Ten great reasons to use Spreadsheets for OEE

Whether you’re new to OEE, or already using OEE in your company, you need somewhere to keep all you OEE production data and then report on it. Most of us have spread sheets on our computers or in the company and we know how to use them.

So, here’s the number one reason for using spread sheets for OEE –

“I already have a spreadsheet program.”

It’s when you come to think about reasons 2 to 10 that it all goes wrong.

OEE We receive approximately 5 calls a day from frustrated customers struggling to provide OEE benefits using a spreadsheet system. So rather than give you 10 good reasons for using spreadsheets for OEE, here are 20 21 great reasons to use OEE IMPACT ME software instead.

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OEE IMPACT ME	Spreadsheet
Customers report that they save £500 a week on data entry compared to spreadsheets	Can you afford £500/week additional admin costs?
Customers have identified savings of £ 30k in 3 months	Can you afford to spend £30K more than you need to?
Free Multi-user software	Each user requires a copy of Excel or an equivalent spreadsheet package.
OEE IMPACT ME allows read and write access for multiple users, no "Read Only" access	Spreadsheets are limited to a single user access. Concurrent users will be faced with " Read Only" access.
Benefit from continual product development, you will benefit from all our customers feedback and suggestions for product improvements	Do you have the time and resources to develop and improve your spreadsheet. Will it be left to one person, what if they leave ?
Simple and user friendly reports for everyone to use	You need to develop a reports interface to allow users to query data from a selection of date ranges, assets, products, different report types.
Over 200 reports ready to use. From the data you collect we report on far more than Overall Equipment Effectiveness. Run complete quality campaigns, downtime analysis, failures, production performance ..	You need to develop the reports for your users. Are you collecting the data in the correct format to allow more than an OEE figure to be generated.
Users can save their own reports based on daily, weekly, monthly requirements	Users cannot have their own variations of the same spreadsheet
Dedicated email and phone support	Do you have a support contract with Microsoft ???
No complex spreadsheets	Most OEE spread sheets become very large and complex and this restricts their use and growth. Consequently the potential to deliver savings is restricted .
Inbuilt security protecting your configuration and providing the correct outputs to the right people	No real tools to change the interface to individual users. Protection of entered data is difficult.
Data collection forms have been designed for you	You will need to design your paper work for the logging of production OEE data. This will need modifying to optimise the time people spend filling in paper work.
Have product and name plate OEE standards . OEE IMPACT ME allows you to have variable performance standards depending on the product you are running	OEE out of the text book uses a fixed standard for a piece of equipment - "Name Plate OEE". Configuring a spreadsheet to allow different standards for different products running on a piece of equipment becomes very complicated. This is a database activity.
Report against Date range, Product, Assets, Operator, Categories, shifts	This requires complicated selection setups in the spreadsheet.
Removes the need for a super user and developer	You will need a person with excellent spreadsheet skills to develop and maintain the system. Can you guarantee their availability for support and future developments
Export and email reports to other staff in the organisation	This is one you can do in a spreadsheet but is not an integral general user function.
Expansion to a real time plant connected solution. You have demonstrated the benefits of OEE but you want to remove the admin work of data entry. Start collecting the data straight from you equipment. OEE IMPACT ME provides and upgrade path, including your data, to a real time plant connected system	What can I say? Can you get data from your plant and machine controllers into your spreadsheet automatically?
Inbuilt data management and backup facilities	This can be done on both solutions.
Free OEE/product training. All OEE IMPACT products include a training course to get you up and running, delivering benefits to your company	This one will be down to your own in-house knowledge.
When you have your OEE program up and delivering benefits, we can move you onto Lean Manufacturing with our LEAN IMPACT suite of products	Your spreadsheet may help you with 5S but that's about it.
2When you need to speak to some one about your application of OEE and ideas, you can get in contact with us, or one of our resellers, by phone or email	" Do you have a contact number for anyone from the manufacturer of the spreadsheet package, that can offer you free advice "