WHITEPAPER

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by Don Korfhage

President of IGear

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DEC 3, 2025

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Contents

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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THE NEW REALITY OF CRITICAL EVENTS IN MANUFACTURING

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THE STATE OF HUMAN-RESPONSE MANAGEMENT TODAY

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CLOSING THE GAP: A HUMAN-RESPONSE LAYER FOR ICEM

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THE HUMAN-RESPONSE BENEFIT
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SQUEAKS WITH IGNITION AND MICROSOFT TEAMS

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ABOUT IGEAR​

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​​​​​Executive Summary

 

 

Industrial environments are saturated with alarms, signals, and notifications from machines, automation systems, and maintenance platforms. These technologies excel at detecting conditions—but provide little to no support for managing the human response that follows. As a result, operations teams face slow, inconsistent, and fragmented resolution processes that directly impact uptime, productivity, and safety.

This whitepaper explores the gap between critical event detection and critical event resolution, outlines the limitations of today’s human-response processes, and presents a modern digital approach that ensures every event is seen, owned, acted upon, resolved, and reviewed.

This whitepaper has a section that focuses specifically on Ignition-related alarms and events and visibility in Microsoft Teams, though the principles apply across all industrial critical event sources.

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The New Reality of Critical Events in Manufacturing

 

Modern facilities are filled with systems that generate critical alarms and events from countless, fragmented systems and people, including:

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• Automation & Control Systems: PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, MES 

• Maintenance and Asset Systems: CMMS, EAM

• Visual / Audible Signals: Stack lights, Andon boards, radios

• Human Observations: Operators, technicians, supervisors

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These systems are highly effective at detecting and displaying events. But they do not manage what happens next.  The core problem: “Now What?”  Once an event is triggered:

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• Machines generate alarms

• HMIs flash warnings

• Stack lights change color and music chimes are played

• Radios crackle with half-heard messages
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The “now what” actions, or the most critical part of the process—the human response—is invisible, unstructured, and often undocumented.

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Meanwhile, downtime pressures are intensifying. Industry research shows downtime can exceed $32,000 per minute, and workforce constraints mean fewer people must react faster with greater precision.

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The State of Human-Response Management Today

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When a critical event occurs, it is eventually resolved—but the path to resolution is rarely efficient, consistent, or visible.

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Current Human-Response Behaviors

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• Reactive: Teams scramble only after something has gone wrong.

• Manual: Paper logs, verbal instructions, hallway conversations.

• Uncaptured: Critical know-how is stored in people’s heads, not digital systems.
   

These introduce blind spots.  We often cannot answer:

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• Who was notified?

• Who acknowledged the issue?

• Who took ownership?

• What steps were taken?

• How long did each step take?

• Was the issue truly resolved or just patched?

• What can be learned for next time?
   

Structural Inefficiencies in Today’s Approach

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• Noisy: Alerts broadcast to everyone, causing overload.

• Open-Loop: No certainty about acknowledgment or ownership.

• Fragmented: No central source tracking the resolution process.

• Proximity-Based: Must be near an HMI or stack light to know what’s happening.

• Low-Fidelity Communication: Short, cryptic signals—no photos, videos, documents.

• No Historical Thread: No trail of who did what, when, or how long it took.

 

The old saying still holds true:
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease”—but only if someone hears it squeak.

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Modern operations need digitized visibility to drive digitized action.

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​Closing the Gap: A Human-Response Layer for ICEM

 

Industrial Critical Event Management (ICEM) is incomplete without managing the human response. A complete approach ensures that every event is:
 

• Seen

• Owned     

• Acted On

• Resolved

• Reviewed
   

A dedicated human-response layer fills the gap between event detection and event resolution.
 

Essential functions of Human-Response Management include capabilities that advance what we call the 3-R’s:
 

• Respond – Deliver targeted, real-time alerts so teams can identify and act on issues immediately.

• Resolve – Accelerate resolution through integrated documentation, automated workflows,and rule-based escalations.

• Review – Capture every action in a digital thread, creating a structured data set for reporting and continuous improvement.
   

A Human-Response component of a Critical Event Management Platform incorporate
the following:  

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Smart Alerts

• Targeted, context-aware notifications

• Delivered to the right person, wherever they are

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Integrated Documentation

• Automatically attaches troubleshooting guides, SOPs, PDFs, and videos

• Eliminates the search for instructions during urgent situations

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Automated Workflow Guidance

• Converts paper-based processes into structured digital steps

• Provides consistency across shifts and experience levels

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Collaboration Support

• Multi-person, cross-team problem-solving

• Integrates with enterprise communication platforms (e.g., Teams)

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Escalation Rules

• Auto-escalate when thresholds are reached

• Ensure issues draw attention at the right level

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Accountability

• Every event is tracked from start to finish

• Ownership and actions are visible and verifiable

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Digital Thread

• Every action is captured, time-stamped, and stored

• Creates a rich data set for reporting, analytics, and continuous improvement

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​​​The Human-Response Benefits​

 

The benefits of a dedicated human-response layer can be summarized in three essential functions that drive faster, more consistent outcomes.

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Faster Response Times

Targeted, context-rich alerts delivered the moment an event occurs ensure that the right people receive the right information immediately.

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• Reduces noise by eliminating unnecessary alerts

• Ensures no critical signal is missed

• Accelerates decision-making and mobilization
   

Quicker Resolutions

Integrated human-response workflows enable seamless coordination from the moment an event begins until it’s fully resolved.

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• Structured, guided workflows ensure consistency

• Escalation rules prevent stalls or bottlenecks

• Embedded documentation and real-time collaboration shorten root-cause and corrective-action cycles
   

Continuous Learning & Improvement

Every action, response, and resolution becomes part of a digital thread—creating a rich data set for analysis and optimization.

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• Out-of-the-box reporting surfaces trends and performance indicators

• Enables process refinement and proactive prevention

• Creates organizational memory that compounds improvement over time
   

SQUEAKS is the missing human-response layer in manufacturing – transforming critical events into smart alerts and structured actions for faster resolution and continuous learning. 

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SQUEAKS with Ignition and Microsoft Teams

 

​With SQUEAKS, Ignition and Microsoft Teams work better together – turning complex data into simple, actionable insights and giving customers a modern, connected way to improve efficiency and teamwork.

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SQUEAKS brings structure, visibility, and accountability to the human-response process in a way that traditional control systems, messaging tools, and alarm frameworks simply weren’t designed to handle. By connecting Ignition’s real-time machine data with Microsoft Teams’ communication layer, SQUEAKS ensures that every critical event is not only detected — but acted on consistently, with the right context and the right people involved from the very beginning. Operators, technicians, and supervisors all work from a single source of truth, supported by guided workflows, embedded documentation, and clear ownership at every step.

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As manufacturers continue to push for higher uptime, leaner staffing, and stronger cross-team coordination, the gap between alarm detection and human response becomes more consequential — and more expensive — than ever. SQUEAKS closes that gap. By unifying Ignition, Teams, and the human-response layer into one seamless workflow, organizations gain faster reaction times, more reliable resolutions, and a complete digital thread that strengthens training, compliance, and continuous improvement. The result is a more connected, more efficient, and more resilient operation — one where every critical event gets the visibility, action, and follow-through it deserves.