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Subject: Combining Fields is Better than Creating One Really Big Field
When setting up MAXIMO (or any EAM system) you have design choices on how to categorize work. As an administrator you may decide to use existing fields (and their values which can be added to). In most cases it is easier to add values to an existing domain (choice list). That said, if you end up with 30 work types (fieldname is WorkType), that may be too many choices for the user to select from and it makes analytical reporting more difficult. Too many choices frequently results in user confusion because (1) there are simply too many to scan through, and/or (2) the values are not mutually exclusive. Also, as a best practice, this particular field, the WorkType, is usually meant to categorize work as to CM, PM, CBM, MINOR, and when combined with others it can then be used to measure the amount of reactive maintenance. Therein the better choice is to add a new field, store whatever unique attributes are needed, and then through reporting, combine key fields via select/sort and group-by function to analyze the data.
w/br
John Reeve
Manager, Practice Leader Maintenance and Reliability Solutions
Cell: 423 314 1312
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-reeve/11/644/9b2
and to make this best practice more practical, technically speaking you
can use Table Domains to restrict the values displayed in the added fields
to only show valid values for the sectected Wortype....
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 6:09 PM, John <planschd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> **
>
>
> Subject: Combining Fields is Better than Creating One Really Big Field
>
> When setting up MAXIMO (or any EAM system) you have design choices on how
> to categorize work. As an administrator you may decide to use existing
> fields (and their values which can be added to). In most cases it is easier
> to add values to an existing domain (choice list). That said, if you end up
> with 30 work types (fieldname is WorkType), that may be too many choices
> for the user to select from and it makes analytical reporting more
> difficult. Too many choices frequently results in user confusion because
> (1) there are simply too many to scan through, and/or (2) the values are
> not mutually exclusive. Also, as a best practice, this particular field,
> the WorkType, is usually meant to categorize work as to CM, PM, CBM, MINOR,
> and when combined with others it can then be used to measure the amount of
> reactive maintenance. Therein the better choice is to add a new field,
> store whatever unique attributes are needed, and then through reporting,
> combine key fields via select/sort and group-by function to analyze the
> data.
>
> w/br
> John Reeve
> Manager, Practice Leader Maintenance and Reliability Solutions
> Cell: 423 314 1312
> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-reeve/11/644/9b2
>
>
>
--
Mohamed Skandaji, MBA, PMP
Hi,
We have 20 work types which include work types like Master Sanitation Plan MSP which is not really maintenance but a QA function.
Even with all of the non-maintenance work types we only have 20. That may seem like a lot but before we had a central administrator (me) we had one site with over 80 work types. They had done exactly what John described and used the work type to also designate things like which shift was assigned the work. It was a total mess and users really did not use them.
It's almost always a bad idea to combine more than one type of data into one field. It's almost always better to add another field.
Dave
--- In MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com, "John" <planschd@...> wrote:
>
> Subject: Combining Fields is Better than Creating One Really Big Field
>
> When setting up MAXIMO (or any EAM system) you have design choices on how to categorize work. As an administrator you may decide to use existing fields (and their values which can be added to). In most cases it is easier to add values to an existing domain (choice list). That said, if you end up with 30 work types (fieldname is WorkType), that may be too many choices for the user to select from and it makes analytical reporting more difficult. Too many choices frequently results in user confusion because (1) there are simply too many to scan through, and/or (2) the values are not mutually exclusive. Also, as a best practice, this particular field, the WorkType, is usually meant to categorize work as to CM, PM, CBM, MINOR, and when combined with others it can then be used to measure the amount of reactive maintenance. Therein the better choice is to add a new field, store whatever unique attributes are needed, and then through reporting, combine key fields via select/sort and group-by function to analyze the data.
>
>
> w/br
> John Reeve
> Manager, Practice Leader Maintenance and Reliability Solutions
> Cell: 423 314 1312
> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-reeve/11/644/9b2
>
The way I would handle this is to create a separate table in Maximo that holds your Work Types and associated Subtypes. Add the subtype field to the WorkOrder table and screen. Then you can use a table domain on the subtype with a filter to the selected value in Work Type. That way you can control what subtype values you want to be available for each Work Type. Make the subtype field required if you always want info there.
Table SUBVALUE like:
WORKTYPE SUBTYPE
Use something like this in your domain where clause:
worktype = :WORKTYPE;
That will give you the right valuelist.
If you want to limit the values you put something like this in the validation clause:
:SUBTYPE in (select subtype from subvalue where worktype = :WORKTYPE)
Ron Bryant
IT Business Consultant
Plant Systems & Controls
Cargill
Linkedin Profile<http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaldbryant>
From: MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com<mailto:MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com> [mailto:MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of in2data@yahoo.com<mailto:in2data@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2012 11:01 AM
To: MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com<mailto:MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [MAXIMO List] Re: Tip of the Day #222
Hi,
We have 20 work types which include work types like Master Sanitation Plan MSP which is not really maintenance but a QA function.
Even with all of the non-maintenance work types we only have 20. That may seem like a lot but before we had a central administrator (me) we had one site with over 80 work types. They had done exactly what John described and used the work type to also designate things like which shift was assigned the work. It was a total mess and users really did not use them.
It's almost always a bad idea to combine more than one type of data into one field. It's almost always better to add another field.
Dave
--- In MAXIMO@yahoogroups.com<mailto:MAXIMO%40yahoogroups.com>, "John" <planschd@...<mailto:planschd@...>> wrote:
>
> Subject: Combining Fields is Better than Creating One Really Big Field
>
> When setting up MAXIMO (or any EAM system) you have design choices on how to categorize work. As an administrator you may decide to use existing fields (and their values which can be added to). In most cases it is easier to add values to an existing domain (choice list). That said, if you end up with 30 work types (fieldname is WorkType), that may be too many choices for the user to select from and it makes analytical reporting more difficult. Too many choices frequently results in user confusion because (1) there are simply too many to scan through, and/or (2) the values are not mutually exclusive. Also, as a best practice, this particular field, the WorkType, is usually meant to categorize work as to CM, PM, CBM, MINOR, and when combined with others it can then be used to measure the amount of reactive maintenance. Therein the better choice is to add a new field, store whatever unique attributes are needed, and then through reporting, combine key fields via select/sort and group-by function to analyze the data.
>
>
> w/br
> John Reeve
> Manager, Practice Leader Maintenance and Reliability Solutions
> Cell: 423 314 1312
> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/john-reeve/11/644/9b2
>