What does one hour of downtime cost your organization? If you’re a C-Suite executive, our 2nd Annual State of Industrial DevOps Report shows your answer is likely around $4.29 million. If you’re a manager on the plant floor, your estimate is closer to $2.8 million.
That 50% "perception gap" is one of the most critical findings in this year's report. It reveals a fundamental misalignment between leadership and operations on the scale, cause, and strategic impact of downtime—a disconnect that can undermine investment and paralyze progress.
- Industrial Code: The Common Culprit
While the perceived cost of downtime varies, the data points to a common culprit. A staggering 45% of all downtime is attributed to issues with industrial code. For the largest enterprises (over $15B in revenue), that number skyrockets to 66%.
Complexity is crippling large organizations. As the number of PLCs and connected devices grows, the likelihood of code-related failures, version conflicts, and debugging delays increases exponentially. Senior leaders see this systemic risk clearly, attributing 52% of downtime to code, while managers, focused on more immediate issues, cite it only 30% of the time.
- Cybersecurity Remains the #1 Threat
For the second year in a row, cybersecurity breaches are tied as the #1 cause of unplanned downtime (43%). Yet again, the perception gap is stark: C-Suite executives rank it as a top cause (45%), while managers place it far lower on their list of concerns (22%), prioritizing hardware failure and human error instead. This exposes a potential blind spot in organizational defense, as leaders invest in strategies that frontline teams may not be equipped to implement.
- The Hidden Cost of "Quick Fixes"
In the race to get lines running again, 81% of organizations report that ad hoc, "quick fixes" to code are common. While a remarkable 91% of teams claim they follow up to implement a permanent solution, the high rates of downtime, debugging time (48 hrs/month), and time spent on cyber remediation tell a different story. These quick fixes often create technical debt, compounding complexity and masking root causes, ensuring that the same problems will inevitably resurface.
The problem is clear: downtime is a multi-million dollar issue, and the teams responsible for fixing it aren't aligned on its cause or cost. This problem is only getting bigger as the plant floor itself becomes a hyper-connected, intelligent ecosystem.
Download the full report now by clicking here.
Next up, we’ll explore how AI and cybersecurity are redefining the plant floor, creating a paradox of high confidence and hidden risk.
