New features in PackNGo (PNG) 12.1.2

• Sample Troubleshooting Jobs: New users can get familiarized with the PackNGo app using a sample troubleshooting job.  After installing, the PNG app shows ‘Troubleshoot sample job’ button prominently on the welcome screen. Users can also troubleshoot sample job by selecting the selecting the menu item on the top right  hand corner.  PNG connects to TEAMS-RDS running on the QSI website to facilitate running this test job.
• Initiation of Jobs from TEAMS-RDS (Go Online): Users with proper credentials can initiate a job from PackNGo, by connecting to TEAMS-RDS using the ‘Go online’ menu item. They can then download the job payload to take it offline at any point during the troubleshooting by clicking the top right menu item ‘PackNGo’.
• Dispatch Center jobs: PackNGo now supports jobs sent by the Dispatch Center in TEAMS-RDS. Dispatchers can send a job with multiple matching symptoms and the mobile device user can select the right symptom in the field, and get the corresponding troubleshooting strategy from the server via HTTP/HTTP

01/15/2014:  A patch has been released to fix the following :

• The mime type which was preventing the old email clients on Android from opening the  payload.
• No job report will be emailed now for dispatched jobs where no steps were performed before the job was taken off-line (to PNG).

Lean times warrant more cost effective solutions. Over the past few years government and private agencies groping with the looming budget cuts have begun charting plans to align spending with the reduced funding. These cost-cutting measures are impacting government and private businesses in the form of scale-backs on the number of new contracts, program stretch-outs, and cuts in funding levels available for procurement of new equipment.

The fact that funding vehicles being restructured and re-purposed towards maximizing the utilization of current capabilities has led the industry to put increased focus on extending the life of their current equipment. Several defense journals and newsweeklies cite the increased impetus on maintenance and sustainment of existing fleet. Aviation Week article (dt. Sept 25, 2012) cites the U.S. Air Force as “… pushing to more than double the life of its stalwart F-15 Eagles…” and “…delay fleet retirements…” while Defense News  (dt. Aug 31, 2012) mentions the same military arm is planning F-16’s modifications to “…extend the life and upgrade more than 300 jets in the coming years…”. Stripes (dt. Apr 26, 2012) talks about Congressional momentum to “…extend the service life of the Navy’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines…”. Defense News (dt. May 31, 2011) also says this about US Navy and service lives of ships “…Revised U.S. Fleet Plan Extends Some Ships…”.

Defense News (dt. May 31, 2011) – “Revised U.S. Fleet Plan Extends Some Ships to 70 Years”

Aviation Week (dt. Sept 25, 2012) – “USAF Seeks Afterlife For F-15s”

Stars And Stripes (dt. Apr 26, 2012) – “Defense budget provision aims to extend service life of submarines”

Defense News (dt. Aug 31, 2012) – “Boeing Looks To Get into F-16 Sustainment Business Market”

This has intensified the spotlight on MRO operations. Over the recent years the MRO markets have scaled up and the MRO landscape continues to expand ever so rapidly.

PR Newswire (dt. Dec 11, 2012) – “Global Military Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Market to Reach $41.66 Billion in 2013”

The development of IT in the MRO sector has evolved into a vital part of fleet operations. Many operators have begun updating/upgrading their IT infrastructure software, into a more capable and powerful tool for managing maintenance costs. Current proposed solutions include “…software upgrade that is focused on the health management…” (Aviation Week, dt. Nov 5, 2012) and “…integrating (more storage-capable) software into existing hardware on newer airplanes…” (Defense News, dt. Dec 31, 2012).

Aviation Week (dt. Nov 5, 2012) – “Airlines Seeking Software Solutions For Avionics Upgrades”

Defense News (dt. Dec 31, 2012) – “Taiwan Plans to Upgrade About 60 Fighter Jets in 2013”

QSI has long been a provider of niche software solution which is a perfect fit for MRO IT infrastructure. QSI’s software interfaces are designed to work with existing legacy architecture, and at the same time can be integrated within enterprise systems. For the past two decades the TEAMS Tool-set has been an integral part of industry forecasting, maintenance-planning and scheduling processes thereby improving fleet reliability. QSI provides a suite of reliability-centered maintenance management products designed to eliminate mechanic research time, minimize excess inventory on hand, and increase service levels.

Learn more about QSI’s Integrated Diagnostics philisophy and the legacy of 20 years of providing cutting-edge fleet health management solutions:

http://www.teamqsi.com/solutions/

We believe that a partnership with QSI will go a long way in reducing supplier-side working capital costs and creating customizable service packages driven by innovative solutions. Let us be a principal factor driving your business strategies in this rapidly evolving world.

We have been building TEAMS-Designer and TEAMS-RDS in both 32bit and 64bit versions. However, for most users, we recommend the 32bit version. This is based on the following considerations:

1. 32bit versions can comfortably scale to models of size 5000 failure modes and tests. Outside of NASA, almost none of our customers have models bigger than 5000 failure modes. Most of our customers create models that are a few hundred failure modes to a few thousand. Thus, 32bit versions provide sufficient scalability for almost all our customers.
2. Most customer sites have a mix of 32bit and 64bit OSs. Standardizing on 32bit version allows all users to run the same exact version.
3. Standardizing on the 32bit version  for most of our installed base allows us to simplify our quality control and distribution process.

See the following table for our performance test results for different models of different sizes.

Memory and runtimes for models of different sizes in 32bit TEAMS-Designer.

QSI is happy to announce the general availability of TEAMS 12.0.5. We strongly recommend all users of TEAMS 12.0.3 or earlier upgrade to this version.

Some features and bug fixes in this release include:

TEAMS-Designer

• Users can now generate usage report (or where used report) for Technology Labels, Hierarchy Labels, Test Labels, Resources, Setups, Functions, and User Roles.
• Fixed bugs related to usage of function groups
• Fixed memory problems with Testability Analysis with 8 or more cores.

TEAMS-RDS

• Fixed a bug where the reasoning engine gives preference to multi-outcome tests over two outcome tests
• Users with Supervisor role can now delete any non-active job
• Users with Supervisor role can reassign field jobs to another user
• The maximum model media size for PackNGo payloads can now be configured via a parameter

TEAMATE

• Model entitlement now works seamlessly with TEAMATE.  TEAMATE users can only consolidate models and troubleshoot systems that belong to their group(s) that gets assigned on the server.

Are you finding it cumbersome to create a test that only detects a single failure mode or failure modes on the same hierarchy level? Try using a Direct Test. A Direct Test has all the functionality of a regular test without the complexity. The complexity is caused by having to create a new unique function and attach it to the tests and applicable failure modes. With Direct Tests all you need to do is specify which failure modes are detected by the test, eliminating the need to create and attach a new function to the failure modes and test. Try it!