Manual Maintenance Scheduling

Ted Davidson – Senior Applications Engineer, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems

Introduction

Manual Maintenance Scheduling is part of the Upcoming Maintenance Events page in Factory Dashboard version 6.6. It is an easy-to-use interface for all Preventative Maintenance (PM) events, qualifications (Quals), and other scheduled downtime events. Both time-based and counter-based events are easily supported. Previous versions of the Upcoming Maintenance Events page contained a list of existing events sourced from external systems. With the development of Manual Maintenance Scheduling, the Upcoming Events page is now the best place to ensure that all required resources are available for PMs and scheduled at the best time.

New Features and Enhancements

Manual Maintenance Scheduling adds considerable value to the existing Upcoming Maintenance Events page. The page details whether an event is early, due, or late, and in the new version it also includes certifications, parts, and technicians' schedules. Understanding what certifications are required to perform each event is essential to ensure qualified personnel are working on the correct PMs. Also, connecting the Bill-of-Materials (BOM) to an event identifies whether the required parts are unavailable, and creates a flag to highlight when an event is still waiting for parts.

The application displays technicians within their appropriate shifts and schedules to help minimize schedule misalignment and resulting overtime. The maintenance events also integrate with INFICON Schedulers to block a period around the event in order to ensure that the tool and WIP are in the correct state to facilitate the event.

Users can view Upcoming Maintenance events in two different formats, specifically a Gantt chart or an enhanced table view, both of which support Manual Maintenance Scheduling.

Gantt View

The Gantt view visualizes the window within which each PM should be happening, noting the early period when the event could start, when the event is due to happen, and how long it should take (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Gantt view showing the Early window, when the PM is Due along with its Duration, and the Late window.

This view shows an overview of when events will occur to allow for fine-tuned scheduling.

In Figure 2, each event (PM or Qual) is on a separate line and grouped with other events by tool. The first grey vertical line denotes the start of the early window. The grey box indicates when the event is due and how long the event should take. The second vertical line indicates when the late window starts, followed by the red horizontal line. The green and yellow boxes note where the events have been scheduled. The scheduling pop-up allows a user to:

Select a technician with the required certification and who is working on the selected shift.
Select the event period.
Verify the needed parts are available.

Figure 2: Gantt view showing several event windows and scheduling controls.

Table View

The table view has many of the same properties as the Gantt view. Because the data is presented in a traditional rows and columns format, this view makes it easier to edit multiple events quickly. Each event is represented as row with all of the scheduling options in columns (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Table view showing events as rows with scheduling options as columns.

Summary and Future Features