioning implementation of the principles of lean production. Because without the ideas for improvement and implementation expertise of the employees, the best data situation remains unused.
What’s Next?
We have sparked your interest. Contact us at info@oee.ai or call us: +49 (0) 241/401 842 75. We will gladly provide you with oee.ai sensors and access to the analysis cockpit for a trial period. Only then you decide. Also here we are easy!