If anything is clear about a production environment it is that breakdowns are not isolated events. They are simply an operational reality with our clients reporting multiple incidents annually across both PacDrive M and PacDrive 3.
So, in short, breakdowns are expected: what is critical and a major differentiator is the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). Minimise this and the cost exposure to breakdowns is also reduced. This is what separates high-performing sites: not an absence of failures, rather the speed and capability of their response. With sites using PacDrive M there is an additional challenge of obsolescence and increasing scarcity of critical parts.
In our recently conducted Customer Survey 93.8% of respondents cited at least one breakdown in the previous 12 months. The majority of incidents (52%) were found to be high frequency/low cost in the range of up to £5K each time. 32% were found to have a significant cost impact of between £5K and £10K. However, 15.4% were “Black Swan” events with these costing between £10K and £50K. Clearly these represent a significant impact on operations and a potentially catastrophic risk to maintenance budgets and the business in general.
In terms of recovery time performance we found 34% of sites took less than an hour to restore production. 35% took between 2-3 hours,14% took half a day with 9% taking over a day. In these cases up to 3 shifts’ worth of output was lost if the site ran 24 hours. These long-tail events were almost always the result of diagnostic delays and component scarcity, representing the highest operational risk.
So, what were the main causes of the breakdowns experienced? Understanding these is critical to planning. It directs engineers to where their focus should be and the resources to have in place. The vast majority of breakdowns were the result of hardware fatigue (85%) – either mechanical or electrical. Legacy obsolescence (60%) also confirmed PacDrive M has entered the “wear-out” phase of its lifecycle. Combining both these factors with limited diagnostic visibility and downtime can be significantly amplified.
With a speedy MTTR vital, knowing what delays recovery is paramount. Here the barrier isn’t the physical repair – identifying the root cause proved to be the bottleneck for 71% of engineers. This was down to lacking the diagnostic tools or in the case of PacDrive M, knowledge of legacy equipment. Targeted training and remote, expert diagnostics therefore rank as critical to reducing MTTR. Spares availability (55%) must not be forgotten as even well-stocked departments cannot totally hedge against PacDrive M obsolescence. This explains why customers rate same-day stock access as a top service priority.
In conclusion then, breakdowns are an unavoidable reality in production environments. The key to reducing the operational and financial impact lies in minimising MTTR through faster diagnostics, specialist expertise and rapid access to spares. Organisations that invest in these capabilities will be best placed to limit downtime, control costs and maintain production uptime.