OEE Explained: Availability, Performance and Quality in Plain English

OEE rolls three different kinds of loss into one number. The score is useful, but the real value is in reading the parts.

Availability

This factor exposes stops, from breakdowns to changeovers. A low availability score tells you time is being lost to the line simply not running.

Performance

Performance captures speed loss, the gap between how fast the line could run and how fast it actually did. It is where micro-stops and minor slowdowns live.

Quality

Quality accounts for rejects and rework, the output that ran but could not be sold.

Reading them together

A single OEE figure hides which of these is dragging you down. Split it out, and the number stops being a scorecard and starts being a map.