Who makes the call? Restarting the line faster after unplanned stoppages

A manufacturing plant running multiple shifts kept losing hours after every unplanned line stoppage — not because the team didn't know what to do, but because everyone had a slightly different idea of who was meant to make the call.

Five stoppages, end to end

We looked at five recent stoppages from start to finish — maintenance logs, shift handover notes, and comms between the floor and the shift supervisor — and sat down with the people who were actually there on the night, not just the ones who wrote up the incident report afterwards.

The pattern

It showed up every time. Restart authority sat with whoever happened to be around, not a defined role. Handover notes were inconsistent from shift to shift, so context got lost between teams. And there was no shared picture of what good recovery looks like, so every stoppage played out a bit differently.

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Everyone knew what to do. Nobody agreed on who was meant to make the call.

The report

We handed over a straightforward report ranking the gaps by cost and impact, with the two changes that would've shaved real time off every stoppage we reviewed — and walked the leadership team through it in one session.

The result: a clear restart authority for every shift, and a five-minute handover check that keeps the next crew in the loop from minute one. No new systems, no extra headcount — just less time standing around waiting for a decision.