Downtime: the enemy of productivity

Productivity is paramount for businesses of all sizes. For that reason, downtime always presents a hurdle to success.  

If you’re running a business, you need to know that time and resources are being used optimally. Your business must stay agile and productive—even when the unexpected happens. And that means fixing issues quickly and keeping downtime to a minimum.

In this article, we’re going to explore downtime in more detail. We’ll look at the impact of unplanned downtime on businesses and how remote technology can help to prevent it and avoid its associated risks.

In this article:

• What exactly is downtime?
• The true cost of downtime
• Strategies for proactive downtime management
• Summary

What exactly is downtime?

According to the Cambridge Business English Dictionary, downtime can be understood as time when a business does not operate, for example when machines break down.

Downtime can be caused by many different factors, such as technical failures, repairs, maintenance, or a lack of inputs like labor, materials, or power. Some kinds of downtime, like maintenance or repairs, are typically planned. In these cases, employees and clients are usually warned and have time to prepare for a break in services.

Others—say technical failures stemming from natural disasters—are clearly never planned. They come unannounced and often cause havoc, which is why they’re the focus of this article.

At the same time, downtime isn’t always total. Sometimes, it's only partial, affecting one part of the production process, for example. However, while productivity might not cease totally, it may still have lasting effects on your business.  
 
Common to all kinds of downtime is its negative impact on productivity. Indeed, according to a report from ABB, seven in 10 businesses have at least one unplanned downtime incident per month.  

Overall, unplanned downtime costs industrial manufacturers as much as $50 billion a year. So, it’s very understandable that all businesses are looking for solutions to manage it.  

The true cost of downtime

For businesses of all sizes, downtime can have a range of consequences. Some are barely noticeable and temporary, while others are severe and long-lasting. Here are some of the main ones.

Financial impact

This is probably the most obvious consequence of unplanned downtime. And for good reason: A recent study found that the world’s 500 largest manufacturing and industrial firms are experiencing losses of nearly $US 1.4 trillion a year—or 11% of their total revenues—because of it.  
 
Aside from direct losses, downtime can also have negative consequences in the form of decreased productivity. That includes paying wages for staff who can’t work and employing additional staff to fix the underlying issue.
 
Financially speaking, decreased customer satisfaction can also have negative consequences for businesses of all sizes. Which leads us to our next point.  

Reputational impact 

How would you feel if your chosen service provider’s delivery was patchy and unreliable? If they were constantly grappling with unplanned downtime? You’d probably find a new provider, right?  
 
If handled incorrectly, unplanned downtime can lead to damaged brand image and customer trust. To counter this risk, businesses need to focus on fast response and transparency with customers. Because downtime itself is, unfortunately, a fact of life.

Operational impact

Downtime can also lead to various operational consequences. For one thing, it disrupts workflows and creates bottlenecks in production, causing greater pressure on your business to make up for lost time.  
 
This increased pressure can also negatively affect the morale of your employees. Trying to offset the losses of unplanned downtime, they will often have to work longer hours or deal with dissatisfied customers.  
 
By the same token, downtime can also have the opposite effect. Your workers might have nothing to do and grow bored. If either scenario happens frequently enough, they—as well as your customers—might decide to go elsewhere.   
 
Employee turnover also has serious financial implications. In fact, Gallup estimates that it costs between one-half and two times an employee's annual salary to replace them!  

Ethical implications

During downtime, the risk of data breaches escalates. This can compromise customer privacy and violate data protection laws like GDPR or CCPA. Businesses are ethically and legally bound to safeguard sensitive information, even during technical failures.  

This means having robust cybersecurity measures, delivering data integrity, and maintaining transparent communication with stakeholders. Failure to do this not only breaches trust but can lead to legal penalties and reputational damage.  

Strategies for proactive downtime management

As already mentioned, downtime is a fact of life for businesses of all sizes. However, various strategies can help you to prevent it and offset its negative consequences.   

Preventative maintenance

An effective way of preventing unplanned downtime is through preventative maintenance. This means carrying out scheduled inspections and maintenance to prevent unexpected equipment failures from happening.

But the problem is that skilled technicians often aren’t on-site to perform these tasks, and travel requirements make the maintenance process expensive and time-consuming.

Remote connectivity helps solve this problem. Using remote access, experts can connect to a machine to carry out software maintenance in real time. And with augmented reality (AR) assistance, they can help on-site staff carry out hardware maintenance without needing to be there in person.

Another benefit of remote technology is that it provides a central platform where relevant data—e.g., maintenance records—are stored and made available to the remote expert. This enables informed decision making and improves overall efficiency.

Instant issue detection

While preventative maintenance helps prevent equipment failures, your team still needs to be ready to respond quickly when issues arise.

Remote solutions can make this easier. A good remote monitoring system can catch problems early, like an overworked CPU, a process that isn’t working right, or a missing software update.

At the same time, it’s important to give on-site workers an easy way to report issues. For instance, a QR code on a machine that they can scan to submit a service request.

With these systems in place, your team will know about problems right away. They can then use remote tools to quickly figure out what’s causing the problem. For instance, they can connect to the machine’s software and check for any misconfigurations. Or initiate a video call with a person on-site to conduct a visual inspection of the machine.

Fast, effective troubleshooting

Once you’ve identified an issue, it’s important to resolve it quickly and prevent it from happening again.

With a remote troubleshooting system in place, equipment operators can access expert technicians without having to wait for them to arrive on site.

The expert can fix the problem effectively in no time by remotely accessing the machine or guiding the operator through troubleshooting steps using visual cues like AR markers and annotations.

Even when the issue can’t be solved completely remotely, remote troubleshooting helps improve efficiency by allowing the expert to get the information they need before traveling to the site. For example, they can identify faulty components and bring the correct spare parts on their first visit.

This helps reduce travel expenses, improve your mean time to resolution (MTTR) and first-call fix rate (FCFR), and increase the number of cases handled by each technician.

Read more: Solve technical issues from anywhere: Introducing TeamViewer Smart Service

Summary

For businesses of all sizes, downtime is a complex and persistent challenge. However, getting ahead of it with proactive strategies and collaboration can help to mitigate its impact. 

One key takeaway from this article is that tackling downtime requires consistent maintenance and quick problem resolution. In the face of dispersed equipment and a lack of skilled experts, a remote troubleshooting solution can be very effective.

If you’re running a business, you’ll know that downtime is something that must be taken seriously. Its negative impact can be disastrous. However, new remote technologies are proving a gamechanger in preventing it.  

By unifying your maintenance and service processes in one remote solution you’ll make optimal use of the available data and create a smooth workflow for your service team. This helps to prevent unplanned downtime and ensure security and compliance even when it happens.