Glossary · System coordination, integration and orchestration
Starvation state
Also known as: Starved state, Starvation
German: Materialmangelzustand
In production lines, a starvation state is the condition in which a machine or station is ready to work but idle because it receives no material, parts or workpieces from upstream.
- System integration
In one sentence
A starvation state is when a machine is ready to work but idle because no material or parts arrive from upstream.
Example
The capper reports a starvation state for 40 seconds because the filler upstream stopped to replace a nozzle.
How it applies
- Engineering: Report starvation as its own machine state, distinct from faults. PackML, for example, distinguishes a starved condition from a machine fault; this separation is essential for loss analysis.
- Operation: Starvation time indicates upstream problems or undersized buffers; it is not a loss caused by the starved machine. OEE and loss analysis should attribute it correctly.
- Engineering (software): The term is also used in computing, where a task is starved when it never gets a resource because others always take precedence; see Priority rule.
- Documentation: Document the state indications on the HMI and explain to operators the difference between starved, blocked and faulted, so they look for the cause in the right place.
Starvation vs. upstream blocking
A starved machine has nothing to process because upstream supplies nothing. With Upstream blocking, a machine cannot hand over its output because the downstream side is full, which blocks it and eventually its upstream neighbors. Starvation propagates downstream; blocking propagates upstream.