In the context of manufacturing automation, the question is particularly important.  The options for automating have grown.  The easily accessible options today include hardware automation, software automation and the vastly expanded range of decision-making capabilities available to the CNC.  What all of these automation tools have in common is that they tie the process more tightly together.  They let one step in the process flow naturally into another step, reducing the need for a human being to intervene.

That means the manufacturer evaluating automation needs to look at the total process.  They need to know how well the process is working right now, and how much better it will work when a particular automation solution has tied two previously disconnected parts of the process together.

In short, manufacturers need a metric that lets them see the big picture – and measure it.

That metric, the score for evaluating process improvements, is called Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE.