Are you thinking about investing in new production line equipment?

Would you like to avoid having your OEE demolished in the process?

Here are our 5 top tips for minimising the length of time that your line is down for the install:

1. Agree to use automated electronic measures to sign off the new equipment - most equipment suppliers we meet are very happy to sign off large projects using tick sheets and manual observation both of which are subject to significant errors. Use PLC data for the commissioning exercise - when/should the OEM argue that the numbers are incorrect at least you know that their PLC code is also incorrect!

2. Agree the range of performance metrics well in advance including a total line metric for the trial.

3. The industry standards are Mechanical Efficiency and Running Speed. We would also recommend insisting on: Mean Time Between Failure, Mean Time To Recover, OEE (Availability, Performance, Quality), and Loss to Critical/bottleneck Machine.

4. XL800 systems are extremely useful for signing off new equipment as they can be installed in a matter of hours with a completely standard setup - just bolt it on, plug it in, run the machine, and there's your sign-off data generated completely automatically.

5. Make sure you consider the line control - we've seen many installations in which new equipment is installed with only the absolute minimum line control adjustments. Typically this can kill as much as 5% of your total line efficiency. We have FREE e-lessons on the Line Control philosophy to support you here.

We've been involved in the commissioning of everything from individual machine upgrade to full multi-million pound production lines and hope that these simple tips help you with your install.

Incidentally i've just spotted this blog which also has a great post on this topic: Click Here