What is Machine Downtime?
Downtime in Manufacturing Explained
All filling and capping machines are expected to experience downtime at some point in their lifespan. Ideally the downtime will be part of your scheduled maintenance plan, but there are occasions when unexpected downtime may occur. In this article, you will learn more about what downtime is, the types of downtime that occur, and our recommendations for your machinery to reduce downtime costs and get production running again as quickly as possible.
Machine or production downtime in manufacturing, refers to the period of time when a machine is completely not running due to a fault or maintenance. The cost associated with this time is known as machine downtime costs. Time and urgency will determine the costs of your machine downtime.
Types of Downtime:
There are two types of machine downtime that you could experience during your production which you should be aware of.
Scheduled maintenance is planned as part of your preventative maintenance plan. This should not take much time as any potential issues can be easily identified and worn parts can be changed over to prevent breakdowns in the future.
Emergency maintenance is unexpected and is usually because of broken parts. Keeping on top of preventative maintenance will reduce the likelihood of emergency downtime.
Downtime is usually negative and quite a big deal to organisations, but why is it so important? Well the simple answer is that it costs businesses both time and money. Let’s say your production sis based off strict deadlines and there is not much room for error, then your machine breakdowns. Time = money and the longer your machine is down, the more it will cost you – you may potentially miss deadlines too.
Scheduled Maintenance:
Scheduled Maintenance is the desired type of machine downtime as it is planned with spare parts available, as well as time in production to stop and carry out inspections. To ensure that scheduled downtime doesn’t affect any deadlines, you should plan for machine servicing and maintenance tasks to take place during your less busy periods.
Planned services can be booked in with Adelphi to take place on-site. Alternatively, for smaller machines such as the Response Benchtop Filler, you can choose to send the machine back to Adelphi where will we carry out crucial maintenance.
Scheduled maintenance will benefit your organisation as it will detect any problems before they result in a breakdown. For example, if a seal is visually worn it should be changed over immediately before it breaks or causes inconsistent fills, breakdowns and other issues. Creating a preventive maintenance schedule ensures the inspections are never forgotten. Benefits include maximising your machine’s lifespan, and reducing unexpected downtime.
Adelphi always recommends preventive maintenance to achieve the best performance from your filling machine. If you look after your filling machine, it will look after you in return. Servicing is recommended on an annual basis, to book in your service contact us via the form below
Emergency Maintenance:
Emergency maintenance also known as reactive or breakdown maintenance, which is conducted in response to a breakdown. Typically, emergency maintenance occurs because of human errors such as not cleaning the machine on a regular basis, or not completing regular services.
Adelphi is always on hand to assist with reactive maintenance; we have spare parts readily available on site to send out as soon as next day delivery, our remote engineers are available to talk everything through over the phone, we have a team of service engineers all over the country who can travel to your site and assist with breakdowns.
However, we much more strongly recommend proactive, preventative maintenance to avoid the drawbacks (costs, unavailable parts, limited engineer availability) associated with reactive maintenance.
How to Reduce Production Downtime
There are many ways to prepare for production downtime in order to reduce costs and times for your organisation.
Understanding the equipment is a priority if trying to fix the issue yourself. If a machine is older, you may learn that some parts are obsolete and a refurbishment may take a long time. Having the spare parts that most commonly need changing (seals and O-rings) available will reduce downtime, as you do not have to wait for any deliveries. To order spare parts, use the contact form below.
Safety is also important to reduce downtime. Do you have a team or individuals who are trained to carry out maintenance on the machines? They should also understand company protocols to ensure they are not putting themselves or others at risk by carrying out the tasks. If you would like your team to receive machine training, use the contact form below to get in touch.
