A diagnostic subscription is another budget cost, so before approving it a Finance Director will likely ask the following question:
What would it need to save to justify its cost?
For a plant running ELAU PacDrive M and PacDrive 3 equipment the answer depends on the production line, its breakdown history and how effectively the maintenance team can investigate faults today. Machine Analyser® gives engineers access to diagnostic information that can support fault investigation and maintenance decisions. The financial case comes from what the plant can do with that information and this should start with its own figures.
Understand what downtime actually costs
A stopped line does not have the same financial impact at every factory. Some production can be recovered later: some cannot. A stoppage on a bottleneck machine may affect several downstream processes whilst another machine may have spare capacity or an alternative production route. Using a headline industry figure can therefore make a business case look impressive without actually making it useful, so begin by asking what does unplanned downtime actually cost your plant?
Unrecoverable production contribution should be considered as well as material scrapped during the incident, restart losses, additional overtime, emergency engineering support and transport costs. However, be careful with lost revenue. If production is completed later and the customer order is fulfilled the original sales value may not be lost. The cost may instead sit in overtime, rescheduling or reduced capacity for other work. Equally, care should be taken to avoid counting the same impact twice. If your downtime estimate already includes labour or scrap, adding those costs again will overstate the benefit. The aim is to a arrive at a credible estimate both finance and operations can accept.
Identify where better diagnostics could help
During a PacDrive M or PacDrive 3 breakdown, time can be spent establishing what happened before anyone begins addressing the cause. Which component reported the problem? What other messages appeared? Is this the first occurrence or has the same pattern been developing? Does the fault happen during a particular machine movement or under specific operating conditions? When that information is difficult to access engineers may need to connect to the system, search available history or wait for an intermittent fault to return.
Machine Analyser® can quickly make retained diagnostic information available for review which provides engineers with the evidence necessary to support the next step. The potential financial benefit is therefore specific: less time gathering information, a more focused investigation or an opportunity to act on recurring behaviour. It does not mean every breakdown will be prevented. Some failures occur suddenly and diagnostic information still needs to be interpreted in the context of the machine.
Calculate the break even point
A useful starting calculation is:
Annual total cost ÷ downtime cost per minute = downtime minutes that would need to be saved.
For example, suppose the total annual cost of a diagnostic service is £3,000 p.a. and the relevant downtime cost is £200 per minute. The service would then need to contribute to saving just 15 minutes across the year to cover that cost. It must be remembered these figures are an example, not Machine Analyser® pricing or a claim about typical plant downtime. The calculation establishes a threshold, it does not prove the service will achieve it. However, it does serve to represent a useful illustration on potential savings.
The next question to ask is whether your incident history makes this threshold realistic. Have previous investigations involved delays that better access to diagnostic evidence could reasonably have reduced?
Include the full cost
A subscription price alone may not represent the complete investment. Hardware costs should be included where required as well as installation, internal set-up and the time needed to review findings. There may also be engineering work resulting from these findings. Also, separate initial costs from recurring costs as a first-year assessment may look different from the economics of subsequent years. The scope should be clearly defined too. Is the service covering one critical line or several machines? Which benefits and costs belong to that scope? This prevents the business case from attributing plant-wide improvements to a narrowly deployed tool.
Test the assumptions
It is important to consider more than one scenario. A conservative case might assume that diagnostic visibility helps with only a small proportion of incidents. A medium case can reflect the plant’s recorded experience. Lastly, a favourable case can explore greater benefit whilst still remaining clearly identified as an assumption.
Also consider incident frequency, investigation time and the share of downtime that diagnostic evidence could influence. A spare-part delivery delay, for example, may dominate an incident. Faster diagnosis could still help, but it would not remove the entire stoppage. This is where engineering and finance need to work together: whilst one understands the recovery process, the other tests the value assigned to it.
Use a trial to measure the contribution
A trial creates an opportunity to test the case on an actual line. There should be agreement as to what will be recorded before it begins, so the incidents, evidence available, actions taken and verified outcomes. Maintenance feedback should be included too. Was information easier to obtain? Did it narrow down an investigation? Did a recurring issue lead to a useful intervention? A quiet trial period may demonstrate usability without establishing downtime savings and it is important to ensure such a distinction is clear.
Overall it should be remembered a credible Machine Analyser® business case begins with your own plant’s economics and is further developed through operational evidence.