Ten past six on a Tuesday morning: the line is down on an alarm nobody has ever seen, and the only person who truly knew the plant retired last March. Rounds of phone calls, favours called in, and eventually everything points to one damaged part. The spare can still be found — but only refurbished, and in Germany. Two options: twelve weeks for delivery with the line at a standstill, or a ten-hour drive, a 50% premium and two stressed, unhappy employees. The original supplier, when asked, washed their hands of it: that version is no longer supported, and the only solution is to buy the new model or install a new line.
What does unplanned downtime really cost?
According to ABB’s “Value of Reliability” survey of more than 3,200 maintenance decision-makers, the cross-industry median is around $125,000 per hour, and two out of three companies suffer at least one unplanned outage per month (here). Siemens’ “True Cost of Downtime 2024” report estimates that for the world’s 500 largest companies, unplanned downtime is worth 11% of annual revenues (here). None of this comes out of nowhere: obsolescence sends no polite warnings — it builds up in silence, one discontinued component at a time.
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