Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a powerful metric that reveals how efficiently a manufacturing operation is performing. Whether you’re overseeing a single production line or an entire plant, understanding OEE gives you the edge to uncover hidden inefficiencies, cut costs and maximise output.
Express Data’s OEE solutions help businesses across the UK track production health, visualise bottlenecks, and make decisions rooted in accurate, meaningful data. As experts in network infrastructure installation, Express Data ensures that your OEE solution works effectively to maximise production.
History of OEE in Manufacturing
OEE emerged from Japan’s Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) movement in the 1960s. TPM focused on maximising the productivity of equipment by involving all employees—from operators to senior managers—in proactive and preventative maintenance.
As the global manufacturing environment became more competitive, the need for a universal metric to measure equipment efficiency grew. OEE became the answer—a simple number that encapsulated complex performance indicators. It seamlessly aligned with lean manufacturing principles, encouraging continuous improvement and the reduction of waste.
The Three Pillars of OEE
Overall Equipment Effectiveness has three core components:
- Availability – is the machine running when it’s supposed to?
- Performance – is it running at the optimal speed?
- Quality – is the output meeting quality standards?
If any of these areas falters, your OEE score drops. For example, a machine that’s always running but often creates defective products has a high availability but poor quality. The magic of OEE pulls all three together to give a true measure of productive output.
How to Calculate OEE
Calculating OEE involves a simple formula which can deliver significant operational insights.
OEE = Availability × Performance × Quality
- Availability accounts for unplanned stops such as breakdowns. It measures Total operating time as a percentage of planned production time.
- Performance measures loss of speed, including slow cycles or small stops. It measures the ideal cycle time × total pieces as a percentage of operating time.
- Quality checks that production that meets quality standards. It measures good pieces as a percentage of total pieces
So, if your availability is 90%, performance is 95%, and quality is 98%, your OEE would be:
OEE = 0.90 × 0.95 × 0.98 = 0.8379 or 83.79%
An OEE score of 100% means perfect production—no downtime, full speed and zero defects. Most manufacturers operate well below that, making even small improvements highly impactful.
OEE Benchmarks and Industry Standards
How do you know whether your OEE score is good, or whether you should look to find improvements?
Here’s a quick benchmark guide:
OEE score of 100% Perfect production
OEE score of 85% World-class
OEE score of 60%-84% Typical range
OEE score below 60% Room for improvement
Industry-specific targets can vary. For example, a pharmaceutical line with stringent quality checks may score differently than a high-speed beverage line. Express Data installs OEE systems for a range of UK manufacturers, who tend to see improvements of 10-30% when implementing their tailored OEE solutions.
Common OEE mistakes to avoid
Unfortunately, many manufacturers unknowingly sabotage their OEE data. Common issues include:
- Ignoring minor stops: even five-second interruptions add up. Over time, they can severely impact performance.
- Overestimating quality: it’s important only to count parts that meet your customer’s standards.
- Focusing on a single aspect: improving speed whilst neglecting quality or availability will distort the true picture.
Express Data’s OEE solution ensures that your production is accurately logged. Our XL800 and XL810 installations with supporting connectivity provide real-time monitoring tools, ensuring every downtime, micro-stop and defective unit is accurately logged, giving you a transparent view of your operations.
The benefits of improving OEE
Here’s what a focused OEE strategy can deliver:
- Increased throughput without new investments
- Reduced downtime from faster maintenance alerts
- Better quality control and customer satisfaction
- Enhanced ROI on existing equipment
- More predictable scheduling and less firefighting
- Eco-efficiency through maximising quality, minimising energy and waste
Make UK reports that Britain’s manufacturers have halted recruitment and investment plans amid rising employment taxes and business costs. In this environment, it’s worth optimising your existing production by focussing on OEE.
And when you boost OEE, you’re not just improving machine efficiency – you’re transforming the culture in your manufacturing plant.
How Express Data supports OEE improvement
Express Data doesn’t just sell the infrastructure. We offer and install a complete OEE transformation platform. Our OEE Improvement Solution integrates seamlessly with production lines, extracting data straight from the source with Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), sensors, or operators – then displays it on live dashboards.
OEE Software Solutions
At the heart of Express Data’s OEE system offer is the XL800/XL810 Productivity Appliance, smart OEE software from Vorne Industries. It stands out because it:
- Collects data automatically from machines and systems
- Correlates losses with their root causes
- Highlights actionable insights for continuous improvement.
Unlike generic solutions, at Express Data we tailor this platform to your unique operations — from food production to automotive, pharma, and beyond.
Live OEE dashboards
What if you could walk into your office, pull up a screen and instantly see how every line is performing? With live OEE dashboards, that’s exactly what Express Data offers.
These dashboards:
- Update in real-time
- Are accessible via desktop, tablet, or mobile
- Can be customised to specific roles (operator, engineer, manager)
- Include visual indicators (green/yellow/red) to highlight issues
This means you can easily view and interrogate critical KPIs such as:
- Downtime reasons
- Cycle times vs target times
- First-pass yield
- Shift-by-shift performance
Identifying OEE losses in real time
Perhaps the biggest game changers is the ability to see OEE losses as they happen. With Express Data’s real-time alerts:
- Maintenance teams can act before minor stops become breakdowns.
- Operators get automatic prompts when performance drops.
- Management gets instant notifications on underperforming lines.
Red signals and pop-up alerts flag when attention is needed, and ‘root cause’ tagging helps to prioritise top causes of loss. Our OEE systems give you fast, proactive control over operational effectiveness, helping to eliminate waste and maximise production time.
Custom KPIs and OEE metrics
While OEE is a vital metric, no two factories are the same. Express Data’s OEE system allows you to define custom KPIs based on your priorities, for example by looking at:
- Downtime by cause
- First pass yield
- Operator efficiency
- Mean time to repair (MTTR)
These tailored dashboards mean you’re not just tracking equipment but aligning your operations with business goals. It also makes it quick and easy to set and track SMART targets. For example, you could target:
- Improve performance from 82% to 88% in 6 weeks
- Reduce unplanned downtime by 20% by next quarter
- Increase quality rate to 99.5% over 3 months
Express Data supports onboarding and upskilling to ensure that everyone can use our OEE systems to see tangible improvements. With progress tracked continuously and visually, your team sees their efforts pay off in real time.
OEE Audit Checklists and Templates
Express Data also provides standardised audit templates to keep your OEE improvement efforts consistent. These include:
- Daily OEE logs
- Weekly root cause reviews
- Monthly improvement dashboards
These templates support structure and accountability, ensuring your gains are sustained.
Critical network infrastructure support
OEE systems are only as good as the connectivity driving them. Without fast, efficient network infrastructure, OEE systems cannot communicate properly, so data quality is impaired.
That’s why Express Data is the best choice for OEE systems installation. Our expert team provide on-the-ground advice and support – checking your existing network installation, evaluating whether it is fit for purpose and designing a network infrastructure that will function efficiently well into the future.
We are network infrastructure specialists, specialising in environments where the network fabric has a high cost of failure and needs to work in tough conditions, such as on wet, high-speed production lines.
We have fully qualified in-house design and installation teams, experienced in working with every type of building including brand new premises; complete re-fit of existing buildings; or a retro-fits using the current infrastructure.
Express Data provides turnkey OEE solutions. We deliver your OEE installation from start to finish, including adjusting the system to check for the details you specifically need, and checking that each data source is properly connected and network connectivity is functioning optimally.
We also offer long-term support packages and rapid response to ensure that any issues can be quickly traced and rectified, keeping downtime to an absolute minimum.
The role of Predictive Maintenance in OEE
In traditional maintenance models, you either fix machines after they fail (reactive) or service them on a strict schedule (preventive). But there’s a smarter way—predictive maintenance, which significantly enhances OEE.
Predictive maintenance uses data from sensors, historical logs and algorithms to forecast failures before they happen. By combining this with OEE data:
- Availability increases thanks to fewer unplanned stops
- Performance stabilises because machines stay in optimal condition
- Quality improves due to fewer process deviations
Express Data’s OEE platform integrates with IoT sensors and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to track vibrations, temperature, and wear indicators, helping you replace parts only when necessary. Not too early, and not too late!
OEE and a culture of Continuous Improvement
A high OEE score doesn’t happen in isolation – it’s the product of a continuous improvement mindset. Here’s how Express Data OEE installation helps foster that culture:
- Empowering operators with real-time dashboards
- Training teams to recognise and respond to anomalies
- Encouraging accountability with visual management tools
- Celebrating wins – because small improvements stack up fast.
When every team member understands how their role affects OEE, the factory becomes more agile, collaborative and efficient.
How SMEs can start with OEE
Many small to medium-sized manufacturers assume OEE optimisation is only for the big players. That’s simply not true. Express Data’s OEE solutions are cloud-based and scalable, meaning small and large manufacturers alike can unlock rapid ROI.
Even a 5% boost in OEE can generate significant savings each month – without adding a single new machine.
What does an OEE improvement solution look like?
Express Data are experts in the installation of the XL 800 and XL8 system and the network communications needed to support them. We identify the best way for you to use our OEE solutions, advise you on where and how to install the database, server and wallboard for the line, and carry out the full network cabling and installation for you.
There are three main constituents of an XL810 OEE improvement system:
- An XL810 on every production line
Each XL810 ‘productivity appliance is a “black box” consisting of a database, a server and a display wallboard for the line. It contains all the information necessary to monitor the uptime and performance of each individual line, based on the output and throughput it is supposed to be achieving.
- Input devices connected to the internet (IoT)
The XL810 requires inputs to measure performance. This could be sensors counting items, scales weighing food, or any other appropriate input device. Each line has a hand-held scanner for the operator to add data like changeovers and downtime reasons. Express Data’s OEE system connects seamlessly with IoT devices to capture detail such as vibration anomalies and energy consumption spikes, as well as micro-stoppages and other input data.
- Monitoring and Reporting
The XL810 monitors in real-time and displays performance on connected wallboards. It is also accessible from anywhere via its web server. Mobile-optimised reporting detail covers everything you need to manage performance: check shift progress on the go, receive instant downtime alerts and stay connected and informed even when off-site.
OEE for every industry
Express Data’s OEE improvement solutions can be used in a wide range of industries for production lines and assembly lines in a factory or warehouse setting, including food packaging plants, automotive production lines, and other manufacturing environments. With high quality network installation and fast network connectivity, we can ensure that your OEE improvement system is up and running efficiently even in challenging environments.
How Express Data ensures Data Integrity
Data is only useful if it’s accurate and secure. Express Data uses:
- Redundant backups
- Cloud encryption
- Access control by role
- Audit logs
This ensures your OEE metrics are compliant, safe and reliable.
Conclusion: choose OEE installation from Express Data
At its core, Overall Equipment Effectiveness is more than a KPI, it’s a culture shift. It reveals inefficiencies, empowers teams and fuels continuous improvement. By providing trusted OEE systems alongside a fast, robust network infrastructure installation, Express Data optimises production to deliver real ROI.
From small factories to large enterprises, from food to pharma, Express Data is the UK’s trusted partner in turning OEE potential into production excellence. Contact us today to find out more.