What is WorkOrderBook?

The St James WorkOrderBook is an electronic tool designed to effectively manage the flow of work order permits that go out to field operators on Industrial sites.

Control room operator creates the work order permits and enters them into their computer in the control room. Each permit can be linked via a Work Order Number to a maintenance package which provides additional information. The shift supervisor sees the work orders appear on his or her computer, reviews them, and approves each one. (If a work order has expired the shift supervisor may choose to renew it.) Finally, the field operators receive the individual approved work orders on their computers and, as each order is carried out, they update the status on their computer so that any authorized user can get a clear picture of the status of the work being done. The diagram below shows the basic order issuing and implementation scenario.

Why go to a networked-based work orders system?

The primary benefit to going to a networked-based work order system is that the site personnel get a clear indication of the precise status of orders that are currently active and so can better manage the entire communication line between control room and field operators. i.e. Everyone knows exactly what the operations staff are doing at any one time.

Additionally, there is no chance that a work order could be forgotten or (possibly worse) duplicated.

There is also a clear record and audit trail of who created the order, who is responsible for the order and when the order must be completed by. People know what they are responsible for, and are credited with the work they have carried out.

Since the system is on-line, updates to the status of orders are instantly available to everyone. Supervisors, Control Room Attendants and Maintenance Personnel do not have to phone the control room to find out the status of a task. This means that there is a much better level of co-ordination between the different disciplines.

High Priority, On Hold or Overdue orders can be highlighted so that the field operators can make the most effective use of their efforts.

The orders are maintained in an easily searchable database so that the operating staff can easily find records of past orders to help improve their effectiveness. For example, the user could search for all orders that have been carried out in the last year on a particular piece of equipment. Alternatively, they could look to see how long it took to do a particular task the last time it was carried out.

What is a work order made up of?

A work order is typically an instruction issued by a control room operator (or supervisor) to the field personnel to carry out a task that is necessary to increase or maintain production or to improve or maintain safety.

The diagram below is a screen shot of a typical Work Order Log showing the various fields of the Order. In particular, the following fields are important:

Screenshot of all WorkOrderBook fields

Note that the values shown in the screenshot below are examples only. The system can be easily reconfigured to handle different scenarios to suit the actual requirements of a specific industrial site.

WorkOrderBook features

* Minimal administration

The WorkOrderBook is a true web server based application. There is no requirement to load software on any of the client machines. This means that the work orders can be quickly made available to tens or even hundreds of users without any changes to the user computers whatsoever.

* Attach any file to the WorkOrderBook

You can attach files of virtually any format to the work order logs. (e.g. graphics files, Word or Excel files, Schedules, PowerPoint files, etc.) When the user clicks on the Attachment link, the application (e.g. Word) is started on his or her system and the information is immediately available.

* Really Industrial

The WorkOrderBook package has been designed specifically for use on Industrial sites. It can be easily tailored to suit the areas and streams of your process plant and has a complete built-in user management system.

* Easy to start, easy to change

The WorkOrderBook package comes with a standard set up so that you can immediately implement it on your site with a minimum of effort. However, as you become familiar with the concepts of the WorkOrderBook you will probably want to enhance and customize the application to better suit your specific site needs. This is a simple fill-in-the-blanks process that enables you to customize not only the look and feel of the WorkOrderBook but also the structure.

* Change the look & feel of your WorkOrderBook

Just change any of the presentation parameters and you will see the immediate effect of your changes. There are on-line tool tips for each of the categories to help you make the choices. There are over 50 different parameters that you can choose from to vary the presentation of the layout. All of these changes can be achieved through a simple fill-in-the-blanks form without having to do any graphical design. Most of the entries are available as options in a pull-down combos.

* Add your own site-specific fields

You can add your own fields that are specific to your business. Just go into the configuration, click on the new field button and enter the name and format of the new field. The system will take care of the database transactions for you and add a new column to the table. You can now fine-tune the characteristics of the new field such as the presentation of the field and what valid options are for that field.

* WorkOrderBook will automatically fill in the standard fields

Your users do not have to fill in many of the standard fields like the date, area, console and their user name. All these fields are filled in automatically by WorkOrderBook.. Additionally, the system will not allow the users to enter data outside of their assigned areas and will only give them the choice of options that are in fact valid for their areas. Field operators can only modify the status of orders that they have been assigned to.

* Choose the valid options for your fields

You can specify the valid options for each of the fields. For example, for the area field, you may specify the production areas as Raw Products, Utilities, Main Production, Recycle, Technical etc. When the control room attendant is adding a new order, these options are made available to him or her in a combo box. They are also made available when you want to filter the logs to find some specific information.

* Associate the options of each category with different color and style codes

To help your users easily identify the specific codes, you can assign colors and styles to these codes. For example, you can assign specific colors to the status of the work orders.

* Powerful yet cost effective

The pricing is based on the number of user sessions that are simultaneously active. For a site with say 100 people, you could purchase 5 or 10 concurrent licenses and make these available to all 100 users.

* Add additional sessions at any stage

To add more concurrent sessions, you simply order and pay for the new session licenses and we send you an updated license key. The software already on your system will recognize the new license and activate the new session keys for you.

* Each session can have multiple users

You can have as many users as you like on a given viewing station. For example, if you have a system in the control room, you could have 5 different users for that one seat. Each user can have different access permissions depending on their position in the organization.

* Control who looks at WorkOrderBook and what they can see

You can decide who looks at WorkOrderBook and exactly what they see. For example, you may want one user to be able to see everything on one site but only be able to enter work orders for the Utilities area.

* On-line help

A comprehensive easy to use on-line help system is available from the WorkOrderBook. Browse through the system or go directly to a specific key word.

* Choose your database

Your WorkOrderBook will connect to any of the following databases: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL or Microsoft Access. Because all your data is stored in a standard database, you can access it with any of your favorite utilities such as Crystal Reports, Microsoft Excel, or the utilities that come with the database itself. For databases other than Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL or Microsoft Access, please contact us at info@…

* Internet access

Provided you have a network connection (either Internet or Direct Connect or via modem) you can access the work orders information. Of course you can also inhibit access from off-site if you want.

The WorkOrderBook package produces a standard XHTML output which can be viewed using any standard browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox. The work orders are presented in tabular form and are updated as soon as anyone on the network adds or modifies a work order.

* Store as much data as you want

There is no software limit to the number of records that can be stored or the number of days of data that can be stored.

* Find the data easily and quickly

Finding information is easy: just click on the Filter button and type in the word or keyword you are looking for and the table will show all the work orders that match your specification.

* Set your time window

You can decide how far back in the work orders database you want to look. For example, you may be only interested in the last 3 month's information.

* Control the modification of work orders

You can define which work orders a specific user can modify. This means that the orders are only updated by people that are authorized to do so. Additionally, you can specify which parts of an order can be modified by a user. Typically a control room operator would have access to the order itself and the field operator would only have access to the status of the order.

Try out WorkOrderBook

Your current system will probably run WorkOrderBook without changes.

The WorkOrderBook application is just one of the applications available in the j5 Suite Demo. You can download the demonstration version to install and test WorkOrderBook on your own machine, tailor it to your requirements, or test it on your network.

Once you are satisfied you can purchase a full license. If you have any questions you can contact our engineers or system integrators by email or calling 1 713 893 7152.