Assets
Every item of equipment that is to be tracked by MEX and have work carried out on
it needs to be created in the MEX Asset Register. To create an asset, it’s as simple
as adding an asset number and a description, and from there, you can instantly use
it throughout MEX including raising Work Orders, enter readings and assigning Preventative
Maintenance to it.
The asset register contains all of the valuable information on every asset including:
- Asset description and its classification
- Physical address
- Purchasing information
- Warranties
- Depreciation
- Physical dimensions
- Who uses it
- Who or what department maintains it
- Expected life
- Availability
- Pictures of the assets
- Drawings of the assets
- User definable fields. So, any information can be stored against the equipment.
The asset register is a tree structured set of data which can be broken down as
deep as you need it to go, there is no level preventing how deep your tree branches
can reach. This allows for any operation to be broken down from the top down to
show not only what the equipment is, but also, where it sits in relation to the
overall operation.
Asset Wizard
The Asset Wizard Tool allows you to build/view your Asset Register (graphically),
which helps you easily and quickly set up each area in your plant.
Traditionally, the method of setting up the asset register was long and tedious,
but with the new MEX Asset Wizard designer, you can quickly and easily set up your
asset register by using drag and drop functionality. Simply map out the areas of
your operation and start dropping pre defined assets, equipment or plants onto the
work surface, and instantly, assets are created for you to use in the MEX system.
This tool can save thousands of hours in the development of an asset register.
Features of the asset tool include:
- Drag and drop equipment
- Automatic numbering of assets
- Works with factories, buildings, warehouses. You name it it can build it
- Drill down through any asset to add its components.
- A 3 minute wizard which creates your overall operation in seconds.
- Over 200 pre defined items of plant equipment
- Add photos of assets
- Create your own assets
- Unlimited layers of assets
- Break down equipment into its components
Work Orders
The MEX Work Order is the record of a maintenance job that is to be performed. When
a Work Order is created all of the information relating to the job is recorded in
the Work Order including but not limited to:
- The Asset that is to be worked on.
- Instructions for the job.
- The spare parts and materials that are required for the job.
- The labour requirements, including the names of the people doing the job, the trades
of the people doing the job, and estimated and actual times spent on the job.
- Any associated documentation relating to the job. These are attached to the Work
Order as external files and may be printed out with the Work Order.
- The dates of when the Work Order is raised, due to start, when started and when
completed.
Work Orders may be created in MEX manually, as a result of a Maintenance Request
or they may be automatically created as part of the routine maintenance schedule
specified in the Preventative Maintenance.
Upon the completion of the Work Order a History record may be created for the work
performed that may include materials used, manpower usages, relevant costs and downtime
and repair time.
Features of work orders include:
- Automatically created work orders from PM program
- Inspection work orders
- Asset Description
- Customer details
- Priority of work
- Work order progress statuses.
- Progress % of a work order
- Date created, due start, started, due finish, finished
- All trades people estimates and actual work
- All parts and material
- Purchase direct from a work order
- Reserve parts
- Requisition parts
- Check in / check out assets to workshop
- Invoice customer for work done
- Quote for work done
- Requester information
- Tasks to be performed.
- Create subsequent work orders from tasks and inspections automatically
- User defined fields for further information
- Project management
- And many more features
Inspections
It is a key requirement of any modern maintenance program to keep track of the inspections
that are carried out on the Assets.
Examples of such inspections are:
- Monthly inspections of air conditioners within a building.
- Daily inspections of a production circuit.
- Shift by shift services of trucks.
- Routine housekeeping and environmental inspections.
- Six monthly fire services inspection.
MEX Inspections was developed to assist in making such inspections easy to perform,
easy to manage the results, and easy to report on.
Inspections can be performed using a handheld unit, manually using a paper based
inspection system or a combination of both. The MEX Mobile software has been designed
to interface to the MEX Inspections Module to make a completely paperless inspection
system.
The information that may recorded on an Inspection includes:
- A list of the Assets to be inspected.
- A list of checks to be made and readings to be taken on each Asset.
- A time based Frequency at which the Inspection creates Work Orders to carry out
i.e. daily, weekly, every 6 months etc.
- The estimated labour requirement to perform the Inspection.
- The estimated time required to complete the Inspection.
Project Management
MEX has a built in Gantt chart feature to allow for project management of work orders.
Features include:
- Predecessor and successor work orders
- Critical path
- Progress management
- Assign labour to any work order
- Drag and drop re scheduling
- Drag and drop linking of work orders
History
Work Order History is a record of all the work that has been done on the Assets
recorded in MEX. Any work that is done can have information recorded on it in the
MEX History module. This information is recorded in the History module and can be
recalled at any point for analysis and reporting.
The information that can be added to any History record includes:
- The Asset worked on.
- Description of the actual work performed.
- Downtime.
- Repair time.
- Actual labour and material costs.
- A listing of all spare parts used.
- A set of failure analysis codes.
- Personnel who worked on the job.
- Notes recorded during the job.
MEX enables you to store information on any work order, whilst in progress or complete
and for past history which is stored either in a paper or electronic form to be
added to MEX. The historical information has many purposes.
- For any statutory work a record of the event must be recorded.
- Work performed is often repetitive. Solutions to this repetitive work can be found
through subsequent analysis of why it occurs.
- To report on costs of maintenance (estimated and actual).
- To analyse and report on downtime/availability of plant and equipment.
- To analyse and report on the time to repair plant and equipment.
- To analyse the failures. Why they have occurred and what can be done about them.
Readings
Once an Asset has been added to the Asset Register, readings may be collected and
recorded against the Asset. The Readings are a collection of readings taken from
hour meters, odometers, pressure gauges, shock pulse meters or any other instrument
that you require to record the performance of your Asset. For a Reading to be added
into MEX three pieces of information are required:
- The Asset that the reading has been taken for: When a reading is entered into MEX
it must be recorded against an Asset from the Asset Register.
- The Date: When a reading is recorded, the date that the reading was taken must be
entered.
- The Reading Type: Every reading has a "Reading Type" associated with it. This indicates
what the reading actually is (i.e. a temperature, operating hours etc.)
MEX Readings are split into two types:
Usage Based Readings: These are readings that indicate the usage
of an Asset (i.e. hours of operation, kilometers traveled etc.) Once entered, these
readings may be used in the scheduling of Preventative Maintenance.
Condition Monitoring Readings: These are general readings that
are used to record and report on the condition and performance of Assets (i.e. temperatures,
pressures, clearances etc.)
The two different types of readings are entered into the system in the same way.
Preventative Maintenance
All Prevetative Maintenance of a companies assets, plant and equipment can be managed
by MEX. The frequency of the PM can be either time based or usage based And as and
when required the MEX PM module will create work orders from these PM’s
The features of the Preventative Maitnenace module include:
- Time based frequency of PM’s. days, weeks, months, years
- Usage based frequency of PM’s. hours, kilometres, miles, tonnes, pounds, etc.
- Condition based PM’s. EG if thickness less than 5mm then create work order.
- Grouping of assets by asset type, manufacturer and model no.
- Easy to manage
- Inspection PM’s. One PM covers multiple pieces of equipment
- Allocate estimated manpower for each PM
- Allocate contractors for each PM
- Allocate estaimted parts and material for each part
- Automatically resrve parts on creation of work order
- Tasks list
- Have different strands of PM based upon department. IE electrical and Mechanical
PM’s are separate.
- Create long term schedules calendars
Resource Scheduler
The MEX Resource Scheduler allows you to manage your workload. You can schedule
your current and/or future Work Orders, in line with your available resources. Using
the Resource Scheduler you can plan work for:
- Trade Codes
- Trade Names
- Departments
- Any Area of your Plant/Assets
Easy Time
EasyTime is an electronic time card system that provides a more efficient means
of entering trades information into MEX. It is an optional module that can be purchased
separately to the MEX program. If EasyTime has not been purchased, the “Easy Time”
button will be greyed out on the Main Menu.
The EasyTime module is used to create a Timecard for each Trade person for any given
period. An employee’s Time Card can be raised for a week at a time and as the week
progresses, or at the end of the week, time is allocated to Work Orders for work
that they have done or the work that they are doing. By processing the Timecard
at the end of the week, the Trade hours are transferred to the relevant Work Order
and or History.
Key Register
The Key Register can be used to record what keys your company has (including master
keys) what doors they fit, the status of a key and who currently has what keys.
This can be a very useful feature for any maintenance department in a facility or
building.
Drawings
If you have equipment that has related drawings for it then these can be all managed
by the drawings module of MEX.
All drawings, whether paper or electronic can be logged in the MEX drawings register
and then matched back to all the equipment that it relates to.
So, when the time comes to find drawings a simple click of one button will display
all the drawings that are related. And then these can be viewed directly through
MEX
Job Requests
The Request module of MEX is used in conjunction with Work Orders. This module allows
personnel to send requests to the Maintenance Department for work to be done. The
Maintenance Department may then raise Work Orders from these requests, and subsequently
the requester can check the status of his request.
Maintenance Requests are useful from a maintenance perspective as it allows the
maintenance manager to determine which requests are worthy of Work Orders. It also
allows for authorisation before any maintenance work is to be done. If the request
is not authorised it cannot become a Work Order.
Reports
Reports in MEX can be easily created and modified by accessing the control files.
You can create any report to display the results you are looking for. Reports can
be imported and exported using XML.
Stores Module
The Stores Module adds extra functionality into MEX. It allows you to keep track
of all purchasing and use of the parts and equipment.
The catalogue allows to you set an image of each item for easy recognition and negative
stock values are now a system option.
Reservations allow you to reserve parts from Stores, Work Orders, and Preventative
Maintenance for general use.
With the Stores module, you can easily set up and perform stock takes which are
now customisable.
Catalogue
The Catalogue is the heart of the Stores module. It is a complete listing of all
of the items that are defined in the Stores system. It is primarily used for recording
the details of Spare Parts that are normally held in stock, but can also be used
to list items that are not held in stock, but purchased “as required”.
Features of the Catalogue include
- Catalogue parts to NATO standards
- Multiple bin location
- Buy and sell pricing
- Customer specific mark ups
- Min Max and reorder levels
- Buy quantity that converts to sell quantities
- Multiple suppliers for each part
- Group Class and INC classifications
- Picture of a part
- Associated documents assigned to each catalogue number
- Consignment stock
- Hazard classification
- Stock and non stock items
- Instant view of what is on order, requisitioned and reserved.
- User defined fields
- Superceding parts
- Revalue stock
- APL’s what part used on what equipment
Transactions
To keep a tight control over all movements of stock within the inventory module
of MEX there are 28 different transaction types that can occur. From the opening
stock value through to price variations after invoice matching for returned stock.
- 28 transaction types for all transactions
- Issue items
- Return items to store
- Return items to supplier
- Multiple goods receipts for any purchase line
- Price variations for all transactions
- Can only return issued items
- Over issues
- Picking slips
- Invoice variations
- Receipt versus invoice matching
Purchasing
The Purchasing module of MEX allows you to create Purchase Orders for the purpose
of ordering materials and services from your Suppliers. The Purchasing system is
integrated with the Stores Catalogue and the Work Orders so that as materials are
purchased they will update inventory levels and costs.
Features of the purchasing module include:
- Automatic replenishment of stock
- Standing orders, based on value and time
- Unlimited lines per purchase order
- User defined fields for the purchase order
- Goods receivable
- Invoice matching upon receipt of goods
- Stock value update upon receipt
- Multi level approval system
- Requisitions turned into purchase orders
- Direct issue of purchased items to the work order
- Goods return to suppliers
- Performance management of suppliers
- Purchase order status
- Freight costs
- Direct email of purchase orders
- Cancel of purchase orders
- Multiple currency
Requisitions
The Requisitions module allows you to make a formal request for materials to be
provided. Once a Requisition has been placed it can be approved, and then fulfilled
by issuing stock from your inventory, purchasing from a Supplier or a combination
of both.
Requisitions are intended to be used by organisations that:
•Have a requirement for a tightly controlled supply of materials.
and/or
•Have remote sites that require materials to be provided, but perform their purchasing
activities at a central site.
Reservations
If you are planning to perform some work in the future and you want to be sure that
the materials that you require to perform the task will be available when required
you may perform a "Reservation". The Reservations feature allows you to reserve
stock in the Catalogue Listing so that it may not be issued to another job. This
means that the quantity that is available for issue for an item is equal to the
"Stock on Hand" for the item minus the reserved amount.
Invoicing
MEX has the capability of creating Invoices for any work done for a Customer. These
Invoices may be created either ad-hoc or from a Work Order. When creating Invoices
from Work Orders the costs incurred on the Work Order will be marked up with the
charge-out rates appropriate to the customer and transferred onto the Invoice.
Features of the invoicing module include:
- Automatically create invoices from work orders
- Create multiple invoices per work order
- Specific customer mark-ups
- Payments
- Outstanding accounts reports
- Quoted amounts charged on invoice
- Nominate labour and parts on every invoice
- Determine margin on every job.
MEX Today
MEX Today is a configurable summary screen of your activities in MEX. Each user
can configure their summary screen to suit their individual requirements.
The MEX Today screen will display:
- A list of any Purchase Orders, Requests and Requisitions that need Approval. These
records may be Approved from the MEX Today screen.
- Shortcuts to your favourite screens in MEX.
- Shortcuts to your favourite reports in the My Reports section.
- A list of your personal Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as well as a system wide
list of KPIs.
- Your own contact details.
Import Export tool
The Import/Export Tool is an add-on feature allowing the user to import data from
another system or export data from MEX. The data can be imported/exported on an
ad-hoc basis or scheduled to run automatically using Windows Scheduler.
The Import Tool allows you to:
- Create and save a template for future use
- Setup scheduled imports from your customised templates
- Import from Excel, CSV, Text and XML file formats
- Import to Purchase Orders
- Import to Readings
- Import to Fuel
The Export Tool allows you to:
- Create and Save a template for future use
- Setup schedules imports from your customised templates
- Export to Excel, CSV, Text and XML file formats
- Export from all tables in the MEX database
- Export from all views in the MEX database