Frequently Asked Questions
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When can I access my information?
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The database is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except for system maintance times.
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Will I receive software upgrades?
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Our subscription service includes all software upgrades. For example when a new or upgraded report
is available, you as a subscriber will have access to it as soon as it is ready. The only exception is for customized reports, that are paid for by individual companies and will not be available for the all users.
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What reports are available?
After setting up your database and entering data for a couple of shifts, you can start viewing the reports. We have the following reports:
- Daily and Weekly Reports: summarize the information for the day, shift, and week.
- Downtime Category Reports: these provide pie charts and bar charts of the total downtime by category (you define the downtime categories during the database set-up)
- Production Downtime Reports: these reports show you which products generate more machine problems and more machine downtime
- Performance Analysis Reports: that show a comparison of the performance of the different shifts.
- Financial Reports: these reports provide you with an estimate of the total cost of downtime per machine (these reports are restricted to Database Administrators)
To start using these reports register for our free service and track the downtime of 1 machine absolutely free.
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Can I have different users?
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Yes. downtimeDB.com allows you to create different users. There are two types of login types: Administrators (Admin) or Users. The Administrators will have access to edit/add historical data, view financial reports, and modify the database parameters (add/delete machines, add/delete downtime categories, add/delete Regular Users, etc.). On the other hand, the Regular Users are limited to adding/editing recent data (not older than 2 days) and print non-financial reports.
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Who can use downtimeDB.com?
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Some of the users that can benefit from our system include Production Supervisors, Production Managers, Maintenance Supervisors, Maintenance Managers, Operations Managers, and Machine Operators. Everyone who is interested in improving performance.
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Why give access to the system for free?
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Most of our clients are using manual or spreadsheet-based downtime tracking systems. These systems are so difficult to manage that most downtime information is never used or it takes a significant amount of time and effort. We believe that by trying our downtime tracking application you will be able to see its usefulness and experience how much time it will save you and your organization.
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What browser can I use?
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We recommend Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
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What information do I need to provide to set-up the database?
When you set-up your database you need to provide:
- Production Area: this parameter helps by including machines from the same area in the same report
- Machine Types: this parameter is needed because similar machines will use the same downtime categories.
- Machines: you will also enter the name, number of employees, and average labor rate for each machine you decide to include in the downtime database.
- Downtime categories: this is where you define how you want your data to be grouped. Some examples of downtime categories include: meeting, scheduled down, loading station, waiting for repair, and down for preventive maintenance. It is one of the most important parts of the system, so take your time to define what is the most important categories will be for each machine type.
- Shifts: this is a simple definition of how many shifts your operation works. By default you will have three shifts: 1, 2, and 3.
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What information do I need to provide every shift?
downtimeDB.com is designed to collect information for each shift. At the end of every production shift you or your operator in charge of entering data can log-in and enter the following three parameters from drop a drop down menu: date, shift, machine.
Then, the system prompts for a Work Order number, a Product number, the Net Units produced during the shift, the Rejected or scraped units during the shift, and the Machine Speed.
Finally, the system allows you (or your designee) to enter each machine downtime event that occurred during the shift. For each downtime event, the following information is needed: Downtime Category, Cause of downtime, Downtime (in minutes), Corrective Action, and a field for the name of the production operator/mechanic that performed the corrective action.
This might seem like a lot of data, but we have desinged a special downtime collection form to allow your machine operators to keep track of the downtime events and to enter the data at the end of the shift.
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Is my data secure?
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downtimeDB.com uses basic security to protect your data. All database files are located in a secure directory. If you are concerned about data security, we provide the same database application installed on your own Intranet. To inquire about this option please email us at support@downtimedb.com
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How do I pay for the service?
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Currently downtimeDB.com accepts only credit cards. We selected PayPal.com as the credit card processor for our services.
When you sign up for our subscription, you select a monthly or annual subscription. Then, every month or every year your credit card will be charged the subscription fee.
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Why use PayPal.com?
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In order to keep our services priced at reasonable levels, we have outsourced our payment processing functions.
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Is PayPal.com secure?
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PayPal will maintain all your information private and uses SSL technology to keep your information safe. Links to PayPal's policies are: privacy policy and security policy.
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Is there a database in Spanish or other Languages?
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Currently we only offer the database in English, but we are evaluation the option of expanding it to different languages. Please send us your suggestion at support@downtimedb.com
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If this is version 2.X what can we expect from version 3.0?
This version 2.X of our downtime database. We are evaluating many upgrades and will become available to our users as soon as they are complete. Among those improvements we can mention:
- Improved printer-friendliness of our reports and charts
- Improved security for your data
- Options to download data (so you can create your own reports and charts)
- Additional algorithms to analyze your downtime information
- More efficient data entry/edit/delete commands for slower internet connections
- And others….
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Will my browser support your charts?
Below is a sample line chart.
If you cannot see the chart above then your browser's java engine needs to be updated. You can visit: http://java.sun.com/getjava/
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What is the price of downtimedb.com?
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Before we talk about prices, we would like to invite you to use our downtime cost calculator (Click here). After you estimate the cost of one machine or one department, a link to our prices will be available for you to look at.
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