ONE metric to rule them all: evaluating overall network effectiveness

Plant leaders have measured the effectiveness of their equipment for decades. Every production supervisor, manufacturing engineer and maintenance manager is familiar with the concept of OEE (overall equipment effectiveness). It’s a well-established metric that acts as a benchmark for operational efficiency and equipment reliability.

There’s great power in understanding the efficiency and effectiveness of your manufacturing operations. But understanding OEE doesn’t give you the complete picture.

Networks are just as critical to operations as equipment. IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) networks can impact plant productivity and automation efforts just as much, if not more. Managing them effectively is as essential as managing equipment performance and health.

Historically, there hasn’t been a simple way to benchmark and track their effectiveness like there is for plant equipment.

But that has changed with the development of the ONE metric (overall network effectiveness). It was inspired by OEE, but it was designed for networks. When plants begin tracking this metric alongside OEE as part of a comprehensive performance evaluation, they can keep tabs on network performance, health, effectiveness and impact on operational efficiency.

When you can measure performance at this level, you’re able to manage your networks more effectively by:

• Assessing and analyzing network efficiency
• Pinpointing network issues that require attention
• Identifying how your network may contribute to lost time or lost production
• Discovering patterns and finetuning networks accordingly

Breaking down ONE

Three factors come together to make up the ONE metric.

1. Network availability

ONE compares expected network availability (how often a network connection should be available) to actual network availability (how often a network connection is available).

Expected network availability takes planned downtime, such as scheduled maintenance, into consideration. It also accounts for unused ports.

Actual network availability measures how often a network connection successfully sends or receives data when it’s supposed to. This helps track unplanned downtime caused by failures, congestion, unexpected disruption, etc.

2. Network capacity

In manufacturing, the goal is for machines to produce as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. (For example, if a machine is designed to process 1,000 widgets per hour, then you want to hit that full capacity.)

But network performance is different. The goal isn’t to run your network at maximum capacity. Instead, you want to make sure extra bandwidth is available. While links shouldn’t be 0% utilized, there should also be a large “reserve” available.

Here’s why: If your network is pushing 1 Gb/s through its 1 Gb/s link consistently, then there’s no room left to handle unexpected tasks (or to expand in the future).

When your network runs at maximum capacity, additional traffic slows down data transmission, or even causes unexpected downtime if mission-critical messages don't arrive on time.

This concept of “reserve” is built into the ONE metric.

3. Network quality

ONE measures data integrity by identifying errors that affect message reliability. It accounts for CRC (cyclic redundancy check) errors, also known as checksum errors, which signal lost or corrupted information in transmitted data.

It also takes packet collisions (data being sent and received simultaneously) into consideration.

To provide a clear picture of network reliability, ONE evaluates the difference between total received packets and those that are valid and usable.

How to use the ONE metric

There are many ways you can use ONE to your advantage:

• On its own, which may be helpful for a command line interface (CLI)
• Tracked and documented over time to benchmark performance and identify patterns or trends
• Displayed in real-time on the plant floor as an easy-to-digest, real-time network measurement
• If you want to learn more about the ONE metric, what it entails and how to apply it, check out our whitepaper for the full details.

Download the ONE whitepaper.

Related links:

• Material Handling Networks: Solutions for Poor Performance
• The Role of a Network Assessment in Your Plant Network Upgrade
• How to Track and Improve Network Health with Just ONE Number