Analyze downtime with Pareto and trend charts
Find the few downtime reasons that cost the most, and see whether they are getting better.
The Downtimes report is the root cause analysis tool for production losses. It answers three questions about every stop in your fleet: which reasons cost the most time, how that changes over time, and which machines carry it. The page is at /assets?select=downtimes.
Prerequisites. Machines reporting, see Monitor your fleet on the Assets page. Stops classified, see Classify a downtime event. Every figure on this page is defined in Metrics.
The Downtimes report. The Pareto orders your reasons by the time they cost.
Read the Pareto chart
Downtimes by Category ranks every downtime reason by total duration, longest first. Each bar is one category, and the line over the bars is the cumulative percentage, so you can read off how many categories make up 80% of the loss.
Start with the leading bar. A plant with 60 hours of Mold Wash and 3.5 hours of Parts in inspection gets more back from a faster mold wash than from a faster inspection.
Is Unclassified your tallest bar? Then the Pareto is ranking the absence of reasons, not the reasons. Put reasons on the stops, or turn on automatic classification for the routine ones.
A Pareto with a clear leader. That bar is where the next improvement is.
Read the interval and asset charts
Two stacked bar charts follow the Pareto. Both split each bar by category, in the Pareto's colors, with a legend on the right. Hover any bar for its exact value.
Downtimes by Time Interval plots downtime per day, week, month, quarter or year, depending on the interval in the date filter. Read it to see whether a reason is trending, seasonal, or responding to a fix. For example, a Mold Wash segment that shrinks week over week after the wash procedure changes is the evidence the change worked.
Downtimes by Asset plots the same downtime per machine, with a duration label on each segment such as 16.73h. Read it to see whether a category is spread across the floor or concentrated on one machine.
Click a category in the legend to hide or show it. Hiding the leading category is the fastest way to see what is underneath it.
The same downtime split by interval and by machine.
Filter the report
The filters sit across the top of the page, or behind the Filters button on a phone. Every filter is written into the address bar, so the URL is the report: copy it and it opens in the same state for anyone with access.
The date filter picks both a window and an interval, the grouping the by-interval chart uses. Choose Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly, then a rolling preset such as Last 7 days, or a custom range. A rolling preset stays rolling: a link to Last 7 days shows the last seven days on the day it is opened.
Filters reference
| Filter | Values | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Date | An interval (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly), then a rolling preset for that interval or a custom range | Every chart and the table. The interval also sets the grouping of Downtimes by Time Interval |
| Machines | Whole departments, or individual machines inside them | Every chart and the table |
| Shifts | One or more of your organization's shifts, multi-select | Every chart and the table. Only stops inside the selected shifts count |
| Shift islands | On or off, at the top of the Shifts popover. Off by default | Every chart and the table. On, a shift that crosses midnight reports entirely on the day it began |
| Categories | Individual downtime categories, plus Unclassified | Every chart and the table |
| Severity | A group heading inside Categories: Unclassified, None, Low, Medium, High, each with a count. Ticking a heading selects every category of that severity | Every chart and the table |
| Sort | Date: New to Old, Date: Old to New, Duration: High to Low, Duration: Low to High | The table only |
| Only with Notes | On or off | The table only. Hides stops that carry no operator note |
Severity is a rank each category carries, set when the category is created, see Manage downtime categories. Reset Filters clears every filter except the date.
Turn on Shift islands before you read a night shift's downtime. Off, the hours a shift works after midnight are charged to the next day, so a Monday-to-Friday night shift puts downtime on Saturday, a day it never ran. This report and the Advanced Report are the only two places the toggle exists, see Where the overnight hours land.
The last three days of the week, Shift islands off. Saturday carries ten hours of Entire Shift Down from Friday night, on a day the Evening Shift never runs.
Two filters answer two different questions:
- Filter to Only with Notes when you are building a maintenance case. The notes are what a technician needs.
- Filter to Unclassified when you are checking whether operators are keeping up. A growing unclassified share means the habit is slipping, not that the plant is running better.
Every filter on the report. The severity headings inside Categories select every reason of that severity at once.
Read the detail table
Below the charts, a table lists each stop matching the filters, 25 to a page.
| Column | Shows |
|---|---|
| Machine | Photo, name and identifier, with the stop's start and end times |
| Duration | How long the stop lasted |
| Category | The downtime reason, or blank if unclassified |
| Categorized By | The person who classified it, or IoTFlows AI for stops an automatic rule classified |
| Note | The operator's note, if one was added |
| Severity | The category's severity as a colored badge: None, Low, Medium or High |
The table covers stops that overlap your selected dates and shifts, up to the first 1,000 stops or the first three months. A stop that began before the window, or falls past that limit, is not listed. Narrow the date range if you need every row.
Every time on this page is in the organization's time zone, not yours, see Shifts and time zone.
The detail table. Filtering to only-with-notes builds a maintenance case quickly.
Export the report
The Actions menu at the right of the filter bar downloads the report in two forms, both using the filters you have set. What each export carries is listed in Available exports.
Download a CSV
- Set the filters.
- Open Actions.
- Click Download as CSV.
The file Downtime Classification Data.csv carries one row per stop: machine identifier and name, start and end timestamps, duration, category and note. Choose CSV when you want the rows themselves, to pivot in a spreadsheet.
Download a PDF
- Set the filters.
- Open Actions.
- Click Download as PDF.
- Wait for Generating PDF report… this may take a few seconds. to become PDF report generated successfully.
The file Downtime_Report_<from>_to_<to>.pdf is rendered from the report as you see it, charts included. Choose PDF when the reader needs the picture rather than the rows, for example a weekly review with a plant manager.
You do not need to export to get the report to other people. Share emails the current view to members of your organization, and Schedule sends it on a cadence, see Email a report and schedule it to repeat.
Export errors
| Message | Means |
|---|---|
| Failed to download CSV. Please try again. | The browser could not build the file. Reload the page and retry once the table has loaded |
| Something went wrong generating the PDF. | The PDF service could not render the report. Retry; if it repeats, narrow the date range |
Classify as it happens
The report is only as honest as its classifications. Two habits keep it useful.
Turn on automatic classification for short stops, start and end of shift, and scheduled breaks, see Classify downtime automatically.
Put a tablet at each machine, assigned to that machine, so operators classify a stop as it happens and the note is fresh, see Set up a dedicated operator station.
See also
Pair a shared tablet or PC to one machine from Assigned Asset in Organization Settings so it boots straight to /assets/operator-asset/:id after every sign-in, with a header that has no product navigation. The pairing lives in that browser's local storage, so it holds whoever signs in; each sign-in clocks the operator in on the machine. Leaving needs an Owner or Administrator, and unassigning is the same setting in reverse.
Put a reason on a machine stop from the status bar, the machine page's Activity list, Operator View's All Downtime tab, or the iOS work-order screen. Classify one stop or many at once, split a stop that holds two reasons, change an activity's operation, remove a classification, delete a false activity, and open a maintenance work order from the classification modal.







