📋 Scenario
It's Monday morning. Your OEE report shows last week's average throughput was 984 pph against a KPI of 1,200. The cell has been in production for 6 months — no mechanical changes. You have access to the cycle-time breakdown from the SCADA historian. Find the bottleneck, propose fixes, and recalculate the achievable throughput.
Current Cycle Times
Total cycle time
2995 ms
Throughput
1202/h
✓ Solution & Explanation
Root cause:
Gripper close+confirm time inflated from 280ms→480ms (worn suction cup + clogged filter causing slow vacuum build)
Steps
- Identify primary bottleneck: Gripper close+confirm is 200ms over design spec (+71%)
- Replace vacuum generator filter (clogged = slower vacuum build = longer confirm timeout)
- Inspect and replace worn suction cup (cup deformation reduces seal area = slower vacuum)
- Secondary: Return-to-home 60ms over spec — check robot path has not been manually jogged off optimal
- Potential parallel: Conveyor index can start ~150ms before robot fully clears — add overlap logic in PLC
Fixing the gripper alone recovers 200ms, bringing cycle to 2795ms = 1,287 pph. Adding conveyor overlap recovers another ~150ms → 2645ms = 1,361 pph. Optimising the return path to design spec recovers 60ms → 2585ms → ~1,392 pph. All three combined: ~2480ms = 1,451 pph, exceeding the 1,200 KPI with margin.