Optimization of overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) factors: Case study of a vegetable oil manufacturing company

Abstract

The poor maintenance and usage of the equipment and machines of a vegetable oil manufacturing company adversely affect its competitive advantage. These industries are faced with numerous equipment maintenance challenges in the path to increasing their throughput as well as profitability. To address the said maintenance challenges, process data were obtained for the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) factors after their Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) implementation in the company. Minitab 21 software was used to analyze the data collected, and the results showed that the mean for quality, availability, and performance obtained were 96.929%, 63.35%, and 61.20%, respectively. This shows that the quality of products is the greatest OEE factor that vegetable oil manufacturing companies must consider meticulously to reduce the six big losses in their production processes. Response Surface Method (RSM) with Central Composite design, with the application of Design Expert 13 software, was used to model, analyze, and optimize the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) using availability, quality, and performance as the input parameters. The analysis of both the actual and coded values, which is the main contribution of the study, showed that quality has the greatest value followed by availability and performance. It was found that, to effectively reduce the six big losses, the quality, performance, and availability should be targeted as 98.3052%, 81.6022%, and 80.103%, respectively.