Use cases
Real-world use cases. Real factory impact.
Sentinel Manufacturing Core Suite™ is built around the day-to-day realities of running a plant — EM calls, downtime coding, missing parts, and leadership asking, “What’s really going on out there?”
Below are a few of the most common ways plants use Sentinel to reduce downtime, standardize operations, and give everyone the same live source of truth.
From radio chaos to one live EM board.
Operators log EMs directly into Sentinel, dispatchers see a plant-wide queue, and responders work from a mobile view with clear ownership, status, and comments.
- Less time lost to missed calls and “who has it?” confusion
- Clearer priorities for the maintenance team mid-shift
- A timeline of every EM for follow-up and improvement work
EM chaos → live responder workflow
Operators call radios, send emails, or chase people down on the floor. Maintenance teams juggle sticky notes and guess what to do first.
How Sentinel helps
- Plant-wide EM board with ownership, status, and SLAs
- Mobile-friendly responder view with comments and photos
- Live status for operations and leadership during the shift
Result
Fewer missed calls, faster responses, and less back-and-forth during critical events.
Messy downtime data → standard reasons and rollups
Downtime coding is inconsistent, lives in spreadsheets, or is so painful that people skip it. Root-cause efforts stall because the data can’t be trusted.
How Sentinel helps
- Guided downtime coding tied to line, asset, and shift
- Live view of machines running, stopped, and starved/blocked
- Rollups by loss type, area, or product family
Result
A single version of the truth for where time is being lost — and a starting point for targeted improvement work.
Hunting for parts → one place to see what’s needed
Techs bounce between ERP, spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge to find the right part. Simple repairs stall while everyone figures out “what goes where”.
How Sentinel helps
- Smart search across SKUs, descriptions, and BOMs
- Equipment-level view of BOMs and on-hand inventory
- Usage history and likely-to-need-soon suggestions
Result
Faster repairs, better first-time-fix, and less frustration chasing part numbers.
Isolated quality/safety logs → events tied to assets
Quality holds and safety incidents live in separate systems. It’s hard to see how they connect to downtime or specific assets.
How Sentinel helps
- Capture holds, defects, and events against the same assets and lines
- Overlay quality, safety, and EM history in one place
- Spot “hot spots” where issues cluster
Result
A clearer link between quality, safety, and operational performance for the same equipment.
Weekly slide decks → live view for leaders
Leaders depend on manually built reports pulled from different systems. By the time they’re assembled, the data is already stale.
How Sentinel helps
- Role-based dashboards for maintenance, operations, and leadership
- Live views of EM/PM health, downtime, and throughput
- Trends over days, weeks, and months without extra Excel work
Result
Decisions based on live plant signals instead of backward-looking slide decks.
Hidden patterns → practical recommendations
Repeat offenders, weak PM coverage, and emerging issues aren’t obvious until they become major downtime events.
How Sentinel helps
- Highlight recurring EMs and high-risk assets
- Recommend PM adjustments based on real history
- Answer plain-language questions like “Where are we losing the most time this week?”
Result
A shift from purely reactive firefighting to proactive, data-backed improvement.
Wondering how Sentinel would fit your site?
Share your footprint, current tools, and what’s hurting the most. We’ll map Sentinel use cases to your reality — not a generic slide deck.