Asset management software plays a crucial role in optimising overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). As its name suggests, OEE is a measure of how effective your machines are. It can be calculated either for a single coordinate measuring machine (CMM) or for a set of CMMs, over various periods of time. An understanding of a CMM’s OEE can help reduce spending on maintenance while achieving better overall machine performance and efficiency. But to effectively track OEE it’s important that your asset management system and metrology software can deliver the answers you need in an easy-to-use format.
How to calculate your CMM’s OEE
OEE is expressed as a percentage and is calculated using the formula: OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality.
Hexagon has designed its asset management software tool to simplify the task for operators and managers by drawing important data about the CMM’s availability, performance and quality from PC-DMIS. But there are still a number of factors operators need to consider when establishing an accurate OEE.
Getting availability right
It’s important to calculate availability on the basis of scheduled time and operating time. Scheduled time is when a machine’s use is anticipated during a shift and excludes planned holidays and scheduled shutdowns. Operating time is the amount of scheduled time that the equipment spends executing measurements and includes manual program execution time, such as one-off measurements or the creation of “manual alignments,” as well as automated program execution time. It does not include anything outside scheduled time, even if the machine is productive. These figures then feed into the standard equation:
Availability = Operating time / Scheduled time
Performance measurement
Performance measures the capacity, or speed, at which the equipment is operating during scheduled time and compares the actual output of a system to a theoretical “ideal”, which is the shortest time required to complete a measurement program under ideal circumstances. The ideal execution time is a fixed value that should be set for each CMM separately as it may vary based on an individual CMM’s performance characteristics for separate programs. For this reason, we recommend creating separate program documents within PC-DMIS for assets with different performance characteristics. The ideal execution time and the actual number of programs are used to calculate performance in the following equation:
Performance = (Programs Executed X Ideal Execution Time) / Operating Time
Quality
Quality measures the CMM’s success in completing measurement processes during the scheduled time and is calculated using the equation:
Quality = Programs Successfully Executed / Total Programs Executed
“Programs successfully executed” is the number of program executions that completed all the intended measurements of the features belonging to the program, whereas total programs executed includes both programs successfully completed and cancelled programs. Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has designed its HxGN SFx | Asset Management tool to deliver the data you need to easily and accurately determine the OEE of your metrology equipment by optimising it for use with PC-DMIS. And if you are using a metrology software version that supports quality, such as PC-DMIS 2019 R2 and higher, then Asset Management will automatically keep track of both programs successfully executed and total programs executed.
