Plant Services - September 2007 - (Page 32) ASSET MANAGER more useful features users cite is an MS Explorer-style hierarchical display of equipment, parts, corporate structure, G/L accounts, failure codes, suppliers, projects, employees, warehouses/stores, Help and many others. But, many CMMS vendors haven’t caught on to this useful format for organizing, finding and even moving objects around within these hierarchies. Navigation history keeps track of where you’ve been on a site. The popularity of Web-based tools has given rise to navigational features such as back and forward buttons, favorites, bookmarks, and listings of previous screens visited that retrace your steps and avoid having to reproduce what worked well in the past. You’ll need a road map. In the past, users complained about not knowing where they were in the system. CMMS vendors now provide a system road map and tools to guide you to where you might want to go. Advanced navigation tools in this category include: • An interactive address bar that not only shows your current location within the system hierarchy, but can be used as a “go to” feature • Graphical workflow that shows you the steps within a process flow • Wizards that walk you through a given process such as completing a work order • Site maps that provide a listing of hot links to key screens within the CMMS program. Don’t forget the search, sort and filter tools. In general, most CMMS packages have fairly good search, sort and filtering capability. The more comprehensive packages allow you to find the information faster using wild cards, speed search, auto-complete, searches based on partial data, suggested alternative spellings and other advanced features. (Editor’s note: The Plant Services CMMS/EAM Software Review is posted at www.PlantServices.com/cmms_re view and provides a side-by-side comparison of more than a dozen popular software packages.) E-mail Contributing Editor David Berger, P.Eng., partner, Western Management Consultants, at david@wmc.on.ca. 32 www.PLANTSERVICES.com September 2007 http://www.hilliardcorp.com http://www.PlantServices.com/cmms_review http://www.PlantServices.com/cmms_review http://www.hilliardcorp.com http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com
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