Question 1

What are the hidden costs of downtime not captured by this calculator?

Accepted Answer

Hidden costs include customer dissatisfaction and potential lost future orders, contractual penalty clauses for late delivery, scrap and rework from startup after downtime, supply chain disruption cascading to downstream operations, and employee morale impacts. These indirect costs can be 2-5x the direct measurable costs.

Question 2

How can I reduce unplanned downtime?

Accepted Answer

Key strategies include implementing preventive maintenance schedules based on OEM recommendations, adopting condition-based monitoring (vibration, temperature, oil analysis), maintaining critical spare parts inventory, training operators in autonomous maintenance (TPM Pillar 1), and tracking MTBF/MTTR to identify chronic equipment issues.