The losses hide in the rhythm.
Manufacturing intelligence from the floor, drawn from a study of interruptions across 12 operations and 62 production lines. Named frameworks, hard numbers, and how to find the capacity you are already paying for.
The Interruption Whitepaper
A study of interruptions (minor stops and micro-stops) across 12 manufacturing operations and 62 lines. The average time between stops is 1 minute 14 seconds, and the most frequently interrupted sites averaged 12.54 points lower OEE performance.
Read the article → EfficiencyThe fragmentation gap: why frequent stops look like slow machines
Sites with frequent interruptions averaged 12.54 points lower OEE performance than steady ones. With interruption time taken out, they were not running slower, so a faster machine won't close the gap.
Read the article → MetricsMTBI: 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 → BenchmarkingThe three bands of operational health
Optimised, Critical, Volatile. Using a 14.28% interruption ratio baseline and a 19.82% upper control limit, every line falls into one of three bands, and the band shows whether its losses sit in the interruptions.
Read the article → Data qualityThe 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 act as an administrative mask. The Threshold Exposure Index strips it away.
Read the article →Find the pulse of your own lines. One sensor per line counts every stop, live within 48 hours of the kit arriving.
The same method on real lines.
What monitoring reveals when you leave it running
One line, watched continuously for four months. Planned downtime took a third of its time, and the trend kept surfacing slow drifts a one-off audit would miss.
Read the case study → Food and beverage · Beverage bottlerThe filler was not the problem
A beverage bottler blamed its filler for a line that kept stopping. The first month of monitoring showed 9,848 stops, nearly a quarter of paid time spent waiting, and an air-supply loss of over 34 hours.
Read the case study → Packaging and bags · Bag manufacturerThree shifts, one live board
A three-shift bag maker tracked output on paper, one number per shift. Demand was rising and nobody could say whether the machines had headroom. A live record of every stop answered it with data.
Read the case study →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.
- Live within 48 hours of your kit arriving
- One sensor, one terminal, no PLC and nothing to integrate
- R4,950 per line per month, ex VAT. 90 days, then a month's notice