Analysis of the operational efficiency of a dairy industry production line through the Overall Equipment Effectiveness indicator

Abstract

Companies constantly operate under pressure to produce more and faster with fewer resources. Managing factories, in this scenario, requires quantitative information on production to enable effective decision-making. In this study, we measured indexes concerning the bottleneck process of the production line of a large dairy company in order to support decisions regarding its main products. The Overall Equipment Effectiveness values were measured for the machine in the bottleneck process, as well as for each of the four products in the production line, enabling comparisons between them. Pareto charts and analyses of the weight variation of the products were also elaborated for a complete evaluation of the process. The data were collected through observations that enabled a better understanding of the process and raised suggestions for improvements in the production line for future studies. With the data and information collected, it was possible to build an action plan for each product in order to increase process efficiency.