M A G A Z I N E
Even though the system is fully up and running, the franchise sees it as in continuous development. Amanda explains, “Eventually we want to have an RFID tag (Radio Frequency Identification) facility so you can be on site and automatically upload data. We’re not there quite yet, but we will be. “The hoses have a tag colour so that will indicate whether they need to be changed every year, two years or five years or inspected annually, every two years and so on. The tag colour indicates all the information about that hose. “It gives us the type of hose, its location, each end, length, the pressure rating, manufacture date, last inspection date, when it’s due for inspection again and when it’s due to be changed.” The system allows the engineer to filter by whatever data set he wants – hose colour, tag colour or others. “For site visits, if for example we visit this customer twice, three times a year, we can see whatever’s due for inspection within the next four to six months. “We export them to Excel so the engineer can bring them to site. This is where RFID data tags would be very useful because it would automatically upload the data. At the moment we have to manually add it. So we then update all of these fields and the engineer comes back with his lists. It could be 100 hoses, it could be 500 hoses. So he has his list and we create a site visit entry.” The system is easy to use but as with many such things, a lot of work has gone in to make it that way.
Pirtek Limerick’s bespoke database
DATA: Amanda O’Donovan
Amanda O’Donovan is responsible for the bespoke database at Pirtek Limerick. She has experience of databases from the most basic searchable Excel spreadsheets to more powerful Microsoft Access files with customised front ends. Now Pirtek Limerick has developed its own system, optimised for its employees and Total Hose Management customers to access online via the cloud. “Our bespoke online cloud database is designed for Total Hose Management, with staff and customer logins,” Amanda
says. “It functions much like an Access database, but with the benefit of everybody being able to use it.”
As with the best systems, its simple front end belies a deeper complexity.
“It looks very simple,” she says, “but it took a long time to reach this point because there are a lot of design factors and decisions to be made. You have to decide exactly what fields you want the database to have and all the other functions.”
Amanda continues, “The customer can see who is going to be on site, the van’s
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