OpenPlant for Plant Co-ordinators
Vision, Control, Efficiency
Centralised Control
In OpenPlant the Plant Co-ordinator is all powerful, in relation to the hiring and off hiring of plant. In different organisations, depending upon the number of staff employed, there may be more than one person, in one or more locations performing this role. In smaller organisations there may not be a full time person with this one role or in other circumstances a Contracts Manager may have this responsibility. Open Plant can cater for all of these different circumstances or for any mix of them. The centralised databases allow for remote management of plant, both hired and external, by one or more persons, regardless of their geographic location.
OpenPlant removes the need for complicated, expensive and invariably problematic IT links between sites. All users are accessing the same databases on the same servers from wherever they are; therefore, it is perfectly possible for one person to centrally control many different sites or depots. Any user at any site can access the system directly to retrieve the information that they require.
Offhire Stages
This very colourful External Off hires screen, shows how easy it is for a Plant Coordinator to control plant, allowing for all of the various problems and variations that may occur. The different colours, which are replicated onto the Site Agents' screens, allow for the easy recognition of the state that each piece of plant is in.
A green band indicates that the item is currently in a 'standing' status. This means that following a request from a Site Agent, the Plant Coordinator has agreed to put the item into a standing status, which allows the system to keep track of the location of the item but doesn't cost it to the site, for the period of time that it has been put into standing. At an appropriate time, the item can be off hired or its hire can be extended, from this screen. The rather colourless grey section indicates hires that have gone to plan. A Site Agent has requested the off hire of the item and the Plant Coordinator can then telephone the supplier to arrange the collection of the item, from the details supplied onscreen. The off hire reference number can be entered in to the appropriate box and the selection of the confirmation icon will change the colour of the item from grey to blue.
Following on from the previous section, the blue colour indicates off hires that have been arranged and confirmed by the Plant Coordinator. Once confirmed, the confirm option is made unavailable. It is still possible, at this stage, to put the item into standing or to extend the hire period, as long as the confirmed off hire date has not been reached. One reached, the item is automatically removed from the screen.
A yellow band indicates that an off hire date has been extended. This means that a Site Agent has requested a particular item to be off hired on a particular date, but things haven't then gone as planned and the Agent has requested an extension of that hire. The red band indicates a scheduled off hire, for example, an Agent requests on a Monday that an item be off hired on a Friday.
There is a further colour that is not indicated on the screen. This colour is pink and is used to denote an item that has been left standing at a particular site. This effectively means that the item has been off hired but is not being picked up, for whatever reason.
Plant Co-ordinator example
In this example the Plant Co-ordinator is responsible for satisfying orders that he receives from the system, whether they have been placed by Site Agents or Contracts Managers. He also has the facility to place orders directly, on behalf of site Site Agents. The arrival of a new order is immediately notified on a Plant Co-ordinator screen, regardless of which section of the application that they might have open. Upon opening the unassigned order section the Plant Co-ordinator will be see a list of all of new orders, in either grey or red to indicate whether or not they are an immediate or a scheduled requirement.
OpenPlant is primarily designed with efficiency and making optimum usage of internally owned plant. When a Plant Co-ordinator goes to assign an item, the system automatically provides a status update on all internally owned plant, ensuring that if any such plant is available, then it will be utilised before any consideration is given to hiring external plant. If no internally owned plant is available, or if it is economically more desirable to hire plant externally, then a Plant Co-ordinator may arrange the hire using the database of suppliers, included in the system. Once the item has been assigned, then it automatically appears in the Site Agents on hire screen, in an appropriate colour, to indicate that the hire has been arranged. Internal items go through a further procedure within the system, creating a transfer request for the Transport Manager, who will need to arrange for the transport of the item to the appropriate site. The role of the Transport Manager may be important in a large organisation with a transport fleet and multiple depots or it may be undertaken by a Plant Co-ordinator in a smaller organisation.
Again, depending upon the organisation, a Plant Co-ordinator may be given the role of System Administrator, with the power to add and remove plant and to utilise the Asset Management section of the application, for the purposes of fleet and plant maintenance.
