What Is Performance Rate in OEE? EDGEBIC Definition

Performance rate is the OEE factor for speed loss: how close a machine ran to its theoretical throughput while it was actually running. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions, it is actual pieces divided by theoretical pieces, where theoretical pieces are built from the run hours, the routing step's cycle time, and the work center's efficiency factor. A machine that produced 110 pieces when its cycle time said it should have made 128 has a performance rate of about 86 percent. The number captures slow cycles, minor stops, and any reduced-speed running that availability alone would miss.

This entry is part of the EDGEBIC glossary series. For the broader vocabulary, see the manufacturing glossary. Performance rate is the middle of the three factors that multiply into overall equipment effectiveness; the others are availability and quality rate.

How Performance Rate Works

Availability handles the time a machine did not run. Performance rate handles the speed at which it ran when it was running. The two are deliberately separate so a supervisor can tell a reliability problem from a speed problem.

The measure needs a benchmark for "full speed," and EDGEBIC builds one from the routing. For each schedule that carries a routing reference with a real cycle time, it computes theoretical pieces as:

• theoretical pieces = run hours times (pieces-per-unit divided by hours-required) times efficiency factor

That is the most the machine could have produced at rated speed in the hours it actually ran. Sum it across the schedules on a work center, compare the real output from the daily hour breakdown, and performance rate is actual pieces divided by theoretical pieces, capped at 100 percent.

When a step has no cycle time to anchor the piece count, EDGEBIC does not leave a blank. It falls back to the minimum of 100 and actual hours divided by planned hours times 100, an hours-based proxy. It is coarser than the piece-based version, but it keeps every work center on the report. The lesson for setup is simple: routings with accurate pieces-per-unit and hours-required give you a true speed measure, while routings without them give you an approximation.

A Concrete Example

Take CNC-1 over a 5-day window in which it logged 32 actual run hours.

The routing step carries pieces-per-unit 2, hours-required 0.5, and the work center's efficiency factor is 1.0.

• theoretical pieces = 32h times (2 divided by 0.5) times 1.0 = 32 times 4 = 128 pieces

The daily hour breakdown records 110 actual pieces:

• performance rate = minimum of (100, 110 divided by 128 times 100) = 85.9 percent

The reading: while it was running, CNC-1 produced at about 86 percent of what its cycle time said was possible, a 14 percent speed loss to slow cycles or minor stops. Combined with 80 percent availability and 95.5 percent quality, the machine's OEE lands near 65.5 percent. Performance rate isolates the speed piece, so the supervisor knows the throughput gap is not the same problem as the lost day that availability flagged.

How EDGEBIC Uses Performance Rate

Performance rate is a column in EDGEBIC's OEE report, between availability and quality. It is computed per work center for the range you choose, drawing run hours from the daily hour breakdown, cycle time from the routing, and the efficiency figure carried on the work center record, which is loaded through the work center import rather than edited on the work center dialog. The full column set and the way the three factors multiply are covered in how to run the OEE report in EDGEBIC.

Because performance rate leans on routing cycle times, it is the OEE factor most sensitive to master-data quality. An overstated hours-required makes the theoretical piece count too low and inflates performance toward the cap; an understated one makes real output look slow. Keeping the BOR cycle times honest is what lets performance rate discriminate a genuinely fast machine from a slow one, and that discrimination is the whole reason the factor sits inside the OEE score.