At a Glance
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Industry | Plastics — Injection Molding |
| Facility | Multi-line injection molding plant, 3-shift operation (including overnight) |
| Key Result | Response time tracked separately from machine downtime for the first time |
| Scale | 64 watch pagers covering quality, maintenance, and technician teams across all shifts |
| System | 3-key call buttons, watch pagers, signal repeaters, multi-chargers, advanced software |
The Challenge
This plastics injection molding manufacturer in the Midwest runs a multi-line facility across three shifts — including an overnight shift from 11 PM to 7 AM. Operators across the floor regularly needed support from quality, maintenance, and technician teams, but the process for getting help relied entirely on a PA system and two-way radios.
The problem was straightforward: people couldn't hear the PA, and radios went unanswered.
"We have a system that tracks downtime, but it doesn't include response time — like, it doesn't track if a person's coming to help or if they're actually waiting for someone. It's more so the press is just down."The existing downtime tracking system recorded when a press stopped and when it started again. But it captured none of the human response data in between — the time an operator spent waiting for a technician to arrive, how long it took the right person to even hear the call, or whether anyone responded at all. That entire window was invisible.
The specific breakdowns were:
- PA announcements went unheard. Support staff were spread across a large facility. In noisy production areas, PA calls were routinely missed — especially during the overnight shift when fewer people were on the floor.
- Radios were unreliable. Calls over two-way radios depended on the recipient being in range and paying attention. With multiple teams covering different support areas, calls often reached the wrong person or no person.
- No escalation path. When the first call went unanswered, operators had two choices: wait and hope, or leave their station to go find help on foot. Both options meant the press sat idle with no record of why.
- Maintenance, quality, and techs all operated independently. Each support team had its own informal communication process. There was no unified system for routing calls to the right group or tracking how each team performed.
Why They Chose an Andon System
The plant's industrial engineering team initially explored virtual buttons — browser-based call interfaces at each workstation — as a potential solution. After evaluating their floor layout and operator workflows, they pivoted to physical call buttons. The reasoning was practical: operators at injection molding stations needed a single, immediate action to summon help without navigating a screen.
Key decision factors:
- Physical simplicity. Three-key call buttons (call, acknowledge, resolve) mounted at the press — one press to call, no screens, no logins, no steps.
- Watch pagers for noisy environments. Vibrating watch pagers on every technician's wrist solved the PA and radio problem instantly. A wrist vibration can't be missed the way an overhead announcement can.
- Response time as a separate metric. The system could track when a call was placed, when help arrived, and when the issue was closed — giving the plant its first-ever visibility into the gap their existing downtime system couldn't see.
- Coverage for all three shifts. With 64 watch pagers deployed, every quality inspector, maintenance technician, and support team member across all shifts — including the overnight crew — would be on the system.
The Implementation
Initial Deployment
The facility deployed the system at scale from the start:
- 4 three-key call buttons at key press stations, each configured for call, arrival acknowledgment, and resolution close-out
- 64 watch pagers distributed across quality, maintenance, and technician teams on all three shifts
- 13 multi-chargers to support daily pager rotation across shift changes
- 8 button-side signal repeaters and 8 transmitter-side signal repeaters to ensure full coverage across the plant floor
- 1 CA transmitter connecting all hardware to the advanced software
- Advanced software license with reporting, escalation sequences, and button board display
Signal Coverage Challenges
The implementation required troubleshooting signal coverage as new press machinery was installed on the floor. Large injection molding machines created RF obstacles that reduced signal range in certain areas. The team worked through repeater placement adjustments to restore coverage — a process that validated the importance of having both button-side and transmitter-side repeaters in a facility with heavy metal equipment.
Software Expansion
After the initial purchase, the plant upgraded their software license and added three more watch pagers across subsequent orders — a total of five orders over the course of the relationship. The progressive expansion reflected both growing confidence in the system and the discovery of additional use cases as teams became familiar with the data.
The Results
Response Time Finally Visible
For the first time, the plant could distinguish between "the press is down" and "the press is down and someone is waiting for help." Their existing downtime tracking system continued to log machine-level events, while the Andon system captured the human layer — when the call was made, who received the alert, when they arrived, and when the issue was resolved.
This distinction mattered because it exposed a category of lost time that had been completely hidden: situations where the machine was technically down, but no support person was en route.
Overnight Shift Coverage
The third shift — 11 PM to 7 AM — had historically been the hardest to support. Fewer staff on the floor meant PA calls were less likely to reach anyone, and radio coverage was inconsistent. With watch pagers on every support team member's wrist, overnight operators had the same instant access to help as the day shift. Escalation sequences ensured that if a primary responder didn't acknowledge the call, a backup was automatically notified.
Unified Support Routing
Quality, maintenance, and technician teams all operated through a single system for the first time. Calls were routed to the correct team based on button configuration, and every interaction was logged. Supervisors could view the button board to see active calls across the entire floor — identifying bottlenecks in real time rather than hearing about them after the shift.
Continued Investment
The plant's trajectory — from initial purchase to software upgrade to additional pager orders across five transactions totaling over $59,000 — reflected a team that found sustained value. Each expansion addressed a specific need discovered through the data the system was already collecting.
What They Said
The industrial engineering team drove this implementation with a clear objective: close the gap between what their downtime system measured and what was actually happening on the floor. They knew presses went down. They knew people were waiting. They just couldn't prove how long or how often.
The pivot from virtual buttons to physical call buttons was a telling detail — the team tested the concept, evaluated their operators' workflows, and chose the approach that minimized friction at the point of use. In a 3-shift injection molding operation, the simplest solution at the press is the one that gets used.
The ongoing signal coverage work — adjusting repeater placement as new machinery changed the RF landscape — showed a facility committed to maintaining system performance as the plant evolved. They treated the Andon system as infrastructure, not a one-time installation.
Related resources:
- Best Andon Systems for Manufacturing
- Wired vs Wireless Andon Systems
- Response Time Tracking in Manufacturing
- Browse All Case Studies
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