PNNL Uses S.M.A.R.T. Technology

PNNL invested $53,000 in hardware and software and another $50,000 in set-up activities to launch a pilot program of using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to reduce the time spent on preventive maintenance. Set-up included installing the software, training personnel, and setting up condition checkpoints and routes within MAXIMO.

The Software

PNNL chose MAXIMO as its CMMS after assessing it as easy to use, customize, and integrate with standard spreadsheet, accounting, and forecasting software. For example, analysts using spreadsheets can easily import MAXIMO data on the frequency of HVAC and other equipment repairs, aggregate it over time, and help formulate purchasing and supply management plans. The Facilities and Operations Directorate uses the flexibility of the CMMS software to develop the minimum/maximum ranges at different condition checkpoints. The group also set up status codes using various ranges of numbers (i.e., 1 through 5), customized to the different equipment at each checkpoint, based on its possible status conditions.

MAXIMO resides on the PNNL system. A PDA needs supporting software to enable it to "talk" with and access information from MAXIMO, display that information on the PDA screen, input new data, and then "synch" it back into MAXIMO. Sylco, a strategic ally of MAXIMO's manufacturer, MRO Software, provides the needed handheld resident solution, Service and Maintenance Automation using Revolutionary Technology (S.M.A.R.T.™).

S.M.A.R.T. tries to keep the look and feel of MAXIMO on the PDA so that the interface between the two applications is transparent and the user feels comfortable with a familiar screen.

"Sylco calls its S.M.A.R.T. Agentry software the 'Pocket MAXIMO,' and it can be used with a PDA in either a wireless or docking station environment," says Erik Anderson, manager of Integrated Information for the Facilities and Operations Directorate at PNNL.

Sylco performed 15 customizations of S.M.A.R.T for the Facilities and Operations Directorate, including one enabling the handheld PDAs to download historical data from MAXIMO by date ranges thus reducing the volume of data transferred.

The pilot used MAXIMO 4.0.3 and the version now in use is 4.1.1 with S.M.A.R.T. 3.3. PNNL expects to upgrade to the latest MAXIMO version, 5.0, in March 2003. The latest version automatically approves and routes work requests.

"MAXIMO version 5.0 is more Web-enabled, which is important to us since electronic service requests from our customers are generated through a Web portal that we built in-house using Lotus Domino," says Anderson.

A feature of the Web-based service request system randomly selects 20 percent of incoming orders to receive customer satisfaction surveys by email. Data is then collected from the surveys and processed through a statistical analysis. A variety of reports can be generated including whether the core teams are improving as service providers and how they are improving to meet customer needs.

The Hardware

The 14 power operators who ran the pilot program had a number of PDAs from which to choose. The Facilities and Operations Directorate decided from the start to be flexible about its choice of hardware. The main concerns were which PDA would work the best with the S.M.A.R.T. client, and which would be best accepted by the crafts. The Directorate initially purchased Hewlett-Packard Jornada PDAs, ten model 690s, and 15 model 720s.

S.M.A.R.T. licenses were purchased for the Jornadas. However, the Directorate continued to experiment with the hardware by adding two Casio Cassiopeia PDAs to the mix in the pilot. All of the PDAs evaluated run on Windows CE.

"The most popular with the crafts, when doing data input from equipment checkpoints, turned out to be either of the Jornadas because they have keyboards rather than just the stylus pick-n-point," says Anderson.

The crafts favor PDAs without a keyboard, such as the Cassiopeia, for dispatch work because they are easier to carry and are of lighter weight. However, they consider the Cassiopeia at a general disadvantage versus the Jornada because of its smaller screen.

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Fig. 2

PDA of Choice

The 14 power operators who ran the pilot program favor PDAs without keyboards for dispatch work because they are easy to carry. This endorsement paves the way for acceptance by other crafts as the program is rolled out to include more maintenance personnel.