From OEE to OSEE: How to reinforce Production and Maintenance Management Indicator Systems for Sustainability?

Abstract

Sustainability in manufacturing enterprises is considered as a tradeoff between ecological, economic and social factors. Manufacturing enterprises, however, are not aware of holistically sustainable operational strategies that comprehensively include and quantify these factors, while ensuring their competitiveness. In particular, key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure sustainability performance and facilitate root cause analysis on an operational level are missing. Currently, the consideration of ecological and social aspects in production and maintenance management is still rather theoretical, while fostering economical sustainability is omnipresent. To manage a transition to a sustainable manufacturing system, these factors should be orchestrated, and economic sustainability must not be a contradiction to ecological and social sustainability. To pursue the aforementioned line of research in sustainable operations management, this paper aims to introduce a conceptual approach incorporating economic, ecological and human sustainability factors. It supports decision-making in strategic and operational levels and lays the ground for the development of a novel KPI schema, in particular focusing on extension of OEE towards Overall Sustainable Equipment Effectiveness (OSEE) for reinforcing informed decision-making ensuring sustainability goals.