What is the history of OEE and TPM?

1982: Seiichi Nakajima (Japan)

OEE was first described –as a central component of the TPM methodology- in Seiichi Nakajima’s book ‘TPM tenkai’ (1982, JIPM Tokyo).

By the end of the 1980’s, the concept of TPM became more widely known in the Western world. At the time, Productivity Press (OR, USA) published English translations of two books by JIPM expert Seiichi Nakajima: Introduction to TPM and TPM Development Program.

Fuji (Holland)

Around the same time, in Europe, Fuji Photo-Film made the largest investment ever done outside of Japan so far, building 3 factories in Holland. The challenge for the factory management:

“Producing Zero Defect and Zero Loss, using Japanese principles in a Western environment”.

This was the first time TPM and Lean where extensively applied outside Japan.

Fuji’s Director Steven Blom resumes:

“Measure OEE and eliminate the losses, using Small Group Activities”.

How to measure OEE in a ‘hands on’ practical and standardized way, in order to use it to activate Continuous Improvement by the shopfloor, became the assignment of Arno Koch.

The history of OEE and TPM shows some parallel tracks.

Sematech (US)

Around 1995, in the semiconductor industry SEMATECH publishes its ‘Semiconductor Manufacturing Productivity Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Guidebook‘ with guidelines for OEE implementation is semiconductor manufacturing.

Productivity (US)

At the end of the ’90s, Arno Koch worked closely together with the editors and authors of Productivity Press, publishing ‘OEE Toolkit’ (the predecessor of OEE Coach) and ‘OEE for Operators’ (part of the Shingo Prize winning shopfloor series).

This effectively made OEE accessible and feasible for many Western companies’ production departments.

OEE Industry Standard (Holland)

On request of several OEE-using multinationals, Koch initiated in 2001 the “OEE Industry Standard Endeavour” that resulted in the OEE Industry Standard, since then offering OEE definitions and -standards to manufacturers around the globe. (see: OEE Industry Standard)

Hansen (US)

In the same year 2001 Bob Hansen wrote his book “Overall Equipment Effectiveness” attempting to clarify the steep learning curve to use OEE effectively with emphasis on maintenance and reliability.

CETPM (Germany)

In 2006 In Germany, at the Ansbach University of Applied Technology, Prof. Dr. Constantin May starts the Centre of Excellence for TPM (CETPM). OEE courses become a standard in its curriculum; in the TPM-instructor course, instructors are now systematically trained how to apply OEE.

Meanwhile OEE is being used worldwide in virtually every kind of production-process thinkable.

The experience gained by applying OEE to a vast number of incredibly diverse machines and equipment both in batch processes and discrete industries throughout the entire world, subsequently ensured that these ‘interesting theories’ were modeled into the practical tools that you will read about on this site.

Koch (Holland – Germany)

After writing “OEE Toolkit” (1995) and co-creating “OEE for operators” (1999), the vast amount of implementation insights gained so far, result in a “complete OEE user guide”, first written by Arno Koch in 2007, updated in 2015, titled; “OEE for the Production Team”, available in English and Dutch, in German since 2008 and in Portuguese since 2013.

More books

In 2010 in Austria mr Gregor Hintringer published the results of his research (in German): “the effects on OEE when eliminating losses in a production system”. This publication effectively resumes the major insights and viewpoint gained until that moment, based on an extensive literature study.

In 2010 mr. Stamatis in the US wrote: “The OEE Primer. Understanding Overall Equipment Effectiveness, Reliability, and Maintainability”

If you have any relevant issues missing here, please let us know!