Service
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Service

The service module provides functions for

 the transmission of messages and administration within the ALS

 Notification of machine standstill, due maintenance and system events to workers per e-mail / text message. 

and

 access to the protocols which provide a better transparency of the sequences in the ALS and

 configuration of automatically executed 'Jobs' (processes) e.g. exporting a report.

Messages

The registered users can send each other short messages within the ALS.

The received messages are displayed directly. By the icon you create an answer.

A list of received messages with 'sender', 'date/time' and the first words of the 'text' is displayed. In the window below, the text of a message selected above is displayed.

The following functions are available:

Send new message

Reply to message

Erase message

The messages you have received are only stored for as long as you are logged on.

Writing a new message

Select the required recipient from the list of 'Possible recipients' using the arrow keys to the right of the list. The selected recipients are accepted in the list 'Send to'. In 'Message' you input the text you want to send. Then you can

send message
cancel
discard input

 

Reply to message

To answer a message the section 'message' is displayed together with text.  The recipient of the reply is the sender of the original message.

Erase message

The selected message is erased.

 

Notification per e-mail (optional)

When certain situations arise during production, ALS can notify a worker or the responsible company per e-mail. For this purpose the e-mail addresses of the worker in question must be stored in the master data of this worker. You configure which worker is to be notified after which event and at what time in the dialogs of the 'e-mail notification' function . The date and time of the event, the company as sender and a text describing the event are sent.

Event (situation)

Remarks

Production stop

When the 'automatic' operating mode changes to 'alarm', 'manual' and / or 'offline' on a configured machine this can be notified to somebody by email. If the cause is an alarm on the machine, the alarm text is also sent.

Production stop per text message

When the 'automatic' operating mode changes to 'alarm', 'manual' and / or 'offline' on a configured machine this can be notified to somebody by text message via email. You will find further information on the configuration of SMS text messages in the Tutorial under SMS.

Maintenance event

A machine, a mould or other resource is due for maintenance. The worker in charge is informed of the forthcoming work per e-mail. 

Report exported

A report which was previously configured in 'Jobs' for export is sent in PDF format to the specified addressee.

System event

The ALS and the ALS service team are informed of 'System events' which lead to a failure of the ALS.

Logging event

In ALS a serious logging event has occurred which could lead to loss of data. The administrator and the ALS Service team are notified.

Datenbank event

If problems occur with the database used by ALS the administrator and the ALS Service team are informed.

ERP/PPS coupling event

When errors occur in the ERP/PPS-coupling, the personnel in charge and the ALS Service team can be informed..

Notifications of machine alarms are machine and time-related. To configure a notification, you must first select a machine in the dialog. Then select the worker to be notified and his e-mail address , or enter the e-mail address to which the information is to be sent. In the 'time plan' you specify at what times the information is to be sent. With in the 'configuration' dialog you can create a new   time plan. You can choose between a time plan for weekdays and a time plan within a time range. The time range for a weekday can overlap to the next day e.g. if the worker is 'on duty' from Monday 22:00 h to Tuesday 06:00 h, you select Monday and enter the time 'from 22:00' 'to 06:00'.
Save your inputs with the   symbol. If the entries you have made also apply to other machines, they can be taken over for other machines with the   function. When taking over these data you can specify whether the new data is to be added to the old data or to replace it. 

To remove a machine from the list of 'configured machines' , open the configuration dialog for this machine and delete all 'recipients'. If you 'take over' these settings for other machines, these will also be removed from the list. 

Information is displayed on each selected even in the lower section of the window. In the case of machine alarms you can see for which machines the notification was sent. For the maintenance and protocolling events you can see which users the messages were sent to. 

By you activate or deactivate the actions which follow an event.

For further information see Tutorial.

 

Jobs

In the 'Jobs' list processes are displayed which are carried out automatically in the 'background', i.e. without messages being displayed on the screen. Here 'jobs' can be

 defined,

 changed,

 activated/deactivated,

 deleted, and

 list printed.

Defining a job

To define a 'Job' you first select a 'category'. Then configuration options for this 'Job' are displayed .
At 'Time of execution' you input how often and when the 'Job' is to be carried out. Selectable options vary from 'by the second' to 'every year'. Depending on this option, the interval between the repetitions of the 'jobs' is given in 'every n seconds' to 'every n years'. With 'starting on' you specify the time for the first execution or the starting time in the timing grid, in which the 'Job' is to be carried out.

If you have selected the category 'Reports',

The formats 'PDF' (Acrobat® Reader), 'RTF' (Rich Text Format), 'DOC' (Microsoft® Word) and 'XLS' (Microsoft® Excel) are available. In the ALS Client only the 'PDF' format is supported for displaying and printing out reports (see 'Reports' -> 'Automatically exported reports').

The file name allocated to the files containing the exported data is compiled of the report name plus time stamp, as standard. If you select the option 'fixed (overwrite mode), the ID of the job is added to the name of the report. This means, the file is overwritten each time. With the 'manual' option you specify a name for the file yourself which can either be "fixed" (overwritten) or saved separately with added time stamp. The output format is added as a suffix to the name of the file (e.g. <file name>.pdf).
These options are not available for 'HTML' and 'XML' formats, because in these cases sub-directories are compiled for the file.

Depending on the type of report selected, various possibilities will be displayed of limiting the extent of the data to be printed/exported. In 'Date range' you specify the period which is to be taken into consideration. You should select this period so that you do not export the same data more than once. If for example you configure a 'Job', with which you print out the day-related status of the machines every day, it is not purposeful to include the last 7 days, but only the previous day. Please note further that with reports such as the 'conversion plan' the time details relate to the future.
For the machine-related reports you have the possible of selecting special halls, machine groups or machines.
If the selected report is related to items, orders or moulds etc. an additional input box ('Order')is displayed in which you can input further criteria for the selection of the designation (name), to which the data are to be exported. If for example all names of the orders which are to be produced on your production line begin with '123', you can call up only the information on these orders by inputting '123*'. The '*' stands for group of letter, whereas '?' stands for individual letters.

The files of the exported reports are to be found in the path 'ALS50\SYSWINMSC\EXPORT' on the ALS server.

Changing a job

Here you can change all entered information on a 'job'.

Activating/deactivating a job

After defining a 'job' this immediately ' becomes 'active'. If however you only want to use a 'job' sporadically you can 'deactivate' it here which means it is currently not carried out, and of course reactivate it again. A newly 'activated job' is started in the next time period according to the time grid.

Deleting a job

The selected 'Job' is deleted.

Events and Info

Under ‘Events and hints’ you will find information on critical states in the ALS and notes on forthcoming activities in the production. An example of such activities could be maintenance work on the moulds or machine. By selecting a message 'category' you can limit the range of messages.

The various modules which make up the ALS program, issue messages notifying what has happened, if a transaction has not been completed successfully. The texts are mainly intended for the members of the ARBURG Service Dept..