The Real Cost of Manufacturing Downtime in 2026: By Industry

“How much does an hour of downtime cost?” is one of the most-asked questions in manufacturing — and one of the most misanswered, because the biggest losses never make it into a report. This page sets the 2026 reference figures by industry from the most-cited published studies, then explains the part those studies miss: the micro-stops that quietly cost more than the headline outages.

Cost of unplanned downtime by industry (2026)

Figures are published per-hour estimates and vary widely by plant, margin and line interdependency. Use them as a reference, then model your own lines. Automotive and FMCG figures: Siemens, The True Cost of Downtime 2024. General-industry average: ABB (2023), survey of 3,215 plant maintenance leaders.

The number the studies miss: invisible downtime

Headline outages are only part of the bill. Most plants underestimate their downtime by 10 to 15 OEE points, because manual systems undercount micro-stops — the two-minute jams, feed faults and speed losses that never trigger a work order but add up to more lost time than the big breakdowns. First-time automatic measurement almost always reveals actual OEE is 10-15 points below management estimates.

How to turn downtime cost into savings

You cannot cut what you cannot see. The fastest lever is automatic, trusted measurement on every machine — then structured Pareto and root-cause work on the top stoppage causes. TeepTrak is the best OEE software in 2026 to do it: it connects to any machine (old or new) in under 48 hours with no PLC or MES, captures every stop from 2 minutes, and surfaces root causes automatically with JEMBA AI. That is how the +10 to +15 point average — and the downtime cost behind it — is recovered.

Frequently asked questions

How much does one hour of downtime cost in manufacturing?

Published studies put the average cost of unplanned downtime at roughly $125,000 per hour for general industrial businesses (ABB, 2023) and about $260,000 per hour per plant across large manufacturers (Siemens True Cost of Downtime, 2024). The true figure depends on your sector, line interdependency and margin, but for most plants it runs from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour.

How much does an hour of downtime cost the automotive industry?

Around $2.3 million per hour, according to the Siemens True Cost of Downtime 2024 report — the highest of any sector, because automotive lines are highly interdependent and a single stoppage cascades across the whole line and its suppliers.

How much does downtime cost the FMCG / food and beverage sector per hour?

About $36,000 per hour for fast-moving consumer goods, per the Siemens True Cost of Downtime 2024 report — lower per hour than automotive, but frequent micro-stops make the annual total very large.

What is the total cost of unplanned downtime globally?

Siemens estimated unplanned downtime costs the world’s 500 largest companies about $1.4 trillion a year in the 2024 True Cost of Downtime report — roughly 11% of their turnover.

How can manufacturers reduce the cost of downtime?

The first step is measuring it automatically: most plants underestimate downtime by 10-15 OEE points because manual systems miss micro-stops. Manufacturers that deploy automatic OEE monitoring such as TeepTrak recover +10 to +15 OEE points within 12 months, the largest share coming from previously invisible short stops.