The bottom line: Most plants can raise a call. What they lack is accountability at every step between the call and the resolution. ProAlert tracks the responder, the GPS location, the resolution cause, and the sign-off... building an auditable chain of custody for every downtime event, automatically, from the first notification to the final PIN entry. This is the discipline the industry calls andon, and the andon and line-stop response reference page covers how it maps to a traditional board, pull-cord and stack-light installation.

ProAlert Andon display for Riverside Plant on a dark floor screen, with seven open calls grouped into Materials, Maintenance, Quality and Supervisor rows, each card naming the machine, the call type and how long it has been waiting, two of them showing the responder who claimed them — **The live Andon board as it runs on a floor display.** Seven calls open at once, grouped by the role that has to answer them: materials, maintenance, quality and supervisor. Every card carries its machine, its call type and how long it has been waiting, and the two that have been claimed name the responder who took them, so the board says what is covered and what is still nobody's job. Captured in the dark theme because that is the theme the board actually runs in on the floor, not a styling choice made for this page.

The Problems with Traditional Line-Stop Signalling

Duplicate responses waste 10 to 15% of maintenance labor.

When an alert broadcasts to a group and three technicians start moving toward the machine, two of them walked across the plant for nothing. That wasted labor compounds across every shift, every day of the year.
"Someone claimed it" and "someone arrived" are two different things.

Without GPS-based responder tracking, a claimed call and a resolved call look identical in the log. Supervisors have no visibility into whether the responding technician is close, far, or not moving.
Downtime closes without structured failure capture.

If your system allows free-text closure (or no closure at all), you have no data for Pareto analysis, no Root Cause Analysis (RCA) input, and no recurring pattern to act on.
Verbal alerts leave no audit trail.

Radio calls, taps on the shoulder, or text messages to maintenance are invisible to your reporting system. If an event is not in the system, it did not happen as far as your data is concerned.

The Five-Step Call Lifecycle

Every Downtime (DT) call in ProAlert progresses through five documented steps. Each transition is timestamped, and the position is captured where the call is raised, claimed and closed, creating a complete, auditable record for every event.

Step	Who Acts	What Is Captured
Initiate	Operator (web, mobile app, or physical Andon button via EdgeSense IoT device)	Call type, asset, timestamp, GPS coordinates of initiator at initiation time
Claim	First responder to tap Claim (mobile or web)... First-Responder-Wins releases all others instantly	Responder identity, claim timestamp, GPS location of responder at claim time
Respond	Responder confirming on-site arrival (optional PIN prompt triggers Work Order creation)	Respond timestamp, auto-generated Work Order from matching Standard Work Template
Resolve	Technician completing the repair or response action	Equipment, Detail, Cause, Resolution, and Notes fields populated via structured closure form
Sign-Off	Verified user entering personal PIN code	PIN-verified identity, sign-off timestamp, FailureRecord created automatically on every close path

ProAlert call drill-down for a machine-down call on a cut-off saw, showing a response timeline of initiated, claimed, responded, resolved and signed off with a timestamp and a named person at each step and the elapsed time between them, 5 minutes then 9 minutes then 39 minutes for 53 minutes in total, beside the disposition, cause, resolution and operator notes entered at close and a failure classification of mechanical, seal or gasket leak, seal hardened with heat and age, replace — **The same five steps, on one real call, with the clock running.** Five minutes to claim, nine more for the technician to reach the machine, thirty-nine to change the seal. Those are the two numbers a maintenance manager is actually judged on... how long a machine waits for someone, and how long the repair takes once they are standing at it... and they are separated here rather than buried in a single fifty-three minute total. The cause and the resolution are the operator's and the technician's own words, typed at close, and the classification underneath is what makes fifty-three minutes on this saw comparable with fifty-three minutes anywhere else in the plant.

First-Responder-Wins: Eliminating Duplicate Response

The moment the first technician claims a call, every other pending responder is released instantly via SignalR push notification. No coordinator required. No radio calls. No wasted trips across the plant.

Without First-Responder-Wins

Alert broadcasts to 5 technicians
3 technicians begin walking toward the machine
2 arrive only to turn around (8–12 minutes wasted each)
No record of who responded or the sequence of events
Accountability is assumed, not documented

ProAlert First-Responder-Wins

Alert broadcasts to 5 technicians via SignalR sub-second delivery
First to claim gets exclusive ownership; all others released instantly
One responder, one trip, GPS-timestamped accountability chain
Responder ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) visible live on the Andon HUD
No other Andon system has this workflow built in natively

BOBR Structural Routing

ProAlert routes alerts through your organizational hierarchy using BOBR (Bill of Business Resources) structure. Alerts reach the right people at the right level... not every person in the building.

Role-Based Targeting

Broadcast calls simultaneously to Maintenance, Supervisor, Quality, or any custom role defined in your system. Different call types can target different role groups.

Asset-Level Configuration

Define which call types are available per asset. An injection press and a conveyor system don't need the same call menu presented to operators.

Global Subscription

Support users can subscribe to all calls system-wide (brId=0) for unified visibility across every facility, shift, and time zone simultaneously.

Multi-Language Delivery

Alerts delivered in each user's preferred language. Supports English, Spanish, French, and German for diverse plant-floor workforces.

What 131,000+ Calls Prove

RHA Manufacturing processed 131,762 calls over 39 months. Every single one was resolved. Here is what the data demonstrates:

Resolution Rate

100%

131,762 calls over 39 months, zero lost records

Downtime Reduction

-64%

downtime calls from 2024 peak (8,362) to 2026 Q1 pace (747)

Avg. Response Time

1 min

from alert initiation to first responder claim

Call Volume Growth

16x

44/month baseline → 713/month at peak adoption

The volume increase is a signal of culture change, not system noise. When operators trust that help will arrive in under a minute, they report smaller problems earlier. Small issues get fixed before they become major breakdowns. The growing call volume at RHA corresponds directly with their climb from 65% to 89% OEE over the same period.

Call Management Center and Temporary Fix Workflow

Call Management Center

Supervisors and admins can complete pending DT call closures on behalf of floor staff from the web interface. Prevents open downtime calls from accumulating when operators move on before completing closure.
Temporary Fix (Yellow Banner) Workflow

Machines with known pending issues are flagged with a yellow banner visible on the shop floor Andon HUD (Heads-Up Display), mobile app, and EdgeSense local display. Escalation timers ensure follow-up Work Orders are generated before the temporary fix becomes permanent.
Failure Record on All Close Paths

A structured failure analysis record is created automatically on every close path: web admin, mobile app, and REST API (Representational State Transfer). No event closes without a documented record.
Redesigned Andon Display

The shop floor Andon display shows live alert status with role-grouped rows, claimer names, and a distance and arrival estimate for each active responder... updated in real time as the technician moves toward the asset. A live shift timeline sits alongside it, drawing the current shift with its breaks and runs.
Public Boards Without a Shared Account

An unattended television opens a board anonymously, but only for a business resource an administrator has published. There is no shared login taped to the back of the screen, and whether a person's name appears on an anonymous display is itself a setting. Administrators and andon-screen users reach the displays in one click from the home page.
Call Lifecycle Timings, and a Read-Only History

Each step that actually happened is on the call with its timestamp and elapsed time, and the steps that never happened are omitted rather than shown blank. A resolved call opens read-only, in the detail view and in the Call Management Center, so history can be inspected without any risk of editing a closed record. A call closed without a prior response cannot sit active forever.
Escalation of Unanswered Calls

A call nobody claims climbs a ladder. The escalation level is tracked on the call, the fan-out reaches the right roles in their own language, and the broadcast is role-gated rather than sent to everybody. Audible andon announces calls, escalations and automated messages over the plant speakers.

For IT and Systems Teams

Component	Technology	Notes
Alert Delivery	SignalR WebSocket hub (ProAlertHub)	Sub-second bidirectional communication. BOBR-structured group routing targets the right clients without broadcast storms to every connected user.
Authentication	ASP.NET Identity + JWT (JSON Web Token)	PIN-protected closure operations require re-verification at the point of sign-off, providing a second authentication factor tied to the specific action.
Audit Log	CallLogHistory table (SQL Server)	Every lifecycle transition persisted with user, timestamp, and GPS. Immutable after creation. Survives DT call deletion.
API Integration	REST API... Call endpoints	Initiate, claim, respond, and close calls via API for integration with physical Andon hardware or external MES (Manufacturing Execution System) systems.
Physical Button Input	GPIO (General Purpose Input/Output) via EdgeSense IoT	Physical Andon push buttons wired to the EdgeSense Raspberry Pi device trigger DT call initiation via the API without requiring a mobile device or user login.

See the call lifecycle in action.

Book a 30-minute demo... we'll walk through a live DT call from initiation to sign-off, including GPS tracking and automatic Work Order creation on respond.

Schedule a Demo