From 87be1ffbd408852d35917cc6e94576ecd1dde664 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Dimitrie Hoekstra Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:08:01 +0200 Subject: [PATCH 1/3] Add Shop Floor Communication use-case page --- src/use-cases/shop-floor-communication.njk | 99 ++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 99 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/use-cases/shop-floor-communication.njk diff --git a/src/use-cases/shop-floor-communication.njk b/src/use-cases/shop-floor-communication.njk new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..be706bcc7b --- /dev/null +++ b/src/use-cases/shop-floor-communication.njk @@ -0,0 +1,99 @@ +--- +title: "Shop Floor Communication" +meta: + title: "Shop Floor Communication | Use Cases | FlowFuse" + description: "Andon, alerts and escalations that reach the right people in seconds: from machine events to team channels, displays and phones. Built on Node-RED, managed with FlowFuse." +problem: "The line stopped four minutes ago. The person who can fix it will find out when someone walks over." +industries: ["automotive", "food-beverage", "aviation-aerospace", "electronics-appliances"] +values: ["labor-operational-efficiency"] +architecture: "edge-connectivity" + +customerPain: + heading: "Events travel at walking speed." + intro: + - "Machines know the moment something needs attention. Getting that moment to a human still relies on stack lights someone must see, radios someone must answer, and walks across the floor." + - "Escalation is informal: if the first person is busy, the event waits. Response times are unmeasured because nobody records when the call for help actually started." + cards: + - icon: "bell-alert" + title: "Alarms without an audience" + detail: "Stack lights and local alarms help only whoever happens to be nearby." + - icon: "chat-bubble-left-right" + title: "Events never reach team channels" + detail: "The tools people actually watch, phones, Teams, Slack, displays, are disconnected from the machines." + - icon: "arrow-path" + title: "No escalation path" + detail: "If the first responder is occupied, nothing routes the event to the next person." + - icon: "clock" + title: "Response time is invisible" + detail: "Without timestamps from event to acknowledgment, response cannot be measured or improved." + +outcomeFirst: + heading: "From machine event to the right person, in seconds." + intro: "FlowFuse turns machine and operator events into routed notifications: andon displays, team-channel messages, SMS escalation chains, with acknowledgment and timing captured for every event." + dimensions: + - label: "Operational" + title: "Events routed, not broadcast" + detail: "The right role gets the right event on the channel they actually watch, with context attached." + - label: "Organizational" + title: "Escalation that runs itself" + detail: "Unacknowledged events climb the chain automatically; nothing waits on a walk across the floor." + - label: "Financial" + title: "Measured, shrinking response times" + detail: "Event-to-acknowledgment timing becomes a metric you can see and improve." + +whyItMatters: + heading: "Downtime is often waiting time in disguise." + intro: "A meaningful share of every stop is the gap between the event and the right person knowing about it." + points: + - title: "Minutes of waiting hide in every stop" + detail: "Multiply the notification gap across every stop and shift; the total is a production line's worth of capacity." + - title: "Informal escalation fails on bad days" + detail: "Exactly when the floor is busiest, word-of-mouth routing breaks down." + - title: "Communication data improves staffing" + detail: "Knowing which events, where, at what times, shapes shift coverage and skill placement." + +competition: + heading: "Why the usual approaches stall." + intro: "Andon exists in many forms; connected, routed, measured andon rarely does." + traps: + - label: "Hardware andon" + title: "Lights and towers, no routing" + detail: "Visual signals with no notion of who should respond or what happens if they do not." + - label: "MES call buttons" + title: "Locked to one vendor's screens" + detail: "Built-in call functions reach only the people logged into that system." + - label: "Group chat chaos" + title: "Everything posted to everyone" + detail: "Unrouted alerts train people to ignore the channel." + +comparison: + without: + - title: "Events wait for a passerby" + detail: "Stack lights and shouts; response depends on proximity." + - title: "No record of response" + detail: "Event-to-fix timing unmeasured, unimprovable." + - title: "Every plant improvises" + detail: "Each site wires its own ad-hoc notification hacks." + with: + - title: "Events reach the right person in seconds" + detail: "Routed notifications with context, on channels people watch." + - title: "Acknowledgment and timing captured" + detail: "Response becomes a measured, managed metric." + - title: "One pattern across sites" + detail: "The same escalation flows deployed fleet-wide." + +aiBuildLayer: + intro: "The FlowFuse Expert works on this use case with you, from routing logic to summarizing what happened overnight." + steps: + - title: "Describe it, get a starting flow" + detail: "Tell the Expert your events, roles and channels; it assembles a routing and escalation starting flow. Currently in open beta on FlowFuse Cloud." + - title: "Refine with in-editor assistance" + detail: "Function Builder and completions handle message formatting, shift calendars and escalation timers." + - title: "Own and adapt what you built" + detail: "The flow explainer documents routing rules so supervisors can read and adjust them without a developer." + note: "AI capabilities noted as beta are in open beta on FlowFuse Cloud at time of writing." + +closingCta: + heading: "Close the gap between event and action" + description: "Talk to an expert about connected andon and escalation, or route your first event today." +--- From 6ed55bc94550e62df1da6b73a85a48d3d9924147 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Kristopher Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:52:38 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 2/3] Add usecase for shop-floor-communication --- src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) diff --git a/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md b/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md index e84cc4b4cb..d4bc0775e9 100644 --- a/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md +++ b/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md @@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: "Control and Track Machines on the Factory Floor" subtitle: "Build a FlowFuse dashboard to control a PLC-connected motor and stack light, then track runtime automatically" description: "Learn how to connect FlowFuse to a Siemens S7 PLC, build an operator dashboard to control a motor and stack light, and automatically track device runtime using the Hourglass node." date: 2026-07-02 +usecase: shop-floor-communication authors: ["sumit-shinde"] image: /blog/2026/07/images/control-and-monitor-machines.png tags: From 075f3f1b84ed46d0642c3cbe727ea12643a57085 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Kristopher Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:22:39 -0700 Subject: [PATCH 3/3] Update usecase format in blog post metadata --- src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md | 3 ++- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md b/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md index d4bc0775e9..4e49c3320b 100644 --- a/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md +++ b/src/blog/2026/07/control-and-track-factory-floor-machines.md @@ -3,7 +3,8 @@ title: "Control and Track Machines on the Factory Floor" subtitle: "Build a FlowFuse dashboard to control a PLC-connected motor and stack light, then track runtime automatically" description: "Learn how to connect FlowFuse to a Siemens S7 PLC, build an operator dashboard to control a motor and stack light, and automatically track device runtime using the Hourglass node." date: 2026-07-02 -usecase: shop-floor-communication +usecase: + - shop-floor-communication authors: ["sumit-shinde"] image: /blog/2026/07/images/control-and-monitor-machines.png tags: