MainBoss Newswire

Happy New Year!

January 2007

Topics:

 

  1. MainBoss Reports
  2. Planned Maintenance
  3. Upcoming Tradeshows

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1. MainBoss Reports

 

MainBoss reports can provide you with important information, both for your day-to-day operations and for longer-term planning. Here are a few reports to consider:

 

  1. Work Order History (Work Orders -> Reports -> History):

The Work Order History report provides details about past work orders. You have numerous options for determining what kinds of information the report will display. In some cases, you might want complete details about a particular aspect of your work, while in other cases, the best approach might be an overview summary.

 

Example 1: If you need to find out all the information about what work was done on a particular category of machine, you can use this report to find only those work orders that apply to that category:

 

In the Unit Criteria section of the print options, set From and To of Unit Category to the equipment category you want.

 

Example 2: If you need to find out all the information about what work was done on a particular building during a selected period of time:

 

In the Work Order Criteria section of the print options, specify the range of dates you want to look at, usually by setting From and To for Work Start. In the Unit Criteria section, specify the building in both From and To of Building.

 

You can fine-tune the report even further by setting more options. For example, suppose you want to look at preventive maintenance only; if you’re using closing codes to indicate preventive maintenance, you could specify that you only want to look at work orders with the “preventive maintenance” closing code.

 

  1. Overdue Work Orders (Work Orders -> Reports -> Overdue):

Shows all open work orders for which the specified Work End date has already passed. (If you expected the work to be finished by now, but the work order is still open, this suggests that the job is overdue.)

 

  1. Maintenance Status (Units -> Reports -> Maintenance Status):

Shows the last time preventive maintenance was done for a unit, and also the next time preventive maintenance is due. (Note: The only units included in the report are ones which have existing schedules for preventive maintenance.)

 

  1. Labor History (Work Orders -> Reports -> Labor History):

Shows information about your workers, specifically all the jobs they’ve worked on. For example, you might run off this report at the end of every month to get accurate statistics on the work your personnel did.

 

  1. Work Order Statistics (Work Orders -> Reports -> Statistics):

Shows statistical information about work orders (for example, how many work orders were created and closed during a particular month). Useful to get overviews of what you do, and trends over time.

 

  1. Re-order Report (Inventory -> Reports -> Re-Order):

Checks inventory levels and produces a list of all items which are below their specified minimum level. Items are grouped according to their most recent supplier. You can use this report to remind you when you need to re-order parts using MainBoss' purchase orders or through your organization's central purchasing system.

 

Note: One way to adapt MainBoss to your operations is to give users specific permissions on a subset of MainBoss’s features. For example, you might set up a secretary with access to reports only. This way, the secretary can run off reports that are relevant to his/her duties, but won’t be able to create a new work order or edit/delete any table records.

 

For more on reports: The next on-line training “refresher” course related to reports is March 14, 2007. You can also get information about any aspect of MainBoss through the manual on our web site: http://mainboss.com/english/manual/mainboss/Index.htm.

 

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2. Planned Maintenance (Preventive Maintenance)

We recently found an article on the UAW-GM site that offered a lot of food for thought: http://www.uaw-gm.org/quality_network/planned.html.

The point of the article is that a preventive maintenance plan improves operations and reduces overall maintenance costs. However, such a plan needs input and support from everyone involved. If management tries to impose measures without getting feedback from workers—all workers, including personnel from both operations and maintenance—the result will be less effective than if everybody participates. Similarly, if the maintenance department tries to establish a program without active cooperation from the rest of the company (especially upper management and the operations personnel who’ll be affected by the program), it will be an uphill battle.

Maintenance programs work best when everybody buys in. This means actively and constantly working to improve the entire maintenance process. If some participants aren’t pulling their weight (or even worse, if they’re fighting the program), you’re in trouble.

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3. Upcoming Tradeshows

 

NFM & T Expo 2007 (National Facilities Management and Technology) at the Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, MD from March 20-22, 2007

            We will be in Booth 1075

 

The TFM Show 2007 at the Navy Pier, Chicago, IL from April 17-19, 2007

            We will be in Booth 629

 

ICSC Spring Convention Trade Exposition at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV from May 20-22, 2007

            Booth to be announced

 

BOMA The Office Building Show 2007 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York, NY from July 22-24, 2007

            We will be in Booth 109

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