Andon (manufacturing)

In theory a good escalation system. In practice there must be strong guarantees and trust that there are no repercussions for triggering. Otherwise management will tell you over and over to "pull the andon cord / escalate earle & often" but really no one does.

Let's rewrite all software to use Andon instead if exception

One interesting thing you learn over the years is there's a million ways to improve process, and a million ways to avoid it. Virtually every improvement is unlikely; either it's difficult to understand, or difficult to get approval/consensus for, or difficult to implement. If it was easy you'd have done it already. Process won't improve until a motivation arrives that pushes past the difficulties.

Trader Joe's cashier bells have entered the chat. Ironically, the "request assistance" button and accompanying blinking light on top of your stand at self-checkout are the "self-managing" version of that where you as the customer are partly an employee. oh well