The term "Andon" is used to refer to a visual system designed to notify management, maintenance, or other workers of a quality or process problem. In essence an effective Andon System will quickly identify to the necessary stakeholders the location and nature of the problem. Leading companies around the world have successfully implemented Andon Systems as part of their Lean Manufacturing philosophies. Quality departments and Six Sigma Blackbelts in nearly every industry realize the value of a good Andon System. At it's core, an Andon System consists of a group of visual products and systems that interact in order to communicate information to stakeholders on status and problems within a facility. By quickly delivering information through visual and audible cues, resource loss in the forms of equipment downtime and personal hours is minimized. Ultimately, a successful Andon System Implementation carries a return on investment of a year or less and leads to greater overall profitability and morale.
Electro-Matic provides Andon Display Systems including:
- Andon Board/LED Display
- Music Board/Music System
- Cable Pull Switch
- Material Call Pendants
Andon Board
An Andon Board is a visual production control device which can continuously show the changing status of a production line. You may also commonly hear an Andon board referred to as a Process Display board, Bingo Board, Factory Display, Lean Manufacturing Board, LED annunciate, Electronic Message Center, or Process Control Board.
The Factory Vision® line of Andon display boards provide the perfect answer to all your communication needs in the industrial environment. This industrial LED display opens a window to factory performance and supplies the foundation for a company-wide “nervous system”, enabling all employees to understand how they affect the factory’s overall performance. Specifically designed to integrate seamlessly with manufacturing intelligence and data collection systems, the Andon board's embedded Pentium PC processor allows for maximum throughput speed in combination with multiple input sources.
Our Factory Vision® Andon Display board was designed with extremely low life cycle cost as a major design criterion. This has been achieved through the use of premium LEDs, ultra efficient power handling, and modular mechanical design. You can expect the Factory Vision Andon board to provide exceptional ROI with high Mean Time between Failure (MTBF) and very low Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) characteristics. Without sacrificing viewability, our Andon board keeps your life cycle cost at a minimum with leading edge technology aimed at the maximum in reduced energy consumption. Our Andon board displays can be as small as one line of text, or as large as twenty lines of text, in a variety of widths.
For quote or product information, please call 248-615-3960
Andon Board Standard Features
- Single or double sided configurations.
- Anti-glare and anti-scratch polycarbonate protective screen.
- Fully flexible controller for the real-time display of all text, graphics and video information.
- Optional on-board embedded Pentium class low power processor, requiring no fan assisted cooling.
- 2GB Solid State Drive with no moving parts.
- Full feature graphic development software for Text/Graphics/Video.
- Easy set up, with all system features configurable via software control panel in real-time.
- Sound output for audible alarm, music, or speech via optional speakers (up to eight speakers per system) with remote volume control.
- Compatible with Activplant™ (formerly Visualplant™), Wonderware™, SCADAware and NETCON Technologies Marquee Manager™.
- Can communicate with proprietary protocols like Ford POSMON, GM Protocol, and Chrysler FIS.
- Tilted viewing angle.
- Web server installed with real-time remote access to display.
- Viewing distances of 3 feet to more than 500 feet.
Cable pull switches are used by Machine or Production Line workers to alert their supervisors of Quality or Manufacturing issues during the Assembly Process. Typically a first pull will sound an alarm, generate a message on the plant display system, and provide local visual indication of a pulled switch. A 
second pull typically stops the production line until the problem is corrected. Reset switches are also often included.
Electro-Matic Visual Group makes a wide variety and configurations of Cable Pull Switches that serve various applications and production environments. Please give us a call at 866-998-0990 or contact us to have an application specialist review your requirements.
Music Alert System are used to provide an audible alert of a problem in the manufacturing process. Typically when an operator becomes aware of a Quality or Manufacturing problem he sounds an alarm to the Andon System, the Andon System can then play a short tune of several notes to alert the Managers or Maintenance staff of what type of tune and where the problem exists. A cross reference of tunes to production areas is made available to the appropriate staff although our experience shows that the tunes associated with a particular area are quickly learned by the Management and Support personnel. Several hundred tunes can be programmed into the system and one Music board can drive multiple speakers to cover a wide area of the plant.
Please give us a call at 866-998-0990 or contact us to have an application specialist review your requirements.
Call Pendants are used for calling for a variety of purposes. Different combinations of purposes can be combined as needed.
Material Call Pendants
Material Call Pendants can be used by the operator to alert the appropriate material managers that they are running low on materials and need a delivery to their production stations. A pendant can have several push-buttons to call out different materials needed.
Quality Call Pendants
Quality Call Pendants can be used to call quality supervisors or other managers. These pendants can have multiple buttons or selector switches to call out different quality problems as required.
Maintenance Call Pendants
Maintenance Call pendants can be used to call for various maintenance personnel as needed.
All of these pendants can be built to sit directly on your Profibus, Ethernet, PROFINET, Seriplex, ASI, DeviceNet, or other industrial networking system.
Please give us a call at 866-998-0990 or contact us to have an application specialist review your requirements.
LED Stack Lights or Signal Columns are used to provide visual or audible alarm conditions at a machine or particular production station. They can consist of a wide variety of colors to give various machine states to the management or support staff. These lights are available in Red, Green, Amber, White, or Blue and can be stacked on top of each other in any order. They are typically LED lights for long life maintenance free operation. Strobing, flashing, and audible alarm stacks are also available in a
wide variety of configurations.
Please give us a call at 866-998-0990 or contact us to have an application specialist review your requirements. To learn more about our LED Stack Lights, please click here to download product brochure.