Understanding Serialized Preventative Maintenance
The Serialized application can automatically generate preventive maintenance (PM) calls for all your contracts. Since there are several boxes that allow you to set the defaults for PM calls, you can set the frequency for PM calls in several different ways.
You can base your PM calls on a set period of time (once a month, for example).
You can base your PM calls on a set period of time or as a number of clicks for each meter record in a contract.
In addition, you can set the number of clicks between PM calls for each model in your inventory. However, you can only set the clicks between PM calls for each contract type or for each model, not both.
When setting up service contracts, you can specify preventive maintenance calls on a regular basis. You can specify the frequency of preventive maintenance calls for the contract in the Service Frequency box in the Contract Detail Contract tab. You can specify the frequency of preventive maintenance calls for each meter for the contract in the P/M Clicks # and P/M Freq boxes in the Contract Detail Meter tab. (The P/M Clicks # box defines the service interval as a number of clicks, and the P/M Freq box defines the service interval as a time period.)
When generating preventive maintenance calls, you specify a service date. To determine which contracts are due for preventive maintenance calls, the system calculates the amount of time between the date you specify and the date in the Last P/M Date box in the Contract Detail History tab. If this amount of time equals or exceeds the time period you specify in the Service Frequency box in the Contract Detail Contract tab, the system generates a preventive maintenance call.
For example, you may have a service contract with a Last P/M Date of 02/01/99, with the Service Frequency box set to M (monthly). If you specify a service date of 03/01/99, the system generates a preventive maintenance call for this contract, since one month has passed since the last preventive maintenance call.
Note: If preventive maintenance becomes due for a machine, the system prompts you that preventive maintenance is due when you log calls.
To determine which meters are due for preventive maintenance calls, the system checks the P/M Clicks # and P/M Freq boxes in the Contract Detail Meter tab.
If you set a number of clicks in the P/M Clicks # box, the system subtracts the clicks in the Last P/M box from the clicks in the Current box. If the difference equals or exceeds the number of clicks in the P/M Clicks # box, the system generates a preventive maintenance call for the meter. For example, you may specify 10000 in the P/M Clicks # box. If the Current box displays 30000, and the Last P/M box displays 20000, then 10,000 clicks have been used since the last preventive maintenance call (30,000 - 20,000 = 10,000), and the system generates a preventative maintenance call.
If you specify a time period in the Service Frequency box, the system calculates the amount of time between the date you specify and the date in the Last P/M box in the Contract Detail Meter tab. If this amount of time equals or exceeds the time period you specify in the Service Frequency box, the system generates a preventive maintenance call for the meter.
Note: If you specify both clicks and a time period for meter preventive maintenance, the system generates a preventive maintenance call if either condition (clicks or time period) is met.