Downtime in manufacturing means lost time: when equipment, materials, or personnel are not producing output. It’s one of the most fundamental drains on productivity. In this article, we define downtime, distinguish its types, explore causes, and explain how it ties into metrics like OEE, OOE, and TEEP.
In a manufacturing context, downtime is any period during which production is halted. It may last from just seconds (often called “short stops”) to hours or even days. Regardless of duration, downtime represents wasted resources: machine energy, labour, materials, and capital.
Downtime manifests when one or more of these elements is not creating value.
This includes:
These are expected and typically built into your production schedule.
This form is unexpected and disruptive, including:
Unplanned downtime is the most damaging because it hits your Availability and is harder to manage.
The Dutch maintenance association NVDO recently announced that machine downtime has been rising. Unplanned downtime has risen from 1.25% in 2022 to 7.4% in 2024, and planned downtime jumped from 1% to 14.6% in 2024.
This is directly affecting manufacturing productivity, competitiveness, and can lead to costs that quickly escalate. The chairman of the NVDO says, “The future of asset management lies in smart data driven decisions which result in maximum efficiency and minimum downtime”. (NVDO press release)
The difference between the metrics OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness), OOE (Overall Operations Effectiveness), and TEEP (Total Effective Equipment Performance) lies in what is counted as ‘available time’. For OEE, this is the ‘planned production time’. OEE can therefore be raised if planned downtime is scheduled outside normal hours, such as in the evenings or at weekends.
OOE, on the other hand, considers available time as ‘all plant operating hours’, and TEEP includes ‘all calendar hours’. This means planned downtime has a greater impact on OOE and TEEP than on OEE. It’s important to keep this in mind when comparing metrics or benchmarking performance.
Below is a list of recurring causes. Each can be a target for improvement:
Understanding these allows you to categorize and prioritize intervention.
👉 Once you’ve identified causes, one next step is to apply strategies from our downtime reduction guide.
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