Downtime in high-mix, low-volume manufacturing is more than inconvenient—it’s expensive. It drags on throughput, bottlenecks your floor, and slows your ability to serve customers. When changeovers are frequent and unpredictable, even small inefficiencies can ripple across production. And when your value lies in responsiveness and precision, that risk grows quickly.
The solution isn’t one-size-fits-all. It starts with equipment, runs through process, and depends on leadership.
Understand What Customers Are Actually Paying For
Jay Patel, CEO at Amtech, makes it clear: customers pay for outcomes, not effort.
“Customers want us to build electronics. They don’t pay me to move things around.”
That vision becomes a filter for every decision. Anything that doesn’t contribute directly to delivery or value creation is a cost—whether it’s time, motion, meetings, or misalignment. Downtime isn’t a break. It’s a gap in performance. Knowing what drives value helps identify where to reduce waste and reclaim opportunity.
Changeover Time Adds Up—Fast
In HMLV, frequent changeovers are a fact of life. You’re not producing a single product for years on end. You’re shifting between assemblies, configurations, or customer specs multiple times a week or even daily.
Changeover means switching machines. It means tearing down setups, reprogramming tools, restocking materials, recalibrating quality steps, and aligning documentation. When this happens often and without a structured approach, it quickly becomes a dominant source of lost time.
And unlike high-volume manufacturing, you don’t have months to perfect one setup. Every inefficient transition cuts directly into your ability to produce. The more variability you have, the more strategic you have to be in how you handle the in-between.
Invest in a Tech Stack That Supports Speed
Minimizing downtime starts with selecting tools that are built for fast transitions. This includes equipment that allows you to unplug one setup and plug in another with minimal reconfiguration. But that’s only the beginning.
An effective tech stack also includes:
- Workcells or modular lines designed for quick redeployment
- Digitally linked processes and documentation to eliminate manual adjustments
- Setup templates and presets for common configurations
- Quality systems that adjust with the build rather than needing to be rebuilt
Your digital tools need to support agility, not just automation. If your systems require a half-day of updates every time the job changes, you’re not reducing downtime. You’re just moving it.
Train for Speed and Clarity
Downtime is also a people problem. Even the best tools won’t help if teams don’t know how to execute. But training doesn’t always mean formal or dedicated sessions. It usually means standardizing expectations and building muscle memory.
Changeovers should feel structured, practiced, and purposeful. Like a pit stop, not a scramble.
To make that happen:
- Define what “done” looks like for a changeover
- Practice it with the team, not just once but as a routine
- Identify which roles are responsible for which steps
- Assign ownership for catching slowdowns or inconsistencies
- Make it a visible metric that teams can monitor and improve
Most importantly, create a culture where speed is valued, but precision isn’t sacrificed for it. This balance requires vision from leadership on what’s important and why.
Use Data to Drive Action
You can’t improve what you’re not tracking. Downtime is measurable, and the best teams treat it like any other performance metric.
Start with a simple time study:
- How long does a typical changeover take, start to finish?
- What’s the variance across shifts, products, or teams?
- Where are the slowdowns? Tools? Materials? Communication?
Once you’ve got the data, apply targeted improvements:
- Pre-stage parts or tools
- Set up offline where possible
- Create a checklist or job traveler to guide setup
- Use short debriefs to capture what went wrong (or right)
At Amtech we set up lines offline to avoid dragging live production. That kind of thinking, where setup is treated as its own process, can transform how teams approach downtime.
And don’t wait for perfection. Start small, fix what’s in front of you, and build momentum. You don’t have to solve the entire problem to make a measurable difference.
Strengthen the Leadership Connection
None of this works without leadership. Not because leaders need to manage every step, but because they set the tone for what gets prioritized and how people respond to challenges.
Leadership is what the market expects. Not because it sounds good, but because it’s functional. Customers can sense whether your organization is aligned or scrambling. Your team can too.
The role of leadership in reducing downtime is to:
- Reinforce the vision behind the change
- Create psychological safety for surfacing problems
- Set expectations for standards and follow-through
- Keep the organization focused on execution, not noise
If the leadership team isn’t aligned, changeover improvements become isolated efforts. Teams might optimize locally, but the system remains inefficient. Real change happens when leaders model urgency, eliminate roadblocks, and maintain focus on what actually matters.
Control the Changeover, Control the Outcome
Reducing downtime in HMLV is a layered effort that combines agile tools, disciplined processes, and an organization committed to making every minute count.
It starts with knowing what drives value. Then, it’s a process of building the systems that help you stay focused on delivering that value—faster, more predictably, and with less waste. Changeover time will always be a factor. The question is whether you control it or let it control you.