OEE, or overall equipment effectiveness, is a tool to improve manufacturing efficiency. Many people realize benefits of this approach and justify its use as a performance measure, but then find that getting the information into Excel and managing the system becomes time-consuming and difficult. Management can take 1-2 days per week, and the results when compared to software based OEE are lacking.

Factor in multiple lines and locations. Different instance of spreadsheet at each machine…also, excel is not a good historian (worksheet becomes cumbersome). Reasons to use software instead of spreadsheet for OEE: The cost of data entry. One person will need to dedicate 1-2 days per week to data entry. Excel will have to be installed at all points of data entry. Only one user can enter data at a time with Excel. You will need to develop the reports yourself in Excel. Login/Password security levels not available for Excel Software reports can use multiple filters.(difficult with Excel) You need a “super user/developer” with Excel. OEE software can send reports and alerts via email-easily. OEE software can also handle automated data collection-Excel can't.

Another strong point to consider is that With web-based software, all of the data and reports can easily be used in company wide KPIs. For more information on OEE tracking software, visit Lean Manufacturing Systems Review.