Towards a unified descriptive framework for industrial objective declaration and performance measurement

• The framework unifies the objective declaration and the performance measurement.
• Objective break-down and performance expression are based on trees of variables.
• Time is handled in the objective declaration and the performance measurement.
• A recursive depth-first algorithm computes the performance expression.
• Early performance failure detection is shown using an industrial case study.

Expressing the performance of industrial companies is an important feature for their continuous improvement. As the performance concept refers to the objective one, our idea is to relate the performance expression mechanism to that of the objective declaration. We propose a variable tree framework to describe the break-down of objectives and the expression of the performances, highlighting the multicriteria aspect of both the performance and the objectives. Moreover, the temporal aspects of the objective declarations are emphasised, leading to the introduction of both the objective and the performance temporal trajectories. Such trajectories take into account the whole of the temporal horizon that is associated with the achievement of the objective. The link between the provided trees and trajectories is established through the elementary objective notion which corresponds to the leaves of the trees. A conventional recursive depth-first search algorithm is applied to the variable tree for the computation of the corresponding performances, at any considered milestone of the temporal horizon. Finally, the overall throughput time of the hydraulic cylinders manufacturing line of the Bosch Rexroth Company is considered to illustrate the proposed ideas.