Trigger maintenance from meter readings

Count runtime or parts toward a trigger point, and act automatically when the machine gets there.

Before you start. You need a machine that is already reporting, from Add a machine. You need to be an Owner or an Administrator, from Roles and permissions.

1. What a meter counts

A meter is a running total on one machine that never goes down on its own. IoTFlows adds to it from the machine's own stream, so nobody types a reading in.

A trigger point is the number the total is counting toward. Reaching it is what makes the meter act.

Open a machine from the Assets page and select the Meters tab, at /<organization>/assets/selected-asset/<asset>. The tab is headed Usage Meters and shows one card per meter. See Inspect a single machine for the other tabs.

Each card carries three numbers and a chart:

• Time to Service is how long the meter has left at the rate it has been running since its last reset. It reads N/A until there are two readings in the current cycle, and Exceeded once the total is past the trigger point.
• Current is the latest total. It turns amber at 75% of the trigger point and red at 100%.
• Trigger Point is the number you set.

The chart draws the total as a solid area and the forecast as a dashed one, against a red dashed line at the trigger point. The range buttons above it are 1M, 3M, 6M, 1Y and All, and open on All. Each reset starts a fresh segment, so the line drops back to zero at every reset rather than climbing forever.

Meters on a machine. Each counts toward a trigger point.

2. Create a meter

1. On the Meters tab, select New Meter. The Create Meter modal opens.
2. Enter a Name, for example Spindle bearing grease.
3. Pick a Meter Type. The list is served by the platform; the runtime type counts in hours and the production type counts in count. Leave it on None and the meter counts with no unit.
4. Enter a Trigger Point. It starts at 1000.
5. Turn on the behaviors you want. All three are off by default, and all three are covered in The three alert behaviors.
6. Select Create Meter. A toast reads Meter created and the card appears on the tab.

Create Meter stays disabled until the name has a character in it. Nothing else is required. ⌘+Enter, or Ctrl+Enter on Windows, submits the form; Escape closes it and discards what you typed.

A failed create raises the server's own message, or Failed to create meter when it has none.

Meter fields

Creating a meter and setting its trigger point.

3. Set the trigger point

Set it to the interval the work is actually owed on, in the meter's own unit: 500 running hours between grease intervals, 20,000 parts between die changes.

To change it later, select the Trigger Point number on the card and type over it. Enter saves, Escape cancels, and clicking away saves. A value of zero or less, or anything that is not a number, is discarded with no message, so check the number went in.

Changing the trigger point moves the red line and recomputes Time to Service straight away. It does not rewrite history: the totals already recorded stay where they are, and a meter that was under its old trigger point can be over the new one the moment you save.

4. The three alert behaviors

Each behavior is its own toggle on the card, and they are independent. A meter with all three off still counts; it never tells anyone.

The toggles are labeled Early Warning Alert, Email Warning and Auto Work Order Creation in the create modal, and Early Alert, Email Warning and Auto Work Order on the card. They are the same three settings.

A toggle writes the moment you flip it, and a thin progress bar runs across the top of the card while it saves. A failed write puts the toggle back where it was and raises Failed to update meter.

Turn on the 85% early warning when the work needs a part ordered, and the 100% auto work order when it does not. An auto work order that arrives the day the part runs out is a work order that sits On Hold.

You do not need all three. Two emails about the same meter four days apart is how people learn to filter the sender.

The three behaviors: early warning at 85%, email at the trigger, and an automatic work order at 100%.

5. Reset a meter

A reset ends the current cycle and starts the count again from zero on the date you give it. Reset the meter when the work is done, not when the work order is created, or the next cycle starts early.

1. On the card, select Reset Meter. The Reset Usage Meter dialog opens.
2. Set Reset Date. It defaults to today, and you can backdate it to the day the technician actually did the job.
3. Select Confirm Reset.

A toast reads Meter reset successfully and the card reloads: Current drops back toward zero, the chart starts a new segment at the reset date, and Time to Service reads N/A until the new cycle has two readings in it.

The dialog takes a date and not a time. Every reset is stored at noon UTC on the date you pick, so a reset dated today and a reading from this morning land in the order you would expect wherever your plant is.

A failed reset raises Failed to reset meter and the cycle is unchanged.

Resetting a meter after the work is done.

6. Reset history

Select the ⋮ button beside Reset Meter, then Reset History. The dialog lists every reset on the meter, newest first.

Only the newest row carries Edit and Delete, because only the newest reset bounds the cycle the meter is counting now. Select Edit to correct the date and Save to write it: the toast reads Reset updated, or Failed to update reset. Delete removes the reset and folds its cycle back into the one before it, with Reset deleted or Failed to delete reset.

A meter nobody has reset yet reads No reset history found.

The Reset History table: one row per reset, with the member who logged it and when. Only the newest row can be edited or deleted.

7. Linked work orders

Select ⋮, then Work Orders, to see the maintenance work orders this meter produced, newest first. Each row shows the work order number, its title, its status badge and when it was last touched.

Selecting a row closes the dialog and opens the maintenance board with that work order in the drawer, at /<organization>/maintenance?selected_wo=<work order>. From there it is an ordinary work order: assign it, add parts, close it. See Update, discuss, and close a work order.

A meter that has never reached 100% with Auto Work Order on reads No pending work orders for this meter. This list is the meter's own output, so a work order you raised by hand for the same job does not appear here.

This dialog is the fastest way to answer "did anyone act on this meter", which is worth checking before you reset it.

8. Edit or delete a meter

Everything on the card is editable in place, and every edit saves on its own:

• Select the name to rename the meter. Enter saves, Escape cancels. An empty name is discarded.
• Select the type pill beside the name to change the meter type. The card's list holds the platform's types and no None option, so a meter created without a type can be given one here but not have it taken away.
• Select the Trigger Point number to change it, as in Set the trigger point.
• Flip any of the three toggles.

Each edit applies to the card immediately and then writes. If the write fails, the card reverts and raises Failed to update meter, so the number you are looking at is always the number that saved.

To delete, select ⋮, then Delete Meter, then Delete in the confirmation. A toast reads Meter has been deleted and the card leaves the tab.

See also

• Schedule preventive maintenance. The calendar alternative to a meter, for work the machine's usage does not drive.
• Set alert rules for a machine. The other way a machine raises a work order on its own.
• Inspect a single machine. The tabs beside Meters on the same page.
• Create a maintenance work order. Every field a work order carries, including the ones an auto work order arrives without.
• How each metric is calculated. Where the part counts a meter reads come from.