A 2-hour filler breakdown gets a root cause investigation, a corrective action, and a parts order. A 15-second label jam gets a button press and a restart. The breakdown happens once a month. The label jam happens 40 times a shift — burning the same total minutes while generating zero data and zero investigation. On UK production lines, these micro-stoppages routinely account for 15 to 30% of total line losses, and almost none of it shows up on a shift report.
Catch The Stops Your Shift Log Never Sees
Automatic sub-minute stop detection with root cause tagging — so the 15-second jams finally show up in the numbers.
Why Micro-Stops Disappear From Every Report
Operators are trained to keep the line running, not to document it. A jam gets cleared, a button gets pressed, and the evidence is gone before anyone could write "infeed jam" on a clipboard. Manual logs capture fewer than 30% of stoppages under five minutes — not because operators are careless, but because the events are simply too fast and too frequent to record by hand.
The second reason is where micro-stops hide inside OEE itself. They land inside the Performance factor, not Availability, because they're too short to register as a formal stoppage. Performance is rarely broken down in a monthly review — people talk about "speed loss" in general terms and move on, and the micro-stops disappear into that generic bucket.
Where Micro-Stops Actually Come From
Sensor Faults
A dirty, misaligned, or overly sensitive photoeye throws a false signal, halting the line for a second or two, hundreds of times a shift.
Conveyor & Feed Jams
Lightweight containers or trays jam at the infeed on high-speed lines, and the machine rhythm takes longer to recover than the jam itself.
Label & Cap Application
A misapplied cap or label looks like a quality defect but frequently shows up downstream as a stoppage, not a reject.
Product Variation
Slight variation between SKUs or batches trips guide rails and format changeparts set for a different product size.
Cause, Duration, and the Fix
| Root Cause | Typical Duration | Engineering Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Dirty or misaligned sensor | 1-5 seconds | Scheduled sensor cleaning and alignment check |
| Infeed / conveyor jam | 10-60 seconds | Guide rail adjustment, worn transfer plate replacement |
| Label or cap misfeed | 20-90 seconds | Component wear check, applicator calibration |
| Format changepart drift | 30-120 seconds | SKU-specific changeover standard, per-format cycle time |
From Invisible To Fixed
Capture Automatically
Machine state is logged at sub-second precision, independent of whether an operator has time to note it.
Build The Pareto
A week of data usually reveals two or three specific causes behind half the lost minutes.
Watch The Pattern
Frequency trends on the same stop often show up before a bigger failure does — an early warning, not just a nuisance.
Engineer The Fix
A permanent mechanical or procedural change replaces the reset-and-restart reflex for that specific cause.
Turn 40 Daily Resets Into One Fixed Root Cause
Sub-second stop detection and Pareto analysis, so the top three causes behind your line losses stop hiding in the Performance number.
How OxMaint Surfaces the Silent Losses
Automatic Micro-Stop Detection
Every stop is timestamped automatically, regardless of duration, closing the gap manual logs leave behind.
Root Cause Tagging
Stops are classified by cause — sensor, jam, label, changepart — instead of collapsing into a generic speed-loss figure.
Pareto & Frequency Trends
The top causes by total time impact are ranked automatically, and rising frequency on one asset is flagged early.
Work Order Handoff
A confirmed root cause routes straight into a maintenance work order instead of staying a chart nobody acts on.
The stops you can't see are the ones you can't fix. Sign up free to see every sub-minute stoppage on your line captured and categorised automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as a micro-stoppage?
Most plants define micro-stops as stoppages under five minutes, often under 60 seconds, that an operator clears and restarts without raising a maintenance ticket.
Why don't micro-stops show up on shift handover reports?
They're cleared too quickly to document by hand, and manual logs typically capture fewer than 30% of sub-five-minute events across a shift.
Are micro-stops an Availability loss or a Performance loss in OEE?
They sit inside the Performance factor, which is one reason they're systematically under-analysed compared to Availability losses like full breakdowns.
Can micro-stops predict a bigger failure?
Yes — a rising frequency of the same micro-stop on one asset, such as intermittent conveyor tracking issues, can be an early sign of a bearing or component starting to fail.
What's the fastest way to start reducing micro-stops?
Capture a week of automatic stop data, build a Pareto of causes, and fix the top two or three — they typically account for around half the total lost time.
Stop Losing 30% Of Your Line To Stops Nobody Logs
Automatic micro-stop capture, root cause tagging, and Pareto analysis — see the silent killer on your line in real numbers.
