Introduction
This guide focuses on stop reason management. Stop reasons help categorize and analyse production downtime, enabling teams to understand the root causes of inefficiencies. The OEE waterfall is the most convenient and effective visual representation for identifying our time losses, categorized according to the stop groups we have defined. By structuring stop reporting in this way, we can clearly see where improvements are needed to achieve the goal of improving OEE.
What is stop reasons, when do we use it and why?
In every manufacturing environment, production lines experience interruptions. These interruptions, or stops, can be either planned (such as changeovers, cleaning, or preventive maintenance) or unplanned (such as breakdowns, material shortages, or quality issues).
Stop Reasons are the standardized categories used to record and explain why a machine or line is not running. By assigning a clear reason to each stop, organizations create visibility into production losses and enable fact-based decision making.
Recording these events consistently allows teams to:
Understand where and why downtime occurs.
Distinguish between planned and unplanned losses.
Compare each activity against its target or standard time, to evaluate performance gaps.
Identify recurring problems and their root causes.
Prioritize corrective actions that will have the greatest impact on performance.
Managing Stop Reasons effectively is essential for accurate OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) measurement, continuous improvement initiatives, and performance management. Without it, downtime remains hidden or misclassified, making it difficult to drive sustainable efficiency gains.
Standard OEE Waterfall
A standard OEE waterfall shows the defined stop groups as a visual representation. It provides a clear, structured breakdown of production losses and efficiency. It typically starts with availability, showing planned versus unplanned downtime, followed by performance, highlighting slow cycles or minor stops, and finally quality, indicating rejects or defects. Each category is well-defined and sufficiently large to show meaningful trends. The visualization is clean and easy to interpret, helping teams focus on the problem itself rather than assigning blame, and enabling data-driven improvement actions.
Here is a standard OEE waterfall, built as we described above. It clearly shows the stop groups, categorized and visualized in a structured way, making it easy to identify the main sources of time loss and where improvement actions should be focused.
After seeing the standard way to view our stops, here is an example of an non-standard OEE waterfall, which makes it harder to understand downtime, identify root causes, and take effective improvement actions.
Groups are too small – the chart becomes noisy and hard to interpret.
Unclear problem from the group title – it is not obvious why the machine did not operate as expected during this time (e.g., system, operation).
Focus on the responsible party instead of the problem itself – shifts attention away from improvement.
No separation between planned and unplanned time – it is unclear where to focus, which issues have the greatest impact on performance, and which corrective actions are most relevant.
Stop Reasons Customization
The following screen allows you to manage and customize stop reasons used in your production environment.
Stops groups (such as Set Up, Cleaning, Breaks, Breakdowns, Waiting) help organize different types of downtime.
Within each group, you can add specific stop reasons to capture detailed information about production interruptions.
Web > Settings > Stop Reasons Customization
We recommend working with the following standard stop groups to ensure consistent reporting and accurate OEE analysis:
Not Scheduled – time when the line is not planned to produce (for example: weekends, holidays, R&D activities).
Setup - planned stops required to prepare the line for a new product, format, or recipe.
Cleaning - planned downtime for sanitation, CIP (clean-in-place) etc.
Breaks - scheduled operator breaks (such as lunch, safety training etc.).
Breakdowns – unplanned stops caused by equipment or machine failures.
Waiting – unplanned downtime due to missing materials, tools, or labor.
Preventive Maintenance – planned downtime for routine maintenance and inspections to prevent equipment failures.
how to add group?
To create a new stop group, click “Add group”. A window will open on the right side of the screen where you can define the group’s details:
Planned or Unplanned – select whether this stop group represents planned time (e.g., cleaning, changeovers) or unplanned time (e.g., breakdowns, material shortages).
Color – choose a color to easily identify the group in reports and dashboards.
Target – set a benchmark or standard time for this group, so actual stop durations can be compared against it.
Machines scope – decide whether this stop group applies to all machines or only to specific machines.
Once saved, the group will appear in the Stop Events list, and you can start adding detailed stop reasons under it.
How to add a new reason to the group?
To add a stop reason within a stop group, simply go to the relevant stop group and click the “+ Add stop reason” button at the top of that group.
a new panel will open on the right side of the screen. In this panel, you can fill in the following fields:
Select the work type: manual work, downtime, or idle.
You can assign a unique color or icon to the stop reason (optional).
Choose whether to apply the stop reason to all machines or only to some of them.
How to search?
To search for a specific stop reason, simply click the search button (magnifying glass) on the right side of the screen and type in the requested stop reason.
How to filter active groups only?
To filter for active stop groups only, click the filter icon on the right side of the screen.
In the panel that opens on the right, under the Active Groups field, select ACTIVE only.
Stop Events Groups Targets
You can set a target for each stop group. This target will helps us determine whether the actual duration met the standard and whether any improvement actions are needed.
To set a target for a stop group, just click on the desired stop group. In the panel that opens on the right, under the Target field, enter the desired target as a percentage. When finished, click the Save button.
How to report a stop event?
Reporting Stop Event Reasons via the Operator App
How to add the reason for a logged stop event through the Op app running on the tablet
Why do so?
Knowing the reason for stop events is important for production analysis and future planning. Reporting the reason can be done either in real-time, as explained next and in the following sections, or retroactively (this is explained in a separate article).
Best practice: report the stop event when it happens
Stop events trigger a change in the machine/production line dashboard to present the options for reporting the reason (either as buttons or as tiles--you can change the display per your preference).
The current event will be selected by default in the events panel. If the stop reason you're about to report applies to additional stop events, select them too since that will be most efficient.
Tip: There are two event panel views to choose from per your personal preference. The line view's advantage is that you can see more events at once and also see a proportionate time representation of the stop events (red) and the working time (green) duration. Select events there by tapping their node.If there's a comment to add, tap the Add comment control to enter the comment that will be submitted with this event reason reporting.
Select the stop reason from the applicable event group.
Tip: You can use the search box to quickly locate the event group and reason.If you're prompted to add a comment, you can add information that will help others investigate this event.
Tap SUBMIT to save this comment, or tab X to close the dialog without entering anything.A 'Success' confirmation will appear briefly, and the stop event will now have its reason shown in the event panel.
Use the Reported stop event widget
If you haven't reported the stop event reason when it happened, it's recommended to use the Reported stop event widget.
In the Reported stop event widget tap REPORT.
The events panel will be filtered automatically to show unreported stop events. Select the event(s) to which you need to apply the stop reason.
If there's a comment to add, tap the Add comment control to enter the comment that will be submitted with this event reason reporting.
Select the stop reason from the applicable event group.
Tip: You can use the search box to quickly locate the event group and reason.Following the success message, the widget will update its data with the current information of how many minutes of the stop events are now accounted for with a reason. The progress bar indicates this proportionally.
When all stop events have been reported the progress bar will be filled completely and the percentage will be 100%.
Retroactive reporting of stop events
Split events retroactively for accurate fine-tuning of logged stop events' reported reasons.
For example, you left for a planned break, but when you returned the machine wouldn't start up because of a broken part. So after the planned break the machine was inactive due to pending maintenance.
If you don't split the planned break event to report how much time the machine was stalled for each reason, valuable information is lost.
When splitting events retroactively, you first split the event and then report its stop reason.
The retroactive reporting option is available in two places:
Machine's Events tab
Reporting Stop events page
Machine Events tab
Open the machine page, for example from the Online dashboard or a Shift component.
Click the Events tab.
From the list of events, select the check box of the stop event you need to split.
Click the Split Event Retroactively control, which is now active.
(If it is not active, check that you haven't selected multiple events.)In the Split Event Retroactively dialog:
Click within the Split Time field to open the calendar widget. Select the split date and then select the split time.
Click Save to apply the split and close the dialog.
The split event is now added to the top of the Events list with the event group and event reason of the originating event. Select it and click the Report Stop Event control to apply the correct event group and event reason.
Reporting Stop events page
Go to Production > Reporting Stop events.
(optional) Clear the current shift filter and apply search criteria to quickly locate the event you want to split.
From the list of events, select the check box of the stop event you need to split.
Click the Split Event Retroactively control, which is now active.
(If it is not active, check that you haven't selected multiple events.)In the Split Event Retroactively dialog:
Click within the Split Time field to open the calendar widget. Select the split date and then select the split time.
Click Save to apply the split and close the dialog.
The split event is now added to the list of events with the event group and event reason of the originating event. Select it and click the Report Stop Event control to apply the correct event group and event reason.
If the machine was not configured to allow performing actions on setup events, you will get this message. These permissions need to be enabled in order to report reasons for setup events.