The renowned German manufacturing magazine “Factory Innovation” recently conducted a comprehensive practical test on four leading alarm notification software for industrial manufacturing in their latest issue (01/23). The four alarming systems that were evaluated include: the Alarm Control Center from Alarm IT Factory (a spin-off of Siemens AG), ALERT 4.0 from Micromedia, the Alarm and
When you send alerts, work orders or service requests to your workers in the field, on the shop floor or campus it is essential to provide them with all relevant information necessary to solve the task. This prevents misunderstandings, avoids waste work, time for searching information and thus increases productivity and facilities an effective, timely
Handover procedures in operations and maintenance are a key element of business continuity. As work in this field is usually organized in shifts, it is essential to keep track of any critical incidents, machine breakdowns, job ownership, completion, issues that are still open or unresolved and other related items. Such knowledge has a significant impact
The update of December 2018 adds great features for enriching Signls with additional information (‘alert enrichment’). With “Services and Systems” categories, SIGNL4 already comes with an unique approach of categorizing alerts through colouring and acoustics, i.e. a dedicated push sound. But why not use this categorization feature for adding information to Signl alerts? Why is
Machines, pumps, valves, fire alert systems, temperature sensors, smoke detectors, etc. often do not offer IT integration. Instead, they provide simple analog cables to interface with dry contacts. Monitoring these I/O states and detecting abnormal behavior or malfunctions a common scenario in industrial IoT. Operations teams in charge of business and operational continuity need to know
The Internet of Things (IoT) has become an exciting area of work. Businesses are rapidly adapting various IoT products whether they realize it or not. Thanks to the booming development of Internet of Things, users across industries can now easily monitor, trigger, and maintain processes and equipment with a brilliant software and strong networks. The infrastructural pieces
*This article was first published on Microsoft’s Manufacturing Industry Blog on July 17, 2018. The fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, is happening today. Recent progress in manufacturing automation requires fewer individuals on a shop floor to do manual work with and at machines. However, those people are now required to respond faster and more effectively
Urgent breakdown maintenance calls are a common scenario on a shop floor, e.g. in manufacturing or logistics. Response is a critical matter as equipment breakdowns bring your operations to a grinding halt. When a machine breaks down or malfunctions, a maintenance engineer on duty or on call needs to be notified, usually through the machine showing blinking red light or manually
IoT platforms such as Cumulocity by Software AG are a crucial part in a proper “Industry 4.0” implementation. The Deutsche Telekom AG is using Cumulocity for their new IoT products like “Predictive Maintenance” and the “Cloud der Dinge Starterkit”. They are used to connect and organize shop floor machines via the Internet for capturing their data