This is a censored copy which has removed any sensitive information. It was originally prepared by Ria Pacheco, August 2022
Part I: Business Case and Execution
Part II: Execution Criteria and Solutions
With thousands of valve sensor and compute-related hardware units installed (or waiting for M&R) on thousands of Pads across Canada and the United States, the need for a tool was identified for tracking each piece's unique static information, dynamic location & condition-related statuses, and the progress of core M&R processes as each piece transitions through standard procedures in the lab.
Sensitive Information Removed
The metrics listed in this section are guided by high-level conversations with the Director of Hardware and typical best practices asserted by organizations like Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals. Upon follow-up, all metrics will be captured by discovery activities in partnership with the hardware organization.
Proportion of time the equipment is able to be used for its intended purpose. This is a starting lagging indicator1.
Proportion of the time that equipment is available that is used for its intended purpose. This is a leading indicator that ultimately concerns itself with the frequency with which equipment breaks down1.
Proportion of time the equipment does not fulfill its intended purpose - measured by Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF).
At minimum (and in addition to minimum data reqs outlined by previous efforts), the following indicators should be considered when developing the UX (not to be confused with IxD) and may require the creative insight of data and backend expertise on our team:
Follow-up discovery activities will explore collaboratively with each intended target group listed in this section to understand core needs, workflows, and operational requirements.
The teams responsible for equipment manufacturing, maintenance, and repair are those that serve the high-complexity engineering practices in hardware product design, technical documentation of procedures, and testing against high-impact conditions. They are motivated by high ops-impact design, military-grade equipment resilience, and clockwork synchronicity for M&R procedures.
The teams responsible for implementation, emergency escalations with customers, and the ongoing smooth execution of field operations. These units are composed of RTOC, field technician contractors, and the business units required for the success of their mandates; and are motivated by low-volume support tickets, high customer satisfaction scores, and the ultimate success of the operator's core operation
The teams ultimately held accountable to company shareholders. They are composed of C-suite, VP, and Director-level team members and are motivated by fulfilling the business objectives and expected financial returns they've been acquired to satisfy by company shareholders
Capture data through low-level detail logging and a focused query system. The (proposed) HistoryLog object captures the following details whenever an asset is touched ["the event"]
[Additional data prohibited from being shared]
By providing the availability of recorded expectations through MFG metrics of success in the system, we're able to observe with true leading indicators, how well the design of each piece of equipment matches to different operational scenarios and are empowered to fine-tune them over time. This feature is not hashed out yet, but will likely surround captured decisions over the metrics provided in the first section and will be reviewed dynamically over time. A key piece for the Asset Tracker tool its ability to be able to measure any adjustments over time and against any location or procedure being performed, to provide high-impact insights to the MFG & Engineering process.
Utilization
By separating the concerns for maintenance, repair, and reliability testing against the time-recorded stages of each we're better able to refine and hone in our lab & general M&R processes. These process include:
As a product focused on capturing and enabling the visibility of asset/process metrics, of which can be relied upon to support capital-intensive operations including general supply-chain management, insights for profilitability, and flexibility in adaptable supply levels / processes to achieve financial priorities mandated by shareholders OR to achieve emergency cashflow to enable business security, the product must follow traditional data requirements implemented by a data-focused discovery, planning, and technical execution process. These must consider (at minimum) the following:
Each data table must have its own primary key ["PK"] and column(s) chosen as PKs are both unique and not null. This enables the ability to work with consistent objects, perform queries that return consistent results, and much more.
Sensitive Information Removed
Any foreign key ["FK"] value should be in one of 2 states.
null to explicitly indicate that there is no relationship between the objects represented in the db or that this relationship is unknown.Sensitive Information Removed
Understanding of end-user goals, user execution states, UX that supports consistency, and general user queries is required to understand central data tables to act as primary nodes to limit human error
Sensitive Information Removed
A re-discovery process for use-cases, no longer framed by a perspective of scarcity (since many typical process stages could not be supported by data-expertise or a long-term view for this product's development, given limited resources) should be performed.
Technical tools, frameworks, and additional external (development) features are selected to enable integration among all CBT tools as well as enough flexibility to support future use-cases of Asset Tracker's roadmap.
Actual development cycle time
All solutions have been boiled down to two potential options since any options that can be configured from re-considering any aspect of either would produce marginal (yet still potentially significant) differences in terms of execution OR outcome.
Sensitive Information Removed
Broken down by Technical Task, Execution Option Details, expected Result / Condition, and Execution Stack and Time