Downtime - Pinpoint The Key Problems In The Process

Downtime nearly always leads to lost production, and most companies think downtime is outside acceptable levels. More than 90% of companies record downtime to some degree, but in spite of this still struggle to make gains. What can be done now?

Turning Downtime Into Uptime

Why is the plant not running? Unplanned downtime is a critical issue for any manufacturer and a particular problem for high-volume production operations where marginal cost variations are crucial to profitability. Where machines should be running 24/7, downtime represents unrecoverable time and lost profit.

But the problem many companies face is that they only have a rough idea of what's causing downtime because it is being recorded manually. And when the line stops, operators' overwhelming priority is to get the line up again, not fill out paper records. Human nature guarantees that big downtime events tend to be recorded but the many small events are often missed, recorded inaccurately or ignored altogether.

With manual data collection you can easily end up with a lot information that is very difficult to process in a timely way. Lighthouse Systems' Factory Information System, Shopfloor-Online MES, is immensely powerful, allowing you to identify a set of downtime reasons for each different machine. The reasons can be classified as:

Downtime reasons - stops that occur after the jobs have started:

• Technical - equipment failures
• Quality-related - when the line isn't producing to the acceptable standard
• Operational - when the procedures have not been followed

Stop-time reasons - stops that prevent production from starting:

• Planned stops - e.g. planned maintenance, change-overs, set-up
• Unplanned stops - e.g. material shortages, man-power shortages....

By classifying downtime and stop-time you can begin to get a handle on where the problems are coming from and where you need to focus to make a difference.

Shopfloor-Online MES can collect information either input manually or automatically directly from the machine PLCs. Where implemented, automatic capture reduces the demands on operators and improves accuracy, especially in terms of small stops and number of events. The software can generate downtime analysis reports by machine, shift, reason, product and so on, highlighting trends by shift or over time.

When used in conjunction with other aspects of Shopfloor-Online MES, like tracking tool wear, it is possible to set up more informed maintenance plans. For example, to avoid unplanned stops where tool changes hadn't been anticipated or, at the other end, replacing worn tools at unnecessarily conservative intervals.

Shopfloor-Online MES gives machine setters online documentation to carry out machine set-ups in a standard way. There's more of a chance of setting up in a consistent - best practice - way.

There is the one relational database. It holds one copy of the data that can be accessed in real time by anyone in the team using a standard web browser. The information is displayed in a highly visible graphic style. Everyone can see the problems - and whether or not they are being addressed.