Quick respon­se to pro­duc­tion dis­rup­ti­ons through digi­tal alarm management

Report abnor­ma­li­ties and faults direct­ly at the point of origin 

Quick respon­se to mal­func­tions or worker questions 

Quick reac­tion to mal­func­tions or worker questions 

Eli­mi­na­te fre­quent dis­rup­ti­ons through evaluations 

Alarms in the pro­duc­tion environment

A varie­ty of faults can occur in com­plex manu­fac­tu­ring and assem­bly pro­ces­ses. From tool breaka­ge to a lack of mate­ri­al at a work­sta­tion to qua­li­ty pro­blems in pro­duc­tion — in each case, dif­fe­rent cont­act per­sons must be aler­ted. Many manu­fac­tu­ring indus­tri­al com­pa­nies still report the­se mal­func­tions in a manu­al, ana­lo­gue pro­cess. The employee who dis­co­vers the mal­func­tion reports the inter­rup­ti­on to his shift super­vi­sor. The super­vi­sor asses­ses the situa­ti­on and initia­tes the appro­pria­te steps to reme­dy the situa­ti­on. Usual­ly, other employees from main­ten­an­ce, mate­ri­als manage­ment or qua­li­ty assu­rance have to be cont­ac­ted by pho­ne or on foot to rec­ti­fy the fault. This takes a lot of time and pro­duc­tion can only be con­tin­ued to a limi­t­ed ext­ent or, in the worst case, comes to a com­ple­te standstill.


A digi­tal alarm manage­ment sys­tem enables a quick reac­tion to all pro­duc­tion faults.

Alarm tools such as prodwatch help you to quick­ly reco­g­ni­se and reme­dy standstills. By using modern, digi­tal end devices such as tablets, smart­phones or smart­wat­ches, the dura­ti­on of a pro­duc­tion dis­rup­ti­on can be dra­sti­cal­ly redu­ced. Sin­ce main­ten­an­ce staff, shift super­vi­sors or other respon­si­ble per­sons are often on the move on the fac­to­ry flo­or, it makes sen­se to deli­ver alerts on mobi­le devices such as smart­phones or smart­wat­ches. Local dis­plays such as andon boards or traf­fic lights at work­sta­tions also help to main­tain an over­view of com­plex pro­duc­tion environments.

Find out in our white paper how you can redu­ce down­ti­mes with the help of tar­ge­ted alarms!

In our free white paper on the sub­ject of alarms in pro­duc­tion, you will learn ever­y­thing about the pos­si­bi­li­ties of fault report­ing and aler­ting dif­fe­rent cont­acts in production. 

Get inspi­ra­ti­on for your digi­tal report­ing chain!

Alarm manage­ment with prodwatch

Using our digi­tal report­ing sys­tem for mal­func­tions and pro­duc­tion inter­rup­ti­ons can save a lot of time. Employees can report the mal­func­tions direct­ly at the point of ori­gin using various input opti­ons. Ide­al­ly, the­re are pre­de­fi­ned fault cate­go­ries with which the employee can clas­si­fy the fault direct­ly. If such a cate­go­ry is sel­ec­ted, the right depart­ment and the right cont­act per­son can be aler­ted direct­ly. This saves unneces­sa­ry wal­king and the fal­se alar­ming of employees who have no influence on the eli­mi­na­ti­on of the standstill. But machi­nes and sys­tems, sen­sor signals or pro­cess con­trol sys­tems can also send alarm messages.

The prodwatch alarm manage­ment sys­tem eva­lua­tes the mal­func­tion mes­sa­ges and can then alert the appro­pria­te cont­act per­sons accor­ding to the reason for the mal­func­tion. For this pur­po­se, prodwatch uses the inte­gra­ted shift calen­dar as well as the user (group) manage­ment and a so-cal­led Event & Action Cent­re, in which the fault cate­go­ries can be assi­gned to indi­vi­du­al users or user groups.

The shift or pro­duc­tion mana­gers aler­ted in this way can see the alarm on their smart­watch or other digi­tal end devices, accept it and then react to it imme­dia­te­ly. Fur­ther­mo­re, escala­ti­on manage­ment is pos­si­ble, which allows unac­cept­ed mes­sa­ges to be sent to the next hig­her escala­ti­on level. This always ensu­res that alarms and mes­sa­ges and any resul­ting pro­duc­tion inter­rup­ti­ons are respon­ded to quick­ly and in a tar­ge­ted man­ner. In addi­ti­on, eva­lua­tions can be made with the resul­ting data, such as the times taken to rec­ti­fy faults or the fre­quen­cy of indi­vi­du­al fault cate­go­ries. Fre­quent­ly occur­ring faults or down­ti­mes with a long dura­ti­on can thus be eli­mi­na­ted in a tar­ge­ted man­ner and pro­duc­tion avai­la­bi­li­ty can be increased.

Alarmmanagement Übersicht

Fast report­ing of faults 

Pro­duc­tion faults, fore­man calls or other mes­sa­ges can be repor­ted direct­ly at the work­sta­tions or the machi­nery and equip­ment via digi­tal ter­mi­nals such as tablets. The fault can alre­a­dy be clas­si­fied here so that it is imme­dia­te­ly clear which depart­ment should be alerted. 

Pro­cess, store and ana­ly­se faults 

prodwatch pro­ces­ses the inco­ming mes­sa­ges using an inte­gra­ted event and action logic that can be set by you and trig­gers appro­pria­te actions. In addi­ti­on, all data on the mal­func­tion (e.g. time until rec­ti­fi­ca­ti­on, num­ber of mal­func­tions, etc.) are stored for later evaluation! 

Alert the right peo­p­le or departments 

Depen­ding on the sel­ec­ted reason for the dis­tur­ban­ce, the appro­pria­te cont­act per­son is aler­ted via dif­fe­rent com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on chan­nels. The mal­func­tions can then be accept­ed or for­ward­ed by the per­sons. In this way, ever­yo­ne invol­ved can see who is deal­ing with which message. 

Reme­dy, ack­now­ledge or esca­la­te faults 

Faults can be ack­now­led­ged at the work­sta­tion after they have been rec­ti­fied and pro­vi­ded with a free-text note. If a mal­func­tion has not been accept­ed and/or ack­now­led­ged within a defi­ned time, the optio­nal escala­ti­on levels pro­vi­de fur­ther attention. 

Andon boards as a useful exten­si­on of alarm management

In addi­ti­on to aler­ting dif­fe­rent cont­act per­sons, a local dis­play on the fac­to­ry flo­or is also useful. For this pur­po­se, prodwatch offers you the pos­si­bi­li­ty to crea­te so-cal­led andon boards. Here, infor­ma­ti­on such as the sta­tus of indi­vi­du­al work­sta­tions or pro­duc­tion-rele­vant key figu­res such as OEE or scrap can be dis­play­ed. prodwatch is the­r­e­fo­re much more than a pure alarm solu­ti­on, but can be used for the com­ple­te digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on of pro­duc­tion processes.

What are the advan­ta­ges of rapid aler­ting for our cus­to­mers and for you?

It is always dif­fi­cult to mea­su­re the effects of indi­vi­du­al sys­tems on com­plex manu­fac­tu­ring pro­ces­ses. Espe­ci­al­ly with a pro­duct as ver­sa­ti­le as prodwatch, the­re are count­less start­ing points for pos­si­ble savings or impro­ve­ments in the pro­ces­ses. Some of our cus­to­mers’ pro­fi­ta­bi­li­ty ana­ly­ses show­ed that the sys­tem rea­ched the break-even point after less than a year. We have been able to deter­mi­ne the fol­lo­wing empi­ri­cal values with our cus­to­mers in dif­fe­rent sec­tors after using prodwatch. 

Fas­ter fault reporting
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Redu­ced downtimes
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Over­view of the production
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prodwatch: The stan­dard solu­ti­on for digi­tal assem­bly sta­ti­ons and alarm management 

prodwatch is the modu­lar solu­ti­on for digi­tal pro­duc­tion: Andon board, worker gui­dance, alarm manage­ment and more. 

Alarm solu­ti­ons from apronic

We at apro­nic have alre­a­dy imple­men­ted many alarm appli­ca­ti­ons for our cus­to­mers. The­r­e­fo­re, we have a com­pre­hen­si­ve know-how of what is pos­si­ble and how it can be imple­men­ted. In num­e­rous pro­jects, a wealth of expe­ri­ence has grown that has been incor­po­ra­ted into the stan­dard soft­ware for assem­bly digi­ti­sa­ti­on prodwatch. This offers you a com­pre­hen­si­ve tool­box for all the appli­ca­ti­ons descri­bed for alarm systems. 

We look for­ward to your call and to being able to bring you to new peak per­for­man­ces in your pro­duc­tion in an exci­ting project!