When a company decides to start measuring production performance with a view to making improvements and cost savings, its production teams often begin by using packages such as Excel or Access as a data analysis tool - powerful and flexible software that most people already have on their PC, and know how to use - so on the face of it, this would seem a logical and cost-effective approach. But, our customers tell us otherwise. Let's look at the top 3 reasons NOT to use spreadsheets ....
Number 1 - Design & Setup
At this initial stage, just working out which data you’ll need to record can be a mammoth task - think about shift information, downtime reasons, reject counts and reasons, throughput figures, production standards, etc. Getting all this set up in a spreadsheet and then designing reports that will turn all this raw data in to useful information can take forever. You might want to report on OEE, downtime (planned and unplanned), wastage, production figures etc, and display as charts, bar graphs, grid displays, production summaries etc. Then think about querying over products, machines, shifts etc.
The alternative is one of Gemba’s off-the-shelf, pre-configured solutions with standard reports that can be deployed within a couple of hours. The expertise in design ensures critical information is brought to your attention quickly and easily.
Number 2 - Time spent entering data and producing reports
Data entry can be a hugely time-consuming task involving lots of people. This becomes even more difficult given that most spreadsheet packages will only allow one user at a time to enter data in to a spreadsheet.
One of our clients recently told us that moving from a spreadsheet package to one of Gemba’s manual OEE solutions resulted in data-entry labour being reduced by 80% and time spent entering data and creating reports being reduced by 86%. Think about this in £ note terms for your company. Our automated data collection products can correct directly to your plant and remove the need for manual data collection and entry altogether.
Number 3 - Data vs Information
Collecting masses of production data is pointless unless you can turn that data in to meaningful information that will allow you to make improvements and cost savings. Being submerged under a pile of spreadsheets can make it really difficult to see the wood for the trees and will, as a minimum, slow down the path to efficiency. The worst case scenario is that something vital gets missed, lost in a sea of data or hidden by errors in spreadsheet formulas etc.
Conclusion
If you use an existing spreadsheet package to measure OEE, you may make a saving on initial outlay for software and training. However it seems clear from the examples above that these savings will quickly be outweighed by the benefits that a dedicated OEE solution can provide. Gemba’s affordable, entry-level OEE software also includes free technical support and initial training and set-up assistance, a database backup service and advice from our team of experts about how to get the best out of your data. Your existing data can even be uploaded from your spreadsheets into Gemba's software, so you don't lose any information.
Still using spreadsheets for OEE? Contact us today and let us help you take the first step on the path to real production efficiency.
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