Excel vs. Dedicated OEE Software: The "Hidden Cost" of Spreadsheets

The biggest competitor to Fabrico isn't another software company. It’s Microsoft Excel.

For decades, the standard way to track OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) has been:

1. The Operator writes numbers on a paper log sheet.

2. The Supervisor collects the papers at the end of the shift.

3. An Admin spends 2 hours the next morning typing those numbers into Excel.

4. A report is printed and put on a bulletin board 24 hours later.

This process is comfortable. It is also obsolete.

While Excel is an incredible tool for financial analysis, it is a terrible tool for real-time operations. If you are debating whether to stick with spreadsheets or upgrade to a dedicated OEE platform like Fabrico, here is the brutally honest comparison of the two approaches.

1. The Speed Gap: "Autopsy" vs. "Pulse Check"

The Excel Reality (Post-Mortem):
Excel is backward-looking. By the time you see the OEE report for Tuesday, it is Wednesday afternoon. If Line 4 was running slow due to a bad raw material batch, you can't fix it. The shift is gone. The money is lost. You are performing an autopsy on the day's production.

The Software Advantage (Real-Time):
Dedicated OEE software is forward-looking.

• Live Dashboards: Fabrico shows the OEE of every machine right now.

• Drift Alerts: If the cycle time on the filler drifts from 15s to 18s at 10:00 AM, the Fabrico Agent alerts the floor manager at 10:01 AM.

• The Result: You fix the issue during the shift, recovering the volume before it's lost.

2. The Accuracy Gap: "Best Guess" vs. "Machine Truth"

The Excel Reality (Subjective):
Paper logs are notoriously unreliable.

• Rounding: An operator stops for 12 minutes but writes "10 minutes."

• Bundling: The machine stops 5 times for 2 minutes each (Micro-Stops). The operator ignores them until lunch, then writes "10 min - Cleaning."

• Bias: No operator writes "I was texting" as a downtime reason. They write "Material Issue."

The Software Advantage (Objective):
Fabrico connects directly to the machine (PLC, IoT, or Vision).

• Precision: It logs a 12-second stop as exactly 12 seconds.

• Micro-Stops: It catches the 50 tiny jams that operators ignore.

• Truth: The data is binary. The machine was either running or it wasn't. There is no room for "creative accounting."

3. The "Action" Gap: "Reporting" vs. "Workflow"

The Excel Reality (Passive):
Excel is a database. It sits on a server. It does not send emails. It does not assign tasks. It requires a human to open the file, interpret the data, close the file, open an email, and type a command to the maintenance team.

The Software Advantage (Active):
Fabrico is a "System of Action."

• OEE Triggers Maintenance: If the OEE Performance metric drops below 75%, Fabrico automatically generates a "Check Machine Settings" work order in the built-in CMMS.

• Root Cause Analysis: You don't just see a number; you see the video clip (via Computer Vision) of why the number is low.

The "Cost of Free" Calculator

You think Excel is free. Let’s do the math on the "Data Janitor" Tax.

• Scenario: You have 5 lines running 3 shifts.

• Manual Entry: The Production Clerk spends 1 hour per day collecting sheets and typing data.

• Clerk Cost: $25/hour (fully burdened).

• Annual Cost: $25 x 5 days x 52 weeks = $6,500/year.

You are paying $6,500 a year just to type data, not to analyze it. And that data is 24 hours late and 20% inaccurate.

For a similar price, you could have an automated system that gives you perfect data instantly.

The Breakpoint: When should you switch?

We are not saying you need software for everything. Use this checklist to decide.

Stick with Excel if:

• You have 1 or 2 machines.

• You run a single shift (8 hours).

• Your cycle times are long (e.g., 1 hour per part).

• You are okay with data being 24 hours late.

Switch to Fabrico if:

• You have 3+ machines.

• You run multiple shifts (handover communication is critical).

• Your cycle times are fast (seconds), making manual logging impossible.

• You need to pass audits (ISO/IATF) that require digital traceability.

Conclusion: Stop being a Data Janitor

Your engineers were hired to solve problems, not to format pivot tables.

Every hour spent manually wrestling with OEE data is an hour not spent fixing the machine. Excel was a great bridge from the clipboard era, but in 2025, it is an anchor slowing you down.

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