We need it for a very similar purpose. Our IT dept has regular daily
maintenance and tasks that have to be done on a daily, weekly and monthly
basis - and we'd use this to send the task to the Helpdesk folks to take
care of the task.
Cool!
Here is and idea that I got from a Yahoo group for
maint issues. Remember he is talking abt using Outlook
and Exchange server. Please read following and see if
you can get some ideas.
==========================================================
These are all very good properties, but I believe that
I can get 80% of the benefits of an maintenance
software with MS Outlook-if your company is not
so big and complicated. Here is my strategy for that:
1. Define your equipments as Contacts. When you are on
the contact screen, you can go to the ALL FIELDS tab,
and enter as many fields as you can. For example the
model, the manufacturer, the catalog number, the serial
number
etc.
2. Define your problem/cause/failure codes as
categories. When you are viewing or creating task,
there is Categories Button. When you click on the
Categories button, new screen will pop-up, and when
you click on the 'Master Category List' you can enter
your problem codes. Then you can analyze your
maintenance activities depending on problem codes.
3. Enter the maintenance requests as tasks. Then enter
the equipment which needs repair to the contact field
on the left-down corner. So, you will know which
equipment needs repair. And then click on 'Assign'
button and assign the maintenance employee who will
look up the problem and take action.
4. Then use the description field of the task to
summarize what is the problem, and enter the problem
code via the categories field.
5. For the jobs that will last long, you can use the
percent complete field to see what you have done so
far.
6. The description field of a task can be used for
telling what you have done about that breakdown/repair
request.
7. For the periodic maintenance purposes, you will
define your task as recurring task. When you press
Ctrl-G or select recurrence from Actions menu, the Task
Recurrence form will be opened. On that form you can
enter your period for that task. For example 'Change
the filters of the chimney on every 3 months'. When
you perform the task you will complete the task, so you
can see your performance on periodic tasks. If you skip
some tasks, these tasks will be uncompleted, and you
will see your bad performance on periodic maintenance.
8. To see the history of an equipment, you will go the
Tasks screen, and will modify the Detailed View or
crete your own view. To modify the view, from the menu
select View>Current View>Customize Current View. Here
you can add the Contact Name to the Task View. So you
will be able to see which equipments need repair or
maintenance. By filtering the view by Filter
Button, you can see the tasks(repair/maintenance
orders) for only one equipment, or the tasks that are
completed, or the breakdowns of certain reason . By
the filtering ability, you can decide what data to see.
I know that, Datastream is much more than this
solution. But I believe, if I can see :
1. Which equipments have problems
2. What is the history of my equipment
3. Which problems re occurring most
4. Who is working where
I believe I will get 80% of the benefit any software
gives. I know that there are some software vendors
registered to this group, and want to promote their
products. And I am respecting them, a good software
like Datastream will add value to the company. But if
the companies did not want to spend money on
maintenance software, then cheap solution like MS
Outlook
can also be helpful to some extent.
