Do you know the condition of your key asset/s?

Think of 5 assets in your network that you rely on, to the point where an issue with these will end up on your end of year reports. For most networks, this will include some major assets with a long replacement lead time, typically these are the large (or unique) power transformer units. What is the condition of those assets? How quickly could you look into it?

If you had new information arise due to experience with one asset, how efficiently could you apply this learning to your similar assets?

If you contractor/test technician is reading measurements that are not alarming, but "interesting", how quickly could they access historical test results, or test results from similar assets?

In most cases, the above questions are difficult to answer. It's surprising how many businesses are still relying on paper records that are filed away on a bookshelf, a long standing employee's desk or storage boxes that may or may not have been labelled well enough for these records to ever be found.

The slightly higher level of maturity takes advantage of a document management system, these are notorious for being very general tools that do everything well enough, but nothing very well at all. Information on an asset will be distributed between folders that are used by the purchasing team, the project, design, testing teams will all have their own piece of the puzzle tucked away in a folder that they use. These systems rarely let you look up the device nameplate and then at the same time find the results of the two most recent visual inspections. Let alone to compare a specific test results from commissioning, through to the latest maintenance cycle.

Human nature is such that we avoid barriers and inconveniences. This is the reason why it's so hard for many to go running in the morning. Once you are outside in your shoes, it's no problem, but getting out there feels like really hard work. The systems that we work with need to be efficient and effective so that we are empowered by the information that we have on hand, rather than incapacitated by an disorganised vastness.

If you want to be able to quickly check your key assets against some new information that you've come across, you need a system that will get you to the specific asset details including test result reports without any question in your mind as to where this lives, otherwise your other priorities will take over and the key asset will not be checked, because the barrier to checking is too great.

Similarly with your service provider, if they don't have a quick and easy reference to check their latest measurements against similar assets and/or historical readings, there is a big chance that the check will not be done. This could leave your network vulnerable to a defect that is clear when you have the information readily available to you.

The hardest thing to face in light of all of this is that most utilities are spending large portions of their budgets on testing and reporting, the information is available, however in most cases, it's not organised well so the effect is similar to not having it at all.

Since I joined OMICRON, one of the most impressive solutions that I've met in our suite of products is the Primary Test Manager software, or PTM as it's known by its users. It is what you want to have available to you whenever you have a question about an asset in the office or a measurement on site, since you cannot depend on paper test cards or documents stored in a document management system that everyone is using with their own convention.

In the day to day function, Primary Test Manager is most helpful to the service providers. It speeds up the time needed for testing since it can use asset data that is entered once to prepare tests for all future applications. If you want to really save time, you will use the duplicate function so that similar assets are added with only minor tweaks to specify their differences from the asset being copied.

During execution of testing work, the worker is able to filter the database for similar assets and then look through test results for any/all of these in order to provide a better judgement on the measurements taken at the current job.

When the job is done, if the business has chosen to implement the Primary Test Manager with Synchronisation capability (this can either be done using a server at the premises or completely hands-off with OMICRON looking after the servers and backups) all of the test results from site can be loaded into a central database that is then synchronised with all licensed computers.

This means that you are able to perform checks on your key assets at ease with access to their full suite of asset information and FAT / SAT / maintenance test results organised and up to date in one handy location.

If you would like to find out more about OMICRON Primary Test Manager, please click this link and/or contact your local OMICRON representative who will be able to provide you with a demonstration to answer any outstanding questions regarding this product.