When a machine goes down, the clock starts ticking. The ability for you to find and secure a replacement part in a timely manner has a much larger impact on the profitability of an asset than you might think when taking into account the billings, workflow and the profits affected by its downtime.
It’s a much more complicated discussion than “downtime is bad” and “uptime is good”.
A few truths to keep in mind in this discussion:
The Upstream and Downstream View of Downtime
Understanding upstream and downstream impacts of downtime goes beyond traditional “production” environments. Every job, whether it’s loading trucks in a pit or digging a trench for a sewer line in a residential development, has impacts that go beyond that single asset being down. The takeaway: When a piece of equipment does go down, have a turnkey plan on how you’re going to secure that part and get the asset operational again.
Vertical/Non-Residential Construction: A crane helping to set forms for the third and final floor of a new office building goes down. That single part creates:
Upstream challenges: There’s an army of concrete trucks that were planning on hitting the site today and tomorrow to pour the final structure for the building. Those trucks (as well as the people and material in them) either need to stand down or be re-routed to other jobs, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to hit your site tomorrow. And if ready-mix trucks were already en-route, there’s a shelf life to the material in that mixer and lost materials costs if it has to be dumped.
Downstream challenges: The delay in the pouring of the concrete pushes out the time/date to when it will have set enough to where the other crafts can come into the building (carpenters, electricians, HVAC, plumbing, etc.), setting off a domino-style effect of delays, cost overruns, etc.
The results of a single downtime event/one bad part: Building construction is a collaborative process. You’ll have costs related to the downtime, the delays it causes on this job for your crew and the other crafts waiting to come in behind you, and any potential penalties or the loss of deadline bonuses.
Utilities: A backhoe used for digging in utilities in a residential neighborhood goes down. It’s a rural development two hours from the dealer. Identifying and getting that part replaced quickly and efficiently is critical, but in the meantime you’ve got a jobsite at a standstill.
