An analysis of managerial factors affecting the implementation and use of overall equipment effectiveness.

Abstract

To ensure manufacturing organisations remain competitive, most of them are turning to total productive maintenance (TPM) and lean manufacturing to ensure seamless operations. Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is the foundation of these two business improvement strategies as it tackles the underlying losses that impede equipment efficiency. This study presents the prevalence of managerial issues related to the implementation and use of OEE in the manufacturing industry. To do this, five hypotheses and four research questions were formulated and tested using a combination of descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation, chi-square, analysis of variance, Tukey’s pairwise comparison, Z-test and correlation tests. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire responded by 139 manufacturing organisations worldwide. The results establish, among other ‘soft’ aspects, the linkage of the OEE implementation with that of TPM and lean manufacturing, and the drivers, most critical factors, barriers and the role of management in its implementation. The study also identifies how manufacturing organisations employ the information provided by OEE and how the data for its computation are collected. This study supports the very limited empirical research on the implementation and use of OEE. Thus, this research provides organisations, and their managers, with a better understanding of different factors that affect the successful deployment and management of this highly used measure in industry.