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The losses hide in the rhythm.
Manufacturing intelligence from the floor, drawn from a study of interruptions (short stops) across 12 operations and 62 production lines. Named frameworks, hard numbers, and how to find the capacity you are already paying for.
Articles
Read the method
Whitepaper
The Interruption Whitepaper
A study of interruptions (minor stops and micro-stops) across 12 manufacturing operations and 62 lines. The average time between interruptions is 1 minute 14 seconds, and the most frequently interrupted sites averaged 12.54 points lower OEE performance.
Read the article ›Metrics
MTBI: the 74-second pulse of production
The time between interruptions is the heartbeat of a line. Across 62 lines it averages 1m 14s, an exhausting stutter of constant interruptions. Here's what it measures, and how to read it against the stop threshold.
Read the article ›Benchmarking
The three bands of operational health
Optimised, Critical, Volatile. Set by a 14.28% baseline and a 19.82% high mark, every site falls into one of three bands. The band shows where to look first.
Read the article ›Data quality
The buffer illusion: how stop-thresholds hide your real losses
A line reporting a tidy 12.86% interruption rate can be hiding a 15-second time between interruptions. Lenient stop thresholds move faults out of the breakdown record. The Threshold Exposure Index, a research measure, shows when.
Read the article ›Case studies
The same method on real lines.
Building materials
The line ran fine in the rain. It broke down as the material dried.
Raw-material stops cost 16.3 hours one winter. The next winter, planned for the drying months, they cost 1.6.
Read the case ›Food and beverage
One belt type cost 125 hours in a quarter. Six quarters later, it cost 10.
One failed belt cost a processing section 26% of its unplanned downtime in a quarter. Six quarters later, that belt type cost 10.2 hours.
Read the case ›Food packing
Three identical lines. One packed half as much.
One fault code cost line 2 61.4 hours in a month. By month 8 it cost 2.4.
Read the case ›Manufacturing
The factory that wasn't broken
A plant reporting an alarming 16.46% OEE wasn't underperforming, it was being measured wrong. Reclassifying mislogged 'Power Off' time and correcting quality inputs lifted the true figure to 44.70% and exposed the real bottleneck.
Read the case ›Food & beverage
Everyone blamed the filler. It was the air.
A bottling line lost 34.5 hours to its air supply in one month. Two years on, the latest month lost none.
Read the case ›Manufacturing
The monthly total said fine. One unit was wearing out.
Mechanical stops on one cutting unit rose from 3.6 to 16.2 hours a month, then fell back to 3.0.
Read the case ›Food & beverage
Two faults cost 392 hours a quarter. Now they cost 27.
A printer and a filler kept stopping a packing line for hours at a time. Nine months later they barely register.
Read the case ›Packaging
Seven fewer hours a day. More good production.
One line moved from about 23 hours a day to 16, and made more good production time than before.
Read the case ›Food & beverage
Wrapper stops cut from 43 hours a month to under 7.
Two stretch wrappers stopped a palletising line 555 times a month. Centred loads and a tougher film cut their losses to 6.5 hours.
Read the case ›Food & beverage
218,000 tiny stops, hidden in one bucket
No single breakdown, yet OEE sat at 26.5%. The losses were 218,000 interruptions lumped into one uncategorised bucket, until a change in data resolution made them visible.
Read the case ›Packaging
Same number of blade stops. A quarter of the time lost.
Blade stops cost 65.2 hours a quarter. Faster recovery cut that to 16.2, with the blade stopping just as often.
Read the case ›Metals
Same coil change, 7 minutes or 40. Now it takes 9.
The record showed which shift changed coils fastest. That team trained the others, and 20 minutes came out of every change.
Read the case ›Find the pulse of your own lines.
A 30-minute call with a manufacturing specialist. We look at one of your lines together and show you what the first week of data would say about it.
A manufacturing specialist replies within two business hours to set a 30-minute call.