Same machines, same losses, different denominator.
TEEP turns a machine-effectiveness metric into an asset-utilisation one — and shows a plant with worse OEE extracting three times more from the same capital.
TEEP — Total Effective Equipment Performance — is OEE measured against all calendar time rather than against planned production time. That single change of denominator turns a machine-effectiveness metric into an asset-utilisation metric, and the difference between the two numbers is one of the more useful figures a plant can compute.
It is also the clearest demonstration of why an OEE figure without its time base means very little.
TEEP = OEE × loading. A plant running one shift five days a week has a loading of roughly 24%, so an OEE of 70% gives a TEEP of about 17% — and both numbers are correct descriptions of different things.
| Plant | Shift pattern | OEE | Loading | TEEP | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | One shift, 5 days | 78% | 24% | 19% | Effective when running; enormous unused asset capacity |
| B | Three shifts, 6 days | 58% | 86% | 50% | Less effective per hour; far more of the asset is being used |
Plant A has the better OEE and Plant B extracts nearly three times as much from the same capital. Which plant is performing better depends entirely on whether the constraint is demand or capacity — and that is the question TEEP is for.
For improvement
It isolates three causes with three owners and is actionable this week. TEEP is not, because loading is a commercial decision rather than a shop-floor one.
For investment decisions
Before buying a machine, TEEP answers whether the asset base is genuinely exhausted or merely unscheduled.
When demand is rising
It quantifies headroom available without capital — an additional shift is nearly always cheaper than an additional machine.
As a shop-floor target
Nobody on the floor controls whether a third shift runs. Targeting a metric people cannot influence produces cynicism.
TEEP figures look alarming, and that is sometimes used to sell things. A single-shift plant will always post a low TEEP, and that is not a failing — it is a commercial choice about demand, labour and cost.
The number is useful when you are deciding whether to add capacity, and misleading when presented as a performance shortfall. Before anyone quotes a low TEEP at you as evidence of waste, establish whether the unscheduled time reflects an absence of orders, which is a sales question, or an absence of manning, which is a different one entirely.