Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/917937
maintenance recordkeeping in prep- aration for the electronic logging device mandate for trucks about two years ago and is rolling out a similar initiative to put all his yellow iron assets online using a Telogis Fleet and Compliance system. Before the company started digitizing the infor- mation and putting it on the cloud, he was faced with what he calls a "blizzard of paperwork." Along with the company's IT staff he's also structuring his Telogis data to feed into the company's enterprise resource program (ERP) to better share and inform people outside of the maintenance arena. With his yellow iron coming on line, Piwonka intends to perform detailed oil change-interval studies on his equipment. Accurately record- ing the hours of a large number of machines will improve the quality of the study and greatly reduce the paper computations that do- ing such research by hand would require, he says. Visual evidence In addition to pushing data around the internet, many digital mainte- nance and inspection systems allow the technician to take a photo of a problem or repair and upload it to the file or a repair or maintenance log. Having the ability to take pho- tos helps a lot, says Tucker, espe- cially when you are using outside vendors for service. A more advanced option for visu- als comes via augmented reality by using screens or goggles such as HoloLens. "The more sophisticated companies are using augmented reality technology," says Giometti. "It's at an early stage, but being able to see a machine's status simply by glancing at it through an augmented reality display could be incredibly powerful. I suggest you at least learn what is there so you can have a con- versation with your vendors." An intermediate step to autonomy is using a service like Facetime where a technician connects with an expert back in the office and shares real-time video images of a component or problem. The expert December 2017 | EquipmentWorld.com 38 maintenance | continued When an operator files an inspection report on a tablet or phone, the infor- mation is shared via the cloud with everybody who needs to know. The electronic files can also be retrieved and reviewed instantly.