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PurposeThe purpose of the study is to test if it, by the use of a survey methodology, is possible to measure managers' awareness on, and specifically if there exist preconceived beliefs on, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) results. The paper presents the design of the survey methodology as well as a test of the survey in one case company.Design/methodology/approachActual OEE logs from a case company are collected and a survey on the data is designed and managers at the same case company are asked to answer the survey. The survey results are followed-up by an interview study in order to get deeper insights to both the results of the survey as well as the OEE strategy at the case company.FindingsThe findings show that the managers at this particular case company, on a general level, does not suffer too much from preconceived beliefs. However, it is clear that the managers have a preconceived belief that lack of material is logged as a loss much more often than what it actually is.Research limitations/implicationsThe test has only been performed with data from one case company within the automotive manufacturing industry and only the managers at that case company has been active in the test.Practical implicationsThe survey methodology can be replicated and used by other companies to find out how aware their employees are on their OEE results and if possible preconceived beliefs exists.Originality/valueTo the authors' knowledge, this is the first attempt at measuring if preconceived beliefs on OEE results exist.

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a common performance measure used in manufacturing industry to identify and prioritize losses to perform improvement work on in order to increase the effectiveness of equipment. There exist challenges though, both in implementing OEE as well as in running an OEE-program. Some of these challenges include lack of training and awareness, lack of focus, risk of misunderstanding the measure etc. This paper will deal with some of the possible misconceptions within the use of OEE that might arise during implementation or in continuously running an OEE-program. Some of the topics of misconceptions that will be discussed include: no financial issues are taken into consideration; that the factors of availability; performance and quality are not weighted; the connection to productivity is not always clear; the importance of cross-functionality of the measurement and work method; the issue of comparison of OEE results; and last but not least the view on and hunt for world class levels. The paper will discuss these (and some additional ones) theoretically and suggest some counter-actions so that they may be avoided.

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