American Time Blog

 

A student races to class as the hallway countdown timer nears zero and the bell rings. An employee meeting starts promptly because everyone is on time. Shift changes are in sync and disruptions are minimized.

Things that seem insignificant to the casual observer – like clocks, bells, and buzzers – have an outsized impact on the productivity of a building or campus. Maintenance teams, building managers, IT directors, teachers and leaders know this.

A single, go-to resource for clocks, bells, buzzers, parts, repairs and upgrades – “standardizing” your clock and bell systems – is an important way to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your operations.

Let’s look at the key considerations and factors to think about in order to standardize your systems…

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With Daylight Saving Time (DST) coming up, you may discover that some of your clocks don’t adjust properly after the change happens. As a result, you could end up dealing with employee or staff complaints, classes or shift changes that may be off, and maintenance teams that are bogged down with work orders.

To prepare, here are some quick troubleshooting tips for clocks that don’t adjust correctly for DST.

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Daylight saving time (DST) changes were formally established in most of the United States almost 60 years ago, but the biannual changes continue to be a hassle for maintenance teams, facility managers, IT staff and anyone else in charge of keeping a building running smoothly.

Here are some tips for preparing your clocks for DST and troubleshooting if things don’t go as planned.

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Follow the tips below to ensure your clocks and clock systems are ready for the time change.

Routinely check your clocks leading up to Daylight Saving Time

The beginning and end of Daylight Saving Time serve as natural reminders to make sure your facility's clocks are reliably keeping everyone on schedule.

To ensure that a wired system clock is syncing correctly, unplug it, wait at least 10 seconds, and plug it back in. The clock should be receiving synchronization signals from the master controller and display the correct time within 24 hours.

You can take a similar approach to your wireless system battery-operated clocks. Take the battery out, assuring the clock hands come to a complete stop, and reinstall it.

This is a good time to check the life of your batteries, too. If a battery is supplying 1.5 volts or more, it should be good to go. The clock will automatically be on time within 12 hours or sooner.

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Inefficiencies in the workplace are not always easy to spot. You won't see employees literally setting $100 bills on fire, but inevitably, there will be times during the day when otherwise productive work hours might as well be going up in smoke.

And this isn't necessarily due to a lack of work ethic or motivation. At DMR Electronics, a manufacturer of industrial electronic components and wiring harnesses, employees sometimes had no other choice but to waste time standing around while waiting for meetings to get underway. But, it wasn't their fault. Since there was no single time source to rely on, their schedules were easily thrown out of whack.

The phenomenon led DMR to research synchronized clock systems, ultimately choosing American Time to bring an added sense of order to its daily operations.

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Distractions are everywhere, whether it's your social media feed, your dog pawing at you for a scratch behind the ear, or a cloud in the sky that looks like ice cream.

All these things are wonderful on their own, but when you're trying to get some work done, it's best if you can minimize disruptions.

The same is true when your job is to keep your facility on schedule. Critical to this mission is your synchronized time system, which, in very rare cases, can encounter its own kind of distraction — signal interference.

It's a phenomenon you'll want to be aware of if your timekeeping system uses wireless clocks, which stay in sync by receiving a radio signal from a master controller. Here, we'll look at the causes of signal interference and the steps you can take to prevent it or mitigate disruptions.

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