Maintenance

Axis Maintenance helps extend the effectiveness of equipment by keeping track of maintenance requirements.

Axis Maintenance helps extend the effectiveness of equipment by keeping track of maintenance requirements.

Axis Maintenance is used to track equipment, manage maintenance requests, and schedule maintenance activities.

The Maintenance application helps companies manage their equipment maintenance and repairs.

Axis Maintenance is used to track equipment, manage maintenance requests, and schedule maintenance activities.

The Maintenance application helps companies manage their equipment maintenance and repairs.

In Axis, equipment refers to any item that is used in everyday operations, including the manufacturing of products. This can mean a piece of machinery on a production line, a tool that is used in different locations, or a computer in an office space. Equipment registered in Axis can be owned by the company that uses the Axis database, or by a third party, such as a vendor in the case of equipment rentals.

Using Axis Maintenance, it is possible to track individual pieces of equipment, along with information about their maintenance requirements. To add a new piece of equipment, navigate to the Maintenance module, select Equipments ‣ Machines & Tools ‣ Create, and configure the equipment as follows:

• Equipment Name: the product name of the piece of equipment

• Equipment Category: the category that the equipment belongs to; for example, computers, machinery, tools, etc.; new categories can be created by navigating to Configuration ‣ Equipment Categories and clicking Create

• Company: the company that owns the equipment; again, this can be the company that uses the Axis database, or a third-party company

• Used By: specify if the equipment is used by a specific employee, department, or both; select Other to specify both an employee and a department

• Maintenance Team: the team responsible for servicing the equipment; new teams can be created by navigating to Configuration ‣ Maintenance Teams and selecting Create; the members of each team can also be assigned from this page

• Technician: the person responsible for servicing the equipment; this can be used to assign a specific individual in the event that no maintenance team is assigned or when a specific member of the assigned team should always be responsible for the equipment; any person added to Axis as a user can be assigned as a technician

• Used in location: the location where the equipment is used; this is a simple text field that can be used to specify locations that are not work centers, like an office, for example

• Work Center: if the equipment is used at a work center, specify it here; equipment can also be assigned to a work center by navigating to Maintenance ‣ Equipments ‣ Work Centers, selecting a work center or creating a new one using the Create button, and clicking the Equipment tab on the work center form

Include additional product information

The Product Information tab at the bottom of the page can be used to provide further details about the piece of equipment:

• Vendor: the vendor that the equipment was purchased from

• Vendor Reference: the reference code assigned to the vendor

• Model: the specific model of the piece of equipment

• Serial Number: the unique serial number of the equipment

• Effective Date: the date that the equipment became available for use; this is used to calculate the MTBF

• Cost: the amount the equipment was purchased for

• Warranty Expiration Date: the date on which the equipment’s warranty will expire

Add maintenance details

The Maintenance tab at the bottom of the page provides information about the failure frequency of the piece of equipment:

• Expected Mean Time Between Failure: the average number of days the equipment is expected to operate between failures. This number can be configured manually.

• Mean Time Between Failure: the average number of days the equipment operates between failures. This number is calculated automatically based on previous failures, and cannot be configured manually.

• Estimated Next Failure: the estimated date the equipment may experience its next failure. This date is calculated automatically based on the data in the Mean Time Between Failure and Latest Failure fields, and cannot be configured manually.

• Latest Failure: the most recent date on which the equipment failed. This date is based on the creation date of the equipment’s most recent maintenance request, and cannot be configured manually.

• Mean Time To Repair: the average number of days needed to repair the equipment. This number is calculated automatically based on the duration of previous maintenance requests, and cannot be configured manually.

Avoiding equipment breakdowns, and blocks in warehouse work centers, requires constant equipment maintenance. Timely corrective maintenance for machines and tools that break unexpectedly, as well as preventive maintenance to ensure that such issues are avoided, are key to keeping warehouse operations running smoothly.

In Axis Maintenance, users can access the Maintenance Calendar to create, schedule, and edit both corrective and preventive maintenance requests, to stay on top of equipment and work centers.

Create maintenance request

Maintenance requests can be created directly from the Maintenance Calendar. To access the calendar, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Maintenance ‣ Maintenance Calendar.

To create a new request, click anywhere on the calendar. Doing so opens a New Event pop-up window. In the Name: field, assign a title to the new request.

Clicking Create on the pop-up window saves the new request with no additional details. If the request’s creation should be cancelled, click Cancel.

To add more details and schedule the request for a specific date and time, click Edit.

Clicking Edit opens a blank maintenance request form, where various details about the request can be filled out.

Edit maintenance request

In the Request field, assign a title to the new request. In the Created By field, from the drop-down menu, select which user the request was created by. By default, this field populates with the user actually creating the request.

In the For field, from the drop-down menu, select if this request is being created for a piece of Equipment, or a Work Center.

If Equipment is selected in the For field, which it is by default, select which machine or tool requires maintenance from the Equipment field. Once a specific piece of equipment is selected, a greyed-out Category field appears, listing the Equipment Category to which the equipment belongs.

In the Worksheet Template field, if necessary, click the drop-down menu to select a worksheet template. These templates are custom templates that can be filled out by the employee performing the maintenance.

Under the Category field, the Request Date field displays the date requested for the maintenance to happen.

The Maintenance Type field provides two selectable radio button options: Corrective and Preventive.

Corrective maintenance is for requests that arise for immediate needs, such as broken equipment, while Preventive maintenance is for planned requests, to avoid breakdowns in the future.

If this request is tied to a specific MO, select that MO from the Manufacturing Order field.

From the drop-down menu for the Team field, select the desired maintenance team who will perform the maintenance. In the Responsible field, select the technician responsible for the request.

In the Scheduled Date field, click the date to open a calendar popover. From this popover, select the planned date of the maintenance, and click Apply to save the date.

In the Duration field, enter the the amount of hours (in a 00:00 format) that the maintenance is planned to take.

In the Priority field, choose a priority between one and three ⭐⭐⭐ (stars). This indicates the importance of the maintenance request.

If working in a multi-company environment, from the drop-down menu in the Company field, select the company to which this maintenance request belongs.

At the bottom of the form, there are two tabs: Notes and Instructions.

In the Notes tab, type out any internal notes for the team or technician assigned to the request, if necessary.

In the Instructions tab, if necessary, select one of the three radio button options to provide maintenance instructions to the assigned team or technician. The available methods for providing instructions are via PDF, Google Slide, or Text.

Calendar elements

The Maintenance Calendar provides various views, search functions, and filters to help keep track of the progress of ongoing and planned maintenance requests.

The following sections describe elements found across various views of the calendar.

Filters and Favorites

To access the maintenance calendar, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Maintenance ‣ Maintenance Calendar.

To add and remove filters for sorting data on the Maintenance Calendar, click the 🔻 (triangle pointed down) icon, to the right of the search bar at the top of the page.

The left-hand side of the resulting drop-down menu lists all the different Filters users can select. By default, To Do and Active are selected, so all open requests are displayed.

The right-hand side of the drop-down menu lists the Favorites, or any searches that have been saved as a favorite to be revisited at a later date.

To save a new Favorite search, select the desired Filters. Then, click Save current search. In the field directly below Save current search, assign a name to the search.

Under the assigned name, there are two options, to save the current search either as the Default filter, or as a Shared filter.

Selecting Default filter sets this filter as the default when opening this calendar view.

Selecting the Shared filter makes this filter available to other users.

Once ready, click Save. When clicked, the new Favorite filter appears in the Favorites column, and a ⭐ (gold star) icon appears with the filter’s name in the search bar.

Views

The Maintenance Calendar is available in six different views: Calendar (default), Kanban, List, Pivot, Graph, and Activity.

Calendar view

Calendar is the default view displayed when the Maintenance Calendar is opened. There are a number of options in this view type for sorting and grouping information about maintenance requests.

In the top-left corner of the page, there is a drop-down menu set to Week, by default. Clicking that drop-down menu reveals the different periods of time, in which the calendar can be viewed: Day, Month, and Year. There is also an option to Show weekends, selected by default. If unselected, weekends are not shown on the calendar.

To the left of this menu, there is a ⬅️ (left arrow) icon and a ➡️ (right arrow) icon. Clicking these arrows moves the calendar backward or forward in time, respectively.

To the right of the drop-down menu set to Week, by default, is a Today button. Clicking this button resets the calendar to view today’s date, no matter which point in time is being viewed before clicking it.

At the far-right side of the page is a sidebar column, containing a minimized calendar set to today’s date, and a Technician list, displaying all the Technicians with requests currently open. Click the (panel) icon at the top of this sidebar to open or close the sidebar.

Kanban view

With the Kanban view, all open maintenance requests are displayed in Kanban-style columns, in their respective stages of the maintenance process.

Each maintenance request appears on its own task card, and each task card can be dragged-and-dropped to a different stage of the Kanban pipeline.

Each column has a name (i.e. In Progress). Hovering at the top of a column reveals a ⚙️ (gear) icon. Clicking the ⚙️ (gear) icon reveals a list of options for that column: Fold, Edit, Automations, and Delete.

Clicking Fold folds the column to hide its contents.

Clicking Edit opens an Edit: (stage name) pop-up window, with the corresponding stage name, wherein the column’s details can be edited. The following are the column options that can be edited:

• Name: the name of the stage in the Kanban pipeline.

• Folded in Maintenance Pipe: when checked, this stage’s column is folded by default in the Kanban view type.

• Request Confirmed: when this box is not ticked, and the maintenance request type is set to Work Center, no leave is created for the respective work center when a maintenance request is created. If the box is ticked, the work center is automatically blocked for the listed duration, either at the specified date, or as soon as possible, if the work center is unavailable.

• Sequence: the order in the maintenance process, in which this stage appears.

• Request Done: if ticked, this box indicates this stage is the final step of the maintenance process. Requests moved to this stage are closed.

Once ready, click Save & Close. If no changes have been made, click Discard, or click the X icon to close the pop-up window.

List view

With the List view selected, all open maintenance requests are displayed in a list, with information about each request listed in its respective row.

The columns of information displayed in this view type are the following:

• Subjects: the name assigned to the maintenance request.

• Employee: the employee who originally created the maintenance request.

• Technician: the technician responsible for the maintenance request.

• Category: the category the equipment being repaired belongs to.

• Stage: the stage of the maintenance process the request is currently in.

• Company: if in a multi-company environment, the company in the database the request is assigned to.

Pivot view

With the Pivot view selected, maintenance requests are displayed in a pivot table, and can be customized to show different data metrics.

To add more data to the pivot table, click the Measures button to reveal a drop-down menu. By default, Count is selected. Additional options to add to the table are Additional Leaves to Plan Ahead, Duration, and Repeat Every.

To the right of the Measures button is the Insert in Spreadsheet button. Clicking this button opens a pop-up window titled Select a spreadsheet to insert your pivot..

There are two tabs in this pop-up window: Spreadsheets and Dashboards. Click into one of these tabs, and select a spreadsheet or dashboard in the database to add this pivot table to. Once ready, click Confirm. If this table shouldn’t be added to a spreadsheet or dashboard, click Cancel, or click the X icon to close the pop-up window.

To the right of the Insert in Spreadsheet button are three buttons:

• Flip axis: the x and y axis of the pivot data table flip.

• Expand all: all the available rows and columns of the pivot data table expand fully.

• Download xlsx: the pivot data table is downloaded as an .xlsx file.

Graph view

With the graph view selected, the following options appear between the search bar and visual representation of the data. These graph-specific options are located to the right of the Measures and Insert in Spreadsheet buttons.

There are three different types of graphs available to users to view the data:

• Bar Chart: the data is displayed in a bar chart.

• Line Chart: the data is displayed in a line chart.

• Pie Chart: the data is displayed in a pie chart.

When viewing the data as a Bar Chart graph, the data can be formatted in the following ways:

• Stacked: the data is stacked on the graph.

• Descending: the data is displayed in descending order.

• Ascending: the data is displayed in ascending order.

When viewing the data as a Line Chart graph, the data can be formatted in the following ways:

• Stacked: the data is stacked on the graph.

• Cumulative: the data is increasingly accumulated.

• Descending: the data is displayed in descending order.

• Ascending: the data is displayed in ascending order.

When viewing the data as a Pie Chart graph, all relevant data is displayed by default, and no additional formatting options are available.

Activity view

With the Activity view selected, all open maintenance requests are listed in their own row, with the ability to schedule activities related to those requests.

Maintenance requests are listed in the Maintenance Request column as activities. Clicking a request opens a Maintenance Request popover that indicates the status of the request, and the responsible technician. To schedule an activity directly from the popover, click ➕ Schedule an activity. This opens a Schedule Activity pop-up window.

From the pop-up window, choose the Activity Type, provide a Summary, schedule a Due Date, and choose the responsible user in the Assigned to field.

Type any additional notes for the new activity in the blank space under the greyed-out Log a note… field. When clicked, this changes to Type “/” for commands.

Once ready, click Schedule to schedule the activity. Alternatively, click Schedule & Mark as Done to close the activity, click Done & Schedule Next to close the activity and open a new one, or click Cancel to cancel the activity.

With the Activity view selected, each activity type available when scheduling an activity is listed as its own column. These columns are Email, Call, Meeting, Maintenance Request, To-Do, Upload Document, Request Signature, and Grant Approval.

To schedule an activity with that specific activity type, click into any blank box on the corresponding row for the desired maintenance request, and click the ➕ (plus) icon. This opens an Axis pop-up window, wherein the activity can be scheduled.

In order to keep equipment and work centers functioning properly, it is often necessary to perform maintenance on them. This can include preventive maintenance, intended to prevent equipment from breaking down, or corrective maintenance, which is used to fix equipment that is broken or otherwise unusable.

In Axis Maintenance, users can create maintenance requests to schedule and track the progress of equipment and work center maintenance.

Maintenance access rights

To create a maintenance request for equipment, a user has to have access to the equipment they are submitting the request for. This can be done in one of two ways:

• If a user is granted Equipment Manager level access rights for the Maintenance app, they have access to all of the equipment in the app. To view or edit the access rights for a user, navigate to Settings ‣ Manager Users and click a user’s profile to open it. On the Access Rights tab, scroll to the Supply Chain section, and in the Maintenance field, select Equipment Manager from the drop-down menu.

  

• If a user does not require full access to all equipment, they can be assigned as a Follower to one or more pieces of equipment. This allows them to create maintenance requests for that piece of equipment, without altering access rights. To add a user as a follower, navigate to Maintenance ‣ Equipment ‣ Machines & Tools, and click on a piece of equipment to open it. In the chatter for the record, click on the (user) icon to open the list of followers. Click Add Followers. On the Add followers to this document pop-up, select the appropriate user from the Followers drop-down. To send a message alerting users that they have been added as a follower, slide the Notify Recipients toggle to active. When finished, click Add Followers.

  

Create maintenance request

To create a new maintenance request, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Maintenance ‣ Maintenance Requests, and click New.

Begin filling out the form by entering a descriptive title in the Request field (e.g., Drill not working).

The Created By field auto-populates with the user creating the request, but a different user can be selected by clicking on the drop-down menu.

In the For drop-down menu, select Equipment if the maintenance request is being created for a piece of equipment, or Work Center if it is being created for a work center.

Depending on the option selected in the For field, the next field is titled either Equipment or Work Center. Using the drop-down menu for either field, select a piece of equipment or a work center.

If the Custom Maintenance Worksheets setting is enabled in the Maintenance app’s settings, a Worksheet Template field appears below the Equipment or Work Center field. If necessary, use this field to select a worksheet to be filled out by the employee performing the maintenance.

The next field is titled Request Date, and is set by default to the date on which the maintenance request is created. This date cannot be changed by the user.

In the Maintenance Type field, select the Corrective option if the request is intended to fix an existing issue, or the Preventive option if the request is intended to prevent issues from occurring in the future.

If the request is being created to address an issue that arose during a specific manufacturing order (MO), select it in the Manufacturing Order field.

If an MO was selected in the Manufacturing Order field, a Work Order field appears below it. If the issue arose during a specific work order, specify it in this field.

In the Team field, select the maintenance team that is responsible for managing the request. If a specific team member is responsible, select them in the Responsible field.

The Scheduled Date field is used to specify the date on which maintenance should take place, and the time it should begin. Choose a date by clicking on the field to open a calendar in a pop-up window, and then select a day on the calendar. Enter an hour and minute in the two fields below the calendar, and click Apply to save the date and time.

The Duration field is used to specify the time it takes to complete the maintenance request. Use the text-entry field to enter the time in a 00:00 format.

If Work Center was selected in the For field, a Block Workcenter checkbox appears below the Duration field. Enable the checkbox to prevent work orders or other maintenance from being scheduled at the specified work center while the maintenance request is being processed.

The Priority field is used to communicate the importance (or urgency) of the maintenance request. Assign the request a priority between zero and three (star) icons, by clicking on the desired star number. Requests assigned a higher priority appear above those with a lower priority, on the Kanban board used to track the progression of maintenance requests.

In the Notes tab at the bottom of the form, enter any relevant details about the maintenance request (why the maintenance issue arose, when it occurred, etc.).

The Instructions tab is used to include instructions for how maintenance should be performed. Select one of the three options, and then include the instructions as detailed below:

• PDF: click the Upload your file button to open the device’s file manager, and then select a file to upload.

• Google Slide: enter a Google Slide link in the text-entry field that appears after the option is selected.

• Text: enter the instructions in the text-entry field that appears after the option is selected.

Process maintenance request

Once a maintenance request has been created, it appears in the New Request stage of the Maintenance Requests page, which can be accessed by navigating to Maintenance app ‣ Maintenance ‣ Maintenance Requests.

Maintenance requests can be moved to different stages by dragging and dropping them. They can also be moved by clicking on a request to open it in a new page, and then selecting the desired stage from the stage indicator bar, located above the top-right corner of the request’s form.

Successful maintenance requests should be moved to the Repaired stage, indicating that the specified piece of equipment or work center is repaired.

Failed maintenance requests should be moved to the Scrap stage, indicating the specified piece of equipment, or work center, could not be repaired, and must instead be scrapped.

Axis Maintenance helps companies schedule corrective and preventive maintenance on equipment used in their warehouse. This helps companies avoid equipment breakdowns, blocks in warehouse work centers, and emergency repair costs.

Maintenance teams

When creating maintenance requests, a maintenance team can be assigned to the request as the team responsible for handling the request.

To view existing maintenance teams, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Configuration ‣ Maintenance Teams.

From the resulting Teams page, a list of all existing teams (if any) is displayed, with the Team Name, Team Members, and Company listed in the columns, by default.

To add a new team, click New. This adds a blank line at the bottom of the list of teams. In the blank field that appears below the Team Name column, assign a name to the new maintenance team.

In the Team Members column, click the field to reveal a drop-down menu with existing users in the database. Choose which users should be members of the new maintenance team.

Click Search More… to open a Search: Team Members pop-up window to search for users not shown on the initial drop-down menu.

In the Company column, if in a multi-company environment, click the drop-down menu to select the company in the database to which this new maintenance team belongs.

Once ready, click Save to save changes.

Tip

The team members assigned to maintenance teams are also referred to as Technicians, when viewing the Maintenance Calendar.

Navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Maintenance ‣ Maintenance Calendar, and click on an existing maintenance request. From the resulting popover, locate the Technician field. The name listed in the field is the team member, and is the user responsible for that particular request.

At the far-right side of the page is a sidebar column, containing a minimized calendar set to today’s date, and a Technician list, displaying all the technicians (or team members) with requests currently open.

Equipment

In Axis Maintenance, equipment refers to machines and tools used internally in warehouse work centers. Equipment can include technology such as computers or tablets, power tools, machines used for manufacturing, and more.

Equipment categories

Each piece of equipment belongs to an equipment category. Before adding new equipment, make sure that a fitting equipment category is created.

To create a new equipment category, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Configuration ‣ Equipment Categories, and click New. Doing so opens a blank equipment category form.

On the blank form, assign a name in the Category Name field.

In the Responsible field, assign a user to be responsible for the equipment in this category, if necessary. By default, the user who creates the category is selected as Responsible, by default.

If in a multi-company environment, click the drop-down menu in the Company field, and select the company in the database to whom the equipment in this category belongs.

In the Email Alias field, assign an email alias to this category, if necessary.

In the Comments field, type any comments or notes for internal users to reference in relation to this category, if necessary.

Note

Once a new equipment category is created, all equipment belonging to that category, as well as any past or currently open maintenance requests, are available from the equipment category form.

Navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Configuration ‣ Equipment Categories, and select a category to view. Locate the Equipment and Maintenance smart buttons at the top of the form.

Click the Equipment smart button to view all equipment belonging to this category. Click the Maintenance smart button to view any past, or currently open, maintenance requests.

Machines & tools

To add new equipment, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Equipment ‣ Machines & Tools, and click New. This opens a blank equipment form.

In the Name field, assign a name for the new equipment. In the Equipment Category field, click the drop-down menu and select which category this new equipment should belong to.

If in a multi-company environment, click the drop-down menu in the Company field, and select the company in the database to whom the new equipment belongs.

In the Used By field, select from one of three radio button options: Department, Employee, or Other.

If Department is selected, a Department field appears below the Used By field. Click the drop-down menu and select the department that uses this equipment.

If Employee is selected, an Employee field appears below the Used By field. Click the drop-down menu, and select the employee who uses this equipment.

If the Other option is selected, both the Department and Employee fields appear below the Used By field. Click the drop-down menus for the respective fields, and choose which department and employee uses this equipment.

In the Maintenance Team field, select the team responsible for this equipment. In the Technician field, select the team member/user responsible for this equipment.

In the Used in location field, enter the location wherein this equipment will be used, if not in an internal work center (e.g. in an office).

In the Work Center field, click the drop-down menu, and select which work center this equipment will be used in.

In the blank space under the Description tab at the bottom of the form, add any relevant information describing the equipment for users to reference.

Product Information tab

To add any relevant information while creating a new piece of equipment, from the equipment form, click the Product Information tab.

In the Vendor field, add the vendor from which the equipment was purchased. In the Vendor Reference field, add the product reference number obtained from the vendor, if applicable.

In the Model field, specify which model this equipment is, if applicable. If the equipment is serialized, add a serial number in the Serial Number field.

In the Effective Date field, click the date to reveal a calendar popover, and select a date. This date indicates when this equipment was first put in use, and will be used to compute the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) in the equipment’s Maintenance tab.

In the Cost field, specify how much the equipment cost to acquire, if applicable.

If the equipment is covered under a warranty, specify the Warranty Expiration Date by selecting a date from the calendar popover in that field.

Maintenance tab

Various maintenance metrics are available for each piece of equipment, and are automatically computed, based on corrective maintenance, and planned preventive maintenance.

To view the maintenance metrics for a specific piece of equipment, from the equipment form, click the Maintenance tab.

Doing so reveals the following fields:

• Expected Mean Time Between Failure: the amount of time (in days) before the next failure is expected. This is the only field not greyed-out, and the only field users can edit.

• Mean Time Between Failure: the amount of time (in days) between reported failures. This value is computed based on completed corrective maintenances.

• Estimated Next Failure: the date on which the next failure is expected. This date is computed as the Latest Failure Date + MTBF.

• Latest Failure: The date of the latest failure. The value in this field updates once a failure is reported for this equipment.

• Mean Time To Repair: the amount of time (in days) it takes to repair this equipment upon failure. This value updates once a maintenance request is completed for this equipment.

Work centers

To view the work centers where equipment is being used, and how the equipment is being used in them, navigate to Maintenance app ‣ Equipment ‣ Work Centers, and click into a work center.

From the resulting work center form, click the Equipment tab to view all machines and tools being used in that specific work center.

Each piece of equipment is listed with certain relevant information: the Equipment Name, the responsible Technician, the Equipment Category it belongs to, and a few important maintenance metrics: its MTBF, MTTR, and Est. Next Failure date.