What is OEE, and what does it hide?

In standard OEE, Availability is the share of planned production time that the line was actually running. On the Augos platform it is measured against paid time: (paid time − planned stop time − unplanned stop time) ÷ paid time. So planned stops (changeovers, cleaning, breaks) reduce it, as well as unplanned stops (breakdowns, faults, waiting). On many lines it is the largest of the three losses, because every unplanned stop drags a chain of human response behind it before production resumes: someone has to notice, decide, call, arrive and fix.

Performance is whether the line ran at its ideal speed during the time it was running. Two different things drag it down, and most systems blur them together. Speed loss is the line running slower than its ideal cycle. Interruptions (what standard OEE calls minor stops or micro-stops) are brief stoppages and idling, often only seconds long, too short for anyone to log by hand. Interruptions depress the speed figure, so a machine that runs fast but stutters looks identical to one that is simply slow, and the two need opposite fixes.

Augos separates them. It measures true speed, how fast the line runs when it is actually running, in real time, and reports interruptions as their own measured stop loss. Speed loss and interruptions then each show their own impact.

Stops are halting events on the line. Augos classifies them as planned stops, unplanned stops and interruptions; the duration thresholds are configured for each site. Interruptions are the short stoppages, often under about two minutes, that hide root causes when they are lumped into a single Performance number. Counted separately, they become a loss you can see, own and recover, rather than a blur inside speed.

Source: Augos Glossary; Downtime Report

Quality is the share of units that came out good first time, without rework. It is lost to scrap and rework during steady running, and to the start-up rejects made while a process stabilises after a stop, which ties Quality back to how cleanly stops are handled.

The most widely quoted OEE benchmarks come from Vorne's OEE reference: 85% is often called world class for discrete manufacturing, 60% is described as typical, and 40% is common for plants measuring for the first time. Treat them as orientation, not targets. A plant's own best shift is a better target than a textbook number, because it was achieved on that line, with that product and that crew. Across the Augos fleet, the average gap between a line's current OEE and its own Best Operator Benchmark is about 18 OEE points.

Source: benchmark tiers, Vorne, oee.com (external); fleet gap, Augos Factory method

More on what a good score looks like for your line: What is a good OEE?

Augos measures all three factors from events, not estimates. A pulse sensor counts every machine cycle without touching the PLC, and the Augos Operator Terminal captures each stop and its reason as it happens. Standard OEE is kept intact, so it reconciles to Availability × Performance × Quality, and the same data carries two things the number never did: an owner on every lost minute, and a benchmark set by your own line's best runs rather than a textbook target.

Source: Augos Factory method