Communication for factory floor

[TimK]

I am looking for a lowcost way to provide communication from and to certian people in a loud factory environment.

I have a need for line workers to send messages to 3 different groups of people,
Maintenance, Forklift drivers and setup.

Ideally each line would have a device they could select from a list of messages assigned to their Cell.

For instance if their Cell was #47
Message 1. "Forklift to Cell 47"
Message 2, "Setup to Cell 47"
Message 3. "Maintenance to Cell 47"

And the people receiving the messages would need some kind of device to display the message. I thought about pagers but they would have to vibrate hard to be noticed.

It would have to be wireless but the plant is large so range would have to cover an area the size of a city block.

any ideas.

Thanks

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Thinking out loud:
1. system to detect cell phone or pager vibrating (Light or sound); probably easy
2. Cell phones, pagers and Ipads come to mind
3. Your IT department could probably create mailinglists, so a single email/SMS results in multiple mailings.

Not sure how to make a phone ring with an SMS message.

In terms of an ODD device, say you could hook to the USB port of a cell phone and the cell had the ability to execute AT commands such as a Motorola Razor. A processor could interrogate the phone for messages.

Just some ideas.

 

[canadaelk]

How loud is loud?
Go to Radio Shack and get a cheap ($50 or so) sound level meter and record the SPL in each of the affected areas. Do a plan and elevation drawing, showing the sound levels. A "city block" will be expensive! E

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Again, thinking out loud.

Use one of the warning strobes, multi colors. Place one in each area, When there is a message, have them report in by sending an SMS (email). When all emails are received, the light goes out. I probably missed the gist.

It's probably Light the strobe red for forklift operators, yellow for whatever. Light the entire city block. Each forklift operator, checks his message, and acknowledges it. When all have acknowledged, the light goes out.

 

[KJ6EAD]

Realistic options are limited. Most team communication systems I've seen were wired but there are some that use VHF/UHF radio frequencies and bluetooth headsets.

 

[alec_t]

How many different messages to send? If it's relatively few (say n=10) each cell could have n selectively-energised back-lit message labels, plus a big strobe to draw attention to them.