Published date: 28 November 2025- Author: Louise Simpson
Published date: 28 November 2025
Author: Louise SimpsonUnplanned downtime is still one of the costliest problems in manufacturing. It’s estimated to drain more than £80 billion every year from British and European manufacturers, while costing Australian businesses almost $349,000 per hour.
Rising inflation, volatile energy prices and production lines running at higher capacities are pushing those figures even higher across other global markets.
In this high-pressure, margin-squeezing climate, manufacturers are seeking new ways to improve uptime — often turning to enterprise asset management (EAM) software and cloud-based CMMS solutions to protect productivity. We have put together our top 10 considerations for using these technologies to improve your processes and increase uptime:
1. Effective Maintenance of Equipment
Keeping equipment well-maintained is still the single biggest defence against unplanned downtime. Regular inspections and routine maintenance work remain critical to preventing component wear and failures.
Forward-looking manufacturers are also carrying out energy efficiency and cybersecurity checks (such as patching and network segmentation) as part of this maintenance, as rising energy prices and cyber threats can impact production.
Agility supports manufacturers by scheduling and tracking maintenance tasks across all these dimensions, helping teams cut breakdowns.
2. Analysing Downtime
Understanding the causes and costs of downtime is essential to improve your uptime and profitability. By analysing unplanned stoppages, manufacturers can identify patterns, calculate overall equipment effectiveness and make targeted improvements.
In 2026, manufacturers are placing even more emphasis on real-time analytics and automated reporting, moving away from static spreadsheets to gain faster insights and drive continuous improvement.
Agility transforms manual reporting into automated analytics with customisable dashboards and real-time alerts. Our CMMS software for manufacturing enables teams to track trends, measure equipment effectiveness and make quick, data-driven decisions that extend asset lifecycles and increase profitability.
3. Preventative Maintenance/Scheduled Maintenance
Implementing a robust preventive maintenance plan is one of the most effective ways to improve uptime. A solid plan should capture your complete asset inventory, maintenance history and clear KPIs aligned to business goals.
In 2026, manufacturers are strengthening these plans with data-driven scheduling and regulatory-ready documentation, ensuring that tasks are optimised for production demands and that maintenance records support regulatory reporting requirements.
Agility makes preventive planning straightforward by enabling teams to create and manage schedules and allocate resources. As a cloud maintenance management platform, it keeps plans visible across departments, helping organisations reduce unplanned breakdowns, control costs and stay audit-ready.
4. Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance uses real-time condition data to anticipate issues before they lead to unplanned downtime. By integrating sensors and connected devices to track variables such as vibration, temperature or load, manufacturers can identify anomalies and schedule maintenance at the optimal moment — reducing unexpected failures.
The next step for leading manufacturers is to accelerate the adoption of AI-driven analytics and secure IoT networks, using machine learning models to detect patterns faster while protecting sensitive operational data in line with new cybersecurity requirements such as NIS2. This approach prevents costly stoppages and also generates the data trails needed for sustainability and regulatory reporting.
Agility integrates seamlessly with IoT devices and external business systems, centralising live asset data and turning it into actionable insights. Teams can use our EAM maintenance software to trigger predictive tasks, analyse trends and plan interventions — keeping productivity high and unplanned downtime to a minimum.
5. Maintaining your Spare Parts Inventory
Even the best maintenance plan can grind to a halt if the right component isn’t available when it’s needed. Delays in sourcing a single bearing or sensor can ripple through production schedules and inflate downtime costs.
To avoid these knock-on effects, market-leading manufacturers are adopting real-time inventory monitoring, automated re-ordering and multi-sourcing strategies to stay ahead of potential supply chain disruptions. Many are also recording detailed part histories to meet emerging traceability requirements such as the EU’s Digital Product Passport.
Agility simplifies spare parts management by tracking stock levels, issuing and returning parts, and automatically creating purchase orders when thresholds are reached. Using our asset management and maintenance software ensures critical spares are on hand, repair times stay short, and maintenance records are accurate and complete.
6. Equipment Upgrades and Modernisation
When a line repeatedly breaks down or requires regular part changes, it may be more cost-effective to upgrade or replace equipment rather than continue patching it up.
Forward-looking manufacturers are using asset management data to validate repair versus upgrade decisions. New machinery designed for lower power consumption, secure connectivity and data traceability helps reduce downtime costs while helping to meet sustainability and efficiency goals.
Agility gives maintenance teams the insight to make these calls with confidence. Asset performance data, breakdown history and lifecycle costs are all captured in one enterprise asset management system, helping organisations identify underperforming assets and plan replacements to boost uptime and control total cost of ownership.
7. Benchmarking
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Benchmarking reveals how your plant performs against peers, industry standards and internal targets, highlighting where uptime, cost or productivity fall short.
In 2026, smart manufacturers are using benchmarking to sharpen maintenance labour planning, spare parts strategies and machine utilisation targets. Comparing metrics such as work order completion times, mean time between failures, and technician productivity helps teams set realistic targets and replicate best practices.
Agility streamlines benchmarking by centralising your maintenance and performance data, enabling teams to create custom reports, set targets and track progress towards goals. Gaining these insights will guide your strategic maintenance investments and supports continuous improvement across the plant.
8. Regular Audits
Small oversights can hide in plain sight until they trigger a stoppage or safety incident. A disciplined audit routine can bring weak spots to light — whether it’s a skipped maintenance step, an out-of-date record or a process that’s drifted off spec.
To reduce everyday errors, manufacturers are broadening audits to cover product quality, safety practices, workforce training and maintenance compliance, turning what was once just a regulatory requirement into a powerful improvement tool. Insights from these reviews feed directly into continuous improvement programmes and help extend equipment life.
Agility ensures manufacturers are always audit-ready by consolidating maintenance histories and inspection results, making it easy to schedule audits, track findings and demonstrate compliance to regulators, colleagues or customers.
9. Invest in Technology
Choosing the right technology can make the difference between reacting to breakdowns and preventing them altogether. From condition-monitoring sensors to cloud-based asset management, modern tools give maintenance teams instant visibility of asset health and performance.
Manufacturers across EMEA and beyond are increasingly adopting EAM solutions with AI-powered analytics, mobile work management and connected worker platforms to accelerate decision-making and cut response times. These tools not only improve uptime; they also create the data foundation for future innovations and reporting needs.
Agility fits seamlessly into this technology stack, integrating with sensors, IoT devices, and other business systems to centralise live data and turn it into actionable maintenance plans.
10. Continuous Improvement
When operators, engineers and managers are encouraged to question routines, share observations and suggest changes, small daily changes add up to significant gains in uptime and efficiency.
Leading manufacturers nurture this mindset by recognising employee ideas, using data to validate improvements and celebrating quick wins that build momentum. The goal is to make improvement an ongoing habit.
Agility supports this improvement culture by providing clear performance data and feedback loops, helping teams track the impact of initiatives.
Ready to Increase Uptime and Improve Performance?
Reducing downtime isn’t a one-off project; it’s a continuous commitment to smart maintenance, accurate data and a culture of improvement. Manufacturers that combine these fundamentals with modern tools such as enterprise asset management software and a manufacturing CMMS system are best placed to promote productivity and stay competitive.
Get in touch to see how our EAM/CMMS software can help you plan, track and optimise every aspect of your asset management, maximising uptime.