Feature Introduction

Q4 is constructed from a series of modules that provide a framework to access services based on user rights to control the various application functions.

The features shown in this section give an overview of the power of the system to deliver a variety of services based on role based access to control technical information, maintenance, safety and logistic support to users.

Select a feature from the left menu to see some of the features associated with the selected topic.

For specific baseline SOA features of system entities select the link below.

Service Menu

Structure equipment information

• Capture generic Equipment Type details and related data including Bill of Materials, Suppliers, Manufacturers, Documents and PM class
• Record Plant details and related information including technical information, maintenance, isolations, finance information, fixed assets, spares, documents and plant hierarchy
• Define equipment details and relationships to system and location
• Use the code builder to define simple or complex plant system coding structures
• Record and track transferable assets on plant items with automatic location and serial number tracking
• Create plant hierarchies with budget allocation and maintenance cost roll up
• Build hierarchical graphical plant schematics or maps to locate plant information
• Build failure and cause codes to record equipment problems
• Define plant isolation points
• Raise and execute design modifications, with automatic Work Order generation and tracking
• Duplicate plant and related information

Define PM tasks and programmes

• Define “PM Type” templates for automatic assignment to equipment of that type
• Define planned maintenance by frequency, fixed dates, user defined units (e.grunning hours, start stops) or event condition triggers
• Define planned frequencies as floating (late work delays the cycle) or fixed (cycle is undisturbed by early/late work)
• Define PM groups (modules) to be planned and closed as a group, using a minimum of recording effort
• Generate outage PM’s for seasonal shutdowns
• Optional PM suspend control when plant goes into shutdown outage
• Use RCM analysis on critical plant to determine an optimum maintenance programme

Develop work and support instructions

• Define detailed Work Specifications including procedural documents, effort, spares, stock kits, safety documents, hire (support) items, applied contracts and others
• Assign team, group, effort, skills, tools, and test equipment to work specifications
• Store and control tools, jigs and fixtures, which require statutory or periodic inspection
• Create calibration instructions and check points for instrument and control equipment

Integrated cost, finance and audit control

• Generate instant on-line displays of equipment work costs, for items and groups
• Access current, projected and historical maintenance work costs including cost of failure
• Using PM cost elements, calculate yearly budgets and life cycle costs
• Utilise the extensive cost analysis reports (e.gcost centres, systems, equipment maintenance and repair)
• Access team labour costs for desired periods and specified programmes of work
• Specify budgets and track expenditure to monitor variance
• Use optional two way financial integration for seamless money management

Track downtime

• Track downtime events and duration using the integral “Out of Service” log

Manage safety

• Automatically or manually create safety documents for Work Orders
• Select isolation points from a list and apply standard safety document templates from a library
• Create and edit safety document related data items, including points of isolation, tags and lock boxes
• Provide isolation and de-isolation sequence order
• Request (or resubmit), approve, confirm, issue, transfer, clear and cancel safety documents
• Manage cascaded lock-box controls

Plan and schedule work

• Use the powerful planning tools to select and create scheduled work and display and amend planned Work Orders on a “Whiteboard” layout
• Generate PM Work Orders over a user-specified period of interest
• Avoid PM duplication for work already scheduled
• Utilise PM module planning to generate work schedules
• Generate emergency plant outage work using search and schedule
• Create provisional work schedules (prior to committed) to allow detailed resource planning and preparation
• Specify planning with resource availability taking account of work committed but not yet completed
• Create programmes of work for workgroups, teams, workshops, or individuals
• Instant on-line preview of estimated job cost and timesheet
• Select and list Work Orders for any user-defined period (future or past)
• Import/Export directly with MS Project for detailed planning

Assess, assign and control work orders

• Assess Work Orders and estimate cost before approval
• Prioritise and assign work based on availability of labour, spares and access
• Use labour availability calendar to assign labour to task
• List and sort Work Orders in the most effective way for your work methods and view work status at any time
• Simple, “point and click” Work Order status changes with automatic system audit trails and security control
• Print schedules, resource loads, job cards (single, module, or batch) and other desired support information
• Set Work Orders as “pending” with a reason and review date
• Use Work Order modules to issue single cards containing multiple items of plant
• Assign multiple team efforts to each Work Order for cost and tracking

Report work activities

• Report job progress, resource usage and Work Order handover
• Record inspection information for predictive analysis and statutory regulations
• Raise work to history for logging urgent work that has already been completed
• Complete Work Orders individually or in a module group
• Create follow-on Work Orders
• View the actual Work Order cost including labour, materials and other cost elements

Raise job and fault work orders

• Raise faults using a minimum of time and keystrokes
• Use the user-defined fault coding system to provide accurate reporting
• Authorised users may raise, assess, engineer and plan a job in single session
• Conduct rapid and effective searches for related Work Orders when raising new work or faults to avoid duplication
• Raise follow-on work from investigative or completed jobs

Manage inventory

• Manage and track stock items (including non-stock) through multiple depot/stores
• Locate and display item levels, costs, allocation and on-order details
• Reorder items automatically or manually with reorder algorithms
• Track item use, ordering and holdings throughout locations
• Track items, quantities and costs through bins and location
• View a complete audit trail of item transactions
• Assign items against a work order (WO), equipment or cost code
• View WO stock reservations with item availability and delivery status
• Identify out-of-stock and transfer items between multiple depot/stores
• Manage material hazards and safety procedures relating to item handling
• View all equipment using a selected inventory item and all items used by selected equipment
• Perform sectionalised stocktakes with automatic transaction hold
• Identify alternative substitution items and vendors
• Access status and forecast reports

Raise purchase orders

• Issue tender enquiries to multiple suppliers
• Create Purchase Requisitions (PR) or Purchase Orders (PO) for stock items, non-stock items, services or “one-off” purchases
• Auto generate Purchase Requisitions for inventory with auto order level control
• Use the powerful “buyers” screen to analyse multiple vendors to select best buy and to review and merge PR’s into optimised PO groupings manually or automatically
• Control PO’s receipt, adjustments, invoice matching and payment clearance
• Create and relate PR’s and PO’s to work orders and related plant with account codes for cost analysis
• Create Call Off PO’s for commitment at agreed times
• Record comprehensive information on vendors, including appraisal status and performance history
• Issue PO in any defined currency including full Euro compliance, with “triangulation”
• Select standard procurement phrases/terms on PR’s or PO’s

Streamlined workflow

• Instantly view the status and progress of work orders
• Use the planning tools to create optimum teamwork schedules
• View and control all team related Work Order activity from a single screen “WorkDesk”, with instant displays of “My work”, “My team’s work” and many others
• Rapidly access the information and processes relating to a Work Order to complete the job faster
• Use WorkDesk to ‘drag and drop’ Work Orders
• Automatic allocation of stock items during Work Order processing
• Optionally execute and close individual PMs within any moduleExceptions are handled automatically
• Store potential Work Orders of any type (Ad hoc, planned, fault etc.) in a work preview area for review and “what if” analysis
• Close whole Work Order modules with a minimum of effort while retaining detailed history information for individual plant items
• E-mail Work Order summaries at any time for quick and simple reporting and update
• Conduct rapid and effective searches for related PMs when reviewing work for faults or outages

Effective use of labour

• View labour availability when resourcing work orders and programmes
• Maintain skills and related data, including retest and refresh intervals and accrediting bodies
• Optionally, automate skill refresh on Work Order completion
• Access Work Order timesheet view
• Use labour reports to determine usage, availability and forecasts by teams, workgroups and individuals
• Assess time to respond to work and work duration

Co-ordinated safety and hazard procedures

• Issue safety documents to ensure effective safety procedures
• Confirm and surrender isolations, alerting automatically for shared isolations
• Access material hazards and safety procedures to execute work safely

Historical analysis to improve maintenance

• Analyse equipment failures to determine if preventive maintenance would be applicable and effective
• Analyse the comprehensive work and plant history data for critical plant, RCM analysis candidates, and targets for work efficiency improvements
• Automatically record plant and asset data in work history, allowing analysis by plant and by transferred/mobile assets
• Use the reporting facilities to perform Historical Analysis (including MTBF, MTTR and others)
• Use the Performance Analyser to investigate the relationships of cost, downtime, recurring defects and maintenance activities
• Access an individual plant item or system to view the last 5 years costs (year by year)
• Use the high cost plant report to focus on potential improvement targets

Controlled purchasing and inventory

• Support maintenance work with fully integrated spares allocation and automated/manual purchase ordering
• Maintain organised multilocation stores with rapid information access
• Establish “best buy and terms” using tender requests and alternative vendor analysis
• Develop optimum inventory levels using ROQ and ROL calculations and refine policies for each item type across multiple depots/stores
• Create PO’s with lead-time awareness for just-in-time spares
• Keep purchase and inventory transactions fully tracked and reconciled
• Review service contracts and maintain warranties and claims
• Utilise inventory and procurement reports to control, value and audit the system

Establish inventory and control policies

• Define Stock Commodity templates
• Define multiple location stores/ depots and definable order policies
• Record spares and materials within the inventory register with relationships to equipment, location, vendors, hazards, safety procedures and ordering policies
• Create stock kits
• Specify reorder levels using ROQ and ROL values suggested by the system
• Create vendor register with appraisal analysis
• Define shelf life, bin batches, refurbishment and warranty details
• Establish stock take policy and frequency
• Define cost accounting codes for business analysis

Organise resource units, teams and staff

• Record personnel details, access permissions and authority levels
• Organise and define groups, teams and individuals
• Record exceptions and records of non-availability (e.gabsence and leave)
• Assign calendars to teams and, if required, to individuals
• Define user-defined shift roster patterns, if required, and apply them to assigned calendars
• Assign skills to staff for reconciliation with task requirements
• Record cost rates and overtime rates for workgroups and individuals

Specify plant event triggers and actions

• Create plant monitoring and alarm events to trigger action procedures
• Connect mobile and real-time data devices to capture information
• Specify on-condition action procedures and work order creation

Flexibility to configure your system

• Use the comprehensive security permissions system to ensure that users have access to only those features that are necessary
• Set passwords to time-out after a user-defined period
• Use a CMMS configured to your own specific Work Order cycle and approval system, using our configurable Work Order engine
• Specify your own Job Card, Requisition and Purchase Order format and layout
• Specify the contents of lookup tables
• Show and process dates and currencies according to local settings

Reporting

• Utilise the extensive range of standard technical, maintenance, procurement and commercial reports
• Control the content and sequence of built-in reports using powerful user searching, sorting, grouping and tagging features
• Generate new or customised user-defined reports
• Optionally, use third party report writers with system specific dictionaries
• Use the drill down Performance Analyser to optimise maintenance programmes and support resources

Rapid access to Up-to-date data

• Use the powerful and intuitive Q4 “graphical menus” to guide the use of the system with minimal training requirements.
• Use Q4’s unique tagging and linking facilities to select, navigate and view items all over the systemThese simple and powerful ideas are used consistently throughout
• Use purpose built applets for specific job functions

Access and explore information

• Easy to use search and navigation tools
• Search on any field (or combination) using wild cards
• Display, report and print information using Group, Sort,

Filter and Tag facilities

• Use the link facility to display related information from a record or a list
• Use the Visual Selector to select plant from a schematic or map and navigate plant items by location

Seamless integration

• Optionally, link to a document management system for advanced document management features
• Link to finance systems using the FinanceLink option
• Optionally, link to drawing systems
• Import/Export directly with MS Excel spreadsheets
• Store third party application data with each record as “OLE” attachments
• Integrate your SCADA and realtime systems with Q4 to raise work based upon condition monitoring events
• Launch any other business applications from within Q4 using the “application launcher” menu item.
• Access Q4 data using Q4 API’s for safe and secure access
• Access Q4 data directly via SQL
• Painlessly upgrade, protected by our Q4 3-tier architecture

Finance Integration

• Integrate Q4 to SAP™, Oracle™, Sun™, PeopleSoft™ and others using the Q4 FinanceLink, retaining upgrade capability
• Use the supplied API, if desired, to integrate into bespoke or 3rd party applications
• Maintain duplicate tables (such as Stock and valuations) in Q4 and a finance system
• Update external systems with Requisition or Purchase Order information
• Update external systems with stock level changes such as issues, receipts or goods received
• Configure the exact data to be exchanged; use the supplied configurations or adapt these for your own use
• System automatically handles interface failures (e.gExternal system failure) and allows re-synchronisation without data loss
• Use safely in a multi-user environment

Mobile and remote access

• Download Work orders from Q4 and complete Work orders on the move using a Palmtop
• View equipment information related to each work order on a Palmtop PC
• Create and collect plant data on Palmtops to download into event register

Web enablement services

• Receive and transmit information over communication networks using Internet or Intranet protocols
• Database access from remote sites
• Raise a fault or job report from any location with access to Internet or Intranet
• Build Internet or Intranet applets using Webware controls tailored for

Q4 usage Easy customisation

• Modify screen captions and designs and retain changes over upgrades
• Use the extensive Q4 API to integrate and extend the CMMS
• Use the Q4 custom controls to customise screens the way you need them
• Create and modify flow menu’s to assimilate activity steps

DB Platforms

• Deploy as an MS SQL Server client-server version
• Deploy as an Oracle client-server version