Topic
Cutting unplanned downtime
The losses you can't see are the ones that hurt most. Here's how to find them, measure them honestly, and win the time back.
Unplanned downtime is any unscheduled stop that takes a line or machine out of action — breakdowns, changeovers that overrun, waiting on materials. For most SMEs it's the single biggest, least-visible drain on output. Cutting it starts with measuring it honestly, then attacking the few causes behind most of the loss.
Most operations underestimate downtime because no one's counting it in one place. It hides in shift notes, in 'that machine's always playing up', in the gap between planned and actual output. The first job isn't a fix — it's a number. Capture every stop, with a reason, for a few weeks, and a pattern almost always emerges: a handful of causes account for the bulk of the lost hours.
From there it's Pareto, not heroics. Tackle the biggest recurring cause first — often a changeover, a single temperamental machine, or a materials-flow bottleneck. Measure again. The wins compound, and the team starts trusting the data because they can watch it move.
The reason live capture matters is speed. A stop you hear about on the shift it happens gets fixed; one you discover at month-end is just a number to explain. That's the difference between reporting downtime and actually reducing it.
The short version
- You can't cut what you don't measure — capture every stop with a reason.
- A few causes drive most of the loss; fix those first.
- Live beats month-end — speed of feedback is what changes behaviour.
- Put a £ figure on it to get the floor and the board pulling together.
Guides, tools & articles on cutting downtime
Common questions
What counts as unplanned downtime?
Any unscheduled stop that takes a machine or line out of action — breakdowns, overrunning changeovers, waiting on materials or people. Planned maintenance and scheduled breaks don't count.
How do I start measuring it without expensive kit?
Log every stop with a reason code for a few weeks — even on paper or a shared sheet. The pattern matters more than precision. Automatic capture makes it effortless later, but the habit comes first.
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