To understand the basics of innius' downtime reason functionality, refer to the Knowledge Base article: An introduction to Downtime Reasons.
The Downtime Reasons functionality is configured in the Admin app.
To start go to the machine page and click the Downtime Reasons panel open. Any status sensors will be listed.
In most cases it will be easiest to have 1 status sensor per machine to determine downtime. If you have several inputs for downtime, that may mean combining them into a single virtual sensor via script. But in any case it is possible to have more than one status sensor.
To add a new status sensor, click the more button at the top right of the panel, and select the 'Add status sensor' (1.).
This opens the Downtime Reasons Configuration page. It consists of 4 panels:
- Downtime detection
- Reasons for downtime
- Short stop definition
- Other details
Downtime detection
This panel is used to select the status sensor, which you can use to define when downtime is occuring. Here you can select one discrete sensor associated with your machine. A discrete sensor is one which produces predefined values which have been mapped with text descriptions.
Click the field or more button to open the dialog.
Click the 'select a sensor' field (2a.) and you can choose from a list of the discrete sensors associated with that machine. The sensor you normally choose is the machine status sensor.
Once you have selected a sensor, it will display the list of discrete values and descriptions (2c.). You can choose an expression of 'equal to', 'less than' or 'greater than' (2b.) a particular value to define which values indicate downtime. If using equal to you can choose the values by using the check-boxes.
Fixed downtime reasons
Once you have selected a status sensor to define when downtime is occurring, you can setup the possible reasons for downtime.
The first part of the Reasons for downtime panel, is for Fixed downtime reasons. It lists any fixed reasons already configured.
Fixed reasons are potential reasons for downtime which are always available to be selected as reasons for downtime. A typical example would be 'Operator fault'.
To add new fixed reasons, or configure existing ones, click the more button and the menu option 'Configuration' (3.).
This opens the dialog to Configure fixed reasons.
It shows existing fixed reasons, which can be deleted (3b). Below that new fixed reasons can be typed in. Press enter to save. And then close the dialog by clicking the Save button. (3a).
Sensor downtime reasons
Sensor downtime reasons are potential reasons for downtime which are only available for selection when the corresponding sensor value occurs during the period of downtime.
So for example: the reason for downtime "fruit blockage" might only be an option when producing "fruit bread". By having a discrete sensor which produces a value with the text "fruit blockage" mapped to it, during fruit bread batches, this can be achieved. The advantage of these dynamic sensor downtime reasons, is that it reduces the number of possible reasons at any one time and therefore reduces input errors by operators.
Sensor reasons can be found in the panel below fixed reasons.
Note: Each sensor you select can provide multiple reasons for downtime.
The top right menu option allows you to add sensors with reasons (4a).
Below the header there is a list of sensors which have been selected (4b).
By clicking each sensor, you can see the reasons which it can provide (4c).
To the right of each sensor is a menu button to open the configuration or remove the sensor from the downtime reason configuration (4d).
Adding a new sensor (4a) or configuring an existing one (4d) open the following dialog.
There are three parts.
Firstly, the sensor needs to be selected from the list of discrete sensors associated with the machine (5a). Once selected, the list of values and descriptions is shown below (5c) and then the expression (5b) can be shown and the values chosen (5c). Click the save button to close and save the configuration.
Note: it is possible to select the same sensor as the one used for downtime detection (6.). In this case, the values selected for downtime reasons will be the same as those used when defining downtime. It isn't possible to change the selection.
Short stop definition
A lot of downtime is caused very short stops. This could cause an overload in downtime periods requiring the operators to assign reasons. A solution to this is to use the Short stop definition option (7a) by checking the tick-box. Then select the period of seconds you want short stops to be less than (7b). Finally give description (7c.) which will automatically be assigned to downtime fitting the definition.
Other details
Finally there is a checkbox (8.) to make descriptions a requirement for all downtime periods when assigning reasons. If this is left unchecked, descriptions are an available option, but not required.