Stops too short to declare are still counted.
A jam cleared by hand in twenty seconds never becomes a downtime declaration. VZIAM MES sees it on the controller, classes it as a micro-stop below a threshold you set for each machine, and books it where the standard puts it: against performance, not availability.
Below the declaration threshold, losses have no cause.
If stops are only recorded from five minutes, everything shorter is absorbed into running time and comes back as a performance gap nobody can explain. Asking the operator about every one is no answer either: a line that hesitates every few minutes would spend the shift on the screen. The answer is to count them from the machine, and decide per machine where a micro-stop ends and a stop worth a reason begins.
Four rules that keep short stops in their place.
A micro-stop is a real loss, but not a breakdown. These rules keep it from being lost or mistaken for one.
- 01
The threshold belongs to the machine.
Each machine has its own micro-stop threshold. An unexplained stop at or under it is classed as a micro-stop automatically; anything longer is a stop that asks for a reason.
- 02
A micro-stop is a performance loss.
AFNOR NF E60-182 books a micro-stop against performance, not availability, and so does VZIAM MES. Availability describes the breakdowns, changeovers and waits; performance carries the jams and slow cycles.
- 03
Micro-stops stay out of reliability figures.
They are excluded from MTBF and from the breakdown Pareto, and counted separately. A run of short jams should not read as a run of failures to the maintenance team.
- 04
A qualified stop outranks a micro-stop.
When a qualified stop and a micro-stop cover the same seconds, the qualified one takes them. Closures and planned, induced and own stops all rank above a micro-stop; only an unexplained stop ranks below it.
Counted from the signal, read against the nominal rate.
Detected from the controller
The signal that times a long stop also times a short one. Nothing depends on someone noticing, so the count is complete whether or not anyone had time to record it.
Read against the article’s rate
Performance compares output with what the nominal rate for that article on that machine would have produced. Micro-stops and slow cycles both show as that gap, measured against the right reference rather than a catalogue figure.
Seen on the cockpit as they happen
After 15 seconds without a signal the cockpit shows an amber pre-alert, which creates nothing and changes no figure. The operator sees the line hesitate before any stop exists.
Kept apart in the analysis
Micro-stops are left out of stop targets and the breakdown Pareto and counted on their own, so the performance gap and the reliability of the machine can be discussed separately.
What the module commits to.
- Classification
- Automatic, at or under the machine’s threshold
- Threshold
- Set per machine
- OEE factor
- Performance
- Excluded from
- MTBF · breakdown Pareto · stop targets
- Pre-alert
- 15 s without a signal, by default
Frequently asked questions.
Not sure where your threshold should sit? Ask the engineers who set them.
Book a callAn unexplained stop no longer than the micro-stop threshold set for that machine. It is classed automatically and needs no reason from the operator.
That is how AFNOR NF E60-182 classes it, and it keeps availability readable: availability describes breakdowns, changeovers and waits, while the short hesitations of a running line show up as performance against the nominal rate.
No. They are excluded from MTBF and from the breakdown Pareto and counted separately, so a line’s short jams are not mistaken for machine failures.
It depends on the machine, which is why it is set per machine. We agree it with your team during the assessment, alongside the stop reasons and nominal rates, before anything is installed.
Yes. A stop the operator qualifies takes the type of the reason chosen instead of being classed as a micro-stop, and the change is audited like any other.
Plan the change before it reaches the line.
Request a demo and an engineer looks at how your production runs today, shows how the software would fit around it, and where a pilot on one line would start.
01Pick a time
Choose a slot in the calendar, and note what you make and what reads your machines today.
02Screen shared with an engineer
A video call with someone who builds the software, in English or French.
03What would connect
For each machine, its path: native (OPC UA, MQTT or HTTP push), through a gateway, or nothing to build.