What were the challenges to be solved and what specific benefits were achieved?
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a powerful measure for asset productivity management. The necessary data for increasing productivity can only be determined with great difficulty. oee.cloud identifies this data in a simple way together with the employees, evaluates it and identifies optimization potential in this way.
oee.cloud identifies unused potentials of plant productivity together with the employees. The solution does not require intervention in machinery control or the companies IT support. Employees have all the information they need directly for productivity improvement measures. Frequently, by this productivity reserves become transparent. After the implementation of the measures, the success can be determined in figures, data and facts. oee.cloud is available for rent. In this way, companies have access to an "Industry 4.0 as-a-service" without investment.
For example, by using the solution, a Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry company has been able to permanently increase the productivity of its filling and packaging line by 5 percentage points. This corresponds to an increase in capacity of one shift per week, which prevented weekend shifts for the employees.
"oee.cloud works without interfering with the system technology. After a few minutes, all the data is available for optimizing plant productivity," explains Prof. Dr. Markus Focke, Managing Director of ifp Software GmbH. "The application is designed as a simple Industry 4.0 entry with concrete and quick benefits."
How can the Industrie 4.0 approach be described?
A smart sensor is temporarily attached to the system, e.g. attached to the conveyor. It sends all OEE-relevant data to a cloud server via a 3G/LTE connection. There the data sets for the OEE analysis are evaluated. If the server does not receive a production signal through the sensor, a push notification is sent to an app on a consumer hardware tablet, which asks the employee to enter the reason for the problem. This data is also sent back to the cloud server via the mobile internet. Employees can log in to oee.cloud via a web interface and have access to the data there and can initiate targeted optimization.
What could be achieved?
The application makes it easy to capture all data for a targeted asset productivity optimization process. This includes the Overall Equipment Effectiveness as well as the loss reasons that are entered on tablets by the employees.
The data is summarized and presented in various relevant key figures and reports. For example, users receive Pareto diagrams for easy identification of the greatest optimization potential. Also, the solution includes an Andon board, which can be displayed on any Internet-connected display. As a result, plant productivity data is available to all employees at any location in the company. With the help of oee.cloud, as a rule, increases in plant productivity of up to 20% can be achieved.
What measures have been taken to achieve the solution?
oee.cloud was born out of a research project of the University of Applied Sciences Aachen, funded by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Cooperation agreements with the VDMA and a development partnership with Volkswagen AG have enabled the necessary application know-how to be incorporated at an early stage. Current national and international users are e.g. Volkswagen, Linde Material Handling, Zeiss, Ferrero, illycaffè or Alfa Laval.
What can others learn from it?
Industrie 4.0 does not have to be expensive and time-consuming. Small solutions in a clever place can be of great benefit. Open source and cloud technologies continue to lower costs. The idea is important: geared towards the process, implemented step by step as Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and driven forward by an open-minded team, it is possible at short notice to set up an Industrie 4.0 lighthouse.
