Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) identifies how effectively a manufacturing operation is utilised, but Omron argues that it is not routinely discussed with an organisations machinery suppliers, with the focus instead tending to be on areas such as baseline speed, cycle times and overall performance.

By consider their customers’ OEE during machine design, machine builders can demonstrate how their machine designs can contribute to improved OEE results, then they can give themselves a significant competitive advantage.

Machine availability

Every machine has a controller of some kind, and by using its inbuilt diagnostics and monitoring algorithms problems can be highlighted before they become critical. These are systems that machine builders can easily build in as part of the machine design– without incurring additional costs. For example, the controller can monitor the performance of sensors, actuators, or servo torque values with limits set to trigger alarms on the local HMI as the output drifts towards tolerance limits.

Shorten changeover times

Few production lines are dedicated to a single product or process, and the controller’s ability to reduce changeover times from one product size or packaging style to another could be significantly reduced. ‘One push configuration’ is now a standard feature in automation technologies such as Omron’s Sysmac platform offers ‘one push configuration’ whereby the operator can configure the whole line from a single push button operation on an HMI.

Reducing downtime

Another area to consider is unscheduled downtime, and the cost implications that this has for the end user. Today’s automation equipment is inherently reliable, but even the most reliable of equipment can fail unexpectedly. By providing fast backup/restore functionality, with critical program settings and parameters stored on an SD card will get the user’s machine back up and running quickly.

Importantly, none of the features which help increase machine availability are difficult for the machine builder to implement. For example, Omron has addressed the requirements for teach activation, monitoring, pre-alarm warnings and alarms with a suite of new Function Blocks within the Sysmac control platform.

Go here for the full article from Robert Brooks of Omron