I'm pretty new to Maximo and I have a question about how things should be handled. We have a project of integrating our ERP with Maximo using MIF interfaces. I'd like to know how you performed this in your company as I'm sure we're not the only one facing this challenges.
Let's go pretty simple about the Inventory. Receiving will be performed in our ERP and sent to Maximo. "Consumption" and inventory movements will be performed in Maximo and interfaced back to our ERP. so far so good, standard process.
However, there's a difference in the real inventory vs the inventory from a Financial perspective. As an example, we have let's say 3 cutters (same part number, different serial number). We have 2 in the internal storage and 1 in the machine where its being used. Once it is in the machine, it's known as "consumed" by finance. So from a finance point of view, there's only 2 in stock. From the tooling guy however, there's 3! The one in the machine can be taken out and replaced by one of the two others.
How are things like that handled in maximo? Any help, advices would be appreciated.
Regards
M.
It depends on how you plan to track on the individual level (track cutters by individual asset tags or serial numbers) or on the group level (3 cutters with the same item number)
If the cutter is treated as inventory and not as an asset, once it is issued then it is considered used. You can opt to use "Condition Code" and give each item a value from 0 to 100. Think of this value as depreciation. If a cutter is swapped out, then the new cutter (100%) is issued, and the replaced cutter is disposed of or returned to the shelf with a diminished value (e.g. 25%).
Related
For my internship, I need to implement a blockchain based solution to manage a drug supply chain. The management of this supply chain implies to track-and-trace (geolocate) a drug on the chain, but also to monitor the storage temperature to see if the cold chain is respected. For that I created a mock-up of the POC my Dapps (https://balsamiq.cloud/sum5oq5/p8lsped)and also I wanted to prepare myself by doing a UML and a use cases. However, I didn't find a lot of information about blockchain's UML and use cases besides two literatures which were quite different, so I don't know if what I did was correct or not...
The users of my Dapps will be the following ones:
The stakeholders (Manufacturers, Distributors and Retailers) which will use the Dapps to place orders and also monitor them. They also can search in the historic a specific order. Finally, trough IOT sensors they update the conditions of the order (temperature & location).
The administrator which roles is to update the Dapps and its rules. But also to add or delete user while also defining the rights that they have on the blockchain (I intend to use a permisionned blockchain). Finally, they are also here to help in case of technical problem.
The Dapps that I'm thinking about works in the following:
A user, the customer, can place an order (a list of products) to a
certain seller and choose the final destination of the order.
The order is then put together before being shipped or stocked in the
depots of one of the stakeholders (distributor or retailer) with a
description of the stocking and/or shipping condition of the product
(for example the product must be stocked or transported in a room
with a temperature of less than 5°C). During the shipping and
storing, an IOT device will feed the drops with the temperature and
geolocation of the product by updating the data each 5-10mn.
Obviously they will be a function that allows all the users to see
the history of the order passed and search inside a specific order.
In case where the temperature doesn't respect the temperature
recommended, then the smart-contract send an alert. The same if the
collocation of the product is "weird" like being in some European
countries and not in an Asian country, an alert will be sent again by
the smart-contractual. Finally, in the case where the product is sent
to the asked location by the customer, then the money for the order
will be paid to the seller.
So based on what I explained, I came here in hope that someone tell me if the use cases and UML that I did were correct or not.
I thank in advance anybody who'll take the time to help me.
I'm currently trying to learn the construction of class diagrams for an upcoming exam, although I'm having difficulties knowing how to identify classes based on a use case specification (or any similar description of a system).
I understand people here can be reluctant to help with education based questions, I just wanted to clarify that I'm not asking for the work to be done for me, I just need to be pointed in the right direction.
I'm going over a past revision paper which contains a use case specification for the process of 'purchasing an ice cream' at a vending machine. The first question is to identify 9 typical classes from this specification.
I understand a class is like an object and usually identified by a noun, although my confusion is how I am able to extract 9 classes as I can only seem to find 6, that is if they're even correct:
Customer, Student, Staff, Touch Screen, Change Dispenser, and Member Card.
Here is the use case specification, apologies for the length:
Ben & Jerry’s company has just installed a new vending machine at a
University; it has a variety of ice creams available, in the format of
tubs or mini-tubs of different flavours. Products are subsidised for
students and staff but not for the rest of users; such that a customer
can insert a member card in a card reader and the subsidised prize for
the selected ice cream is displayed. You have designed a use case
model of the system, and identified a single use case (“purchase an
ice cream”) where the main actors are the customers.
ID: VM1
Name: Purchase a tub
Main Actors:
Subsidised customer (staff and students) 2 Non-subsidised customer
Pre-conditions:
Machine is on and works perfectly fine
There is stock of drinks and coins
There is sufficient stock of coins in the machine for providing change
There is sufficient stock of products
Main Flow:
Machine displays a welcome message
Student/staff inserts member card
System validates member card
Customer selects the tub by pressing the touch screen
Machine displays the subsidised price for the selected ice cream
REPEAT until sufficient coins entered: 6.1 Customer enters coin 6.2 Touch screen displays the amount entered so far
System dispenses the tub
IF too many coins are entered change is delivered
Price is added to the weekly total amount
Machine resets
Post Condition: Ice cream purchased
Alternative flow 1:
IF customer does not have sufficient coins 6.1 Customer presses the return button 6.2 System returns the entered coins
Alternative flow 2:
IF validation is unsuccessful 3.1 Message informing user 3.2 Non-subsidised price is show 3.3 Use case continues main flow 4
If anybody can help I'd really appreciate it. Thanks
You have mostly identified a number of actors, few classes itself. To start your design, ask yourself what the system under consideration (SUC) is. Obviously a vending machine. Now look at the UC how this SUC acts. There are a couple of hints:
control resources (temperature, ice cream, tubs, etc.),
control collection of money,
control dispension of ice cream.
For these you can create controller classes which look to the outside and act accordingly (read temp -> turn on cooling; count money -> start vending; etc.)
The vending process with customer interaction is probably even more complex (show offers, make selection, pricing, etc.)
As you already guessed, this is no tutorial point. However, those are the basic steps to start the design. You can go on and create sequence diagrams to verify collaboration between the single classes (lots of exceptions like: temp controller starting to yell when temp does go up too much).
Say there is 5 bags of potatoes, when it hits two bags, an order is sent to the supplier automatically. Who/What is the actor?
Clearly you have an actor to watch the queue like this:
Even if the Potato Watcher is something implemented inside the SUC, it would be an actor on its own. You may drag it inside the SUC boundary. In a final implementation it might be a system task to poll a queue or a subscriber to the queue. But from the added value viewpoint it's just a simple actor to watch a queue and do something with it.
Since "an order is sent... automatically" the system is the actor. Assuming you are automating using software system.
However in real life it all goes wrong and businesses are far away from sending orders automatically.
Badgerbadger, you need to be carefull about statement "sent an order".
It is easy to overlook actual business process and previous subfunction-level answers are giving a nudge.
More realistic scenario is that the system is the actor who just initiates the check of stocks, maybe orchestrates. And then there is a complicated process of getting approval, finding budget, checking if goods are really required to be ordered and so on. In theory all of those can be automated, but usually in practice there is a work for human actor as well. Of course you may be lucky and avoid all of this.
Example of pessimistic scenario to consider:
It was eight bags, but now hits three. John just bought five bags from us, hooray!
System automatically places an order and pays for 10 more bags.
In ten minutes someone ordered one more.
System automatically places an order again and pays for 10 more bags.
We don't have enough money on account so we are facing overdraft.
At the same time regular inspection found that one bag is rotten.
System: 10 more bags please!
Our colleague just told us that we've missed 20% discount from supplier on simultaneous orders of 25+ bags which can be obtained only by calling a company manager.
John cancels his order in an hour after placing it.
Now we have 36 bags and a hole in our budget.
And our marketing manager just told us that the green bags system ordered are actually now selling with a discount, we are getting rid of them in favour of new line of blue bags.
You have to possibilities here:
Each time the stock is used the system checks if the condition to order is met and if yes then order it. As ordering will probably involve another actor (e.g. supplier's system), you might need to model it as a separate UC and use extend relationship. In this case you will not have any additional actor initiating the order, only the actor initiating stock usage.
The system checks on a regular basis what stocks reached the automated order level and make a single mass order. In this case you'll have to model Scheduler as an actor (in reality it's another system running on the server so it's fine to call it an actor). Some people prefer modelling such actor as "time" but it's discouraged.
So, not really sure if this is the right place for this but I have this current Context level data flow diagram for the bellow specification extract and I have never done one before so I was wondering if it was correct or if it needs fixing? any help appreciated
This is a link to a screen of my current one http://i.imgur.com/S4xvutc.png
SPECIFICATION
Currently the office staff operate the following processes:
Add/Amend/Delete Membership
This is run on-demand when a new membership application is received or when a member indicates that he/she wishes to make amendments to their details. It is also run in those rare instances when a membership is terminated at the discretion of the manager. A new member has an ID number allocated (simply incremented from the previous membership accepted). A membership balance is also maintained for accounting purposes.
Another process operates in a similar fashion on data associated with transfer partners.
Monthly Maintenance
This is run on the last day of each month to issue requests and reminders for subscriptions due, and to remove memberships where fees remain outstanding. Standard letters are also generated. Membership balances are updated as appropriate.
Payment Updates
This is run prior to the Monthly Maintenance, with membership balances being updated accordingly.
Payments to partners are also disbursed at this time.
New Member Search
This is run whenever a new member has been added to the database. The partners are partitioned in terms of vehicle category and location. Normally, there is a limited choice of partner in a particular location (if, indeed, there is any choice) but for some popular destinations, several partners are involved in providing the airport transfer. Thus, a search is then made through the appropriate section for potential matches in the following manner:
A search is then made on the grounds of sex (many female passengers in particular prefer a driver of their own sex, especially if travelling alone or in couples).
Matches are then selected according to factors such as cost (if available), availability of extra requested facilities (such as child seats, air-conditioning etc.)
Existing Member - Additional Searches
These are run on-demand in the same fashion as for a new member's search. Members may of course request any number of such searches, but a separate payment is due for each.
All financial transactions (payments) are also posted to the separate Accounts file, which also stores other financial details relating to running costs for the consideration of the firm's accountants at the end of the financial year.
Thanks for any help, regarding this level 0 Context only DFD
It needs some fixing.
The most obvious flaw is that you use verbs in your dataflows. In some cases this can be fixed easily by just discarding the verb. Return balance and status is not a datflow, but balance and status is.
In others cases it is not so easy. Check Balance, is it outstanding? sounds more like a Process than a dataflow. It looks like Accounting is responsible for doing that job. So will Accounting produce a list of outstanding balances? Or will it return a single balance and status, and if so, based on what input? Will your Airpot Transport System send a list of balances to check to Accounting?
Take for example Monthly Maintenance. What matters is that you want
requests and reminders for subscriptions due
Standard letters
These need to be visible in your DFD
The fact that you want to remove memberships where fees remain outstanding, probably has not place in the toplevel diagram, because that looks like an internal affair.
In general, focus on what the System produces. Maintaining internal state is secondary, is is a necessity to produce the desired output.
I have a column which is made up of addresses as show below.
Address
1 Reid Street, Manchester, M1 2DF
12 Borough Road, London, E12,2FH
15 Jones Street, Newcastle, Tyne & Wear, NE1 3DN
etc .. etc....
I am wanting to split this into different columns to import into my SQL database. I have been trying to use Findstring to seperate by the comma but am having trouble when some addresses have more "sections" than others. ANy ideas whats the best way to go about this?
Many THanks
This is a requirements specification problem, not an implementation problem. The more you can afford to assume about the format of the addresses, the more detailed parsing you will be able to do; the other side of the same coin is that the less you will assume about the structure of the address, the fewer incorrect parses you will be blamed for.
It is crucial to determine whether you will only need to process UK postal emails, or whether worldwide addresses may occur.
Based on your examples, certain parts of the address seem to be always present, but please check this resource to determine whether they are really required in all UK email addresses.
If you find a match between the depth of parsing that you need, and the assumptions that you can safely make, you should be able to keep parsing by comma indexes (FINDSTRING); determine some components starting from the left, and some starting from the right of the string; and keep all that remains as an unparsed body.
It may also well happen that you will find that your current task is a mission impossible, especially in connection with international postal addresses. This is why most websites and other data collectors require the entry of postal address in an already parsed form by the user.
Excellent points raised by Hanika. Some of your parsing will depend on what your target destination looks like. As an ignorant yank, based on Hanika's link, I'd think your output would look something like
Addressee
Organisation
BuildingName
BuildingAddress
Locality
PostTown
Postcode
BasicsMet (boolean indicating whether minimum criteria for a good address has been met.)
In the US, just because an address could not be properly CASSed doesn't mean it couldn't be delivered - cip, my grandparent-in-laws live in enough small town that specifying their name and city is sufficient for delivery as local postal officials know who they are. For bulk mailings though, their address would not qualify for the bulk mailing rate and would default to first class mailing. I assume a similar scenario exists for UK mail
The general idea is for each row flowing through, you'll want to do your best to parse the data out into those buckets. The optimal solution for getting it "right" is to change the data entry method to validate and capture data into those discrete buckets. Since optimal never happens, it becomes your task to sort through the dross to find your gold.
Whilst you can write some fantastic expressions with FINDSTRING, I'd advise against it in this case as maintenance alone will drive you mad. Instead, add a Script Transformation and build your parsing logic in .NET (vb or c#). There will then be a cycle of running data through your transformation and having someone eyeball the results. If you find a new scenario, you go back and adjust your business rules. It's ugly, it's iterative and it's prone to producing results that a human wouldn't have.
Alternatives to rolling your address standardisation logic
buy it. Eventually your business needs outpace your ability to cope with constantly changing business rules. There are plenty of vendors out there but I'm only familiar with US based ones
upgrade to SQL Server 2012 to use DQS (Data Quality Services). You'll probably still need to buy a product to build out your knowledge base but you could offload the business rule making task to a domain expert ("Hey you, you make peanuts an hour. Make sure all the addresses coming out of this look like addresses" was how they covered this in the beginning of one of my jobs).