American Time Blog

For anyone who takes direction from someone else — so, virtually all of us — it can be comforting to realize that your boss has a boss.

You might be told what to do every day and work under intense scrutiny, but the person scrutinizing you is also under pressure. See? Your boss is human, too.

But not all authority figures are human. Take, for instance, the clock on the wall. In a time-sensitive scenario, the clock is your boss, and if it's part of a synchronized system, the time it displays supersedes all other competing sources, such as phones or computers.

When you buy a clock to put on your wall at home, it’s safe to assume that if that clock is running a few seconds or even minutes fast or slow, it’s not going to make a big impact on your day. But, if you are part of an organization that relies on accurate scheduling, like in a school, hospital, or manufacturing facility, inaccurate clocks can create some major headaches.

You've seen it in the movies: The band of action heroes is about to save the world by executing their carefully planned mission. But first, their leader issues the command, “Synchronize watches.” It's a cinematic trope, and for good reason. It makes sense that a tight-knit team would need to be working off the same time as they put their complex plans in motion.

Maybe you aren't saving the world, but your manufacturing facility relies on calculated efficiency nonetheless, and that starts with the clocks. You might have hundreds of them, and making sure they all tell the same time can pay huge dividends — as in, real money.

Here are some ways synchronized clock systems can help manufacturers increase productivity.

We've all heard a lot about this enigmatic entity called "the cloud,” something you probably use every day for computer applications, data storage, or entertainment, whether you give it much thought or not.

And that's the beauty of it — the cloud is seamless, making it feel like the software you use and the data you consume is coming directly from your device, and not from … somewhere out there. You rarely think about it because you rarely have to.

There are countless details and documents to complete when planning for a newly constructed building — from what materials are used, to how they are installed, and how the final product functions. Among those requirements, are considerations and specifications for a clock system.

Creating these construction documents is a time-consuming task. Fortunately, companies are making it easier and faster to spec for a variety of needs in many projects. For example, for our EverAlert emergency notification platform we provide a CSI specification that can be dropped directly into the construction documents. It's as easy as that. And these documents will prove beneficial throughout the project for many reasons.

We take a lot of things for granted these days...accurate time being one of them. Precise time, whether it's on your phone or from a network of synchronized clocks in the workplace, seems to come so easily. However, if you knew the process involved in getting that correct time, you would be amazed...so here goes.

You're in charge of building a new school or hospital and your to-do list is mounting. There are a lot of items on that list you have a pretty good grasp of...but one item presents more of a challenge: installing a system of synchronized clocks.

Fear not, for here are some FAQs on synchronized clock systems that will make your job easier.

The first thing you may think of when envisioning a synchronized network of clocks in a workplace may be that of company employees working together and knowing where to be at all times, whether it's a meeting, lunch break, or a shift change. In a hospital setting, you can add things like the staff arriving in a patient's room at once, or a team of surgeons preparing to do their job together in the same place.

Most of us take certain types of technology for granted — until it's not working for us. We have all probably lost phone service while inside the walls of a warehouse or at the bottom of a parking garage. This can be an annoying inconvenience, but how often has it prevented you from making a deadline or resulted in a loss of revenue?

Imagine you’re conducting an important business conference call on a large corporate campus. Several different divisions of the company — each located in a different building — are required to present subject matter to a potential client with large amounts of profit at stake. 

Time is of the essence, but there's a problem: The clocks set in each building are not synchronized to the same time source.Think about how this meeting is going when one group joins to present its information a few minutes late, while your prospect waits and waits. How does this make your company, and you, appear to this game-changing client? Yes, correct time sync is important to maintain network clock accuracy.