What Is Equipment Downtime? (And How to Calculate It)

Everything at your production facility was running smoothly — equipment was consistently operational and meeting production process deadlines. But now you’re facing unexpected downtime.

It turns out a key part of your conveyor belt wasn’t addressed during routine maintenance, causing the entire piece of equipment to break down. This abrupt equipment failure has not only required you to stop the conveyor belt, but its key involvement in the production line means the entire manufacturing process needs to be halted until you get that part replaced and the machine repaired. What’s worse? You have no idea how long it will take the maintenance team to fix the problem, eating into serious costs and potentially affecting customer satisfaction.

This downtime event is an unfortunate reality that several businesses too often face. But there are ways to mitigate equipment breakdowns to keep operations rolling. Follow along for everything you need to know about equipment downtime, including some common causes of downtime, how to calculate it and how this vital maintenance KPI can be used to improve your organization’s maintenance activities.

Types of Equipment Downtime

Equipment downtime, also known as machine downtime, is essentially the amount of time that a piece of equipment is inoperable, whether as a result of unexpected breakdowns or planned shutdowns. (For instance, some downtime is necessary to perform preventive maintenance, equipment inspections and audits.)

In general, there are two types of equipment downtime: unplanned or planned. Let’s explore both scenarios:

What Is Unplanned Downtime? 

If a piece of equipment breaks down as a result of machine malfunction or failure, it is considered unplanned or unscheduled downtime. Common causes of this type of equipment downtime include: 

• Aging equipment: As equipment continues to age, key parts are more likely to break over time. 
• Poor (or no) maintenance strategy: Failing to perform routine maintenance on your core machines reduces operational efficiency, ultimately leading to failures.
• Lack of training: If machine operators don’t know how to use equipment properly, or maintenance technicians aren’t trained to spot issues with machines, breakdowns are more likely to occur.

What Is Planned Downtime?

With a proactive maintenance approach, you will sometimes have to pause equipment operations in order to inspect and maintain it. Here are common downtime reasons for planned maintenance:

• Equipment inspections: Performing scheduled checks of your machines can help  identify potential wear-and-tear issues before they turn into more serious breakdowns.
• Lubrication of moving parts: Regularly lubricate gears, bearings and other moving components for continued smooth operations and to prevent friction damage.
• Replacement of wearable components: Plan to regularly replace parts that naturally wear out over time so that they don’t lead to major machine failures. 

It’s important to note that if your organization currently uses a reactive maintenance strategy — only performing maintenance tasks as issues arise — you’re more likely to experience downtime. Studies show that implementing more proactive maintenance strategies reduces downtime in organizations by an average of 44 percent. 

How to Calculate Equipment Downtime 

The equipment downtime calculation is a common maintenance metric for businesses to highlight the amount of time a machine is not operational. Here’s how to calculate it: 

1. Determine a planned operating time for a given period — for example, equipment should be operational 10 hours a day for 24 days a month (or 240 hours per month)
2. Track the amount of equipment downtime for the month in hours
3. Divide the downtime from the planned operating time
4. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage

The calculation is as follows: 

Equipment Downtime Rate Example 

You have 10 hours of planned maintenance on a conveyor belt in a manufacturing plant, and its planned operating time is the above 240 hours a month. No other downtime is recorded for the month. The calculation would be: [10 / 240] * 100 = 4.167%

What Is a Good Equipment Downtime Percentage?

A good rule of thumb is that, on average, equipment downtime should be 10 percent or less to ensure production efficiency and reduce costly delays.

Benefits of Tracking Equipment Downtime

Tracking equipment downtime has several key advantages for businesses. These include:

Providing a Clear Overview of Equipment Health 

By tracking equipment downtime, you can see how frequently issues are occurring for any given piece of equipment as well as which spare parts are being used the most and any operational inefficiencies that might be affecting your equipment health and production time. By noting these failure patterns, you can perform a root cause analysis to mitigate downtime and maximize efficiency.

Setting up an asset management system in Coast allows users to track these key data points for any (and all) pieces of equipment that’s crucial to their business. And parts that need frequent replacement can be tracked and reordered to be in stock with Coast’s parts inventory management feature.

Encouraging a Proactive Maintenance Culture 

Tracking machine downtime organically fosters a proactive maintenance culture by identifying the most common causes of failures and motivating teams to address these issues before they turn into major breakdowns. Applying insights from equipment downtime data reduces the amount of reactionary repairs needed while boosting overall efficiency.

Helping Managers Prioritize Maintenance Schedules

Maintenance managers can determine which equipment requires the most attention and when, scheduling maintenance work and allocating resources accordingly toward critical repairs and/or upgrades that are the least disruptive to operations.

Increasing Equipment Uptime & Reliability 

Identifying which machines have the most failures and taking the initiative to implement a preventive maintenance program ensures your equipment will stay healthier for longer periods of time, making it more reliable and susceptible to fewer outages in the long run.

Reducing Unnecessary Maintenance Costs

Catching and addressing issues like minor repairs or parts replacements will save you substantial time and money that would otherwise be spent on future equipment breakdowns. You will no longer need to spend a substantial amount on unexpected emergency maintenance.

How to Reduce Equipment Downtime

Tracking equipment downtime data gives business leaders a better understanding of the cost of downtime and how much it eats into profitability, allowing them to make key decisions about their business and the equipment they have. As such, equipment maintenance is often crucial to the success of operations. Here are effective methods to prevent your machines from having costly breakdowns:

Automate Equipment Downtime Tracking With a CMMS

Log your machine downtime automatically and in real time via Coast’s computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software. Not only does this highly mobile tool prevent human error, but it can drastically save time by allowing users to access equipment information and maintenance history all from a mobile device.

Implement a Preventive Maintenance Strategy 

Unplanned maintenance can result in days or weeks of full production pauses. Being proactive rather than reactive in your approach by performing inspections, routinely replacing parts and scheduling planned downtime can save you substantial time and money over time. 

Document Maintenance & Repairs 

Every time a technician performs an inspection or repair, it’s important to have them document the work they did in order to determine how often a piece of equipment requires repairs. It’s also helpful to know what work was performed to ensure that all maintenance work is done consistently and as efficiently as possible. 

Standardize Maintenance Procedures

Similarly, by creating standard operating procedures with detailed, step-by-step instructions ensures that technicians know exactly what they need to be doing when maintaining equipment or performing repairs. Coast makes this easy by allowing users to attach procedural documents and checklists both an asset and a work order for future reference.

Don’t wait to reduce equipment downtime, enhance efficiency and lengthen the lifespan of yoru most crucial machines. Get started with Coast for free today!