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To create a new equipment description, you click the New button in the Equipment browser. Similarly, to edit an existing equipment description, you click the Edit button. In both cases, this opens a window that contains the following:
- Building: The building where the equipment is located.
- Code: An identification code for this piece of equipment (30 characters maximum).
- Desc.: A description of the equipment (50 characters maximum).
- Identification: This section of the window describes the equipment.
- Location: The location of the equipment within the "Building" (40 characters maximum).
- Make, Model and Serial No.: Basic identification information on the equipment (make, model, and serial number).
- Equip Type: A type classification for this equipment. For more information on equipment types, see Equipment Types.
- System: The system to which the equipment belongs. For more on systems, see Systems.
- Drawing No: An identifier that specifies where workers can find a schematic drawing for the equipment, if the drawing is not available on your computer.
| Note: If drawings and other materials are available on your computer, they can be attached to this equipment record using the Specifications section (see below). |
- Contact: The person that maintenance personnel should contact for any questions regarding the equipment. Dropping the arrow on "Contact" displays your Contacts table (as described in Contacts.) If the contact person for this equipment isn't currently in the Contacts list, click New Contact to add the person's name to the table.
- New Contact: Opens a window where you can enter information about a new contact person.
- Comments: A blank area where you can enter miscellaneous comments about the equipment.
- Service: This section records information about warranties and service contracts.
- Warr. Exp.: The date when the original warranty on this equipment expires.
- Serv. Co.: The company that provides a service contract on this equipment (if any). The drop-down list here is actually your Vendor table; therefore, you should make sure that all service contractors are included in the Vendor table. (For more about the Vendor table, see Vendors.)
- Access: A default access code for this equipment, to be placed initially on all work orders pertaining to the equipment. For example, you might mark a particular piece of equipment "Access only on the off shift" if the equipment is too important to take down during normal work hours. Note that this is a default access code—individual work orders may be edited to have different access codes if necessary (for example, if the equipment breaks down and must be fixed immediately, no matter what time it is).
For more on access codes, see Access.
- Cost Ctr.: The cost center associated with this equipment. For example, if your cost centers are related to company departments, "Cost Ctr." could be the department that controls the equipment.
For more on cost centers, see Cost Centers.
- Service contract list: The area beneath the "Cost Ctr." field lists any service contracts covering the equipment. This list will be blank if you are just creating a new equipment record. After you have created the record, you can specify that the equipment is covered by a new or existing service contract using Units —> Service Contracts. For more information, see Service Contracts.
- Spare Parts: This section specifies any spare parts that are kept in your inventory for use with this equipment.
- Add Spare Part: Clicking this opens a window where you can record one or more spare parts used by this equipment. For more information, see Adding or Editing Spare Parts for a Unit.
- Edit Spare Part: To edit information about a spare part in the list, click the appropriate list entry, then click Edit Spare Part. For more information, see Adding or Editing Spare Parts for a Unit.
- Delete Spare Part: To delete a spare part from the list, click the appropriate list entry, then click Delete Spare Part.
- Specifications: This section lets you fill in templates describing the equipment, and lets you attach on-line documents and/or diagrams to the equipment record.
- New Specification: Clicking this button opens the Template browser so that you can choose a template to associate with this equipment. Click on a template in the template list, then click Ok. MainBoss opens a window where you can fill in the blanks of the template with information about the equipment. For more information on using this window, see Entering Specifications into a Template.
- New Attachment: Clicking this button opens a window where you can attach a document or diagram to the equipment entry. For more information, see Creating an Attachment.
- Edit: To edit an existing specification, click the appropriate entry in the specifications list, then click Edit. MainBoss opens a window that lets you edit the specification.
- Delete: To delete an existing specification, click the appropriate entry in the specifications list, then click Delete.
- Value: This section records information about the equipment's original price and expected replacement cost.
- Purch Date: The date on which the equipment was purchased.
- Original Cost: The original cost of the equipment.
| Note: If you don't know the original purchase date and cost, it's useful to fill in an estimated replacement value. This will give MainBoss some basis for calculating future replacement costs. |
- Vendor: The supplier who sold you the equipment. The drop-down list shows your Vendor table. For more information, see Vendors.
- Future Value: This group of fields lets you enter estimates for replacement costs and scrap value.
- Date Estimated: The date you estimated the replacement cost.
- Replacement Cost: The cost to replace this piece of equipment with a similar make and model, if the equipment were to break down on the date given by "Date Estimated". MainBoss also has facilities for projecting replacement costs forward, based on a specified rate of inflation; for more information, see Replacement Schedule.
- Typical Life: The estimated length of time that this equipment is expected to last.
- Scrap Date: An estimate of the date on which you will take this equipment out of service.
- Scrap Value: An estimate of the amount of money you can make by selling the equipment once it has been taken out of service.
- Obsolete: Lets you specify an Obsolete Code at the time that you take this equipment out of service. For more on obsolete codes, see Obsolete Codes.
| Important: Specifying a value in the "Obsolete" field tells MainBoss that you are declaring this equipment obsolete. Therefore, you should only specify a value in this field when you are actually taking the equipment out of service. For more on declaring equipment obsolete, see Obsolete Equipment. |
- Ownership: Specifies an ownership for the equipment. For more, see Ownership.
- Asset Acct: Specifies an asset account for the equipment. For more, see Asset Accounts.
- Meters: This section lets you specify that the equipment contains one or more meters. It also lets you record meter readings for those meters. For general information on meters, see Meters.
- Add Meter: Clicking this button opens a window where you can describe a meter for this equipment. For more information, see Defining Equipment Meters.
- Edit Meter: To edit existing information about a particular meter, click the appropriate entry in the meter list, then click Edit Meter.
- Delete Meter: To delete an entry in the meter list, click the entry, then click Delete Meter.
- New Reading: To enter a new reading for a particular meter, click the entry for that meter in the list of meters, then click New Reading. MainBoss opens a window where you can enter the reading. For more information, see Entering Meter Readings.
- Save & New: Saves the current record and clears fields in the window so you can enter a new record.
- Clone: Creates a new equipment record that has the same contents as the current one. The "Code" field in the new entry is blank, so that you can fill in a new identifier code.
- Delete: Deletes the equipment record.
- Save: Saves the current record, but leaves all data as is. You can then continue to edit the same record.
- Cancel: Closes the editor window. MainBoss discards any new information or changes that you haven't explicitly saved with Save.
For more about the Equipment browser, see Browsing the Equipment Table. For more about editors in general, see Browsers and Editors.
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