There are two types of downtime during the manufacturing process, unplanned and planned. Planned downtime could be scheduled for regular maintenance and servicing or even upgrades. Planned downtime is crucial for the safety of production line workers and ensuring that everything continues smoothly when the manufacturing process is running. Avoiding any potential breakdowns is vital to ensuring there is no loss to your profits and the health of your company’s finances.

However, unplanned downtime can cause economic damage, pose risks to workers and overall be disastrous. Unplanned downtime can result from not having regular maintenance and servicing to your machinery. Servicing can allow you to catch potential breaks or failures before they occur and enable them to be repaired/replaced before they cause further more expensive damage. This blog post will outline some avoidable impacts of unplanned machinery downtime. As well as the positive effects of incorporating planned downtime.

One of the most apparent impacts of unplanned machinery downtime is costs. Machinery downtime can put the brakes on an entire production line indefinitely. This can lead to a multitude of different problems arising.

If your products are made to order (a sustainable, cost-effective option), a halt to manufacturing can lead to disappointed clients and risk losing repeat customers. Losing a big client can be make or break for some businesses.

The halt on workload can also lead to days without productivity, impacting your business. Without profit, you will still need to pay staff and other additional business costs.

Repairs may not even be the extent of the costs. Allowing a machine to run with unidentified faults can often lead to much more significant problems and damage, resulting in the need for replacements, which can be extremely costly, especially after days of no profit.

A study put together by ONESERVE discovered that UK businesses lose a whopping £31,000 (per business per year) due to unplanned machinery downtime caused by machinery breakdowns. Maintenance can minimise and avoid these costs if you regularly plan your machinery downtime.

Accidents can occur at any point on the manufacturing floor. This can lead to fatal and life-changing injuries to staff. Scheduling planned downtime can allow for maintenance and safety checks to be run and increase safety in the workplace for your team. By identifying potential failures before they occur, you eliminate the risks of potential harm or lawsuits. Building a safe and considerate work environment is vital for worker morale and rapport, which boosts productivity and increases your company’s success.

Regularly serviced machines last longer, and consume less energy than poorly serviced machines, for example, according to ScienceDirect.com, worn bearings alone can cause a machine to use up to 14% more energy, and reduce efficiency by 18%. This is massively wasteful both economically and environmentally. A well serviced machine also lasts longer – thereby reducing the carbon footprint of the initial build as machines and components need less frequent replacement.

Additionally, unsalable products lead to massive amounts of waste in the production line, which is very damaging to the environment as it may not be able to be recycled. Attempting to manufacture using unserviceable or damaged machinery often results in batches of unsalable, faulty products, as tolerances are poorly controlled. Depending on how you quality check, products can even slip through the net to customers in an unsuitable state for sales if the damage is unnoticed.

Today, businesses have a responsibility to be as sustainable as they can be to protect our planet from further damage. Adding to landfill can cause both irreparable economic damage to your company and negatively impact the environment. By avoiding machinery failure, you can help do your part to prevent products from ending up in the landfill.