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The Thrive Approach: How We Differ From Every Other Downtime Tracking Solutions Provider Out There   

There are a lot of downtime tracking solutions providers out there and, to be totally fair, a lot of us are all operating with the same basic goals in mind. Like many other of our esteemed colleagues, we at Thrive want to help you realize your peak efficiency as a manufacturer and we want to use data to help do it. We want to allow you to begin tracking machine downtime and define a reason from nearly any device on the shop floor. We want to use our cloud-based, automated downtime tracking and analysis software to allow you and your people to work smarter, not harder – probably for the first time. There are a lot of other companies in this industry working towards these same goals, and honestly, we say “the more the merrier.”
Having said that, there IS something that separates Thrive from literally every downtime tracking solutions provider out there. A factor that we consider to be so important that we believe it’s been a major contributing factor to the level of success we’ve enjoyed up to this point.

It all comes down to our point of view on not just what we offer, but where this industry is going at the same time.

A Matter of Perspective, or: The Thrive Approach 

In our opinion, so many other downtime tracking solution providers are in a race to be seen as the “biggest and most advanced” piece of technology to come down the pike. They’re falling all over themselves to “out innovate” or “out advance” one another that they’re sort of missing the forest for the trees, so to speak.

If you add a feature to your software that looks great on paper that none of your customers are actually going to use, at a certain point you stop being valuable. You’re no longer a solution and instead you’re a “solution in search of a problem,” which isn’t really how you help people.

At Thrive, this is how we do things differently and it’s something we’re incredibly proud of. We only build things because our customers ask for it, not because we think the market needs it.

Period, end of story.

Everyone in the industry is going in the same direction these days – more features, more functionality, more automation. We’ve made a conscious decision to go in the totally opposite direction. This is because we understand that our software will never replace your human workforce – nor do we actually want it to.

You’re always going to need humans, because you are and will remain a team. Rather than replace your team, we want our software to help you build a better one – and we can’t do that unless we stop telling you what we think you want and start listening to what you actually need.

If you’d like to find out about what makes Thrive different from every other downtime tracking solutions provider out there, or if you’d just like to see our solution up close and personal to really get a feel for what it might be able to do for your organization, please don’t delay – contact us today.

 

 

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Why Ease of Use is the Most Important Factor of All When it Comes to Downtime Tracking Software   

Obviously, the benefits of tracking downtime across your production lines are as enormous as they are essential. You can’t monitor what you’re not tracking, and only with the right solution by your side will you be able to view real-time efficiency information in just a few quick clicks of your mouse. Only with the right, powerful tool will you be able to diagnose issues with any device on the shop floor at a moment’s notice. Only technology can bring you the historical performance data you need to see how far you’ve come and, more importantly, where you might be headed. The list goes on and on. 

But while all of these features are critical, there is one that matters more than ever that far too many people don’t pay attention to until it’s too late. That element is ease of use, and it can make a big difference for your own efforts moving forward. 

Why Ease of Use Matters Most of All 

Think about it like this: the volume of data your business is creating on a daily basis is enormous. Not only do you have access to insight about every last piece of equipment you own, but you can also see operator information and get a better understanding of how these two elements interact with one another. Hidden inside that data is the true story of what is REALLY going on with your business – all you need to do is figure out how to extract it and you’ll have everything you need to make the best decisions possible, no matter what. 

Downtime tracking software is designed to BE that solution… but it ultimately isn’t doing anybody any good if you need an advanced engineering or computer science degree to use it. 

Why invest in downtime tracking if every last employee on your shop floor can’t use it? If you need to bring in a secondary team to support your people all the time, are you really dealing with a “solution” at all? Not really. 

At Thrive, we designed our downtime tracking system to be as easy to use as possible for this reason – because literally anyone in your business should be able to get started in a matter of seconds. It doesn’t matter what their background is or how long they’ve been with your company. In fact, we believe that if we have to train you on how to use our software, we didn’t actually design it right – so we’ve pulled out all the stops to show you just how committed we are to making your experience as easy and as effortless as possible. 

If you’d like to learn even more about why ease of use is the most important factor of all when it comes to downtime tracking software, or if you’d just like to discuss your own needs as a business with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact Thrive today. 

 

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All the Important Features That Your Manufacturing Software Needs to Provide     

One of the most important things to understand about manufacturing software is that no two options are created equally. Yes, they’re all designed for businesses LIKE yours – but depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, they may not be the right fit given your long-term strategy. 

For example: if continuous improvement is one of your major focuses as a manufacturer and as a business professional, there are a number of key features you’ll want to make sure any manufacturing software you choose to invest in includes. 

Critical Features for Your Manufacturing Software: Breaking Things Down 

Obviously, as a manufacturer, one of your top priorities always involves keeping every last piece of equipment on your shop floor up and running for as long as possible. Therefore, it makes sense that the number one feature you want to look for in manufacturing software comes by way of some form of comprehensive downtime tracking functionality. 

Remember that downtime tracking is about more than just gaining an understanding of your line’s efficiency. It’s also your key to instantly learning the cause, the length and even the frequency of downtime events – including small ones like those micro starts and stops that you may not have been paying attention to but that are costing huge amounts of time and money just the same. 

Not only that, but innovative solutions like Thrive take this one step further by using a unique algorithm to calculate the impact on uptime and production each downtime event WOULD have had if it had been fixed. So not only will you know what your biggest source of downtime is right now, but you’ll also be able to see the major advantages you’ll achieve if you set your mind to fixing it, too. 

These days, another one of the most important features to look for in manufacturing software has to do with dashboards that take all of your complicated, high volume data and distill it down into a series of visual charts that literally anyone in your business can understand. You should be able to log into this dashboard from any device on Earth with an active Internet connection thanks to the cloud, and you should be able to access and print a performance snapshot anytime, anywhere, no exceptions. At any given moment, you should never be more than just a few quick mouse clicks away from seeing your equipment’s efficiency, your historical performance, operator comments and more – all in any date range that you choose. 

Speaking of date ranges, your manufacturing software should also offer historical performance dating back days, weeks, months or even years if you so choose. Then and only then will you be able to learn what the past is trying to tell you in order to build a much more successful (not to mention profitable) future for your organization. 

To find out more about all of the important features that your manufacturing software needs to be able to provide, or to get answers to any other important questions that you may have, please don’t delay – contact Thrive today. 

 

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The Art of Making the Most Out of Planned Downtimes     

By far, one of the most frustrating “costs of doing business” for any manufacturer is downtime in all its forms. 

Yes, if you had to pick between unplanned and planned downtimes, the latter is always preferred. Planned periods of downtime you can control, whereas unplanned instances are fraught with uncertainty and frustration. 

Having said that, you don’t necessarily have to write planned downtimes off as an “inconvenience that you’re just going to have to deal with.” In fact, you can actually turn it into an opportunity to shift your attention to other matters that are just as critical to your long-term success. 

Turning Planned Downtime Into an Opportunity: Your Overview 

Obviously, whether you’re talking about a planned lunch break period or an entire shift change, you’ll want to keep even your planned downtimes as short and as infrequent as possible. Every minute that those machines are offline is a minute that you’re not making money and especially given everything that is going on in the world right now, that’s probably a situation you’d want to avoid if you’re able to. 

Having said that, planned downtimes are actually a perfect opportunity to take care of a lot of those preventative maintenance items that you’ve been working through on your checklist. Rather than waiting for something to break so that you can fix it, it makes far more sense to stop a small problem today before it has a chance to become a much bigger (not to mention more expensive) one down the road. 

Of course, maybe the biggest criticism that a lot of people have when it comes to preventative maintenance is that you’re performing “excessive maintenance.” To put it another way, people are concerned that technicians are spending so much time inspecting and maintaining pieces of equipment that probably don’t (yet) require that level of attention-to-detail. 

While this is certainly valid from one perspective, it also underlines the importance of having the right downtime tracking solution by your side in the first place. By understanding the maximum potential of each piece of equipment on your shop floor, and by being able to take a closer look at their current status at a moment’s notice, you always know WHERE to direct those human resources during periods of planned downtimes. 

They don’t have to spend time inspecting everything only to accomplish nothing if everything is working as it should be. But by tracking OEE, you won’t have to go looking for those “small problems to fix” today because the data will come right out and tell you. That way, during shift changes or lunch periods, technicians can step in and address those issues to avoid costly UNPLANNED periods of downtime moving forward. 

If you’d like to find out even more information about what you can do to make the most out of planned downtime events, or if you’d just like to discuss your needs as a business with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact Thrive today. 

 

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How Downtime Tracking Software Can Help You Cut Overtime     

One of the major things that people often overlook when discussing downtime ultimately comes down to the human costs associated with it. That is to say, those factors that may not necessarily be obvious like an urgent repair but that can cost a company just as much money if officials aren’t careful. 

Case in point: too much downtime almost always creates the need for overtime at the worst possible moment. If a critical piece of equipment suddenly goes down and you were only able to produce 50 parts per hour over the last eight hours when you really needed to produce 100, the needs of your client don’t change. The parameters of the original order aren’t thrown out the window. That client still needs 400 additional parts and they need them as quickly as possible – which means that your skilled workers are going to need to stay longer to make sure the job gets done. 

The Human Impact of Too Much Downtime 

More often than not, overtime is incredibly expensive for companies – creating a situation that further harms their profits beyond simply making them deal with lost profits. If you’re forced to work overtime and still can’t quite close the gap on those 400 parts, you’re also going to harm the relationship between your business and that client, too. 

But with downtime tracking, these are exactly the types of situations you’ll be able to avoid. Rather than guessing as to the cause of a particular downtime incident, you’ll know beyond the shadow of a doubt. You’ll know if it came down to operator inefficiency or maintenance issues with core equipment or shift changes that took too long or something else entirely. You’ll be able to allocate funds for additional training or identify poor performance equipment so that you can prioritize maintenance in a more intelligent way. 

You’ll know why the downtime is happening so that you can put a stop to it as soon as possible – thus removing the need for all that overtime to begin with. 

If you know exactly what steps you need to take to unlock the true potential of both your equipment and your employees, you’ll be operating at peak efficiency at all times. At that point, you won’t have to worry about overtime because it would never be needed – you’re already making the most of every hour of the day as it is. 

That creates more than just a situation where your business is operating more profitably than ever. It will absolutely impact the quality of the work you’re able to do in a positive way, too – which will go a long way towards creating a genuine competitive advantage for yourself at the exact same time. 

If you’d like to find out even more information about how the right downtime tracking software can help you cut overtime and more, or if you’d just like to discuss your own needs with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay – contact Thrive today. 

  

 

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What to Look for in a Downtime Tracking Solution Partner  

More and more manufacturers want to start intelligently tracking downtime these days, but a lot of them aren’t sure where to begin. Typically, the first step you need to take involves finding yourself a partner who can offer an intuitive, scalable and flexible downtime tracking solution to meet your needs. But be warned – not all so-called “partners” are created equally. 

A Genuine Collaborator in Every Sense of the Term 

Maybe the most important thing to look for when choosing a downtime tracking solution partner has to do with their perspective about your relationship in general. You don’t need someone who is going to come in, offer you a generic solution and say “here, we’ve done our part, good luck.” You need someone who is ready to work with your business to build the best downtime tracking experience possible, regardless of what that looks like within the context of your business. 

Case in point: at Thrive, we only build things into our solution because our customers expressly ask for it. We never add something simply because it’s cool or flashy, or because we think the market needs it. 

Everyone in the industry is going in the same, complex direction. They’re adding more features, more functionality, more pointless automation – you name it. Because we actually listen to and collaborate with our customers, we’re actually going in the opposite direction at Thrive. We only build what you tell us to and we’re focused on creating something that allows you not to replace your workforce, but make the most out of them. 

Not Just an Easy Solution, But Effortless 

Another one of the major things to look for in a downtime tracking partner ultimately has to do with the level of support they’re willing to offer long after that initial purchase is made. 

At Thrive, it’s absolutely true that we’re always available to answer your questions about how our solution works – but honestly, we don’t think we’re going to get to that point. We purposely don’t offer training of any kind because we built our solution from the top down to be so easy that anyone can do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about someone who has been with your business for years or who just walked in the door for the first time last week – they’ll be able to pick right up and get to work like an old pro. 

Other companies design software that is intentionally confusing and cumbersome so that they can sell you support services later – and that’s just now how we’ve ever done things and we’re certainly not going to start. If we have to train you on how to use our software, we believe that means we didn’t build it right to begin with. 

If you’d like to find out more information about what to look for in a downtime tracking solutions partner, or if you’d just like to learn more about our own downtime tracking and OEE management software to see more about what it can do, please don’t delay – contact Thrive today. 

  

 

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The Long-Term Benefits of Implementing a Downtime Tracking Solution   

Believe it or not, there are still people who are skeptical as to the value of downtime tracking software. “I know whether or not my equipment is running,” they say to themselves. “I have eyes. What do I need that type of tool for?” 

Yes, downtime tracking is a great way to provide real-time equipment performance tracking. But the long-term benefits are so much greater than that – especially as your business continues to grow and expand in the future. 

The Major Advantages of Downtime Tracking: Your Overview 

Possibly the biggest long-term benefit of implementing a downtime tracking solution has to do with how you’re never more than a few quick mouse clicks away from a total road map of all equipment performance across your business. It’s so simple to compile this information that you can easily do so right before your morning meeting as you’re still having that fresh cup of coffee. 

But this is about more than just convenience, of course. If you know exactly how your equipment is performing (and can compare the current status to historical data), you can identify poor performing equipment almost instantly. Then, you can hand that insight off to your maintenance team so that they can prioritize their own activities throughout the day in a more efficient way. You can see how minor and even major actions will impact production, thus informing your maintenance team about what is a high priority for the day and what can be pushed off down the road a bit. 

Speaking of historical data, this is another one of the most significant long-term advantages of implementing a downtime tracking solution like Thrive – it actually gets more invaluable and more insightful the longer you use it. 

With historical performance charts, you can track your equipment’s performance by individual machines or by entire lines over a period of days, weeks, months or even years. This is a great way to see how your overall equipment effectiveness changes over time. You can also see the results of actions you’re taking in the present day and watch as your entire business trends towards reduced downtime and increased efficiency. 

Plus, with company-wide reporting, you can manage multiple locations within the same business from the Thrive dashboard – even if they’re all spread out across the country or even the state. You can easily compare lines that produce the same product to find plants that can accept more volume, as well as quickly identify those that are underperforming. Are you looking at a situation where one plant needs a bit more training? Is it simply a matter of people being forced to make do with outdated technology that could easily be upgraded? Do you need more standardized practices to keep things running smoothly? 

A downtime tracking solution can help you answer all of these questions and more, which is why this is one investment that is absolutely worth making for your business. 

If you’d like to find out more information about the undeniable long-term benefits of implementing a downtime tracking solution, or if you’d just like to discuss your own needs as a business with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay - contact Thrive today. 

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Why Thrive Tracks Planned Downtime Events Separately   

One of the most important things to understand about downtime events is that not all instances are created equally. Yes, if a critical piece of equipment suddenly breaks and grinds production to a halt, that’s a problem. But something as simple as a shift change is a downtime event, too – albeit a planned one. 

At Thrive, our innovative downtime management solution actually tracks these events separately from those unplanned outages. We do this for a number of important reasons, all of which are worth exploring. 

Diving Deep Into Planned Downtime Events 

Maybe the biggest reason why Thrive tracks planned downtime events separately from unplanned instances has to do with their very nature – planned events are obviously something that you know about in advance (and therefore have a much higher level of control over), whereas that isn’t true with unplanned downtimes. 

Unplanned downtimes are when you suddenly find yourself with a problem on your hands that you really can’t explain. The information you need to make the most out of that experience – to fix the issue and mitigate risk – falls into an entirely different category than something like a line change over for obvious reasons. 

But that doesn’t mean your current planned downtime figures have to simply be a “cost of doing business” or a “necessary evil” – far from it, and Thrive can help to that end, too. 

Because Thrive makes it a point to track planned downtime events separately, you can set an individual goal time for each reason. You can specify that your next line change over should only take a certain number of minutes, for example, based on similar experiences you’ve had in the past. 

Then, if that event exceeds that goal time, your equipment operators have an opportunity to assign a reason for the delay. They can tell you exactly what the issue was in a way that helps you fix it, thus allowing that next planned downtime event to execute even faster as a result. 

Likewise, tracking planned downtime separately allows you to answer a number of important questions – especially if all similar change overs aren’t happening at the exact same pace, as logic dictates that they would. Only Thrive provides you with this deep level of insight that can help you not only analyze the changeover process to identify and capitalize on opportunities for improvement, but that can also help you create standardized processes to ultimately reduce planned downtimes across the board. 

Even if the issue is something as simple as all breaks aren’t ending on time, seeing this level of data – especially in a highly visual and intuitive way through the Thrive dashboard – helps to build a culture of both ownership and accountability that will serve your business well for years to come. 

If you’re interested in learning more about why Thrive tracks planned downtime events separately from those unexpected outages, or if you have any additional questions that you’d like to go over with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay - contact us today. 

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Why a Cloud-Based Downtime Tracking Solution Matters So Much in the Modern Era   

Although cloud-based computing has become enormously popular in our personal lives over the last decade, there are still some businesses who are slow to adopt these advancements in the context of their professional lives. “I already have a solution that tells me what I need to know,” they say to themselves. “It’s right there on the computer in my office. Why do I need to take that into the cloud?” 

Well, for a lot of reasons, actually. 

In no uncertain terms – a cloud-based downtime tracking solution isn’t just important for a business like yours in the modern era. 

It’s absolutely crucial for a number of distinct reasons, all of which are more than worth exploring. 

The Impact of the Cloud on the Modern Business: Breaking Things Down 

By far, the most important advantage that a cloud-based downtime tracking solution like Thrive brings to the table has to do with how easy it is to access the important information you need to work smarter, not harder on a daily basis. 

Think about it like this: Thrive’s innovative dashboards are already designed to empower the way you like to work, regardless of what shape that happens to take. If you’re too busy to log into a terminal for detailed reporting because you want to get out on the shop floor as fast as you can, don’t worry – the daily downtime digest is built to summarize all activity you need to know in a way that is automatically put front and center. 

So not only is the dashboard itself inherently powerful in that it gives you easy access to the type of trends and patterns that would have otherwise gone undiscovered… but thanks to the fact that it’s all cloud-based, you can get that information from literally anywhere. 

Are you on the other side of your facility, far away from the desktop computer in your office? Don’t worry – you can pull up the exact same information on your tablet. Are you taking half a day off at work but still want to check in to make sure that things are going smoothly from home? You can have all the same information in a matter of seconds, right from your smartphone. 

Because Thrive is based on the cloud, you can get detailed insights from literally any device on Earth with an active Internet connection – including from any location, too. At any given moment, you’re never more than a few seconds away from all the detailed, real-time reporting on overall equipment effectiveness that you need, and that is just something you’re not going to be able to achieve if everything is still hosted on-premise like the “old school” way of doing things. 

If you’d like to find out more information about why cloud-based downtime tracking solutions matter so much in the modern era, or if you’d just like to discuss the specifics of your own business with someone in more detail, please feel free to contact us at Thrive today. 

 

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You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure: Why Automated Production Reporting is Critical   

At its core, downtime tracking is about providing you with the insight you need to make the best and most informed decisions possible, no matter what. While a lot of businesses have been embracing downtime tracking for years, so many of them still insist on doing things “the old fashioned way” – meaning manually, by hand, or at best using a generic program that was never really designed for that purpose in the first place. 

Not only is this a mistake… but this also puts your business at a significant disadvantage during a time when you probably can’t afford it. 

The Problem With the “Old School” Approach to Downtime Production Reporting 

If you want to put yourself in a position where you always know the efficiency of your entire production line, there are a massive number of things that you need to start tracking immediately. Shift start and end times. Efficiency percentages. The number of finished goods that were produced versus the number scheduled. The overall downtime for each piece of equipment. The list goes on and on. 

But once you start collecting that data, you also need a way to store it. If you’re still doing things “the old-fashioned way,” you’re probably doing it by way of an Excel spreadsheet or similar resource. With so many moving parts and with conditions changing almost constantly, simply keeping track of all this can quickly become a full-time job – which is a problem, since you already have one of those monopolizing the majority of your time. 

Then, you need to be prepared to dive beneath the data itself – uncovering the true story hidden underneath. This means wading through those spreadsheets to try to figure out how efficiently your line is producing each product. This means adjusting the efficiency calculation to take into consideration changes that you’ve made to employees or other resources. This means figuring out the cause, length, and frequency of downtime events, all in the name of uncovering your biggest source of downtime as quickly as possible. 

If all of this sounds equal parts time-consuming and frustrating… that’s largely because it is. But the good news is that with an automated downtime tracking solution like Thrive, this ISN’T the way it has to be any longer. 

The Power of Automated Reporting: A Brave New World 

Thrive’s innovative algorithm takes the data your production lines are already creating to uncover real-time visibility in a matter of minutes. You can see the impact on uptime and production that each downtime event will have if you proactively fix it, all before you ever actually do anything. Not only can you uncover the types of insights you need to prioritize equipment maintenance, equipment purchases and other actionable steps by their expected results, but you can do so IMMEDIATELY. 

All of this segues into the most important benefit of all in terms of automated reporting: it frees up as much of your valuable time as possible so that you can focus on those matters that really need you. 

If you’d like to find out more information about why automated production reporting is critical to your continued success as an organization, or if you just have any additional questions that you’d like to go over with someone in a bit more detail, please don’t delay - contact Thrive today.