We have a custom built API for a customer that places orders with our warehouse. At the moment they are all just standard orders however I have been told they are now going to be doing fast track orders which need to be picked up straight away.
At the moment I just send an email to the relevant people who need to know of the order but have been told this is not enough for this new fast track process. I have though about SMS or maybe an automated outgoing voice call but wondered if anybody else had a better idea?
It needs to be reliable and free or cheap. I was hoping for a network connected device which i could open a socket within PHP and make some sort of alarm go off
Thanks in advance
EDIT:
I understand that this is mainly caused by the inefficiency of the warehouse team not doing their job properly but management wants to address this technically to force the team to process these orders
2 very easy/quick options.
Create an email address that is specifically for fast track order notifications. Configure the address on a device with very loud speakers, set the mail client on the device to play a really annoying alarm at full volume every time an email is received to that account.
This allows you to utilise what you have in place already (from reading the comments), costs are low, allows workers to easily distinguish priority orders.
Alternatively if you wanted to go down the PHP route. Create a page that refreshes/polls automatically, each time querying your orders. When a fast track order is picked up in the results again have the page play a really loud annoying alarm.
I would have placed this in the comments but I don't have enough cred for that yet.
Edit: Just to expand, if you go for the PHP Polling option. Have it on a dedicated display screen. I'd also run it via Chrome in Kiosk mode.