Measuring OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is crucial for manufacturing companies as it provides a clear insight into production efficiency. By monitoring availability, performance, and quality, it helps identify losses, reduce downtime, and optimize production processes. A good software solution for measuring OEE enables automatic real-time data collection, key indicator analysis, and result visualization, making decision-making easier.
A solution like Evocon is an excellent choice because it is easy to use for all stakeholders – from operators and production managers to planning departments, support services, and top management. Companies that utilize their equipment more efficiently are significantly more competitive, as they achieve higher output with the same or similar fixed costs. This ensures greater productivity, lower unit costs, and improved responsiveness to market demands.
At this year’s LEAN AKADEMIJA, we are hosting Karel Kask from EVOCON, who will present the world’s leading solution for OEE measurement, along with insights, experiences, and benefits gained by companies they collaborate with across the globe.
What key challenges related to the topic of your presentation have you successfully addressed, and how have they impacted business results?
The main value we bring to manufacturing companies worldwide is the control over their production equipment – bringing transparency into the losses and bottlenecks in their production. Enhancing the collaboration between internal departments and visually bringing forth of what needs to be improved, has led to a significant output, turnover and productivity increase.
How did you gain support from leadership and employees for implementing organizational methodologies, and what obstacles did you have to overcome?
No tool alone can help an organisation to improve. They have to work together as a team to have an impact. For Evocon, that does not only mean production, maintenance or top management, but also IT and operators. Changing the internal culture is key to make any change a success.
What innovative approaches or tools do you use to improve process efficiency, and what results have you achieved with them?
Binding the entire organisation’s decision-making into one easily adoptable visual tool. Moving towards a more paperless factory, where information moves automatically between the shop floor people and ERP, CMMS and BI tools etc.
How does your improvement philosophy influence long-term strategy, especially in the context of digitalization and Industry 4.0?
The first step usually should be to collect data. The second, to understand the data, third to create a team and process, and fourth, keep to the plan and start improving. It’s called »continuous improvement« for a reason. J Keeping a constant eye on the most important KPIs, making sure things don’t fall off the track, and, most importantly, the trend is upwards, should be most important.
In a longer perspective, creating a paperless connected factory, should be the key. Integrating production systems to communicate to each other, can provide a lot of transparency and is a big step towards a paperless factory.
What advice would you give to companies just starting their transformation journey? What are the key steps to take and pitfalls to avoid?
Start small, grow tall. You don’t always need to solve all problems or needs at once. Start going step by step and thus not overwhelming yourself and also the entire staff. Small steps are key to success.
What business mistakes have you made in the past that provided you with the most valuable lessons, and how have you applied them to your development?
Stop wasting time on presentations and modern aggressive sales tactics. Understand the actual pain points and offer solutions. And if you don’t have one, have the courage to admit it. No point in wasting everyone’s time.
We at Evocon like to give room and time. Try things out, and make it work like it should. Work together as partners and figure out how to be useful.
How do you prefer to spend your weekends when you want to disconnect from work and recharge your batteries?
Getting in touch with the nature and with our roots is vital to keep yourself sane. Going for a walk in the woods, spending some time by the sea or lake, listening to nothing, creates free space in your head for new ideas and inspiration.
What message would you like to convey to the potential attendees of your presentation, and what will be the greatest added value for them?
It’s easy to get lost in everyday tasks and putting out fires. My recommendation is to book at least 2h every week for reflecting, asking the question »Why?«, dreaming about the future. This will create a foundation for improvements.
🌟 Join us at LEAN ACADEMY 2025 and gain firsthand insights from top Lean experts, including 🚀 Karel Kask 🚀
