How to Effectively Measure the Availability Rate of Your Equipment: Methods and Tools

How to Effectively Measure Equipment Availability Rate: In Brief

Equipment availability rate, an essential component of OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) or TEEP (Total Effective Equipment Performance), represents a fundamental indicator for any manufacturing company. With Quebec machines operating at only 35% of their potential availability on average, understanding and improving this indicator becomes crucial to maximize productivity without investing in new equipment. This article presents methods to effectively measure equipment availability rate and the tools at your disposal to transform this data into continuous improvement levers in the Quebec manufacturing context.

Understanding OEE and TEEP: The Fundamentals

What is OEE?

You may wonder what the difference is between OEE and TEEP? These two key performance indicators are often confused, but present important nuances.

OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is considered the first indicator to monitor in your factory. It's not the "holy grail" of indicators, but it sits at the highest level and integrates all factors affecting the performance of your equipment. It results from multiplying three sub-indicators:

1. Availability rate: the percentage of time the machine operates during planned production time (excluding planned stops such as breaks or weekly maintenance)
2. Performance rate (or efficiency rate): the actual speed of the equipment compared to its theoretical speed
3. Quality rate: the proportion of conforming parts relative to the total produced

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What are the differences between OEE and TEEP?

TEEP (Total Effective Equipment Performance) mainly differs at the availability rate level. Unlike OEE, it takes planned stops into account in its calculation. It therefore uses the global utilization rate rather than the operational availability rate.

For example, for an 8-hour shift with 4 hours of effective operation:

• For TEEP, the utilization rate would be 50% (4h/8h)
• For OEE, the denominator would exclude planned stops (breaks, etc.)

The Crucial Importance of Equipment Availability Rate

You've probably already noticed that your equipment doesn't operate at full capacity. This is a reality shared by most industries. Equipment availability rate often represents the most problematic factor of OEE, with an average of about 35% in Quebec manufacturing companies.

This statistic reveals a considerable opportunity: before investing in new equipment, there is significant room for improvement on your current installations. The first step is to understand why your machines are not available when they should be.

The availability rate allows you to precisely identify the causes of unplanned stops. Are they frequent breakdowns, overly long tool changes, operator absences, or other factors? By isolating this indicator, you can target your improvement actions where they will have the most impact.

How to Calculate Availability Rate?

To effectively measure equipment availability rate, several approaches are possible depending on the nature of your machines and the resources available in your Quebec factory.

Measurement Based on Operating States

The most direct method for calculating availability rate is to track the actual operating state of the equipment. This isn't simply about knowing if the machine is powered on, but determining if it's actually in production.

To do this, you need to capture two essential types of information:

• Uptime
• Downtime

More importantly, you need to categorize the reasons for stoppages to identify the main causes of your equipment's non-availability.

Production Cycle Analysis

For certain equipment, particularly those producing regular cycles, it's possible to deduce the availability rate from production cycle analysis:

This method has the advantage of being implementable without modifying existing equipment, which is particularly interesting for Quebec manufacturing industries with older machines.

Technological Tools to Measure Equipment Availability Rate

You may wonder what concrete tools to implement to track this availability rate. Several solutions are available depending on the sophistication of your equipment and your resources.

For Modern Equipment:

Recent machines generally have communication protocols allowing direct retrieval of state data. These technologies offer several advantages for measuring availability rate:

• Automatic and real-time data collection
• High measurement precision
• Possibility of integration into MES (Manufacturing Execution System) or dashboards like those from Industrial Intelligence.

Data is collected via protocols such as OPC UA, Modbus, or directly through equipment APIs, then interpreted to calculate machine availability rate.

For Older Equipment:

Older machines, common in the Quebec industrial landscape, don't always have modern communication interfaces, but this doesn't mean they can't be monitored. Adapted solutions consist of:

• Installing sensors on relevant electrical signals (status lights, start/stop signals)
• Using IoT boxes that convert these signals into usable data
• Setting up cycle counters or motion detectors

These approaches allow conventional equipment to be transformed into connected machines capable of providing availability data.

Improved Manual Declaration Systems

For manual intervention workstations or equipment difficult to connect, assisted declaration systems can be effective for tracking availability rate:

• Touch terminals at workstations
• Mobile input applications
• Code scanning systems for state changes

These systems facilitate operator declarations while structuring data for analysis, particularly adapted to the realities of Quebec factories.

Beyond Measurement: Leveraging Equipment Availability Data

Measuring is only the first step. Intelligent exploitation of availability data is what truly allows performance improvement in Quebec manufacturing industries.

Prioritizing Causes of Stoppages

A relevant analysis of availability data helps identify and prioritize causes of stoppages according to:

• Their frequency
• Their cumulative duration
• Their predictability

This prioritization helps focus improvement efforts where they will generate the most impact on the overall availability rate.

Deployment at Different Scales

One of the major advantages of equipment availability rate is that it can be measured and analyzed at different scales:

• At the level of an individual machine
• For a complete production line
• At the scale of a workshop or factory
• For an entire multi-site Quebec company

This multi-level approach helps identify bottlenecks and compare performance between different units.

Conclusion

Equipment availability rate constitutes a fundamental indicator for any Quebec manufacturing company. An essential component of OEE/TEEP, it offers a precise view of the effective use of your resources and often reveals significant improvement opportunities.

With an average equipment availability of about 35% in Quebec industries, the challenge is major: before investing in new machines, maximize the use of those you already own. To do this, precise and regular measurement of availability rate is essential.