In the world of manufacturing, performance matters. Businesses are under pressure to produce more, faster, and with fewer resources - while keeping costs low and quality high. To do this, they must understand how well their equipment is actually performing. That’s where Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) comes in.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a globally recognised metric used to measure the productivity of manufacturing equipment. It combines three critical components - Availability, Performance, and Quality—into a single percentage that reflects how effectively a machine or production line is operating.
A perfect OEE score is 100%, meaning you’re manufacturing only good parts, as fast as possible, with no downtime. While rare, this benchmark helps businesses identify exactly where productivity is being lost and how to recover it.
OEE is particularly valuable for manufacturers of all types—discrete, process, or batch—and is essential for operations, plant managers, and continuous improvement teams looking to:
At Emixa, we support organisations in capturing OEE data through MES, IoT sensors, and digital twin technologies, then turning that data into actionable improvements.
If your plant struggles with unplanned downtime, inconsistent output, or slow cycle times, now is the time to start tracking OEE. It’s particularly useful:
Even if you’re not aiming for 100%, tracking OEE provides a baseline to improve from—and a framework to monitor progress over time.
OEE should sit at the heart of your performance improvement strategy. By analysing Availability, Performance, and Quality, you can pinpoint where to focus:
OEE can be visualised through dashboards in systems like Opcenter Execution, giving teams real-time insight into shopfloor performance.
Unlike basic KPIs such as output per hour or defect rate, OEE gives a comprehensive view of production health in a single number. It lets you:
OEE can also be automated using IoT platforms, reducing manual data entry and improving accuracy.
Here are just a few practical ways manufacturers use OEE:
At Emixa, we’ve helped clients improve their OEE scores by integrating Siemens Xcelerator technologies like Teamcenter, Mendix, and Opcenter, giving them full control and visibility.
OEE is a powerful metric that gives manufacturers a clear picture of how efficiently their equipment is performing. By breaking down productivity into measurable components, it empowers businesses to reduce waste, increase throughput, and enhance quality - all without additional investment in machinery.
With the right tools in place - like MES, IoT integration, and advanced analytics - OEE becomes more than a metric. It becomes the foundation for smarter, faster, and more sustainable manufacturing.