Tagging downtime events helps you understand the root causes of your downtime. Once your team is tagging consistently, you’ll be able to do a Pareto Analysis of your downtime causes and take actions to address them. You’ll also be able to track the impact of those actions.

In this article we’ll explain how to tag and the different ways to tag in Guidewheel.

Who can tag?

There are multiple ways to tag downtime - choose the method that’s best for your team and plant floor setup. To make tagging most effective for your team, aim to tag downtime reasons as events occur.

You can tag in 3 different ways:

Best when: Operators will be tagging

Requirements: Tablets on 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 downtime events in a few clicks.

Best when: Operators or Supervisors will be tagging

Requirements: Operators or Supervisors are equipped with 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.

Best when: Back office teams will be tagging

Requirements: 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.