New Maintenance App Updates
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New Maintenance App Updates

February 2022 Maintenance App Update

Features: Suggested tasks can be turned into real tasks without required approval, missed tasks now visible in the Task view

Release Date: February 2022

Amper has released 2 new updates to the Maintenance app. New features included in this release:

  1. Donā€™t Require Approval Plan Setting: Maintenance Plans can now be configured to show suggestions as tasks automatically in the Tasks view, allowing users to easily view and edit suggested tasks without approval from a Maintenance Manager or other team member.
  2. Viewing Missed Tasks: To prevent you from losing track of any missed maintenance tasks, missed Tasks will now be visible in the Tasks view. You can also filter out Completed Tasks from the queried tasks list.

ā€œDonā€™t Require Approvalā€ Plan Setting

Sometimes maintenance activities require approval and scheduling, and other times they donā€™t - thatā€™s a fact! Weā€™ve made it easier to get maintenance done for pre-approved activities.

Plans can now be configured to not require approval in the . When plans generate suggestions, you will be able to view, edit, and complete them without the need for a Maintenance Manager or other team member to first approve them.

This saves the person scheduling maintenance activities tons of time!

How to Turn on this Setting

This setting can be found in the same place where you create or edit a Plan. If you want to allow suggested tasks to show up as real tasks that donā€™t require any approval, check the Donā€™t Require Approval box.

This is a Plan with the ā€œDonā€™t Require Approvalā€ setting active.
This is a Plan with the ā€œDonā€™t Require Approvalā€ setting active.

Changes to Tasks Screen, Outposts and Scoreboards

When the Donā€™t Require Approval setting is checked ā˜‘ļø, the suggestions will automatically populate on the Tasks view, Outposts & Scoreboards. These suggested tasks will appear alongside other tasks and function the same way.

If this box is not checked ā¹ļø, suggestions will still need to be approved and converted into a real task before they show up in the Tasks view, or on Outposts & Scoreboards.

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Since usage-based task suggestions are constantly updated based on changing data, they do not have a static scheduled due date. This means that while the tasks remain suggestions, the due date or scheduled date may shift around as more data is collected.

Schedules

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The Donā€™t Require Approval setting will not effect how tasks populate in the Schedule view.

They will still appear and provide the same functionality regardless of how the Donā€™t Require Approval setting is configured.

Viewing Missed Tasks

Have you been wanting an easy was to see all your Missed tasks and close them out? The page now has a table of Missed Tasks to view.

Missed Tasks

The Missed Tasks table shows tasks that are missed/overdue. Missed tasks are considered any tasks that are scheduled for (but not completed ) before the start date of the query. The Missed Tasks table helps keep users aware of any outstanding tasks of which they might lose track as time goes on.

Example

In the image below, we have set a date range from 2/24/2022 ā‡’ 3/3/2022. This sets the bounds for tasks that populate the table titled Tasks. However, youā€™ll see there is an overdue task that was scheduled for 2/12/2022 (before our query date range), so this task will populate in the Missed Tasks table.

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Note:

If you wish to only see tasks within the requested range, you can check ā˜‘ļø the Hide box in the Missed Tasks header row.

Show Completed Tasks

In the page, the Show completed tasks toggle will control whether the Tasks list shows completed tasks or not. By default this box is unchecked ā¹ļø.

When Show completed tasks is checked ā˜‘ļø, tasks that are already completed will appear in the Tasks list. This is great for making any edits or notes to completed tasks!

Show completed tasks
Show completed tasks is checked and completed tasks are populated in the list.

Conversely when the box is unchecked ā¹ļø, the completed tasks will be filtered out.

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That means when you complete a task with the Show completed tasks box unchecked, it will disappear from the list as it is now a completed task. You can bring the task back into view by checking the box.

Show completed tasks
Show completed tasks is unchecked and the completed tasks no longer show up.

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Note: The Show completed tasks filter only applies to the Tasks list because a Missed Task can only be incomplete.

How to get started

Now that you've learned about each section of the Maintenance menu, you're ready to get started.

  1. Add any Static Assets.
  2. Create a Plan database. Some examples of plans:
    1. 6 Month PM
    2. 480 Hour PM
    3. Weekly Coolant Change
    4. General Non-Recurring Requests
  3. Enter in the Missing Task Records
  4. Review the Schedule and assign Task Owners and Due Dates
  5. Set up Scoreboards or Print out PDF's of the Schedule
  6. Train your team on how to complete the tasks
  7. Kick it off!

November 2021 Maintenance App Update

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Features: usage-based maintenance, maintenance schedules, maintenance requests and more.

Release Date: November 2021

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Announcement for Existing Users

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The new Maintenance app is HERE!

Amper has released a brand new Maintenance product that brings a number of new capabilities for scheduling & managing maintenance.

New features included in this release:

  1. Usage-based maintenance in tandem with calendar-based maintenance as well as one-off maintenance requests.
  2. Maintenance Owners can now set schedules with priorities and assign task owners.
  3. Ability to request maintenance work and add it to the schedule with other planned maintenance tasks.
  4. You'll be able to see all the open work orders on a Visual Management Board to track what's being done and see what tasks need to be picked up. As work is completed, it will fall off the screen.
  5. Maintenance teams can close out maintenance tasks from either the web app OR the operator interface at machines.

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Check out the release document below to understand how to use the new features. This is a big release, so please read through thoroughly to ensure you get the MOST out of the application.

Maintenance App Terms / Language

Summary of the terminology used in our maintenance offering.

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Untoggle here to read the list of new terms
  • Asset - Equipment that requires maintenance. This includes all Amper connected machines along with Static Assets.
    • Static Assets equipment that is not connected to Amper. This can include critical-to-safety machines, cooling fans, eyewash stations or other machines
  • Plan - The instructions of what is to be done. Plans show you what maintenance tasks are needed, how often you need to do them, and to which machines. You can also track costs associated with a specific maintenance event.
  • Maintenance Owner -The Maintenance Owner is the assigned user who is broadly responsible for ensuring maintenance gets done. This is the person who is held responsible for overdue maintenance tasks. They set the Plan, and if there's debate about "do I do this task or that task first?" they are the person who would settle it.
  • Task - The record of work that needs to be done to an asset.
    • A Task always has a due date, but not necessarily someone assigned.
    • Tasks can be of High, Normal or Low priority. You can sort tasks by priority.
  • Assignee / Task Owner - This the person responsible for executing the task and communicating the success, failure, and issues of that taskā€”usually a Maintenance Technician.
  • Request - A request for a defined Task to be done.
    • Someoneā€”typically the Maintenance Ownerā€”will approve requests and once approved, the request becomes a Task
    • Requests can be made High, Low or Normal priority. When approving, the Maintenance Owner can choose to keep or change that priority. (There is an Alert available to get notified when high-priority requests are made.)
  • Requestor - The person who asks for the request to get done. This person does not have to on the maintenance team. The Requestor can be anyone in the factory who has a maintenance request: from a light bulb needing changed to an emergency repair.

What's New?

In the new Maintenance section of the web app, you'll find an updated top menu (shown below). There are 6 menu pages - the following section of this document will review each page in detail.

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1. Schedule

Schedule is the home base for the Maintenance Owner. The main use for the Schedule is to finalize what is being done and when, and incorporating Suggested Tasks into the overall maintenance plan.

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How to use Schedules

Group/Filter - Change the grouping/filtering at the top of the page to customize your view. For example, filter to only look at certain machines or assignees. Or choose a certain time frame to see what was done last week or what should be done this week. You can block the page by date or Assignee.

Tasks -View all tasks and make edits to them. Easily assign people, change due date/time, and edit the priority.

Mass Edit - Edit all tasks for an easier user experience

PDF Creation - Generate a PDF view of the schedule for a certain time frame to print out for your team.

Suggested Tasks: Plans (see below) will generate Suggested Tasks for the Maintenance Owner to approve and add to the schedule.

2. Tasks

The Tasks view is for the Assignees/Task Owners to complete tasks. Filter the top of the page and click complete to show you're getting things done.

There are other ways to complete tasks too, see below for details.

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Use the Tasks view to:

  1. Update existing Tasks:
    • Who is assigned?
    • Who resolved?
    • What were the costs?
    • What is the priority?
  2. Create new Requests

3. Plans

Use the Plans view to set what maintenance tasks should be done, how often (type), and to which assets.

So, for example, if you have some machines that need filter changes every 2 weeks and some that need filter changes every 1 week, you would have two Plans (Filter Change (2 weeks) vs Filter Change (1 week).

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Type

A Plan's cadence can be calendar-based, usage-based, or non-recurring. A Plan with a usage-based cadence can ONLY be applied to Amper connected assets.

Costs

For a given plan, you can specify 4 different costs:

  • Materials
  • Labor
  • Downtime
  • Other

Those costs can be overwritten on a specific Task. So, for example, if the cost of oil for one machine costs 2 times as much as it does for another machine, you can specify that in the Task when you perform the work for that specific machine.

Providing Last Completed

When you create a Plan, you need to provide the last time that activity was done for every machine. This information, combined with the frequency will allow Amper to suggest when the maintenance activity should be done next.

On the Plans page, you'll see a list appear when there are records that don't have a last completed date. Until that date is provided, Amper can't generate suggestions.

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For example, if the frequency is "every 100 hours" and you did the maintenance activity a month ago, we would use the elapsed time along with the machine's historic utilization to predict when to schedule your next maintenance event.

Example

  • Plan A has a Cadence Value of "Every 100 Hours"
  • Machine 1 is associated with this plan and averages 50% uptime.
  • Machine 1 has had 50 hours of uptime since the last time a task for Plan A was completed, therefore 50 hours are remaining.
  • Using the historical data of Machine 1 (avg. 50% uptime every day), we can forecast that the remaining 50 usage hours will take 100 clock hours.
  • The suggestion then will be for the current time + 100 hours.

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There's a delay of ~5 minutes between when you provide the "last time done" and when suggestions will start appearing, but it could be longer if your last time done was far in the past (more than a a month or two).

Ad-Hoc Work, Using "Non-Recurring"

All Tasks must be tied to a Plan. For Tasks that do not have an expected frequency, label the type as Non-Recurring.

If you have a task that doesn't necessarily belong to a specific Plan, you can make a generic Plan and call it Ad Hoc or General Maintenance Task. Over time, you may want to create a couple different non-recurring Plans to make things easier and better organized. For example, you could create a Plan for CNC Emergency Repair, Facility Maintenance, Eyewash Repair, etc.

4. Scoreboard

Use the Scoreboard view as a visual management board, so the entire maintenance team can see open tasks. Easily put this view on a TV on the shop floor for high-visibility.

You can use the Scoreboard in a couple different ways.

  1. The first is to treat it like a grab bag where Maintenance Technicians can pick what to do next based on priority. In this situation, you'd keep the filter option Include Assigned unchecked. That means that Tasks will drop off the board once they've been picked up by someone (but not necessarily completed). So, Assignees can see where they should head next, but you can't necessarily see when tasks are completed.
  2. You can also use the board as more of a real-time view for what's going on: show what tasks are incomplete or which tasks have been picked up or assigned. In this case, you'd have the filter option Include Assigned checked. That way, you'd see who's working on what, along with what hasn't been assigned. The drawback there is that you may end up with a lot of in progress work on the board, and it could be hard to see what tasks are coming up until after you actually complete the in-progress tasks.

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See the Disseminating Task Ownership Area for more information.

5. Requests

The Requests page is where anyone can go to request a specific maintenance task. These requests get approved by the Maintenance Owner and once approved, automatically move to the Schedule to be assigned.

Creating a Request

Requests can be created from the operator interface or at app.amper.xyz.

Request Approval

Requests must be approved by a user on app.amper.xyz to turn them into Tasks, assign them to an individual, etc. This is typically done by the Maintenance Manager.

Requests have priority levels just like Tasks. However, before converting from Request ā†’ Task, the Maintenance Manager can edit the priority level.

Alerts for High Priority Requests

You can opt-in for an alert to be sent when high priority requests are submitted. The recipient of that alert is typically the Maintenance Manager. After receiving the alert, the request can be approved at app.amper.xyz.

Example of what the message will look like:

Alert:
'High Priority Maint. Request'
--Requests:--
Oil Change for Doosan #1. Requested by: Joseph Mazrimas
Inspection for Haas #3. Requested by: Florance Killough

6. Static Assets

The Static Assets page is where you can add your static assets. Static assets are any equipment that are not connected to Amper.

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How to get started

Now that you've learned about each section of the Maintenance menu, you're ready to get started.

  1. Add any Static Assets.
  2. Create a Plan database. Some examples of plans:
    1. 6 Month PM
    2. 480 Hour PM
    3. Weekly Coolant Change
    4. General Non-Recurring Requests
  3. Enter in the Missing Task Records
  4. Review the Schedule and assign Task Owners and Due Dates
  5. Set up Scoreboards or Print out PDF's of the Schedule
  6. Train your team on how to complete the tasks
  7. Kick it off!

How to Use the New Features

Creating Tasks

There are several ways that Tasks can be created.

1. Creating Tasks from Suggestions

From the Schedule view, you will see suggestions for the timeframe you've chosen in addition to any suggestions you may have missed. These suggestions can be turned into tasks as they are, or with changes (like changing the date or to who they're assigned).

Recurring plans get suggested in the schedule. The Maintenance Owner approves and assigns them. This turns them into tasks to be completed.
Recurring plans get suggested in the schedule. The Maintenance Owner approves and assigns them. This turns them into tasks to be completed.

2. Creating Tasks from Requests

People can request work to be performed from the Operator interface or the App, and when those requests are approved, they become Tasks that can be assigned.

Requests get approved and then added to the schedule. The maintenance owner assigns them. This turns them into tasks to get completed.
Requests get approved and then added to the schedule. The maintenance owner assigns them. This turns them into tasks to get completed.

3. Creating Tasks from the Schedule

You can also create tasks directly from the Schedule view, even without a suggestion.

Distributing & Resolving Tasks

How do people know what they're assigned to do?

1. Assigning Tasks from Schedule and Printing a Report

You might choose to assign tasks to specific individuals in advance (say, at the beginning of the week). The best place to do this is the Schedule; you can pick a time frame and use the multi-edit view to quickly assign team members and set due dates.

You can also get a PDF of the schedule. Print this out for any time frame and distribute or post it.

Example:

pdf-beta-v2-maintenance-schedule--1493deecc6ed459fb895b451019e3968.pdf31.9KB

2. Viewing Assigned Tasks Using the Scoreboard

The Maintenance Task Scoreboard shows a maximum of 20 tasks at a time. They're sorted first based on day, then on priority, then on the time they're due.

Some examples of how this sorting works in practice are shown in the example below, assume today is Oct 27.

Examples

NamePriorityDue Date / TimeExplanation
Task A
High
October 26, 2021 10:00 AM (CDT)
This is from "yesterday", so it's overdue. Even though Task B is due earlier in the day, this one appears first because it's High Priority.
Task B
Normal
October 26, 2021 7:00 AM (CDT)
This is the "next most important" task on the 26th compared to Task B.
Task C
Normal
October 27, 2021 6:00 PM (CDT)
No Priority comes before Low Priority.
Task D
Low
October 27, 2021 1:00 PM (CDT)
Lower priority is lower on the board, even though this is the earliest task for the 27th.
Task E
Low
October 27, 2021 2:00 PM (CDT)
Tasks of the same priority simply sort by Due Date.

3. Viewing Tasks From Operator Interface

The operator interface will show Tasks for each individual machine. So, you can walk up to a machine, see what Tasks exist, as well as assign/reassign and complete them.

The operator interface will show all tasks that have been scheduled for a machine that aren't complete. When you mark a task "Completed By: [Person]" it will stay on the screen for ~2 hours so that you can undo that action if desired. Otherwise, completed tasks will not be shown.

Completing Tasks

There are a few different avenues for completing tasks.

1. From the Mobile/Desktop

If Assignees are able to have mobile devices with them during the day, they can use the Tasks area in the new Maintenance module in app.amper.xyz to pick up tasks, see what theyā€™ve been assigned, and mark tasks complete.

*The task board will filter for who ever is signed in automatically so tasks can be quick-completed with one push of a button.

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2. From the Operator Interface

The operator interface also has a module that can be enabled for maintenance where you can assign/reassign tasks to an owner and complete them.

*Clicking ā€œDoneā€ quick-completes the task by the assigned person at the time the button is clicked.

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3. From an App Outpost

You can also use app.Amper.xyz as an outpost and assign and resolve tasks from there. When you're logged in to the app as an outpost, you'll only see the Tasks and Scoreboard areas. Obviously, the scoreboard is there so that you can put that view up on a TV.

*Note that you can complete a task if itā€™s assigned to another person.

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