Your shop floor machines are either actively running in production mode and or they are experiencing downtime. Hopefully, when the machines are expected to be running, they are performing the way they are designed to— unfortunately, this is where manufacturing can get tricky. Many manufacturers still rely on outdated pen-and-paper charting to report how their machines are running throughout...

WHAT IS MACHINE DOWNTIME? WHAT IS DOWNTIME MANUFACTURING? Machine downtime in the manufacturing world is simply any time that the machine is not producing. Though full utilization would be ideal, some downtime is not only acceptable but necessary. Common downtime reasons include planned downtime, maintenance or set up. WHAT IS A DOWNTIME REPORT? A downtime report will track machine...

The need to identify and eliminate unplanned machine downtime is somewhat obvious, however, what is really a planned vs an unplanned downtime is something that is not always so obvious.  In addition, planned downtime seems to be more accepted as something that just must happen as the cost of doing business.  While true to an extent, many planned downtimes can be...