# Digital signage for manufacturing and factories Running shift handover boards, safety notices, line communications and staff-side announcements on factory floor screens, played from the screen's own browser and edited from a phone. Source: https://channelos.tv/industries/manufacturing ## What runs it ChannelOS plays as a web page in the browser the screen already has: Android TV, Google TV, webOS, Fire TV, a Chromebox, or a laptop in kiosk mode on the HDMI port. There is also a native Android TV app, downloaded as an APK from channelos.tv rather than from Google Play. There is no media player box to buy and no per-device licence. ## What goes on the screen - **Shift handover boards.** What ran, what stopped, what the next shift is walking into. Typed once on a phone at the end of a shift and visible the length of the floor. - **Safety and compliance notices.** Days since, PPE for this area, the current rule after a change. A notice board channel that is actually current, rather than a frame of paper nobody has dated. - **Line and area boards.** Different screens in different areas run different channels from one account, so the paint shop and the dispatch bay are not showing each other's notices. - **Dashboards from a system you already have.** A web dashboard can be embedded as a layer on a slide, so a board can carry a live page beside the notices rather than being a separate screen nobody set up. ## When ChannelOS is the wrong answer ChannelOS does not read from your MES, SCADA, PLCs or ERP. There is no OEE calculation, no andon logic and no alarm integration, so the live production numbers an operations team wants on a line board are not something ChannelOS computes. It can embed a dashboard page that your own systems already publish, which is often enough, but if the requirement is a signage layer wired into plant telemetry then an industrial visualisation product is the honest purchase. ChannelOS fits the factory whose floor screens are mostly words a person writes: shifts, safety, notices and the things that go out of date because changing them is a chore. ## Questions ### What is digital signage for manufacturing? Manufacturing digital signage means running shift handover boards, safety notices, area instructions and staff communications on screens on the factory floor instead of whiteboards, printed notices and laminated sheets. In ChannelOS each board is an editable show played by the browser inside the screen, so the end-of-shift handover is typed on a phone and is on the floor's screens seconds later rather than being chalked on a board somebody wipes. ### Can ChannelOS show live production data or OEE? Not by itself. ChannelOS has no connection to an MES, SCADA system, PLC or ERP, and it does not calculate OEE, cycle time or downtime. What it can do is embed a web page as a layer on a slide, so if one of your own systems already publishes a dashboard at a URL, that dashboard can sit on a board next to the notices. If the screen's whole job is live plant telemetry, buy an industrial visualisation tool for that part. ### Will it survive an unattended night shift? That is the question a contractor asks before putting their name on an install, and it is a fair one. The player is a web page the screen reloads on its own schedule, so there is no application to crash and leave a black screen, and a screen that loses the network keeps playing what it has cached rather than going blank. When connectivity comes back it catches up to whatever the schedule says is on now. ### Do we need a player box behind each factory screen? No. ChannelOS plays in the browser the screen already has, including Android TV, Google TV, webOS and Fire TV, and there is a native Android TV app for the plants that prefer installing something, downloaded as an APK from our own site rather than from Google Play. Older displays take any cheap HDMI stick that loads a modern web page, and because it is a browser rather than a signage appliance there is no per-device licence attached to it. ### Can different areas of the plant show different boards? Yes. A screen tunes into a channel, and a channel is a named feed with its own daily and weekly timeline, so the assembly area, the warehouse and the canteen each run their own. One account holds every channel and the board shows which screen is playing what right now, which is what tells you a notice reached the far end of the site. ### How much does manufacturing digital signage cost? The first screen is free forever and further screens are billed per screen per month, at the rates published on the pricing page. Free screens carry a ChannelOS banner that opens into a full slide about every two minutes, which for an internal staff-side board some plants live with and others pay to remove. There is no per-device licence and no player hardware to buy. ## Related - [Digital signage for warehouses](https://channelos.tv/digital-signage-for-warehouses): Dispatch boards, pick-rate notices and the screens in a goods-in bay. - [Safety and shift boards](https://channelos.tv/use-cases/safety-and-shift-boards): The handover board as a show, and why the whiteboard keeps winning until it is not. - [Dashboards on screens](https://channelos.tv/use-cases/dashboards-on-screens): Embedding a web dashboard as a layer, and what that does and does not get you. - [Notice board maker](https://channelos.tv/tools/digital-notice-board-maker): A notice per line with who owns it, including a shift handover preset. No account needed.