Efficiency is key to success in the manufacturing industry. Everything from employee schedules, training and onboarding, equipment location and maintenance, and energy usage needs to be tracked and planned carefully. Manufacturing organizations are using digital signage to streamline communication, and to make operations more efficient.
Monitoring Plant Energy Usage
Organizations are being pushed to be more energy efficient and environmentally, now more than ever before. Energy and material usage not only affects the global environment, but bottom lines as well. Digital signage is an excellent tool for manufacturing organizations to monitor their usage of water, electricity, natural gas, or any other material of value. Making data on energy consumption more transparent helps to inform decisions.
Improve Employee Communications
Manufacturing firms need a way to organize and display complex scheduling information across multiple shifts and departments. AppSheet combined with a powerful digital signage software, creates customizable scheduling applications for individual manufacturers needs. AppSheet creates the schedule and its structure, and digital signage software makes it accessible to any permitted person with stable internet access. Arreya integrates with AppSheet and other Google products for easy, automated updates.
Learn more about using digital signage to improve employee communications.
Display Safety Protocols and Metrics
Safety of employees and visitors is of utmost importance for manufacturers. Safety guidelines and industry standards must be followed at all times to prevent liability and injury.
Manufacturers use digital signage software to regularly update their safety videos and procedures. Employees can clearly see safety requirements at all times, whether they are on location, or permitted to view content from their own devices. Rules and regulations change from state to state, so large manufacturers spanning several states or countries may use separate channels of digital signage content in order to keep regulations current and accurate based on location.
Company-Wide Scalability
Manufacturing organizations need tools that allow them to display information on thousands of screens, nationwide, and all across the globe in some instances. Channel-based digital signage pricing allows them to play one monthly fee to display the same content on unlimited screens. Channel-based pricing makes digital signage much more scalable for manufacturers than per-screen pricing.
Inventory Management
It’s critical to the success of a business to have all the inventory and equipment they need to be fully operational. Manufacturing firms are using digital signage to display real time inventory data. They even set up alerts to notify them when they are running low on inventory. They use this data to place orders, and they also use it to set proper expectations for clients and vendors.
For more information on using digital signage for inventory management, click here.
Streamline Operations with Digital Signage
Getting the right people, equipment, and resources to the right place at the right time is tough. Manufacturing organizations need to plan with precision to operate with optimal efficiency. Digital signage is a valuable tool for manufacturers to keep on top of inventory, equipment maintenance and staffing. Communication and accurate data are vital for success in manufacturing. Digital signage presents realtime data to everyone who needs it, without compromising security.
Colleges and universities can be overwhelming to navigate, even for the most seasoned students. To make campuses more accessible and user-friendly, many colleges and universities have implemented digital signage software as a wayfinding solution. As a result, they have seen positive impacts on student life, including improved safety, easier navigation, and more engagement.
Interactive Wayfinding
Digital signage software allows users to create an interactive experience with detailed directions around campus. Digital maps have several advantages compared to their traditional paper counterparts. They are updateable, more sustainable, and easier to view. Also, digital wayfinding provides an interactive element that isn’t possible with traditional maps. Digital wayfinding kiosks are controlled by touchscreens, cell phones, or a mouse and keyboard. Screens display animations, videos, and campus news, and events alongside navigation. Users interact with signage to find the information, directions, or content they’re most interested in viewing.
Campus Safety
Digital wayfinding systems are not only convenient for students and staff, they help provide safety for everyone on campus as well. The digital signage software powering wayfinding kiosks throughout campus integrates with alerting software like Alertus and Singlewire.
These alerting software products allow campus security to deploy emergency messaging with one click. Evacuation routes and directions to storm shelters are quickly and reliably displayed on all screens when necessary. Providing directions and context to dangerous situations is critical. Digital signage software is one of the best tools to distribute this information.
Every student or staff member has access to the campus information through the Arreya PWA feature. This allows the school to apply their Arreya channel as an app to devices without going through the Google Play Store or Apple Store. PWA or Progressive Web Apps are the future of true communications.
Customizable Messaging
Digital wayfinding solutions for colleges and universities are incredibly customizable, much more customizable than traditional signs and maps.
Digital wayfinding content can be scheduled in advance down to the minute. This means that if there is construction, an event, or a change of any kind, the change can display on screen in realtime, or it can be scheduled to change when it’s appropriate. This creates a more proactive approach to wayfinding.
Overall, digital wayfinding systems are an efficient and effective tool for navigating college campuses. They make the campus experience easier and safer for everyone. With advanced digital signage software, colleges and universities can implement powerful navigation solutions that provide students and staff with clear direction.
If you need more guidance on implementing digital signage to your campus, click here.
Paying attention is hard. Some of us may find it easier than others, but for most children and young adults in school, it can be difficult. Teachers and professors are constantly looking for new innovative ways to connect with their students, increase engagement, and make the learning experience more enjoyable for everyone. The education sector is using digital signage as a tool for increasing student engagement in the classroom, and even outside of their four walls.
More Quality Student Involvement
Learning is typically a lot more enjoyable for students when they’re able to express their own ideas and individual points of view.
Teachers use digital signage software to aid in student expression. Students create digital content, either in PowerPoint, Google Slides, Adobe Photoshop, or whatever tools they like, and then share the files with their teachers. Teachers easily upload media to digital signage software and schedule the content to play during class, or taking it a step further, they allow students to create and schedule their own digital signage content.
Live events like concerts, graduation ceremonies, and sporting events drive excitement for students, teachers, and parents alike. However, it’s not always possible for everyone to physically attend these events. Digital signage software allows schools and universities to share their live events to anyone with a modern web browser and a stable internet connection. Live streaming events on digital signage is easy with the right software. All you need to do is copy and paste your livestream link into the appropriate field.
Learn more about livestreaming on digital signage.
Keeping Students and Staff Safe
It’s important for school districts, colleges, and universities to have emergency preparedness plans in place. Regular tornado and fire drills are mandatory, along with clearly marked evacuation routes. Digital signage is excellent for displaying emergency messaging, and some software even integrates with alerting programs. Schools are able to deploy emergency messages to all of their screens simultaneously with the press of a button thanks to these integrations.
Learn more about integrating alerts into your digital signage.
Increase Engagement and Student Well-Being
Overall, digital signage software is a vital tool for schools and universities. It helps improve communication, allows for remote viewing of live events, and promotes student engagement in the classroom. In addition, the integration of alerting technologies helps schools keep staff and students safe during emergency situations. Digital signage will continue to become more prominent for the education sector in the near future. Especially as we see more demand for remote learning.
Best Practices for Large Content Driven Presentations
Arreya lets you create presentations without page restrictions or limits on content. However, this freedom can cause unexpected experiences when dealing with large amounts of content. A large presentation gets affected by device limitations, internet speed, storage, and processing power. Yes you can create a presentation with over 200 pages and gigabytes of content but unless optimized, this content will not be easy for devices to deal with. Much like a web site there are best setups and recommendations to create it to be highly performing.
When a presentation gets really large with content, the usability gets complicated and affects both viewing and editing. A 200 page interactive presentation needs a lot of computing power, so it may not load properly, and a computer may lack the processing power to easily edit all 200 pages at once. If your internet speed is slow or lags, the entire presentation will take a long time to load, push live, and edit.
How to Optimize Large Content Driven Presentations
The good news is, with Arreya, you can still design and create a large content driven presentation by best optimizing it for performance. This optimization is achieved in Arreya by splitting up your content into multiple presentations. So now, you can divide one extremely large presentation into many smaller and more manageable sections. This multi presentation feature in Arreya is a game changer. It makes loading and organizing content much faster, and is included with every subscription. Arreya also has no limits on the number of presentations you can add and includes options to link presentations together for a seamless experience.
Taking advantage of this Arreya feature and using our optimization recommendations below will give you the best experience with your large content driven presentation.
Planning For Splitting Up Large Presentations
Splitting up presentations doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming. Understanding how to best organize your presentations is key at the beginning. The number of pages we recommend is 30 pages per presentation. But don’t be worried about having a lot less, that is even better. We have even set up some presentations with just one page linking to many sub presentations. There is no specific formula or equation to splitting up your content, but thinking about how to best divide up your content before you start will result in less reworking.
Split by Navigation Buttons
One way to split up your interactive content is to create a presentation for each navigation button. If there is navigation on your home page to 5 categories then a simple breakdown would be to create 5 presentations, one for each of those categories. Each button would then link to the corresponding presentation. This also helps you easily organize your content to just those pages, giving you less pages to sort through so you can quickly make edits and navigate.
Split by Categories
If you have lists or menus of content within a page then splitting off the listings into presentations would be best. This is a great solution for a donor listing that divides individuals’ content by an alphabetical list to choose from. So if your donor list had a section of names “A-D” the link would be to a new presentation, not to a page within the same presentation. The navigation on the “A-D” presentation would return back to the alphabetical listing on the previous presentation.
Now all your photos, content, and names can easily be added to the section they belong in. This is especially helpful for long listings, not only for donors, but also products or services can also be handled this way. Then, when you have new content to add, you can open the specific presentation for the category and make the change. This will take less time to navigate, load quicker, and make edits easy.
Split by Locations
If you are setting up wayfinding or directories, then the best practice is to split each area up into its own presentation. For campus mapping, you would split up the presentations to the buildings identified, then have all the details of each building in one presentation. If you have a hospital map you can set up a presentation for each floor or department.
Split by Content
Another best practice for large content driven presentations is to set up presentations based on the amount of content. Videos can have a lot of loading time for rendering. They are the largest content type to work with, so if you have a lot of videos, try to split them evenly onto presentations. 2-3 videos per presentation is a good target. If you have more make, sure to split them up. Images can also add up and need to be planned around. If you are having lots of gallery photos or slideshows, say for a yearbook or history wall, we recommend you split those off into presentations, then create navigation to return to the main presentation. 20 – 30 images per presentation is a good target. If you have more images split them off into additional presentations.
Setting up Multiple Presentations
Start by designing your home page and top level content as a presentation. After you determine your overall design, layout, and navigation, you will want to save out pages and presentations as templates. Now you can begin additional presentations by importing template pages into the layouts. This speeds up layout time so that they will look and feel seamless. When setting your navigation you will then link your presentations together under the widget options. Make sure to change which presentation is selected as the destination, then choose the page in that presentation you want to go to, and finally name the button.
Optimizing Tips In General for Presentations
Naming Pages – When you add a page to your presentation, name it in the settings. Choose the name based on what you would title a button for this page to be called. This way when you select a page as a touch point, it will automatically name the button as the page name. This saves you from typing in a name every time, which adds up over 100+ pages of design.
Video Length – The longer the video, the larger the file size. Can the video be broken up into smaller sections? If possible, we recommend using videos under 30 seconds to keep viewers engaged with your display. Arreya has a file upload limit of 2 gigabytes, and long videos may reach this limit.
Plan for Growth – If you know you will be adding sections or content for new events or areas, set up navigation and additional presentations to leave room for adding future content. This will prevent having to redesign areas or all your pages in the future. Instead you can hide these links in the initial design, and in the future, make these areas visible, and link to a new presentation you can add the new content to.
That covers many of our recommendations for optimizing large content driven presentations in Arreya. We hope you now know some best practices our designers use, and understand how to best approach a large content driven presentation. We are always here to help, and can answer additional questions.
