When a Check Engine Light Taught Me About Hidden Downtime

(and why we all need to #SeeTheMicroStops)

We were on our way south through Missouri after visiting a few customers in Illinois when it happened — that dreaded amber glow on the dash: the check engine light.

Now, I’m not new to RVs. Anyone who’s owned one knows the interior build quality can be hit or miss, regardless of brand. But ours is built on a Freightliner chassis, which I specifically sought out because, well… every third truck on the highway is a Freightliner. That can’t be a coincidence — they have to be reliable.

Yet here we were, less than 10,000 miles in, parked in the Freightliner service bay in Springfield, Missouri.

The moment it clicked

As we waited inside the RV, I couldn’t help but notice what was happening in the service bay.

Our technician, Sean, was working on our vehicle — but every few minutes, another technician would walk up to ask a question, check a detail, or borrow a tool.

Over and over.

It hit me like a spark plug: this is exactly what we help manufacturers solve every day.

Sean wasn’t slow. He wasn’t unskilled.

He was interrupted. Constantly.

What should have been a simple 30-minute repair turned into two hours.

Not because of one big problem — but because of a series of small, invisible ones.

Micro-Stops: the hidden drain on productivity

In manufacturing, we call these small interruptions micro-stops — those tiny, unplanned pauses that no schedule or downtime report ever seems to capture.

They don’t show up as “maintenance” or “setup.” You can’t fudge them into a category. They just quietly steal time.

A minute here, two minutes there — it doesn’t seem like much until you see the data. Then you realize how much production time is evaporating in plain sight.

Sean’s service bay was just another shop floor.

And his 30-minute job took two hours because of the same invisible forces we see in manufacturing every day.

Seeing the invisible

That’s what Machine Tracking is built for.

To help leaders see the micro-stops — the hidden interruptions that rob teams of flow and focus.

When you can visualize them, you can fix them.

When you fix them, you get time back.

And when you give time back, productivity goes up — without adding headcount or new machines.

It’s that simple.

Sean did his job.

But the system around him made it harder than it needed to be.

Imagine if every “Sean” could complete a 30-minute task in 30 minutes.

How much more work could get done in your shop, your service bay, your business?

That’s what we’re here to help with — giving every team the visibility to stay in flow.

Because #MicroStopsAddUp — and it’s time to #SeeTheMicroStops.