Cantara Integration Platform 6.1 Released

Following the successful major release of Cantara 6.0 in 2020, Rinami has added a number of key enhancements to Cantara Integration Platform with minor release 6.1. This post describes some of the functionality and security supported in this latest version.

Cloud Security

Increasing the security of Cantara cloud deployments, Cantara software is now protected by Google Cloud Platform container analysis and vulnerability scanning. Automatic scanning of Cantara software deliverables adds another layer of assurance for your business data. Full details about the capability are available from Container analysis and vulnerability scanning  |  Google Cloud.

SFTP Authorization for Media Objects

Cantara 6.1 adds secure communications for Media Objects, enabling SSH encrypted data connections for mobile devices in the field. Media objects allow Cantara users to attach marked-up photos, pdf files and other attachments to work orders. This extra detail can be very useful for storing inventory parts images and specifications relevant to a particular asset, which a parts interpreter will know but a service mechanic may not. Media objects can also be used to capture images of equipment wear or damage, or to draw attention to circled engine parts requiring repair. SFTP authorization ensures that Cantara media objects can be trusted with potentially sensitive data attachments.

Tenant Scheduler Auto-Start 

The tenant scheduler now supports automatic start-up upon server restart. This improves Cantara's recovery from disruptions, particularly for on-premises environments. Services are restored without the need for manual intervention, minimizing downtime.

OAuth2 Refresh Token Disabled for De-Authorized Users

Disabling a user's single sign on account now triggers disabling of JDE access as well. This ensures that de-authorized users who are already signed on will not be able to continue accessing JDE services through the Cantara API. This is an important feature for managing the information security of your business and reducing the risk of a data breach.

Cantara Legacy API default Response Format

To maintain full compatibility with Cantara 4 and 5 applications, the Cantara 6.1 API provides response data that is XML-formatted by default. Requests which specify a particular response format (either XML or JSON) will continue to be honored. Rinami recommends that requests should always specify a required format, rather than relying on a default format.

Minimum JDK Release Updated

The minimum JDK version required by Cantara 6.1 servers has been upgraded to JDK 11, ensuring modern support and security for the platform. For customers whose deployments include a Cantara Agent server, note that the agent server will now only upgrade automatically if the required JDK version has been installed.

WebLogic Support Updated

Cantara now supports Oracle WebLogic version 14.1.1. Details of the enhancements provided by this release are available from Announcing Oracle Weblogic 1411.

Cantara Scheduler Negative Day Offset for Period Date Trigger

The Cantara scheduler now supports period date triggers defined as a negative offset in days. This enables customers to configure report scheduling configurations such as the day before a new period begins.

Trust Added To User Management Methods

Cantara 6.1 adds support for Trust authentication. The full list of supported user management methods now includes Cantara, LDAP, Everest SSO, JDE, Steltix TLX10, OAuth2 (including Azure AD and Firebase) and Trust.

Rinami Asset Performance Suite (RAPS) Enhancements

RAPS, the tools that help you to get more from your JD Edwards EnterpriseOne solution, now offer a number of new features.

Maintenance Execution Planner

Maintenance Execution Planner is a new RAPS module that lets planners allocate work orders to resources and schedules, using drag-and-drop. The interface provides a fast and convenient way to update work order assignments and planned start times, without requiring keyboard entry. Of course all updates are stored directly to JDE using the Cantara REST API. 

Maintenance Execution Planner is efficient because it is usable - it saves you time, and reduces planning errors made during data entry. You can rearrange allocated work orders on a timeline, to organize tasks for the day. The tool also provides a visual indication of remaining schedule availability, so you can easily manage workloads.

Service Logic Enhanced

The RAPS Service Logic module now offers an extended range of configuration attributes for each asset, which can be used to identify specialized maintenance requirements. The attributes can be automatically analyzed to define preventative maintenance schedules.

Service Logic gives planners finer control of service schedules, by introducing Cycle Type elements to model multi-step service cycles. Rather than relying on JDE associations, Service Logic assigns priorities to each cycle step, and performs its own forward-planning calculations to select the active step in the cycle. This avoids the problems of parts over-ordering and asset over-servicing.

When maintenance schedules need to be adjusted, Service Logic recognizes that cycle steps need to be handled differently for different circumstances. Rules can be configured, so that when the planned date for one cycle step is adjusted, dates for the other steps are updated automatically. The rules define a range of scenarios, and specify which cycle steps are allowed to be rescheduled. For example, you can choose whether schedule changes made to minor services should automatically trigger changes to major service events. Setting up these rules greatly simplifies day-to-day schedule management for large fleets, ensuring that assets are always serviced at correct intervals, and applicable maintenance regulations are complied with.

More Information

Take a look at the full range of available RAPS modules at rinami.com/products/rinami-asset-performance-suite.

Capital Asset Management That's Well Connected

 

Rinami's Mobile CAM connects asset service teams with the planning systems used across your business. The mobile app provides a user-friendly way to view and manage work orders - wherever you are working, and because it's based on Cantara Integration Platform, it has the advantage of real-time interaction with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. So all data is live.

Mobile CAM shows asset maintainers an up-to-date and prioritized listing of requested work items. You can set it to display only the work that has been assigned to you, your crew, or a particular site. You can also search for information about a particular asset. However, the strengths of Mobile CAM become more evident when you see the content within a work order.

Enhanced Work Instructions

Mobile CAM provides access to clear information enabling your team to complete maintenance tasks safely, efficiently, and in compliance with standards. These aren't lofty goals - they're essential requirements that need to be facilitated. Mobile CAM can present step-by-step instructions, parts drawings and photos, manuals, or a video showing how to replace a part. This is particularly helpful for a team member who may be unfamiliar with an aspect of the asset. There may also be attachments with tooling information, required permits or safety advice.

The app also highlights exactly what information needs to be recorded. As individual tasks are checked off, Mobile CAM gives team members confidence that they have done what is required.

Streamlined User Input

Mobile CAM provides an easy way for workers to record the outcome of asset inspections and repairs, and update job status. This data, together with the parts and hours consumed, is immediately shared back to other business teams. So by the time a team member lets you know that stock is getting low, it's probably already been re-ordered.

Like all Cantara mobile apps, user input is streamlined so that using the app is never a burden. Think of simple checklists, status selectors, meter entry... when you're working on equipment you can't stop to write a book. The app is efficient, designed to become a natural part of performing a task, rather than an extra chore.

Mobile CAM allows equipment meters to be recorded at any time, and eliminates the problem of rushed handwriting that needs to be deciphered later. The app immediately checks the entered values against the last readings stored in JDE, and makes sure they're valid. Meter reads (or measurements from any device sensor) can be conducted as part of normal asset operation, or during any maintenance event, rather than being left until end of month or worse. The readings drive future maintenance planning, so it's easy to see the value in keeping them up to date. They impact on reporting, parts procurement, external inspections and labor requirements.

No Paperwork

Another advantage of Mobile CAM is that it eliminates service paperwork, so maintainers can spend more time maintaining equipment, and less time writing up, printing and collating the required documentation. Reports can be generated automatically, based on the work order details entered during maintenance. Working without paper might improve job satisfaction too.

Noticing Problems As You Go

We all recognize that mechanics can save us a lot of heartache, and money, by keeping up with preventative maintenance. Yes, inspection of parts wear will help you optimize an asset's productivity; but knowing that a turbo needs to be replaced before the whole engine is destroyed is more critical. That's why Mobile CAM lets maintainers create additional work orders, for issues they may notice on the job. An additional work order can be created while the mechanic is right beside the machine, and they can attach marked-up photos or other details that should be captured. Creating a work order takes seconds, and the information goes straight to JDE, ensuring that problems are not forgotten.

Security

Cantara supports numerous authentication providers and complies with modern security methodologies, including LDAP, Everest SSO, JDE, Steltix TLX10, OAuth2 (including Azure AD and Firebase) and Trust. Role-based access applies to all users, whether logging in to a cloud-based or on-premises Cantara server, or a Cantara mobile app. The connections between Cantara mobile apps, Cantara servers and JD Edwards use SSH encrypted communication links too.

Featureset

Mobile CAM handles a range of asset management functions:

• Work order search, view and update (including checklists for work order close)
• Parts issue (and return of unused parts)
• Labor details, including time entry (as hours, or via start/stop buttons)
• Asset service history
• Pre-start equipment checklists
• Safety enhancements like operator fatigue checklists
• Offline support (allowing you to travel in and out of mobile range)

The app can be customized with additional features, such as Item Search or Inventory Inquiry. All functionalities can be aligned with your specific business processes.

The Mobile CAM app and Cantara Integration Platform are a capital asset management solution from software company Rinami rinami.com, with headquarters in Queensland, Australia.

Rinami Asset Performance Suite (RAPS) Achieves Oracle Validated Integration

PRESS RELEASE

Rinami Asset Performance Suite (RAPS) Achieves Oracle Validated Integration with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

RAPS extends Oracle’s JD Edwards Enterprise to support sophisticated and large-scale capital asset management implementations

BROOMFIELD, COLORADO, April 23, 2018 - Rinami, a Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced it has achieved Oracle Validated Integration of Rinami Asset Performance Suite (RAPS) version 1.0.0 with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne version 9.2. RAPS provides sophisticated enhancements to JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Capital Asset Management for complex preventive maintenance service schedules, multi-work order maintenance and service planning, and true condition assessment to drive preventive and corrective maintenance.

To achieve Oracle Validated Integration, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customers. “The integration of Rinami Asset Performance Suite with Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne offers customers a powerful and robust way to quickly and efficiently manage a number of key areas within the capital asset management suite,” said Russell Codlin, President, Rinami Incorporated. “Having achieved Oracle Validated Integration with the Rinami Asset Performance Suite product suite, customers have the confidence of knowing that the integration has gone through a rigorous due diligence exercise and meets the stringent quality standards adhered to by Oracle.”

”Achieving Oracle Validated Integration gives our customers confidence that the integration between Rinami Asset Performance Suite version 1.0.0 and Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne version 9.2 is functionally sound and performs as tested,” said David Hicks, vice president, Worldwide ISV, OEM and Java Business Development, Oracle.  “For solutions deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or both, Oracle Validated Integration applies a rigorous technical review and test process that helps to reduce deployment risk and improves the user experience of the partner’s integrated offering.”

About Rinami

Rinami is an ICT services provider formed in 2009 to deliver services to asset intensive businesses. The business has grown to now deliver integration systems, custom mobile applications and expert consulting services to customers across the world. Rinami has extensive expertise in delivering integrated applications into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, across multiple asset intensive businesses including mining and resources, agribusiness, logistics, multi-mode manufacturing services and local government sectors.

Our focus aim is to deliver business solutions to business problems. This approach means that the value of our services is immediately identifiable and the planned benefits on offer are quickly realized. From experience we can provide a deep understanding of computerized maintenance systems, data analytics, machine integration and cloud solutions.

The RAPS Product

RAPS comprises of three integrated modules

·         Service Logic

·         Condition Assessment

·         Shutdown Planning

Service Logic

The Service Logic module centralizes the definition of repetitive service cycles into re-usable “Cycle Type” elements, which define the service intervals for all meters/days and the sequence of “Cycle Step” service types in the cycle

The solution integrates the process of centralizing the definition of associated Cycle Step service types, for traditional non-cyclic service types and provides the ability to define the hierarchy of Asset and Equipment attributes and Category Codes which determine which Cycle Types are applicable

Features Include:

-  Manage PM Schedules centrally for similar Equipment

-  Service Types with defined Service Steps and Intervals are applicable to any Asset

-  Association template records automatically applied to complying Assets

-  Set Model Work orders consistently and correctly without duplication or omission

-  Flexible management for Overrides and Exceptions

Condition Assessment

The Condition Assessment module is an extension of the standard JDE Quality Management and Condition Base Maintenance that integrates to two modules to provide powerful conditional assessment functionality.

Organizations can define specific test methods (e.g. checklist items) that are then combined into a specification (checklist). This is then overlaid with asset or asset class specific tolerances to determine both failure and warning limits.

Recorded quality results can then be considered by the standard JDE Condition Based Maintenance system to trigger alerts, update PM schedules or create additional Work Orders.

The Condition Assessment can also trigger the Rinami Cantara Integration Platform integration for push notifications.

Shutdown Planning

The Shutdown Planning module is designed to greatly simplify the steps involved in managing multiple Work Orders when planning major maintenance events such as shutdowns or major services.

The module gives the user a single view of maintenance events (Parent Work Order) and all Work Orders assigned to the event. From here the user also has the ability to allocate additional Work Orders as well as deallocate assigned Work Orders. Scheduling changes can be applied at parent, work order or routing operation level and all dependent schedule elements, such as resource assignments, are automatically updated as required.

About Oracle Validated Integration

Oracle Validated Integration, available through the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), gives customers confidence that the integration of a complementary partner software product with an Oracle “on-premises” Application has been validated and the products work together as designed. This can help customers reduce risk, improve system implementation cycles, and provide for smoother upgrades and simpler maintenance. Oracle Validated Integration applies a rigorous technical process to review partner integrations and partners who successfully complete the program are authorized to use the “Oracle Validated Integration” logo. For more information, please visit Oracle.com at https://solutions.oracle.com/scwar/scr/AboutPartners/validated-integration/index.html  

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) is Oracle's partner program that provides partners with a differentiated advantage to develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle's products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle’s growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to be recognized and rewarded for their investment in Oracle Cloud. Partners engaging with Oracle will be able to differentiate their Oracle Cloud expertise and success with customers through the OPN Cloud program - an innovative program that complements existing OPN program levels with tiers of recognition and progressive benefits for partners working with Oracle Cloud. To find out more visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners.

###

Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Rinami is a registered trademark of Rinami Pty Ltd.

For additional information, contact:

Russell Codlin                                                                         Alistair McGregor

Rinami Incorporated                                                               Rinami Pty Ltd

11001 W 120^th Ave                                                                 1B/23 Main Street

Suite 400                                                                                 Varsity Lakes

Broomfield                                                                              Queensland 4227

Colorado 80021                                                                      Australia

rcodlin@rinami.com                                                               amcgregor@rinami.com

JDE EnterpriseOne Browser Experience Improvements

This is just a quick summary of a few of the settings you can change on your JAS instance to give the best user experience in browsers like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox as well as Internet Explorer. All of these settings can be found in the Web Runtime section of the jas.ini but changes should always be made using Server Manager.

Grid Global Page Size = 50

Back in the early 8.10 and 8.11 days this setting could have a major impact on web performance just due the amount of javascript that used to come down with the grid and the fact that PC's and terminal servers back then would struggle to process it all. These days those issues have long since disappeared so for the convenience of your users we recommend setting this to at least 50. If you leave it at the default you'll find that a lot grids will still only provide the user with the first 10 records on a find.

Use ActiveX Controls = False

ActiveX controls are going the way of the dinosaur with Microsoft announcing that Internet Explorer has reached the end of it's life. To enable a consistent experience across multiple browsers this should be set to false. Before doing this though you should be aware of the impacts.  Firstly your users won't be able to view Microsoft Office documents directly inside the browser window and also they will not be able to import directly from an Excel file (CSV and copy and paste will still work fine). The other major impact is that all of the text attachments currently in your JDE system will need to be converted to HTML format from RTF. You have two options on how to deal with this. You can let your users convert the text to HTML when they first view it after this setting has been changed or alternatively you can run the batch conversion to do it for them. Our recommendation is that it depends on how many F00165 records you have. If you have been on JDE for a significant amount of time then it is likely you have a large number of text attachments and in all likelihood most of those attachments will never be viewed again. In that case you may choose to just leave them and if users need to view existing attachments they can do the conversion on demand. Details on running the batch conversion can be found in the Oracle documentation.

UBE Content Disposition = False

This basically ensures that if the browser can handle the file type, ie the PDF file, then it will be opened and displayed automatically within the browser rather than having the browser prompt the user to save the file.

That's it, just a couple of simple changes can make the life of the user that little bit better. In our experience, due to the speed that it processes and handles JavaScript and Ajax, we strongly recommend using the Google Chrome browser for JDE as responsiveness is noticeably better than other browsers, especially Internet Explorer.

If you have any other settings that believe improve the user experience then please leave a comment below and I'll look to add them to this post.

Enabling Basic Google Analytics for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1.5

If you're comfortable with Google knowing how you use your ERP then here is a simple way to enable the Google Analytics engine for your JDE EnterpriseOne instance. These instructions are for the 9.1.5 tools but could just as easily be adapted to the older tools releases.

So the first thing you need is a Google Analytics account. There's plenty of information available on how to go about it so I'm not going to clutter the internet with yet another tutorial. If you need a starting point, here's Google's documentation.

To activate the data capture for Google Analytics you need to include some javascript. The best place I have found to inject this code at the moment is in the webgui.js file. Simply append the following code to the very end of the file:

    (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
    (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
    ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X', {"siteSpeedSampleRate": 100});
    ga('send', 'pageview');


You'll need to replace UA-XXXXXXXX-X with your own Google Analytics identifier.

Where is the webgui.js file you might ask... Assuming you're using Server Manager (I don't who isn't) then you'll want to update the deployment package found in the SCFHA folder on your JDE web server. Here's an example linux path you might use for you PY deployment:
/u01/jde_home/SCFHA/targets/WL_JPY910/owl_deployment/webclient.ear/app/webclient.war/share/js/webgui.js

That's it. If you restart your web instance the solution will redeploy with the new updated js file and you'll be away. Depending on your browser cache you may need to hit refresh to ensure the latest webgui.js is pulled down onto your client machine. You should then be able to log in to Google Analytics and watch the hits flow through as you navigate through the JDE applications.

Please be aware that this has not been heavily tested and is not supported by Oracle so if you do implement this change you do so at your own risk.

Adding Business Value with Effective Maintenance Planning

The effective operation and maintenance of an organisation’s plant and equipment is fundamental to maximising productivity and ultimately business profits. Unexpected equipment failure can introduce significant costs in both downtime and the cost to repair. Repeated unexpected failures can cause changes, whether intentional or not, to production planning to account for the expected reduced productivity and this will directly impact the products and services being provided to an organisation’s customers.

A secondary consequence of poor maintenance planning is the corresponding increase in the value of spare parts that an organisation’s maintenance department will hold. This is in response to a lack of understanding of the inventory demand of the business and the high visibility when spare parts are not available in the event of a breakdown.

Does any maintenance plan work? Manufacturing reports point to one key component of a plant maintenance plan that provides the most business value: an efficient strategy.

Choosing Your Strategy

The traditional approach to maintenance strategies has been to establish a preventative maintenance schedule for each unit. This approach, in comparison to no strategy at all, greatly reduces the likelihood or equipment failure and also allows production planning to be completed with a known constraint which is the downtime required for preventative maintenance tasks to be completed.

However with the introduction of computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) it is now possible for businesses to take a far more sophisticated approach to delivery maintenance strategy. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne includes two capabilities within their Capital Asset Management module to do this. These are the Failure Analysis and Condition Based Maintenance functionalities.

Failure Analysis allows a maintenance department to gain a far better understanding of the modes of failure for the equipment they manage and also the conditions under which that failure occurs. This information allows the business to develop strategies to both remove the conditions that are likely to cause failure and also develop responses to conditions that are known to cause failure and ultimately take preventative and thus planned actions to reduce the likelihood of an unexpected breakdown occurring.

As opposed to a scheduled maintenance plan where maintenance activities are undertaken based on some measure such as time or distance travelled, a condition-based approach to plant maintenance consists of asking questions such as, “Is there noticeable wear and tear? Is the asset exhibiting any unusual behaviour?” If a threshold is reached is then preventative action can be taken to remove the likely mode of failure that will result from that condition.

Condition Based Maintenance enables a business to greatly reduce both the cost of operating and the overall productivity of their plant by reducing unnecessary shutdowns and expensive maintenance activities. Maintenance departments can move to a schedule of inspection and monitoring and then react to that information to deliver the most efficient maintenance plan possible.

Failure analysis enables a business to refine and improve the trigger points that will cause maintenance activities to occur and thus further improving equipment reliability and productivity.

Downstream Benefits

One of the major benefits of effective maintenance planning and overall improvement in equipment reliability is the ability of organisations to significantly reduce their spare parts inventory as well as reducing the likelihood of stock outs on critical spares.

JD Edwards EnterpriseOne has sophisticated inventory management, material resource planning and forecasting capabilities that are tightly integrated in the Capital Asset Management module. These tools allow organisations to minimise the spare parts required to be carried across multiple sites and ultimately drive down the cost of operating and maintaining their plant and equipment. Organisations can gain clear visibility of both the short term and long terms demands being produced by their maintenance strategy and develop supply plans to meet those demands.

Another consequence of an effective maintenance plan is far more confidence in the production plan and thus an overall improvement in productivity. When production departments are confident that the equipment they’re using is reliable then they will strive to increase the overall utilisation of that equipment.

Final Thoughts

One of the emerging benefits of the Internet of Things is that the data required to run far more sophisticated and cost effective maintenance strategies is becoming far easier to acquire and manage. Businesses are able to gain access to both the current state of their equipment as well as the conditions under which it is operating. This valuable information enables businesses to target their maintenance activities for more efficiently thus reducing their overall costs and giving them a significant advantage over their competitors.

Rinami has extensive experience is maximising the value gained from the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Capital AssetModule and combining all of the functionality available within the product to deliver maintenance processes and analysis that enable businesses to focus on true reliability engineering. The Cantara Integration Platform enables the value of the Internet of Things to be realised by rapidly delivering JD Edwards integration with any number of data sources. This combined with our mobile technologies that enable a business to push their maintenance processes and functions out into the field where they add the most value means that we can offer a complete asset management solution in a very short space of time.

Setting up preventative maintenance service cycles in JD Edwards EnterpriseOne using Associations

One common requirement for many different types of fixed and mobile plant is the requirement to establish service cycles. These service cycles are either meter based, interval based or both. A common example would be light vehicle servicing where the requirement would be for a service to be performed every 10,000 kilometers or six months, whichever comes first and it major intervals more significant services are required to be completed.

So how does JDE Plant & Equipment management meet this requirement? Through the use of associations. The associations functionality allows individual maintenance schedules to have a relationship to each other thus you can establish one or more service cycles for a unit.

In this post we're going to run through how you actually go about establishing a working service cycle using a light vehicle as an example and some of the gotchas that you should look out for.

Context

For this example we'll be setting up a single service cycle for a light vehicle. In this case the vehicle will require a service every 10,000km or 6 months, whichever comes first. Obviously not every service will be the same so at 20,000km, 40,000km and 120,000km there will be differing servicing requirements.

Preliminary setup

The first important point to understand about associations in this context is that you will be setting up four separate service schedules that are related to each other as opposed to a single schedule with changing maintenance types. This is an important distinction for users which are familiar with other computerised maintenance management systems (CMMS) and must be understood to be able for the successful operation of these types of setups.

In this case we've created four maintenance types to reflect the four different types of services:

• LVTH010K - Toyota Hilux 10,000KM Service
• LVTH020K - Toyota Hilux 20,000KM Service
• LVTH040K - Toyota Hilux 40,000KM Service
• LVTH120K - Toyota Hilux 120,000KM Service

As you can see we've ensured that our codes are going to appear in a logical order when sorted alphabetically. A minor point but one that can significantly improve the user experience when dealing with units that have dozens of different maintenance types associated with them.

For each maintenance type we've configured the base PM schedule items:

• LVTH010K - 10,000KM or 182 days
• LVTH020K - 20,000KM or 364 days
• LVTH040K - 40,000KM or 728 days
• LVTH120K - 120,000KM or 2184 days

One important point is managing how each service divides into the next. For the service cycle to be clean and easily understood we generally want all of the child services to divide cleanly into the top parent service. So in this case the top parent service is the 120K service. So we could introduce a 60K service without any major issues but if we introduce an 80K service things start to get ugly as 80K does not divide into 120K. In the real world where units are not serviced exactly to schedule this complication just adds an extra complexity for maintenance planners that is good to avoid.

Once the PM schedule entries have been created we're going to create the maintenance rules for them. It is very important to understand how the maintenance rules work and how those rules will work once associations are introduced. If the maintenance rules are not set correctly, and then you combine this with incorrect tolerances on your associations, a right royal mess will be created once you're up and running as services get performed outside of the scheduled interval.

In this case we're going to set the same maintenance rules for all of the services with a threshold of 95%. For simplicity we'll assume that this light vehicle is going to travel 100KM per day, 7 days per week. If that is the case then for each of the services we get the following planning fences:

• LVTH010K - work order will trip 500KM before due which is effectively 5 days
• LVTH020K - work order will trip 1,000KM before due which is effectively 10 days
• LVTH040K - work order will trip 2,000KM before due which is effectively 20 days
• LVTH120K - work order will trip 6,000KM before due which is effectively 60 days

Now in reality you would try to tune your thresholds so that the work order is being tripped as late as possible.  If you don't need 60 days to plan your 120K service then you should increase the threshold to suit.

That's it for the preliminary setup. We now have an operating set of PM schedules but they are running independently of each other.

Creating the Associations

When we create associations for these four PM schedules we're effectively loosely coupling them together. I use the term loosely because it is important to understand that you are still running four separate PM schedule lines. The relationship between the services is not concrete and can easily be broken altogether.

In this example each parent service consumes the child services. So a 20K service replaces the 10K service, the 40K service replaces the 20K and 10K service and the 120K service replaces all of them. This means that we only require a single work order every time a service on this vehicle is performed.

The association set ups for each of the parent services is shown in these screenshots.

It is important to note that the associations are not automatically cascading.  That is, just because the LVTH010K service is associated to the LVTH020K service and the LVTH020K service is associated to the LVTH040K service, the LVTH010K service is not automatically associated to the LVTH040K service. You must explicitly define this in the associations for each service.

Because we only want a single work order per service we must set the Separate Work Order flag to 2 and also provide a status for existing work orders if they need to be cancelled to meet this requirement. Cancellation will only occur based on the child service being within threshold and the PM status being within the range specified in the relevant maintenance rule. If you don't want the PM Status Update UBE to cancel tripped work orders you would leave the association range at 01 in the maintenance rules.

The final piece of the puzzle is setting the thresholds for the associations. If we focus on the meter component then we must consider the effective meter to run value of the parent service compared to the child service.  So in our example the maintenance rules state that when the meter gets to 114,000KM the 120K service should be tripped. This means that the unit has 6,000KM until the service is due. So this means that for the 120K service to pick up the 10K at the same time the percentage threshold on the associated 10K service can be no higher than 40%. In reality 40% is far too high a threshold for this scenario. If we take a situation where the last 10K service was performed at 111,000KM that means that when the unit hits 114,000K the 10K service is only 30% due while the 120K service will be 95% due. If we set the threshold for the associated 10K service to 40% then it will not be picked up when when the 120K service it tripped. Instead we can actually set the threshold to 0% which means that when the 120K service trips it will always pick up the 10K service assuming that it is not at a open PM status greater than 50.

If the threshold for the 120K service was set to 90% rather than 95% you would not be able to use 0% because 90% gives an effective meter to run of 12,000KM which is greater the service interval specified on the 10K service. In that instance you would actually need to set the Multiple Work Order code on the 10K to 1 and change the associations range on the service down to 01 records only to handle the overlap between planning the 10K service and planning the 120K. Unless your planning fences dictate that you need your PM schedules to be tripping this early, this sort of scenario should be avoided as it will create a complicated environment for your maintenance planners.

Once the associations have been defined in this manner you should now have everything configured to execute the planning cycle.

Running the PM Schedule

When running service cycles using associations there are a few important things that need to be managed for the solution to work effectively and reduce the amount of manual planning that would need to be carried out. Firstly if you are using meters as part of the service interval then you must ensure that you are getting timely and regular meter readings into the system. Failure to do so can cause significant fluctuation in the percentage due which can cause difficulty in planning. The second is that servicing is carried out a close to schedule as possible. Servicing unit significantly early or late relative to their planned service date can cause the associations to get out of sequence. The last requirement is that PM schedule lines are closed as soon as practicable. If you are using model work orders then this means that the work order is moved to a status which closes the related PM schedule line as soon as possible after the work has been completed.

Failure to manage the process in this way will cause significant overhead for maintenance planners when using associations as the automated generation and association of PM schedule lines will frequently fail to occur.

One final note on running the schedule. You must ensure that your R12807 Update PM Schedule Status report has data sequencing set so that your PM schedule lines are processed in order from most frequent to lease frequent. Failure to do so will cause the associations to burn through work order numbers while processing. There is a white paper available from Oracle within information on how to do this.

What about forecasting

JDE enables preventative maintenance forecasting through the use of PM projections. Unfortunately there is a significant issue with the projections generation report (R13411) in that it does not take into account associations. This means that it will project the 10K service every 10,000KM when in reality the 10K service will only occur every 20,000KM.

At Rinami we have developed a set of enhancements that offers planning improvements including more sophisticated calculation of the PM schedule occurrences value and also generates the PM projections taking into account the associations. This enables organisations to run far more accurate PM forecasting and budgeting processes using the PM schedules they have defined within JDE. Please contact us if you like to know about this enhancement to JDE Plant & Equipment Management or would like know more about how we can assist you with implementing or improving your Enterprise Asset Management processes and systems.