dwanehollands
Well-known member
Hi All,
Over the years I've gained much help from the Printplanet forums and am grateful for all involved who have given of their personal time to answer my questions and help me solve my problems.
I'm always mindful of this and look for ways that I can perhaps give back. (other than posting what I know for others).
So I'm excited to share some software that I found while pouring over the internet late one night that truly is a gem! I got excited when I found it (hey I'm a maintenance nerd) and took me some time to believe that it was completely free.
The product is called [Maintenance Assistant|www.maintenanceassistant.com].
[www.maintenanceassistant.com]
*There's so much to the product that it's best to create a list:*
• FREE (yes completely)
• Runs on Mac, Windows or Linux as a server (Doesn't take much to run it either)
• Can be published online, to be acccessed anywhere you like
• Can schedule based on hours, days, months or years
• Can schedule maintenance based on last completed date (I knew you'd like that one)
• Can schedule maintenance based on meter readings (use it for impressions. "Change anti-marking sheets every 350,000 impressions" etc)
• Can look ahead at upcoming maintenance
• Assign maintenance to an operator (or anyone)
• Operators can log what they've done - They log-in to the system with their own username.
• Operators automatically get emails with new maintenance 'work orders'
• Manager automatically get email reports when maintenance 'work orders' are complete.
• Assign maintenance to a specific press (or any piece of equipment)
• Reporting based on number of criteria.
• Create task procedures for your maintenance.
• Print work orders out
• Assign parts and manage stock control with automatic "Request for Quote" from your suppliers when stock is used. - pretty cool.
*Basically it runs like this:*
1. You install it on your server (it's fairly easy to do, no command line or junk like that) and from the server you:
2. You create Assets (your press, CTP, bindary etc)
3. You create users (your staff)
4. You create suppliers (optional)
5. You create parts (optional)
6. You create tasks
- assigned to the Device (press for example)
- select a Staff member or Any Technician
- Select Parts which you want to use
- Select the scheduling of it
*Then you boot the browser, anywhere in the factory (or outside the factory if you want - not too diffiicult):*
1. Boot your maintenance assistant webpage and see all the 'due' maintenance.
2. Search for upcoming maintenace
3. Log-in and check off maintenance you've completed
4. Create 'one-off' work orders (end of year stuff or whatever)
It's pretty cool stuff. I like the fact that you can update the 'meter readings' with your impression count and do maintenance based on actual impressions.
Yes I'm sure Prinect has this feature...but this is free and can be used for any device!!!
*Maintenance Intelligence*
Now I haven't quite figured out how to do this yet since I'm not a charting wizard, but it would also be good to log problems that you have in the system together with the maintenace. Then somehow be able to create a chart which shows all the maintenance performed and all the problems in sequential order along a line.
The point being, you can see where issues are showing up and where preventive maintenance is being performed. If you notice that 13 weeks after cleaning the delivery you get setoff issues related to 'no powder', then you may be able to bring the interval back to 10-12 weeks.
This way eliminating unncessary redundancy and still avoiding unscheduled down time. Means more time for production.
Hopefully my 'dummy chart' will illustrate the concept fully. (I've also got a picture of the web interface of Maintenance assistant.)
*Um isn't It' a little idealistic to say that the cause is from lack of maintenance?*
True. The cause could be from operator not performing the maintenance correctly or other factors such as room conditions. But at the very least it's better to see the 'patterns' that are occuring. In fact it may even help to point that the issue is NOT caused by maintenance. I'm sure the more data there is, the more accurate the prediction could be. Point being - you can make a better decision with more information.
(To flog a dead horse, since maintenance can be delegated to different operators, perhaps having who performed the maintenance written beside the maintenance task on the graph could point out 'problem operators'.)
*For the really bright ones*
If you know how to chart information like the above, perhaps you could share it with everyone. The goal I suppose of this post is to help struggling printers who might not be able to afford the expensive systems that others have. Or to help the Production Manager with great responsibility but limited resources to do his/her job better.
Anyway
Edited by: Dwane Hollands on Feb 19, 2008 5:49 PM
Over the years I've gained much help from the Printplanet forums and am grateful for all involved who have given of their personal time to answer my questions and help me solve my problems.
I'm always mindful of this and look for ways that I can perhaps give back. (other than posting what I know for others).
So I'm excited to share some software that I found while pouring over the internet late one night that truly is a gem! I got excited when I found it (hey I'm a maintenance nerd) and took me some time to believe that it was completely free.
The product is called [Maintenance Assistant|www.maintenanceassistant.com].
[www.maintenanceassistant.com]
*There's so much to the product that it's best to create a list:*
• FREE (yes completely)
• Runs on Mac, Windows or Linux as a server (Doesn't take much to run it either)
• Can be published online, to be acccessed anywhere you like
• Can schedule based on hours, days, months or years
• Can schedule maintenance based on last completed date (I knew you'd like that one)
• Can schedule maintenance based on meter readings (use it for impressions. "Change anti-marking sheets every 350,000 impressions" etc)
• Can look ahead at upcoming maintenance
• Assign maintenance to an operator (or anyone)
• Operators can log what they've done - They log-in to the system with their own username.
• Operators automatically get emails with new maintenance 'work orders'
• Manager automatically get email reports when maintenance 'work orders' are complete.
• Assign maintenance to a specific press (or any piece of equipment)
• Reporting based on number of criteria.
• Create task procedures for your maintenance.
• Print work orders out
• Assign parts and manage stock control with automatic "Request for Quote" from your suppliers when stock is used. - pretty cool.
*Basically it runs like this:*
1. You install it on your server (it's fairly easy to do, no command line or junk like that) and from the server you:
2. You create Assets (your press, CTP, bindary etc)
3. You create users (your staff)
4. You create suppliers (optional)
5. You create parts (optional)
6. You create tasks
- assigned to the Device (press for example)
- select a Staff member or Any Technician
- Select Parts which you want to use
- Select the scheduling of it
*Then you boot the browser, anywhere in the factory (or outside the factory if you want - not too diffiicult):*
1. Boot your maintenance assistant webpage and see all the 'due' maintenance.
2. Search for upcoming maintenace
3. Log-in and check off maintenance you've completed
4. Create 'one-off' work orders (end of year stuff or whatever)
It's pretty cool stuff. I like the fact that you can update the 'meter readings' with your impression count and do maintenance based on actual impressions.
Yes I'm sure Prinect has this feature...but this is free and can be used for any device!!!
*Maintenance Intelligence*
Now I haven't quite figured out how to do this yet since I'm not a charting wizard, but it would also be good to log problems that you have in the system together with the maintenace. Then somehow be able to create a chart which shows all the maintenance performed and all the problems in sequential order along a line.
The point being, you can see where issues are showing up and where preventive maintenance is being performed. If you notice that 13 weeks after cleaning the delivery you get setoff issues related to 'no powder', then you may be able to bring the interval back to 10-12 weeks.
This way eliminating unncessary redundancy and still avoiding unscheduled down time. Means more time for production.
Hopefully my 'dummy chart' will illustrate the concept fully. (I've also got a picture of the web interface of Maintenance assistant.)
*Um isn't It' a little idealistic to say that the cause is from lack of maintenance?*
True. The cause could be from operator not performing the maintenance correctly or other factors such as room conditions. But at the very least it's better to see the 'patterns' that are occuring. In fact it may even help to point that the issue is NOT caused by maintenance. I'm sure the more data there is, the more accurate the prediction could be. Point being - you can make a better decision with more information.
(To flog a dead horse, since maintenance can be delegated to different operators, perhaps having who performed the maintenance written beside the maintenance task on the graph could point out 'problem operators'.)
*For the really bright ones*
If you know how to chart information like the above, perhaps you could share it with everyone. The goal I suppose of this post is to help struggling printers who might not be able to afford the expensive systems that others have. Or to help the Production Manager with great responsibility but limited resources to do his/her job better.
Anyway
Edited by: Dwane Hollands on Feb 19, 2008 5:49 PM
