Availability Categories

Global, color-coded labels used by States Mapping and Planned Stops to classify time as productive, planned downtime, or unplanned stop.

An Availability Category is a labelled, color-coded bucket that classifies time. Categories are managed under OEE → Availability and are global — every Site, every Equipment, every State Mapping and every Planned Stop chooses from the same list.

Availability Categories — global list showing Name, Category Type, and Description for each category; default categories are marked with a "Default" badge

Used by	Where
States Mapping	Maps a raw equipment-state value (Running, Stopped, Idle, …) to a category.
Planned Stops	Tags every recurring planned stop with a PlannedStop-typed category.
Stop Causes	Classifies each stop reason as Planned, Unplanned, etc.

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The Availability Categories page

The page is a single grid with the standard Add / Edit / Delete / Refresh toolbar. Add / Edit / Delete are only visible to users in the Contributor or Administrator role; all authenticated users can view the list.

Column	Notes
Color	The color used to mark the category wherever it appears (state grids, scheduler, dashboards).
Name	Display name; must be unique globally (case-insensitive).
Category Type	One of the four built-in types — see below.
Description	Free-text.

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Category Types

Every category has exactly one type, which controls how the category contributes to the OEE calculation:

Type	Meaning	Effect on Availability
Running	Equipment is producing units.	Counts as productive time. Increases Availability.
Idle	Scheduled time when the equipment should be producing but isn’t — typical examples: no orders queued, operator pressed stop, line starvation, blocked downstream.	Counts against Performance, not Availability. The equipment was scheduled to run and didn’t, so the gap shows up as a speed loss in the score, not as downtime.
Planned Stop	Known, scheduled downtime — changeovers, sanitation, maintenance, breaks.	Excluded from scheduled time entirely; does not count against Availability.
Unplanned Stop	Faults, breakdowns, jams.	Counts as scheduled time but not productive — Availability loss.

You can create as many categories of each type as you like — for example, two Unplanned Stop categories called Mechanical Fault and Electrical Fault to color-code different failure modes on dashboards. The score effect is determined by the type; the name is purely for reporting and color-coding.

Pre-seeded default categories (one per type) are created when OEE is first enabled. You can rename and recolor them, but they can't be deleted — so every State Mapping and Planned Stop always has at least one category of each type to choose from.

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Add a category

1. Choose Add in the toolbar.

2. Fill in the dialog:

Edit Availability Category dialog — Name, Description, Category Type, and Color picker

Field	Required	Notes
Name	Yes	Unique globally (case-insensitive). The dialog enforces this — you’ll see "An availability category with this name already exists" if you try to reuse a name.
Description	No	Free-text.
Category Type	Yes	One of Running / Idle / Planned Stop / Unplanned Stop.
Color	Yes	Pick from the basic palette or open the gradient picker for a custom hex value. New categories default to a green (#22b14c); change it to something distinct so the category is recognizable in the scheduler.

1. Choose Save.

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Edit a category

Select the row and choose Edit, or double-click. The same dialog opens pre-populated.

• Renaming, recoloring, or changing the description is safe — references update everywhere.

• Changing the Category Type is allowed, but do it deliberately — the type controls how time in this category counts toward the OEE score. Time already recorded keeps its original classification; only data collected after the change uses the new type.

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Delete a category

Select the row and choose Delete. The platform does not allow deleting a category that is currently referenced by a State Mapping or a Planned Stop — re-target those references at a different category first.

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Recommended starter set

For a typical packaging or processing line, the following baseline covers most situations:

Type	Name	Color
Running	Running	green
Unplanned Stop	Unplanned Stop	red
Planned Stop	Planned Stop	blue
Idle	Idle	grey

Add per-failure-mode categories (Material Jam, Mechanical Fault, Electrical Fault, Sensor Fault, …) only when you actually plan to color-code them on dashboards. Too many categories quickly become noise.