What is downtime in manufacturing? 3 ways to optimize downtime

What is Downtime in Manufacturing? Downtime is known as the time during which manufacturing and facility output are stopped. Minimizing downtime is the best way for businesses to control costs and increase profits. So what can be done to minimize downtime? Let’s find out with Viindoo in this article.

What is Downtime in manufacturing?

Downtime is the time in which production activities and facility output is halted. Downtime is also defined as any period of time during which a plant is idle, resulting in a decrease in production output. Downtime in production is divided into 2 categories: Planned and Unplanned.

Downtime - The process affects the production progress of the business

>>>> See More: What is the mode of production

Causes of downtime in production

Upon knowing what is downtime in manufacturing is, businesses need to know the causes of downtime. This will help businesses plan a reasonable production scheduling to reduce costs and increase profits.

Planned downtime

Planned downtime is the case when the plant has to be shut down because there are some maintenance and upgrade activities in between the production planning. These activities are:

• Machine maintenance: In the production plant, downtime will be specified to perform maintenance and upgrade activities to ensure stable machine capacity.
• Product change: In order to produce new products, the factory must be redesigned to meet the requirements of those new products. This is an example of downtime in production.
  

Downtime due to plan for maintenance

Unplanned downtime

Unplanned downtime is any unwanted incident that occurs during production. These are often the incidents that are beyond the plant's ability to predict, including:

• Machine problems: If the machine malfunctions occur frequently, it will lead to downtime as well as affect the manufacturing production planning.
• Network problems such as weak transmission, dropped connections, etc.: Currently, most production machinery systems are designed to connect to the network for easier management. Therefore, if there is an outage due to transmission line or loss of connection, it will lead to downtime.
• Inadequate maintenance: Failure to maintain machinery properly can lead to continual breakdown. In addition, the unstable operation of machinery and equipment can cause many dangers to workers.

Unplanned downtime

>>>> Find out now: Production process

Damage of downtime

Downtime can cause a lot of damage in both general cost and time to the manufacturing plant. The specific damages are as follows:

Tangible costs

This is the physical damage that downtime causes during production, which can be recorded and tracked with data.

• Reduced production output: Halted production activities will obviously cause a decrease in the amount of products.
• Reduced capacity: If production is stopped, the factory's capacity may fall below market demand. This is very alarming for businesses.
• Increased manpower costs: While machinery is down, personnel activities still take place as usual. So businesses will spend labor costs without creating any products.
• Large amount of inventory: As the businesses stop production, they must store a certain amount of inventory. The cost of storage will be a difficult problem for them.

Tangible costs caused by downtime

Intangible costs

The intangible costs of downtime in production are related to the workforce relationships present in the factory. 

• Reduced responsiveness: As production is slowed down during downtime, production delays are inevitable. Because there are not enough products, businesses cannot meet the needs of customers in a timely manner.
• Stress at work: Delayed production can come from inside and outside of the business, creating work pressure.

Thus, it can be seen that downtime causes a lot of damage to businesses, ranging from incurred costs that reduce profits to strained relationships with partners. Therefore, businesses need solutions to minimize downtime in plant operations.

Pressures caused by downtime

How to effectively reduce downtime

What is Downtime in manufacturing? Downtime is currently a nagging problem for businesses, it is not impossible to eliminate downtime completely. However, businesses can reduce downtime in production with some of the following measures.

IoT Deployment

IoT allows devices and machines to be intelligently connected to the management system. The use of IoT can allow managers to know the status quo from the factory. Thereby, they can operate and monitor possible incidents.

Applying IoT in manufacturing plants

Utility of technology and machines to predict

Machine learning and analytics tools can be used to analyze data and make predictions. Thereby, it is possible to trigger alerts if problems may occur.

A fine example for this is the MES system - a system implemented in smart factories. MES is an intermediary platform between SCADA and ERP system to help control, manage and monitor all activities in the production process at the factory. In addition, MES can strictly control the operating status of machines, build maintenance plans, and help enterprises take initiative in production resources.

MES is applied in production

>>>> Read More: What is MES system?

Application of technology platforms and software

One of the most effective ways to minimize downtime is the application of production management software. Currently, there are many different types of production management software that businesses can choose from. If you are looking for software to reduce downtime to help your business save costs as well as improve work efficiency, Viindoo's production management software is the software that businesses can trust.

Viindoo Production Management Software is one of the preferred software by many businesses. Here are some reasons why you should choose Viindoo production management software:

• The software can help businesses plan and track production activities.
• The managers are assisted in building and optimizing inventory plans.
• Flexible, multi-dimensional reports are exported in the most detailed manner.
• The software can be used anytime, anywhere on devices such as phones, laptops, tablets.
• The software is fully integrated with other Viindoo applications such as maintenance, purchasing, logistics, accounting, etc.

If you want the production process to be productive and efficient as well as save time and cost, please contact Viindoo through the information below for advice and a specific quote:

Viindoo production management software

Hopefully through the article, businesses have answered the question what is Downtime in manufacturing? Viindoo hopes that the above useful information can help businesses find solutions to minimize downtime in their factories.

>>>> Useful articles:

• Basic types of production in business and their characteristics
• ​What is Additive Manufacturing: A Revolution in Manufacturing