The evaluation of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and Overall Throughput Effectiveness (OTE) can be critical for the correct estimation of workstations number needed to realize the desired throughput (production system design), as also for the analysis and the continuous improvement of the system performance (during the system management).
The use of OEE as performance improvement tool has been widely described in the literature. But it has been less approached in system design for a correct evaluation of the system efficiency (OTE), in order to study losses propagation, overlapping of efficiency losses and effective actions for losses reduction.
In this chapter, starting by the available literature on time losses, we identified a simplified set of relevant time-losses that need to be considered during the design phase. Then, through the simulation, we shown how OEE of single machine and the value of OTE of the whole system are interconnected and mutually influencing each other, due to the propagation of availability, performance and quality losses throughout the system.
For each category of time losses we described the effects of efficiency losses propagation from a station to the system, for a correct estimation and analysis of OEE and OTE during manufacturing system design. We also shown how to avoid losses propagation through adequate technical solutions which can be defined during system design as the buffer sizing, the equipment configuration and the positioning of control stations.
The simulation model shown in this chapter was based on a real production system and it used real data to study the losses propagation in a manufacturing plant for production of electrical cable. The validation of the model ensures the meaningful of the approach and of the identified set of possible solutions and hints.
By analyzing and each time losses we also shown how the choices taken during the design of the production system to increase the OTE (e.g. buffer size, maintenance configuration, etc.) affect the successive management of the operations.
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