Most manufacturers don’t want to think about downtime if they don’t have to. After all, its consequences can be catastrophic. Downtime can make organizations bleed tens of thousands of dollars in minutes while causing chaos, confusion, and missed targets.
But the more we understand about machine downtime, the more we can reduce it (or avoid it altogether). In this article, you’ll learn all the different types of downtime in the manufacturing industry, what causes them, and how to reduce every type of downtime.
Key takeaways
- Both planned and unplanned downtime can negatively impact operations and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), although planned downtime is more often beneficial to long-term asset reliability and production line.
- Many factors can contribute to downtime. Understanding each of them can help reduce it.
- Calculating and tracking downtime KPIs is essential for continuous improvement.
- Many maintenance strategies can help reduce both planned and unplanned downtime.
- A CMMS is essential for keeping unplanned downtime to a minimum or eliminating it altogether.
What is downtime in manufacturing?
Downtime in manufacturing refers to any period during which production equipment isn’t operating as intended while it should be running.
Downtime can refer to equipment that has stopped entirely or is operating at a reduced capacity. This doesn’t include operational breaks, such as shift changes or scheduled breaks, since machines shouldn’t be running during these times.
Planned vs unplanned downtime in manufacturing
Downtime comes in two distinct packages: planned and unplanned. While each functionally looks the same, they both have very different outcomes.
Planned downtime is scheduled in advance, usually for preventive maintenance activities, machine upgrades, or necessary operational stops.
While planned or scheduled downtime impacts overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by making equipment less available, that impact can be lessened by scheduling it outside of peak production hours or while redundant systems are running.
Unplanned downtime occurs unexpectedly when a machine fails, breaks down, or requires an emergency repair.
Unplanned downtime is far and away the most dangerous form of downtime, accounting for 80% of total downtime and costing three to five times more than planned downtime. As a rule, it negatively impacts capacity and throughput, especially when it occurs during peak production hours.
When is downtime okay?
Just because downtime impacts OEE and capacity doesn’t mean it’s always a bad thing.
It’s helpful to think of downtime as existing on a continuum. On the unplanned side, which usually goes hand-in-hand with a reactive maintenance strategy, the impacts are worse. On the planned side, it’s more likely that you’re engaging in proactive maintenance, which is better and less costly for the organization overall.
Sometimes, downtime is necessary to prevent small issues from growing larger or to make system improvements that will increase uptime. In these situations, a little downtime goes a long way.
Downtime is happening less—but costing more.
Even as 74% of organizations report fewer unplanned outages, 31% say those incidents are more expensive than they were last year. Troubleshooting speed and accuracy have never mattered more.
Common causes of manufacturing downtime
Knowing the causes of unplanned downtime is the first step in starting to reduce it. Identifying causal factors (which contribute to equipment failure even if they’re not necessarily the root cause) is a worthwhile exercise whenever unplanned downtime occurs.
Our 2025 State of Industrial Maintenance report found that the top causes of unplanned downtime were:
- Aging equipment, which is less predictable and more prone to breakdowns (29%)
- Equipment failures such as mechanical breakdowns, wear and tear, and component failures (22%)
- Operator mistakes including errors, incidents related to inadequate training, and safety incidents (12%)
Other causes of unplanned downtime include:
- Maintenance issues like inadequate preventive maintenance measures, parts shortages, and skill gaps
- External factors such as power outages, supply chain disruptions, and quality issues
- Resourcing issues (65.7% of managers report that they have more downtime when there’s a labor shortage)
If you use a mobile CMMS, you can also look into work order data to find information about:
- Which machines break down most frequently (and which maintenance schedules are associated with the machines in question)
- Which technicians or shifts are associated with higher or lower numbers of breakdowns
- Why a breakdown occurred (and how it was addressed)
How to quantify downtime
You can measure downtime a few different ways. We recommend starting with getting a baseline reading for percentage of downtime. You can calculate it like this:
(total downtime/planned production time) × 100%.
You can find a more in-depth breakdown of how to track manufacturing downtime with this detailed guide.
Once you have a starting point, you can start comparing it to industry standards as well as your own plant’s performance over time.
Maintenance metrics can also tell you a lot about how your downtime is changing over time, and what might be contributing to it.
- Mean time to repair (MTTR) measures how quickly your team repairs breakdowns. Tracking it over time can show you whether your maintenance efforts, tools, and training are helping to reduce downtime. If not, it might be time to revisit your maintenance strategy to see where you can make improvements.
- Mean time between failures (MTBF) measures how long a piece of equipment runs between failures. Tracking it over time shows you whether a machine’s performance is improving or deteriorating. If it’s the latter, you can try to combat it with more frequent repairs, a predictive maintenance strategy, or the decision to replace the machinery (if it’s outlived its useful life).
- OEE shows how efficiently a piece of equipment is operating compared to its full potential. It’s a combination of a machine’s availability, performance, and quality. Exact benchmarks for OEE vary by industry and plant, but you want to see it going up over time. If it’s suffering, you can start to isolate and prioritize factors that are driving it down.
The true cost of downtime in manufacturing
Recent studies show that the true cost of unplanned downtime for Fortune Global 500 companies is as much as $1.5 trillion. Business-by-business, the numbers are still staggering: an hour of downtime costs anywhere between $25,000 and $500,000 in lost production, emergency repairs, and labor inefficiencies.
The simplest way to calculate the direct financial cost of downtime is:
(lost production x unit value) + labor cost + overhead cost.
Unexpected downtime also leads to indirect costs, such as:
- Overtime wages for technicians trying to get machinery back online.
- Expedited shipping to replace faulty parts.
- Customer penalties for production deadlines that are missed.
- Reputation damage that spreads among current and would-be customers and can impact market position in the long-term.
Each of these costs should be noted and tracked over time. The more you quantify, the more you can try to isolate and control costs.
How to reduce manufacturing downtime
Move from a reactive to proactive maintenance strategy
A reactive maintenance strategy is built around the expectation that your maintenance team is going to wait for machines to break—not a great strategy if you want to minimize downtime.
If your facility is running on a reactive maintenance strategy, moving to a preventive one will reduce unplanned downtime. 65% of respondents in MaintainX’s 2024 State of Industrial Maintenance Report said that proactive maintenance was the best way to reduce reactive maintenance at their facility.
Implement condition-based monitoring and predictive maintenance
If you’re already running a preventive maintenance strategy, your next step is to graduate to condition-based monitoring and, if possible, predictive maintenance.
Condition-based monitoring requires IoT sensors that can monitor cycles, temperature, and vibration to predict breakdowns before they occur. This results in both less unplanned downtime (fewer unexpected breakdowns) and less planned downtime (fewer planned shutdowns to perform routine maintenance when it may not yet be needed).
Improve parts inventory management
The worst-case scenario in the event of downtime is not having the right parts on hand to complete any necessary repairs or replacements. Investing in a CMMS that lets you track spare parts inventory and set low stock alerts ensures that you’re never low on critical parts.
Double down on training and procedures
Information is power for maintenance teams. Comprehensive technician training and standardized, well-documented procedures go a long way in making sure downtime doesn’t drag out while a technician tries to find the information they need to take action.
Lessen the impact of planned downtime
Scheduling planned downtime for low-impact periods and staggering work that requires machine shutdown are two ways to make planned downtime less impactful to manufacturing operations.
Use redundant systems
If planned maintenance must take place during regular or high-volume production hours, investing in a redundant system is an option. This way, you have a backup operation that can run while your main equipment is offline.
Technology is your number one tool to reduce downtime
Even with the best intentions and a willing maintenance team, preventing downtime is next to impossible without modern technology. Invest in the tools that make it possible to implement the strategies we’ve discussed in this article, including:
- Investing in a mobile-first CMMS platform that lets you manage work orders, schedule maintenance, improve technician and operational efficiency, improve data accuracy, and analyze results over time
- IoT sensors and real-time machine monitoring for early failure detection
- AI-powered predictive analytics for maintenance optimization
To learn more about how MaintainX can help you reduce manufacturing downtime, schedule a free demo today.
Downtime in Manufacturing FAQs
How do you calculate downtime percentage in manufacturing facilities?
Downtime percentage is calculated as: (total downtime/planned production time) × 100%
What's the difference between availability and uptime in manufacturing operations?
Availability is calculated as run time/planned production time. Uptime refers to the total amount of time a machine is running and producing output.
How much downtime is acceptable for manufacturing equipment?
The less downtime, the better. If you’re running any kind of maintenance strategy that’s more mature than reactive maintenance, your downtime should be tracking down as you gain more information and improve your maintenance strategy.
What maintenance metrics should manufacturing managers track to reduce downtime?
Mean time to repair (MTTR), mean time between failures (MTBF), and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) are three important metrics that can help manufacturers reduce downtime by showing where problems are occurring.
How can manufacturing teams implement predictive maintenance to prevent unplanned downtime?
A predictive maintenance strategy allows manufacturing teams to predict failures before they occur, based on machine conditions. This prevents unplanned downtime by predicting and preventing a breakdown so that it never occurs in the first place. It also prevents planned downtime by reducing unnecessary PMs that may require machine shutdowns.
What role does parts inventory management play in reducing manufacturing downtime?
If the right parts aren’t on hand to repair a breakdown, downtime will continue unnecessarily until the necessary parts are shipped. A CMMS will allow you to track spare parts inventory and set low stock alerts to ensure you’re never without the parts you need.
The MaintainX team is made up of maintenance and manufacturing experts. They’re here to share industry knowledge, explain product features, and help workers get more done with MaintainX!
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