Case Study: World's Largest Manufacturer of Industrial Machinery achieves rapid disaster response and employee accountability with BlackBerry AtHoc

Major Manufacturer’s Employees Stay Connected and Protected When Disaster Strikes

A multinational industrial machinery manufacturer’s U.S. facility—one of several worldwide and covering roughly 400,000 m²—faced serious gaps in its emergency reporting. The legacy process required a safety manager to verify incidents in person (or be present at all), causing long delays and confusion; a prior fire went uncoordinated until offsite calls alerted staff, and emergency responders faced a roughly seven-mile drive, with incident coordination taking about 15 minutes.

The plant replaced the system with BlackBerry AtHoc, deploying 25 cloud‑connected “panic boxes” (each with four emergency categories) placed so anyone can reach one within ten seconds, plus desktop and mobile access for managers. The platform’s mapping and two‑way alerting enabled rapid accountability, drove organized procedures and drills, achieved 97% employee buy‑in, and cut estimated responder on‑site time to about five–seven minutes while improving overall visibility and control.