Downtime Overview

Overview:

Downtime Analysis in Output Industries (Busroot) provides automatic detection and detailed recording of production downtime events on manufacturing stations. Downtime refers specifically to significant unplanned stoppages during scheduled production time. Each downtime event can be assigned a reason either automatically (via error code signals) or manually by the operator using a tablet interface. Idle time outside scheduled production, such as maintenance or planned breaks, is tracked separately and not counted as downtime.

Use Cases:

Use Case: Monitoring machine and station uptime across a production facility

• Job Roles:

  • Operator: Responds to alerts, logs stoppages and restarts stations on the shop floor.

  • Maintenance Technician: Quickly addresses downtime incidents that require technical intervention.

  • Production Manager: Monitors facility-wide uptime, sets production and performance targets.

Use Case: Root cause analysis to pinpoint repeated or costly causes of downtime

• Job Roles:

  • Continuous Improvement Lead: Conducts in-depth downtime data reviews, leads root cause workshops.

  • Quality Engineer: Analyses trends and identifies process or quality issues.

  • Production Manager: Reviews daily/weekly downtime trends, sets actions.

Use Case: Continuous improvement (reducing unplanned stoppages, improving asset utilisation)

• Job Roles:

  • Operations Manager: Implements process changes and tracks improvement metrics.

  • Lean/CI Specialist: Follows up on agreed actions to reduce downtime.

  • Maintenance Planner: Schedules preventative maintenance based on downtime events.

Use Case: Data-driven briefings in production meetings to review 'slow causes'

• Job Roles:

  • Shift Supervisor: Prepares, presents and discusses downtime statistics for their team.

  • Production Manager: Chairs meetings, actions follow-ups.

  • Team Leader: Ensures engagement from all operators regarding downtime reporting.

Use Case: Enhancing production efficiency and predictive maintenance planning through trend analysis

• Job Roles:

  • Reliability Engineer: Analyses recurring faults and proposes solutions.

  • Production Analyst: Produces regular trend reports on downtime impact.

  • Maintenance Manager: Plans predictive and preventative maintenance based on analytics.

Key Functionality:

• Automatic Downtime Detection: Busroot detects downtime based on two methods: lack of production output (when output is significantly delayed versus expected cycle time) and prolonged idle time (station is inactive beyond a set threshold).

• Reason Assignment: Operators or the system can assign reasons for each downtime period, improving root cause analysis.

• Categorisation and Reporting: Downtime trends, root causes, and event categories (e.g., mechanical, material, planned) can be reported and visualised for team review.

• Real-time Alerts: Managers and operators receive real-time alerts about downtime events.

• Integration and Analytics: Data can be analysed to identify recurring issues, support preventative actions, and integrated with MES/ERP platforms for strategic decision-making.

Downtime can be detected in 1 of 2 ways:

Lack of Production Output

As Busroot is aware of the planned cycle time of SKUs, if production output has not been observed for significantly longer than this time, downtime can be assumed.

By default, the threshold is set to 150% of cycle time. e.g. If an SKU has a cycle time of 2 minutes, downtime will be assumed after 3 minutes from the last observed production output.

This is a useful method for having reactive downtime detection on stations that produce a range of SKUs with differing cycle times.

Prolonged idle time

By looking exclusively at the productive signal, a threshold of time can be set so that if the station is idle for longer than this time, it is considered downtime.

This is most useful for processes that have long cycle times, and we want to be more reactive than is possible by just looking at the production output.

It is a simpler method that cannot be varied based on SKU being produced.

SETUP

Downtime data can be used from Production Cycle monitoring, Utilisation Monitoring or Independent Process Speed.

For downtime related to production cycle monitoring:

• Each station to be monitored must have a production schedule. This can be created via Schedule Management page or Quick Schedule Start.

• All SKUs to be produced must have a Performance Target set. This is the ideal rate that the SKU should be produced, based on Cycle Time, Units per Minute, Units per Hour or an Independent Process Speed.

For Utilisation Monitoring:

• For each station to be monitored, set a utilisation downtime threshold. This is the minimum number of minutes that should be considered as excessive downtime of the station.

• Ensure the setting 'Assume All In Shift Time is Planned Production' is set to true.

For Independent Process Speed:

• Stations and SKUs must have a Performance Target set. This is the ideal rate that the station should run or SKU should be produced, based on Cycle Time, Units per Minute, Units per Hour or an Independent Process Speed.