Background ‘All in one’ parenteral nutrition bags are prepared in our University Hospital by a robot. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is an indicator usually used in pharmaceutical industry to monitor and optimise the use of machines.

Purpose In the context of optimisation of resources in hospitals, the production activity of the parenteral nutrition bags was studied using this tool allowing the continuous evaluation of resources.

Materials and methods The OEE has been determined for the robot Exacta-Mix 2400® over 2 years (2009 and 2010) (Baxa Corporation, Englewood, USA). Quality, availability and performance levels were calculated after measuring production data: planned production time, operating time, ideal cycle time of neonatology and paediatric bags and total number of bags per day.

Results Regarding production data, the operating time increased from 67 to 90 min between 2009 and 2010, the ideal cycle time of paediatric bags increased from 4.9 min to 7.4 min. Total pieces per day decreased from 12.2 to 9.9. The quality level was 100% in 2009 and 2010, that is all bags were in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practice guidelines such as electrolyte identity and content, uniformity of mass and of content. The availability level calculated as operating time / planned production time, increased by 7.3%. The performance level calculated with ideal cycle time, operating time and total pieces per day, decreased by 43.7%. The OEE calculated as availability x performance x quality, decreased from 36.6 to 18.7%.

Conclusions The drop of OEE between 2009 and 2010 indicates a decrease of the production effectiveness, particularly due to the decrease of the performance level (generally influenced by small stops and reduced speed). This indicator allows us to select quality and performance improvement actions.