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Rune Allnor
10-15-2006, 01:11 PM
Hi all.

Imagine some activity that goes on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week
for some weeks or months. Imagine that the staff assigned to work on
this activity is chosen more or less random. Person A can have
a few stray shifts here and there while person B has a string of shifts

during one limited period of the main activity. Basically there is a
certain
turn-around of the staff.

Imagine further that some fault condition develops on the equipment.
Every now and then, a glitch occurs and need correcting. Due to the
staffing situation, no one technican is likely to see the glitch happen

more than one, maybe two times, in his watch, so no single person
is likely to see the glitch pattern developing.

What is needed is a "glitch log" system where each technician
logs all his jobs, however small, such that one can use the logs to
infer that one particular system tends to fail more than it ought to.

While the benefits of a working logging system are obvous, I can
see a number of pitfalls in the implementations, overhelming
everyone involved with paperwork would be the main one. My basic
philosophy is to have the techies do what they already do, with
as little overhead or corrections to their work, as possible.
I believe it would be far smoother to have somebody consend to
do just one tiny thing extra, than reform absolutely everything
in their method.

How would one design a "glitch log" system to be able to catch the
fault patterns, without drowning the technicians in bueraucracy?
Can this be done at all? What overhead is involved in achieving
something like this?

I am sure somebody out there, even outside NASA and FAA, have
done something like this and got it to work.

Rune

Fred Marshall
10-15-2006, 08:03 PM
"Rune Allnor" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected] oups.com...
> Hi all.
>
> Imagine some activity that goes on 24 hours per day, 7 days per week
> for some weeks or months. Imagine that the staff assigned to work on
> this activity is chosen more or less random. Person A can have
> a few stray shifts here and there while person B has a string of shifts
>
> during one limited period of the main activity. Basically there is a
> certain
> turn-around of the staff.
>
> Imagine further that some fault condition develops on the equipment.
> Every now and then, a glitch occurs and need correcting. Due to the
> staffing situation, no one technican is likely to see the glitch happen
>
> more than one, maybe two times, in his watch, so no single person
> is likely to see the glitch pattern developing.
>
> What is needed is a "glitch log" system where each technician
> logs all his jobs, however small, such that one can use the logs to
> infer that one particular system tends to fail more than it ought to.
>
> While the benefits of a working logging system are obvous, I can
> see a number of pitfalls in the implementations, overhelming
> everyone involved with paperwork would be the main one. My basic
> philosophy is to have the techies do what they already do, with
> as little overhead or corrections to their work, as possible.
> I believe it would be far smoother to have somebody consend to
> do just one tiny thing extra, than reform absolutely everything
> in their method.
>
> How would one design a "glitch log" system to be able to catch the
> fault patterns, without drowning the technicians in bueraucracy?
> Can this be done at all? What overhead is involved in achieving
> something like this?
>
> I am sure somebody out there, even outside NASA and FAA, have
> done something like this and got it to work.
>
> Rune

Rune,

I've set up systems like this a number of times - just from scratch. One
type was to track customer issues. Another type was to track product issues
/ bugs. They are closely related of course. These databases did not have
lengthy text fields and I'd suggest against that.

I like using FileMaker for the database because setting up a simple database
is very easy and creating a web interface is even easier. No programming
required. Then anyone can easily enter an issue / event / glitch. Of
course, the database can be searched for like items, etc. The last time I
did it was a few years ago and the web inteface wasn't the most beautiful
but it was sure functional.

Right now I'm considering a similar system for keeping track of conditions,
settings and results in a water treatment plant with the idea that effective
settings for certain conditions might be saved and referred to thereafter.
I'm not sure that this isn't too hopeful of an objective.....

Folks who write database code will have other ideas I'm sure. But I don't
know how to do that - never had the need.

The biggest task is setting up the database and the form(s).

I'm sure you can figure out the fields you need / find useful and go from
there.

This results in a system that involves no paperwork - just filling out a
short form. The trick is to get people to use it. That will be your
biggest challenge.

Fred

Rune Allnor
10-16-2006, 05:22 AM
Fred Marshall skrev:
> "Rune Allnor" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected] oups.com...
> > Hi all.
....
> > What is needed is a "glitch log" system where each technician
> > logs all his jobs, however small, such that one can use the logs to
> > infer that one particular system tends to fail more than it ought to.
....
> > How would one design a "glitch log" system to be able to catch the
> > fault patterns, without drowning the technicians in bueraucracy?
> > Can this be done at all? What overhead is involved in achieving
> > something like this?
> >
> > I am sure somebody out there, even outside NASA and FAA, have
> > done something like this and got it to work.
> >
> > Rune
>
> Rune,

Hi Fred,

As I wrote the above, I wondered if you would be amongst those
who migt chime in on such a thread...

> I've set up systems like this a number of times - just from scratch. One
> type was to track customer issues. Another type was to track product issues
> / bugs. They are closely related of course. These databases did not have
> lengthy text fields and I'd suggest against that.

What I have in mind is some sort of form with one tag for the piece of
kit in question, a number of standard check-boxes and an optional field

for further comments.

> I like using FileMaker for the database because setting up a simple database
> is very easy and creating a web interface is even easier. No programming
> required.

You wouldn't happen to have a www reference to this?

> Then anyone can easily enter an issue / event / glitch. Of
> course, the database can be searched for like items, etc.

That's the whole point. Once one get a malfunction report, one
searches the maintenance history to see what has happened
with that piece of kit in the past. That way a break-down pattern
can be detected as it emerges.

....

> This results in a system that involves no paperwork - just filling out a
> short form. The trick is to get people to use it. That will be your
> biggest challenge.

I know, hence the term "unbueraucratic" in the subject.

In the past I have showed people how to use the Doxygen
doucomentation generator for C and C++ programs. The program
generates very nifty web pages from the commented source code,
but at first people are very reluctant to use it: "It takes a lot of
time
typing in all that information..."

Well, yes, it does necessarily take a little bit of time doing that.
But if you type just a few key words below the function header
after you are happy that the function works, it takes, say,
one to two minutes extra of work to do that. Two minutes
extra per function, distributed throughout the project, while the
source code is still fresh in the mind, they are supposed to do
that anyway and the resulting documentation is stunning --- I
haven't heard a decisive argument agains it yet; I don't think
there is one.

Once you have encuraged / ensured that people actually do this,
and the system works so people can see the benefits of it,
it becomes second nature very quickly.

But the hard part is to get it up and running while keeping the
threshold of use sufficiently low to get people to start using it.

> Fred

Rune

PeteS
10-16-2006, 12:00 PM
Rune Allnor wrote:
> Fred Marshall skrev:
> > "Rune Allnor" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected] oups.com...
> > > Hi all.
> ...
> > > What is needed is a "glitch log" system where each technician
> > > logs all his jobs, however small, such that one can use the logs to
> > > infer that one particular system tends to fail more than it ought to.
> ...
> > > How would one design a "glitch log" system to be able to catch the
> > > fault patterns, without drowning the technicians in bueraucracy?
> > > Can this be done at all? What overhead is involved in achieving
> > > something like this?
> > >
> > > I am sure somebody out there, even outside NASA and FAA, have
> > > done something like this and got it to work.
> > >
> > > Rune
> >
> > Rune,
>
> Hi Fred,
>
> As I wrote the above, I wondered if you would be amongst those
> who migt chime in on such a thread...
>
> > I've set up systems like this a number of times - just from scratch. One
> > type was to track customer issues. Another type was to track product issues
> > / bugs. They are closely related of course. These databases did not have
> > lengthy text fields and I'd suggest against that.
>
> What I have in mind is some sort of form with one tag for the piece of
> kit in question, a number of standard check-boxes and an optional field
>
> for further comments.
>
> > I like using FileMaker for the database because setting up a simple database
> > is very easy and creating a web interface is even easier. No programming
> > required.
>
> You wouldn't happen to have a www reference to this?
>
> > Then anyone can easily enter an issue / event / glitch. Of
> > course, the database can be searched for like items, etc.
>
> That's the whole point. Once one get a malfunction report, one
> searches the maintenance history to see what has happened
> with that piece of kit in the past. That way a break-down pattern
> can be detected as it emerges.
>
> ...
>
> > This results in a system that involves no paperwork - just filling out a
> > short form. The trick is to get people to use it. That will be your
> > biggest challenge.
>
> I know, hence the term "unbueraucratic" in the subject.
>
> In the past I have showed people how to use the Doxygen
> doucomentation generator for C and C++ programs. The program
> generates very nifty web pages from the commented source code,
> but at first people are very reluctant to use it: "It takes a lot of
> time
> typing in all that information..."
>
> Well, yes, it does necessarily take a little bit of time doing that.
> But if you type just a few key words below the function header
> after you are happy that the function works, it takes, say,
> one to two minutes extra of work to do that. Two minutes
> extra per function, distributed throughout the project, while the
> source code is still fresh in the mind, they are supposed to do
> that anyway and the resulting documentation is stunning --- I
> haven't heard a decisive argument agains it yet; I don't think
> there is one.
>
> Once you have encuraged / ensured that people actually do this,
> and the system works so people can see the benefits of it,
> it becomes second nature very quickly.
>
> But the hard part is to get it up and running while keeping the
> threshold of use sufficiently low to get people to start using it.
>
> > Fred
>
> Rune


I did a small app a long time ago to capture this sort of information
(although that was at a repair centre).

The key issues I ran into were:

1. Are there sufficient easy to understand defined failure statements,
but not too many?

This is key to getting people to use the system. If there's a drop down
box for 'failed unit' that lists the likely suspects, and then a second
drop down with 'failure' and some standard failure modes, you are more
likely to get people to use it. As it's not possible (usually) to
capture all possible failure modes, there has to be the 'other' for a
short free form entry. You can then use that to expand the dropdown
list, of course.

2. Is the page easy to use?

Obvious, really. Partly the issue above, but also general useability.

3. Can it show the techs (whoever) it's value by assisting them after a
reasonable amount of time?

If it's done properly, it can be used to plan repair activity and parts
required, quite apart from figuring out if there are systemic faults
somewhere.

The system I did had no more than 4 data entry points, and usually 2.
That made it easier to get people to use it.

Cheers

PeteS

Fred Marshall
10-16-2006, 05:37 PM
Rune,

http://www.filemaker.com/products/

The other thing is that it sometimes isn't the people who fill in the form
who directly benefit. That probably makes the motivation for them a bit
more challenging to figure out and establish. Maybe the customers benefit
the most. Then the company benefits because customer service is viewed as
"good". Then the employees benefit because the company continues to exist
AND because it gives them job satisfaction to know they're part of doing a
good job.

I once worked at a place (an unnamed large corporation) where the
behavioralists would say had a culture of "problems are bad". It's the
downside of having a positive attitude carried too far. When "problems are
bad" they are supressed and problem solving, process improvement, etc. are
made much more difficult.

Well, they were trying to do a good job of being in the main stream of
process improvement.
One of the metrics or measures was something like "problems found".
In that culture, there never were any.
So, I suggested that they change the metric or add a metric "problems
solved"; a nice, positive way to approach the same issues that would have
implied that "problems found" would have had to have been dealt with ... but
with a positive outcome promised in the new metric.
Unfortunately, after 45 minutes of discussion, the VP of Manufacturing
didn't "get it". But that's another story .....

Fred

Hershel
10-16-2006, 07:32 PM
On 16-Oct-2006, "Fred Marshall" <fmarshallx@remove_the_x.acm.org>
wrote:

> I once worked at a place (an unnamed large corporation) where
> the
> behavioralists would say had a culture of "problems are bad".
> It's the
> downside of having a positive attitude carried too far. When
> "problems are
> bad" they are supressed and problem solving, process
> improvement, etc. are
> made much more difficult.

I once worked at a place where management started a
"no-mistakes" kind of campain through the QC department.

Our customers weren't part of the program, so we eventually
just blaimed them for everything.
--
Hershel