Why do you need to know the downtime of your equipment ?

Understanding downtime means understanding the causes of non-OEE.

Because they have a direct impact on the OEE, it is fundamental to know in an objective way the downtime of an industrial equipment.

With its IIoT, Astn’go will allow a reliable, objective and real-time measurement of the downtime of each connected machine. But is this enough? It is already a first step to know what is going on, but it is not enough to build action plans and thus aim at operational excellence. We must not stop at “when” and “how much”, we must know the “why”. This is why Astn’go identifies a downtime. It asks the operator to qualify it (choose a reason from a list established by the manager).

What is machine downtime?

The machine downtime that impacts the OEE is unplanned downtime that occurs unexpectedly and slows down the productivity of the shop floor. These are non-operating times during which there is no production.

Machine downtime is not limited to “breakdowns”, as one might think. In fact, it covers a much wider range of causes of non-operation. They include human, material, energy and organizational downtime.

Therefore, there are several types of downtimes, classified into two categories :

Induced downtime

These are all the stoppages that do not depend directly on the means of production. In other words, they are the downtimes during which the production cannot accomplish its function due to external causes: lack of personnel, lack of energy, lack of supply, saturation of parts, upstream machine, downstream machine, etc…

These downtimes shed light on organizational or structural issues.

Proper downtime

These downtime are directly attributable to the means of production. They are the sum of functional downtime, breakdown time and operating downtime.

• Functional downtimes are planned downtimes for controls, frequency adjustments, tool changes, range changes, frequency maintenance, which cannot be carried out outside the planned production time. As a reminder, the planned production time is the time during which a means is committed to production.
• The failures downtimes are downtimes due to a dysfunction attributable to the means of production (mechanical downtime, engine problem, breakage, electrical, etc…).
• Operational downtime includes downtime caused by human error and quality problems.

Proper downtimes are maintenance-related problems.

Why tracking downtime ?

Because they reduce your productivity.

There is an obvious reason why you need to monitor the downtime of your shop floor : it penalizes your industrial performance.

Indeed, by definition, downtimes are non-productive times that affect the performance of your production line, and therefore, of your plant. In addition to being a waste of time, they mobilize part of your human resources, especially the maintenance team that has to get the equipment up and running as soon as possible. When productivity drops, the profitability of your plant is affected.

It is also interesting to determine the hourly cost of downtime equipment during the planned production time. This cost can be evaluated by calculating the monetary value created and lost during this downtime (for example: number of parts not produced during downtime X selling price of a part).

The direct consequences of unplanned downtime will be a slowdown in production, an increase in material, energy and time wasted, an increase in the quantity of scrap parts, as well as an increase in non-value added tasks.

For their part, planned downtimes during the planned production time are just damaging and it is imperative to reduce them to the minimum (revised downwards over time to tend towards maintenance efficiency). It is in this context that the SMED approach can help you.

In the long run, let’s also remember that downtime will have a strong negative impact on delivery, invoicing and of course on the trust that the customer has in your company.

For a transparency of the plant.

Monitoring downtime is not only about counting and knowing how long a machine is down. It is also and above all understanding the causes and trying to eliminate them. By performing a downtime analysis, you will gain transparency. You will be able to highlight the causes of unavailability of your shop floor, calculate the consequences on your profitability, explain the scraps and especially, optimize your preventive maintenance procedures. In many industries, a few minutes per day of unavailability during the required time represents thousands of euros lost at the end of the year.

By properly tracking your machine downtime, you can see the causes and consequences. It also allows you to define action plans.

To unlock the potential of your plant.

Behind every machine downtime, there is a huge potential for productivity improvement.

In fact, all machine downtime taken together cuts into a significant amount of production. This unrealized quantity reduces your production capacity, increases your customer delays and reduces your margins. However, with regular monitoring and in-depth analysis, this downtime is a tremendous lever for increasing production capacity, and reducing it often offsets the need to purchase new equipment.

Industrialists often neglect the monitoring of downtime. However, once operators get used to qualifying each downtime, they become more involved in the operating status of the production tool, and will take preventive actions in order to reduce these downtimes.

How to reduce your downtime with Astn’go?

Detect downtime thanks to IIoTs

To reduce downtime, the first thing is to detect it quickly in order to act immediately. With Astn’go, you will have real-time monitoring of your entire workshop thanks to IIoTs (Industrial internet of things), provided with the subscription, which will automatically detect all the stoppages in your workshop. These stoppages will be qualified by your operators according to the causes that you have created and associated with each machine.

Qualify downtime

Qualifying the reasons of downtime is an important asset. Depending on how you define the causes of downtime, you can increase the precision of the data collected and therefore deepen the analysis of them. In other words, the more detailed the causes of downtime are specified, the larger the database that will support your analysis. Conversely, a list or tree structure that is too long will make qualification and analysis far too complicated. Our expert’s advice is to initially limit the downtimes reasons to 16, then over time and through analysis, broaden the choice.

Engage your operators

It is very important to pay special attention to your teams when integrating MES software. Indeed, the operator will tend to think that the practice of tracking downtime in real time and qualifying it is a monitoring procedure. It is then imperative to give time to the operators to accompany them in this transition, by involving them and creating a sense of commitment. The operators must assimilate the interest of such a solution, that the objectives are to know, understand and analyze the reasons for downtime in order to reduce them. All the data collected thanks to the involvement of the operators will be a source of exploitable data to improve the production process in its entirety. Astn’go does not seek to find a “culprit”, but to strive for production efficiency by eliminating losses, whether mechanical, organizational or human.

React quickly

On the other hand, real-time monitoring and information dissemination in a shop floor allows the teams in charge of maintenance to read the results and anticipate a future breakdown, or to react in real time in case of malfunction. Thus, rapid intervention as soon as a problem is reported can in many cases avoid a downtime. Astn’go facilitates the distribution of information through visual management screens designed to provide information in the right place at the right time.

In concrete terms, Astn’go is a production digitalization solution that allows you to monitor downtime using IIoTs. The data collected in your shop floor (downtime, downtime reasons, stopped machine, etc.) will facilitate the analysis and deployment of an industrial performance optimization strategy. Don’t underestimate the potential of your shop floor, and make the most of it by reducing downtime.