How to Actually Use AI to Fix Your OEE: A Plant Manager's Real-World Breakdown
Most plants run at 60% OEE when 85% is achievable. Industrial AI isn't a magic fix, but when deployed correctly against the three OEE pillars, it cuts downtime by 40% and reduces unplanned stops. Here's what actually works and what's vaporware.
Your OEE is probably lower than you think it is. Most plants report numbers in the high 70s or low 80s. When I've walked through actual facilities and dug into the data, the real number is usually between 55% and 65%. The gap isn't accounting fudge. It's that nobody has a clean view of what's actually happening on the floor in real time. Availability, performance, and quality sit in different systems. Your MES shows one thing. Your maintenance logs show another. Your quality database lives in a spreadsheet in someone's email. That fragmentation is where OEE collapses.
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