Most organisations use some kind of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to manage their business even if they are only measuring the financial aspects reflected in the profit and loss figures. The manufacturing sector has been using KPIs as a means to measure and improve productivity for many years. However, this methodology has been slow to find its way into the bulk terminals sector despite the fact that the sector is currently operating in a challenging economic environment with low commodity prices and pressure to reduce on-costs. Because this downturn followed a boom many capital investments are struggling to deliver a return on investment at the current volumes and to maximise value operators need to turnaround vessels, trains, barges and trucks more efficiently. For KPIs to work they need to reflect the goals of a business (in this case reduce OPEX) whilst at the same time they must be easy to understand by all stakeholders and based on true data. For KPIs to be effective it is not enough in itself to measure; the information needs to be acted upon to improve the operational performance.
OEE
Overall Equipment Effectiveness is a performance based KPI designed to measure the availability, speed loss and output quality of a process and can be applied very successfully to the bulk terminal sector. OEE has several advantages over other methods because one figure connects all of the parameters measured, it is easy for operators to understand and influence the outcomes…
