By Paul Wenner, Rockwell Automation
Building reliable, productive machinery is important for OEMs -- however, they also are driven to produce equipment that sets them apart from the competition. While technology is one variable OEMs often use to differentiate themselves, time-to-market and total cost of ownership pressures are forcing them to look beyond just the initial purchase price of automation components. Now they need to consider variables such as operational equipment efficiency (OEE) as well as other long-term performance metrics.