Adding a Timer to Your QW Downtime Application

A Quality Window Downtime application provides the capability of capturing accurate information about each downtime event.  Just as important as capturing actual “Root Causes”  for downtime events is having actual durations of the events.  Quality Window can be configured a number of ways to assist in the capturing times accurately like interfaces to Automation systems (PLC’s) through our QWScheduler module.  But this option may not be the easiest to accomplish on your own without support from your Controls people.

An option you can implement yourself is to make use of the Automatic Timer option in a Quality Window Application.  When configured in a QW 5 Application the user would just press the “A” – add key when a downtime event begins.  Quality Window would then start the timer displayed below.  At the end of the downtime event the operator would click the “Ok” key at the bottom left of the Timer Window and the Quality Window Add Data screen would appear with the Minutes Down field pre-filled from the timer.

Just a note on the Secondary Counter (Downtime Cost), this can be any thing that would add value to the analysis of the event.  Items like Cases or products not produced could be substitued – as long as you can determine a value that can be calculated based on duration it can be used.

By defining a third measure of severity (Downtime Cost) it will assist in the analysis of the data you collect, let me explain.  By recording the data for a downtime event you get frequency – number of Events.  By adding the timer you get a more accurate Minutes Down by Event.  Having another accurate measure of severity like Cost or Efficiency loss gives you a third way to look at the data and can greatly enhance your ability of making the best decisions on allocating your corrective actions.

Lets take a look at how to add a timer to a Quality Window Downtime Application.

One of the benefits of Quality Window it the capability of customizing an application through the use of either VB (Visual Basic) or Java Scripting.  Quality Window contains a number of User Exit points that you, as the creator of a Quality Window application, can take advantage of.   In the case of Downtime application we will use the “when the A-add key is pressed.  QW Scripting files (.QWX)  can been added to two standard Script files, one at the Application level – script is for one application (eg Downtime.QWX in same directory as the QW Application) or at the System level (QWScript.QWX) in Windows System32 directory – script is available for all applications.

If you already have a .QWX file associated with your application (look for it in the same directory as your QW Application files reside) , add the following:

Function QW_BeforeDisplay(QWFunction)
    Select Case QWFunction
           Case "A" 'Add Record
                Dim QWtimer
                Set QWtimer = CreateObject("QWtool.Timer")
                QWtimer.HeaderTitle = "Elapsed Time"
                QWtimer.FooterTitle = "Downtime Cost"
                QWtimer.FooterBaseValue = 80.00
                QWtimer.FooterMultiplier = 0.42
                QWtimer.FooterFormat = "$##,##0.00"
                QWtimer.Display
                If QWtimer.Cancel = False Then
                   QWfile.Value(9) = QWtimer.ElapsedSeconds / 60
                Else
                   QW_BeforeDisplay = "CANCEL"
                End If
    End Select
End Function

If you do not have a .QWX associated with your downtime application you can create one by doing a Cut/Paste of the above text into the Script tab for the Application in QWAdmin/Application/Script.

The following parameters explain how the Downtime Cost value is calculated and how the minutes down value is transfered to a field called QWFile.Value(9) which would be Variable 9 in the Quality Window Application.  You must remember to update this variable number in the script if you insert variables before the minutes down field in the QW Application.

Also you should include a value in the QW Application that calculates the third value, Downtime Cost.  That way if a minutes down value is edited in Quality Window using the Edit data screen the right associated value will be re-calculated for Downtime Cost.

Parameter Explanations:

FooterBaseValue
Sets the base dollar amount for an event  ie 80 dollars to start with

FooterBaseMultiplier
Sets the dollar value amount per second  ie 0.42 dollars (42 cents) for each second of downtime

QWFile.Value(9)
Use variable 9 to store the downtime duration in minutes