Plant Analysis

[MAEC]

Greetings to all. This is the first time I post on this forum. I have some questions regarding plant analysis.

I am at a plastic processing plant that just got certified by ISO. I started to look at the indexes we have in our score card and a few questions popped to my head:

1. Lets say you have 4 global indexes that qualify 4 characteristics of a plant. If you multiply each 4 you will end up with an overall plant performance index. Obviously, if one is not ok you will end up with a poor global index. Each individual index has a monthly, quarterly or yearly goal. This is the base that we work with in such period of time. Each goal is different, thus each base different as well. In electrical engineering we have a way to calculate power systems based on per unit values (PU). You select one base for voltage, current and impedance and then you transform any value that you have in the circuit to PU by simply dividing it by its base ( real voltage/base voltatge). You end up with a porcentual value that makes calculations easier to develop. Question: Shouldn't we calculate each index like this and then multiply each result to obtain the over all plant index? I mean, if you work towards a goal you should take that goal as base and not 100% efficiency since it is not only ideal but impossible in most cases.

2. Any good resources to investigate this that you know of?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Regards,

Manuel

 

[griffengm]

MAEC,
One can do as you propose in multplying the indeces but the effect of such is to mask a poor index. For example, with a scale of ten: 10 x 10 x 10 x 1 = 5.62 x 5.62 x 5.62 x 5.62. Management's course in each case would probably be very different.
Be careful how much information you consolidate.
Of course I tell my wife this every year at tax time and it doesn't do much then either.

Griffy

If a much and a much and a half a much is 10, how much is a much?

 

[PSE]

I would agree with griffengm (much = 4 by the way), that an overall grade, like an overall GPA, may mask some important information on what a plant is doing, where it excels and where improvement is needed. Management types in my experience tend to look for the bottom line so might never look further than the overall grade. Best overall grade I can think of for a plant is to whether or not it is making money.

Regards,