Know why your machines stop.
A machine sits idle and nobody writes down why. Downtime lives on a greasy clipboard, filled in at the end of the shift, and maintenance and production each blame the other.
We log every stop on 2–3 key machines by reason and shift, on a screen or sheet your team already looks at. We read machine data; we never write to it.
What we do in 2 weeks
We start small: the machines where a stop costs you most.
- Pick the machinesWith you, we pick 2–3 machines where a stop hurts most: the bottleneck, or the one that’s always down.
- Stop reasons with your crewWe write the list of stop reasons with operators and leads, in their words: waiting on material, changeover, tooling, no operator, breakdown.
- Read the machineWe read the machine’s run signal. On older machines a licensed installer fits a small sensor. Nothing we add can start, stop or change a machine.
- Reports and hand-overStops show up by reason and shift where your team already looks. We train the leads and hand over a weekly report.
What you get
- Downtime on 2–3 key machines, by reason and shift.
- A weekly one-page report: hours lost by reason, and what changed.
- A stop-reason list your crew wrote and uses.
- Your data in files you own, exportable any time.
- What we’d do next: more machines, a maintenance schedule that actually gets done, or nothing.
How we check it
Before we call it done, we look at a week of machine data: every stop the machine recorded, next to the reason your crew gave.
- How many stops had a reason, and how many didn’t.
- Hours lost per machine, by reason and shift.
- Whether the picture matches what the floor believes.
If the data and the floor disagree, we find out why before anything else.
Start free: our downtime tracking sheet
A plain sheet your crew fills in at each stop: machine, start, end, reason, shift. No sign-up. Use it for a week, and you’ll know where to look before you spend anything.
Cameras that check parts on the line
A camera over the line looks at every part and flags the bad ones: a missed weld, a hole in the wrong place, a scratch. Your crew pulls them before they ship.
- We pick the camera and software that fit your parts, from any maker.
- We test it on your real good and bad parts before you buy anything.
- You set what counts as a defect. Your people decide what happens to a flagged part.
- Cameras look at parts, never at people. No audio.
Priced after a test on your parts. Mounting and wiring are done by a licensed installer.
Who does what
Some of this we do ourselves. For the rest, we bring the right people and run the project with them. You get one contact and one plan.
Us
- Pick the tool that fits, from any maker, or tell you a spreadsheet will do.
- Write the stop reasons and defect rules with your crew.
- Set up the reports and train your people.
- Run the project and stay your one contact.
The vendor
- Supplies the monitoring system or the camera, and its software.
- Supports its own product.
A licensed installer
- Mounts sensors and cameras.
- Does any wiring, under a California contractor license.
What we need from you
Access to the machines, a network connection your IT approves, and a little time from the people who run them.
Access
- Time on the chosen machines during a shift, with the lead who runs them.
- A network connection your IT approves. Nothing is opened to the internet.
Files
- Whatever downtime or maintenance notes you keep now. Paper is fine.
Your people’s time
- Owner or plant manager: about 1 hour to start and 1 hour for the results.
- Leads and operators: about 1 hour to agree on stop reasons, then a few seconds per stop.
- Maintenance lead: about 1 hour.
What it costs
A fixed price and a written result.
Included
- Picking the machines and the tool.
- Stop reasons written with your crew.
- Setup on 2–3 machines, read-only.
- The week-of-data check and weekly reports.
- Training for your leads.
Billed separately
Sensors, monitoring software and cameras, if needed, and the licensed installer’s work. You see their quotes before anything is ordered.
Questions owners ask
Will you touch our machine controls?
No. We read machine data; we never write to it. Nothing we install can start, stop or change a machine.
Our machines are 30 years old. Does this work?
Yes. Old machines have no data port, so a small sensor reads when the machine runs, and your crew adds the reason for each stop.
Can it tell us before a machine breaks?
Sometimes, later. Most costly breakdowns come from basics: a missed grease point, a filter nobody changed. We start with why machines stop and a maintenance schedule that actually gets done.
We don’t know which machine is the problem. Where do we start?
With a day at your plant and a week with your numbers. You get the biggest losses in dollars, and we pick the machines from there.
Tell us which machine keeps stopping.
20 minutes, no pitch deck. We’ll tell you where we’d start and what it would cost.
We come to your plant: Sacramento, the Bay Area, Napa and Sonoma, Reno.