Equipment Downtime Rate

What is the Equipment Downtime Rate?

Equipment downtime is a critical metric in facilities management and the manufacturing industry that represents the ratio of time that machinery or equipment isn’t operational and performing its intended function. The downtime rate is a key indicator that can reflect production efficiency and equipment reliability, having significant implications for productivity, maintenance strategies, and overall operational costs. When a single piece of equipment isn’t functioning, it can bring an entire production line to a halt. Tracking and improving downtime rates for equipment enables maintenance teams to identify inefficiencies to improve equipment uptime.

Understanding the Equipment Downtime Metric

Equipment downtime is calculated by dividing the total time an asset isn’t operational by the total expected time of operation. This measurement is typically expressed as a percentage and can indicate any time period, whether it’s a month, a year, or a single production run. When represented as a production metric, equipment downtime enables facilities managers to understand downtime cost – it is a reliable way to quantify the impact that equipment failures have on production efficiency and helps identify opportunities for improving operations and maintenance processes.

How to Calculate Equipment Downtime  

When calculating the rate of equipment downtime, this is the formula that manufacturing businesses typically use.

[Equipment Downtime = (total downtime / planned production time) x 100]

• Total downtime includes all periods when equipment was expected to be running but was non-operational due to breakdowns, unplanned maintenance, or other reasons.
• Planned production time is the total time that a piece of equipment is scheduled to be operating. 

For example, over the course of four weeks, a ball bearing factory schedules a box-packing machine to operate five days a week for two 8-hour shifts per day, with preventive maintenance scheduled for the third shift. This adds up to 320 hours of expected operation. However, the machine is old and has to be reset every so often to properly pack and tape the boxes of ball bearings. Every one of those stoppages to reset the machine adds up to 7 hours. Expressed as an equation, calculating downtime would look like this:

[DT = (7 / 320) x 100; DT = 2.19%]

The lower the downtime rate, the better, indicating high efficiency and effective maintenance practices. A lower downtime rate means a solid preventive maintenance schedule is in place that helps to lower downtime costs and consequently avoid unexpected downtime and lost revenue.

Importance of Monitoring Downtime Rates

The downtime rate for equipment provides crucial information that can inform a wide range of other functions in a manufacturing business. These critical functions include:

• Maintenance planning: High unplanned downtime rates may indicate a need to improve preventative maintenance activities and better planning to reduce the need for unplanned corrective maintenance tasks.
• Productivity analysis: Unscheduled downtime directly impacts the ability to meet production targets. Deeply analyzing downtime rates can help identify the root causes of issues and inform corrective action activities.
• Cost control: Downtime costs can contribute significantly to a high cost of operations. Lost production, increased labor, and added maintenance costs are potential results of downtime that factor into operational expenses.
• Quality management: Frequent stoppages can lead to a rushed manufacturing process in trying to catch up. Hasty production can lead to product quality issues and safety concerns for personnel.

Challenges in Managing Equipment Downtime

When exploring ways to reduce equipment downtime, facilities management personnel may face a number of obstacles that they need to consider for an effective downtime rate-management strategy. Challenges include:

Accurate Data Collection 

It’s crucial to gather precise data on downtime events. Automated systems such as a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) or enterprise asset management (EAM) platform can help tremendously in collecting and analyzing data and other crucial metrics information to help reduce downtime.

Complex Issues

Several factors can contribute to machine downtime and production stops. Aged assets may experience high rates of equipment failure. Human error such as miscalibrated equipment may force a stop to properly reset machinery, and a wide range of external factors can make frequent downtime occurrences challenging to address.

Balancing Maintenance and Production

Maintenance needs sometimes have to compete with production to effectively address anticipated issues or critical maintenance tasks. It’s vital that maintenance managers and production leadership work together to find the right balance to ensure both functions provide the best benefit to their company.

Addressing Downtime Challenges

There are many actions facilities management personnel can take to overcome challenges that downtime tracking and management can present. To address these concerns, facilities managers can:

Leverage Technology

Equipment sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) modules, and robust maintenance management software like ServiceChannel enable facilities managers to implement automation. These technologies can work together in tracking equipment downtime, monitoring machine statuses, and collecting real-time data for predictive analysis and informed maintenance scheduling.

Educate Personnel

Provide operator training and educate relevant staff such as maintenance personnel to help them understand the implications and the impact of downtime. Foster a culture of continuous improvement where staff know how to address and analyze events when they occur and minimize downtime.

Collaborate

Work closely with maintenance personnel and operators to ensure that assets receive necessary preventive maintenance and equipment health is maintained without disrupting production.

Equipment Downtime in Summary

Equipment downtime is a vital metric for any facility that relies on machinery and equipment for its operations. Tracking and managing downtime rates enables machine operators and facilities managers to optimize equipment reliability by providing valuable data to help avoid business disruption due to halted production. Effective management of equipment downtime is fundamental to successful facilities management and a key driver in operational excellence.

ServiceChannel is a top-rated facilities maintenance management software solution that offers facilities managers several tools that help track and effectively address equipment downtime events.