What’s New in Version 2

New Features Overview

Version 2 represents a major new development of the widely used Availability Workbench program incorporating Isographs leading-edge RCMCost and AvSim products into a single powerful integrated environment for RCM and system availability simulation.

Developed for Microsoft’s latest .Net framework it provides all the rich graphical user interface features you would expect for a modern application. The new Report Designer provides additional features such as PDF file creation. Projects may now be stored in compressed or XML format and benefit from automatic data validation routines. The Maximo Portal has been substantially enhanced allowing users to upload PMs and resources using a variety of different schemes. A task library facility has been added enabling generic tasks to be quickly located and copied into the current project. Weibull distributions may now be automatically selected using a best-fit criteria.

Enterprise System

One of the major new features for version 2 is the introduction of the Enterprise System. Organizations may now install a centralized database system containing project and libraries in a controlled environment with user groups and roles. Licensed enterprise users may check projects in and out of the enterprise system and access centralized libraries for which they have the appropriate permissions. Enterprise administrators may implement project versions where appropriate.

The Enterprise System Server requires the following:

Net Framework 4.0 Full
SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008

All versions of SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 are supported including the Express editions. It is strongly recommended that the optional Management Studio is installed for all the Express editions.

AWB client applications may access an installed Enterprise System if they have an Enterprise license. Users will be able to check out a project for modification so long as they have the necessary permissions and later check the project back in to the system. If they are disconnected from the network for any reason they may check in a project at a later date. Libraries may be opened for copying data into projects or checked-out for modification. Administrators may upload non-enterprise projects into an Enterprise system and set up new projects with or without version control.

Compressed Project Files

Project and library data is saved to file in compressed or XML format. You can set your format preference in the Files tab of the Application Options dialog. Compressed files are created with the extension ‘.awb’ whereas XML files are created with the extension ‘.awbx’. XML projects and libraries may be significantly larger than the equivalent compressed file format.

New Features for the Report Designer

Report wizard

The report wizard allows the user to quickly create text column, text row, graph or diagram reports. The user can preview the report design as they proceed through each page of the wizard.

Adobe PDF export

All report types can be published in Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) to file. The user can select either a quick publishing mode (using the current settings) or a normal mode allowing them to specify PDF generation settings.

Report folder report type

Report folder reports display one or more text column, text row, graph or diagram reports in a single report. When a report folder report is opened in print preview mode the page numbering is continuous from 1 to the total number of pages in the constituent reports.

Pie charts

A pie chart style has been added to the graph report type. The pie chart properties include:

Data label and value positioned either as: inner radial, inner horizontal or outer horizontal
Detailed data label and value properties (font, color, border, margins etcetera)
Detailed pie title properties (font, color, border, margins etc.)

Panel editor

The panel editor allows rapid editing of report element properties. When a report element is selected the panel editor is displayed with the element’s properties. Changes to the element’s properties are saved when a new report element is selected or the panel editor Apply button is selected.

User queries

Text column, text row and graph reports allow the user to select a standard query or specify their own custom query. The user query extends this facility to allow the user to create their own named pre-defined custom queries for a host application. The user queries are selected by name in the report query selection controls in a similar manner to the standard queries. User queries can be exported for use by co-workers, with an import facility provided for import of exported queries.

Design mode and reading mode

A reading mode has been introduced. Selection of the Reading Mode option hides the outline tree and the panel editor and switches the report to read-only mode. In addition the menu bar and standard toolbars are hidden and a special reading mode toolbar displayed. The purpose of reading mode is to maximize the area of the screen available for the actual report display.

Automatic selection of graph axis type

When graph report data group variables are selected the associated axis type is switched to match the data type of the variable. For example if the variable data type is text the axis type will be switched to label, if the variable type is numeric the axis type will be switched to value.

Filter Not operator added

A Not operator has been added to the column filter in text column reports and the X, Y and X variables filters for data groups in graph reports.

Filter Like automatic wildcard operator added

A Like automatic wildcard operator has been added to the column filter in text column reports, the group and detail heading filter in text row reports and the X, Y and X variables filters for data groups in graph reports. This operator automatically adds % before and after the operand for the Like operator.

Show on First Page and Show on Last Page properties

Show on First Page and Show on Last Page properties have been added to text boxes and pictures. Text boxes and pictures with this property will be shown on the specified page regardless of the Show On property (even, odd or all pages)

Multiple selected diagram categories with category page ordering

One or more diagram categories (up to the number available for the product) can be selected for a diagram report. In addition the category order can be specified for when the report is displayed in print preview mode. Previously only one or all categories could be selected and no page ordering was available.

Go to page control added to the print preview toolbar

A page number control has been added to the print preview toolbar allowing the user to enter a page number to skip to when in print preview mode.

ANSI (Latin) or Unicode encoding for export to text file formats

ANSI (Latin) or Unicode encoding can be specified explicitly when exporting to the various text formats. It can sometimes be necessary to specify the format when exporting to Excel in some locales.

Report elements generated from a report template are now locked for editing

Report elements generated from an applied report template are now locked to prevent editing. They are also displayed with a light blue shading.

Improved status message display

The status bar now alerts the user to new messages by displaying them in a temporary balloon to attract the user’s attention. In addition the user can specify that a message beep is sounded when various message types are displayed.

Improved SQL query parsing

The SQL query parsing has been improved so that tables names in complex queries are now recognized. This resolves a problem whereby data would not be generated for a SQL query by the host application.

New Features for the SAP Portal

The SAP Portal download functionality has been enhanced to facilitate the download of BOMs, including the associated PM assemblies through the functional location hierarchy. Users may now simply select the functional location hierarchy and connected equipment, location and material BOMs for download to AWB.

In addition, the download of SAP operations to RCMCost tasks has been speeded up by introducing a Next button in the Maintenance Plan dialog used for download. This provides users with the facility of selecting a batch of SAP maintenance items within the location hierarchy for download rather than selecting them individually. Also users now have the option to download SAP operations to AWB tasks in one single action (all operations are download to each cause) and then delete inappropriate associations of tasks to causes from within the RCMCost module.

New Features for the Maximo Portal

The Maximo Portal has been substantially enhanced to allow the download of additional data types such as spares and tools and the upload of a greater variety of maintenance plan schemes.

Master Data Download

Users may now download failure causes as well as the problem codes within a failure class. This allows a more refined identification of work order failures in the Analytics tab and the ability to including failure causes when downloading asset information from Maximo into the RCMCost module of AWB.

Spares and BOMs may now also be downloaded together with equipment (tools).

PM Upload

The PM Upload tab of the MAXIMO Portal now enables users to upload PMs using one of the following upload schemes:

Map RCMCost task to Maximo job task
Map RCMCost task to Maximo route stop
Map RCMCost task to Maximo job sequence

Users may also upload a PM hierarchy and populate Maximo job tasks using the notes fields of a RCMCost task.

Task Library

The task library facility allows users to build libraries of common tasks and search, filter and copy these tasks into RCMCost causes and AvSim failure models. Library tasks may be filtered using the RCMCost location and AvSim failure model hierarchy structures. Alternatively they may be filtered using the task group and task group type hierarchical structure.

A task library is similar in concept to any other Availability Workbench library. You may build a task library simply by adding tasks to RCMCost causes or AvSim failure models in the normal way (by adding tasks using the Maintenance tab of the Cause Properties or Failure Model Properties dialogs). Existing projects may also be attached as libraries and all the defined tasks will be available to copy into the current project.

Library tasks may be copied to an existing project by selecting the Copy Tasks From Library button in the Maintenance tab of the Cause Properties or Failure Model Properties dialogs. You may also copy tasks from within the current project rather than from an attached library. When tasks are copied from an attached library the associated resources (labor, equipment and spares) are also copied across if they do not already exist in the project.

Automatic Selection of Weibull Distributions

A new analysis option has been added to the Weibull module for automatically determining the ‘best fit’ distribution for the data items associated with the Weibull set. AWB will perform a parameter fit for all the available distributions and select the distribution and associated parameters that provide the smallest goodness of fit indicator.

New Process Reliability Module

A new Process Reliability module has been added to Availability Workbench. The module allows users to analyze daily production data using Weibull analysis plots. These plots identify systematic and reliability losses by recognizing trends in the production data. Nameplate production ratings may be specified (similar to concepts originating from six-sigma methodology) and compared with demonstrated production data. Losses can therefore be identified for corrective action.

The Process Reliability module allows production data to be compared from different plants or different time periods. Production data may also be transferred from simulated production profiles created from within the AvSim module. This allows production data from potential plant improvements to be compared with existing production data.

New Features for the DLL

The AWB Dynamic Link Library (DLL) has been extended to provide the functionality to analyze project data programmatically. This allows programmers to build or modify an AWB project, request AWB to analyze the project, and then display or save the analysis results. The analysis functionality applies to RCMCost system simulations and task or task group optimizations. It also provides the functionality to perform AvSim simulations, Weibull, Process Reliability and LCC analyses. Methods are also provided for providing progress messages during simulations.