Considering Interdependencies of KPIs – Possible Resource Efficiency and Effectiveness Improvements

When an assembly line experiences downtime, it incurs both financial and productivity costs, in addition to environmental costs resulting from inefficient or ineffective uses of resources. Material is wasted in the form of scrapped work in progress (WIP), and energy is wasted in powering idle machines and facilities while the line is restored to an operational state. This work performs an analysis of 20 key performance indicators (KPIs) to investigate their potential impacts in maximizing the uptime of a simulated assembly line with automation and quality inspection. Previous work has not considered the linkages between baseline KPIs. The interdependencies and effects of baseline KPIs such as preventative maintenance time, corrective maintenance time, time to failure, and others are explored in order to analyze the production system on a more granular level. The results of this work inform production planning efforts and enable more effective and sustainable operation.