I saw a presentation by Bob Williamson at SWS stating that OEE was designed as a machine level metric - not a plant level metric. We published the resulting paper here:

Don't be Misled by OEE

Bob brought this information back directly from Japan.

What do you think?

Terry O

This is a very good article. In my experience the analysis that OEE enables can be of great help in targeting improvement initiatives. In fact we used this approach in the late 80's and 90's to achieve downtime improvements of 90% (back when I really worked as an engineer!)

The problem is that benchmarks (and I mean any benchmarks) too often get used to explain why a company can't or doesn't need to improve. Sometimes the data is aggregated in a way that hides the problem (as suggested by Bob Williamson's OEE article) or people focus too much on comparing apples with apples rather than improving their processes.

Anyone that really wants to improve their outcomes and does not let their own ego get in the way can use OEE to identify where to direct their actions. Because of their postive approach, benchmarking is usually of little further use to these people.

If you are interested in an alternative approach to continuos improvement go to www.InitiateAction.com

I do not agree with " don't be Misled by OEE"!
you know oee is a tool for measuring and for any tools , we must know how we can use them for what!
any tools can have problem when you do not use them well !
http://maintenance-tools.blogspot.com/