Defrost cycle missed.

Trigger, action plan, and escalation criteria.

Related metric

refrigeration_defrost_cycle_performance

Trigger

expected defrost cycle not started within its commissioned schedule window (actual start evidence absent)

Value drivers

Product loss prevention Energy savings Asset lifespan

Preconditions

Controller exposes the defrost schedule and actual defrost start/end evidence; expected schedule commissioned per case; controller-feed health confirmed. Delay-After-Defrost alone is not sufficient evidence that a cycle ran.

Human role

Secondary review after AI validation; primary when a controller change or a dispatch to the refrigeration vendor is required.

Action plan

(1) Confirm the missed cycle from actual defrost start/end evidence, not from a delay parameter — rule out a stale or dropped controller feed. (2) Check the case's commissioned schedule and whether a controller schedule change or a blocked cycle explains it. (3) Correlate with case temperature — a missed defrost trending toward the upper band raises priority. (4) Re-arm the schedule remotely where the controller exposes it; if not resolvable, scope a dispatch to the refrigeration vendor with the evidence attached.

Escalation

(1) Missed defrost with the case already drifting toward its upper band → treat as a product-risk excursion path; alert store and customer ops, do not hold for the MBR. (2) Repeated misses on the same case after a controller change → flag for controls review at the MBR.

Prevention

(1) Commission the defrost schedule per case and require actual start/end evidence, so a missed cycle is scored on evidence rather than inferred from a delay window. (2) Keep a per-case defrost log and review cases with irregular cycles at cadence.