Reducing unplanned downtime can be one of the fastest ways to drive bottom-line impact using Guidewheel and identifying the root causes of downtime is the first step. Guidewheel gives you an accurate understanding of how much downtime you’re having, where and when it is happening, and the ability to identify underlying root causes. Then you can make a plan to address it and track your progress against goals in Guidewheel.
Key Guidewheel features:
Issues | Sidekick | Pareto Analysis |
Duration of downtime by root cause in Guidewheel
How to use them:
Collect data about downtime root causes
Make sure the team is tagging downtime reasons as events occur. There are multiple ways to tag downtime - choose the method that’s best for your team and plant floor setup.
Tag on tablets at each machine. If there are tablets at each machine and operators will be using them to tag downtime events, display Sidekick on tablets to equip operators to tag in a few clicks.
Tag on mobile devices. If your team is equipped with mobile devices, they can receive an SMS or email alert when a downtime event occurs, and tag it by clicking into the alert on their mobile device.
Tag from a computer. If your back office team will be doing the tagging, they can tag issues from their computer by clicking into the issue on the Issues page or the Uptime page. While tagging events at some point after they occur (vs. realtime) can be less accurate, it may be a good way for some operations to get started.
Remove planned downtime from your calculations
Ask your Guidewheel Customer Success Manager to turn on the Planned Downtime feature in your system, “snooze” alerts so you don’t receive alerts during periods of planned downtime, and remove planned downtime from your downtime calculations.
Tag issues caused by planned downtime with a “Planned” tag.
Schedule future periods of planned downtime for things like planned maintenance by creating an issue for a date/time in the future and add a “Planned” tag.
To learn more about Guidewheel’s Planned Downtime feature click here.
Review Pareto Analysis in shift handoff meeting
Navigate to Issues tab > Analysis
View by duration or frequency
Sort according to your preferences. We recommend first sorting by tags to see top causes of downtime across all machines, then sorting by device to determine which machines are down the most. You can click on any bar to see details; for instance, click on the most frequent tag to see which machines (and when, and how much) contributed to that downtime cause.
Make a plan with the team to address top downtime causes for the upcoming shift.
Track your progress
Review Pareto Analysis by issue and machine over the last day, week and month. Choose “Time Series” to see downtime over time.
Track progress against downtime reduction goals and adjust plans accordingly.