TPM employs overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) as a quantitative metric for
measuring the performance of a productive system. OEE is the core metric for
measuring the success of TPM implementation program (Jeong and Phillips, 2001).
This metric has become widely accepted as a quantitative tool essential for
measurement of productivity in manufacturing operations (Samuel et al., 2002). The
role of OEE goes far beyond the task of just monitoring and controlling the
manufacturing system performance. The OEE measure is central to the formulation
and execution of a TPM improvement strategy (Ljungberg, 1998). It provides a
systematic method for establishing production targets, and incorporates practical
management tools and techniques in order to achieve a balanced view of process
availability, performance efficiency and rate of quality (Bulent et al., 2000). OEE is
calculated by obtaining the product of availability of the equipment, performance
efficiency of the process and rate of quality products