Electronic Maintenance Records stored in a machine

[azuker]

Hello,

My question is regarding maintenance records. If a machine alerts an operator that a preventative maintenance task is required, the operator performs the tasks and the machine resets itself, is a handwritten log still required? What if the machine stores a history of performed maintenance tasks? If those records can be shown to an ISO auditor, is that acceptable, or must you also keep a written "log" of when, what and who?

I have been looking for help in this area and have not found anything definitive yet. Any knowledge of this situation is appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[drgnrider]

Welcome to the Cove

Our Preventative Maintenance reminders/records are on an e-mail type calendar. We enter what was done and any other notes. Our auditor has accepted it.

One other issue to be aware of: What is the "records recovery" process just in case the machine dies? Are there back-ups? If so where are they maintained?

 

[PaulJSmith]

ISO 9001 doesn't specify what media type you must use for your records. It leaves that up to you ("Note 3 The documentation can be in any form or type of medium."). It only requires that they be "...legible, readily identifiable and retrievable." If your records in the machine meet these requirements, then there should be no problem.

As noted above, though, back-ups are always a good idea.

 

[Michael_M]

The other thing to consider:

What about items that are not part of a system alarm? For example, once a year you want to change out your coolant (machine shop). The machine does not track this as a record does it?

Some of the things on our maintenance records (some of them at least) are:
1. Pull chuck or collet nose, clean and replace (this is because we have had to replace whole draw bars due to collet noses never being pulled and over time will not come off.
2. Check nitrogen counter balance (Haas VF1's use a nitrogen counter balance and if it gets low, causes the head to drop onto the table---not something fun to walk into the morning).
3. Clean/replace air filter's around the machine.

These are some examples that the machine alarm codes will not (as far as I am aware) track.

 

[Golfman25]

Why do things twice? That is a sure fire way to "ruin" your system in the eye's of employees. No reason to over complicate it.

 

[Michael_M]

Why do things twice? That is a sure fire way to "ruin" your system in the eye's of employees. No reason to over complicate it.

Not sure if this was addressing what I had written or not. If it was:

I am not sure what type of machines the original poster was referring to, but in the machine shop I am at, turning on the machine in the morning triggers an alarm (which goes into the maintenance record). I was also pointing out that some events that would be beneficial are not tracked by machine alarm codes (at least the ones I work(ed) with).

If the original poster is just looking for something to appease the auditor, that was well answered by others before me. If the original poster was looking for reasons to do it one way or another way, I was pointing out some deficiencies in the machine alarm record.

I am not a fan of having 'data' that has no purpose other than to exist for the auditor (seems like busy work to me). I want data/records to be of benefit to the company (or a requirement of the customer).

 

[Golfman25]

Not sure if this was addressing what I had written or not. If it was:

I am not sure what type of machines the original poster was referring to, but in the machine shop I am at, turning on the machine in the morning triggers an alarm (which goes into the maintenance record). I was also pointing out that some events that would be beneficial are not tracked by machine alarm codes (at least the ones I work(ed) with).

If the original poster is just looking for something to appease the auditor, that was well answered by others before me. If the original poster was looking for reasons to do it one way or another way, I was pointing out some deficiencies in the machine alarm record.

I am not a fan of having 'data' that has no purpose other than to exist for the auditor (seems like busy work to me). I want data/records to be of benefit to the company (or a requirement of the customer).

My point is that if the machine says "hey dude, I need maintenance" and the guy does whatever the routine maintenance calls for and resets the machine, asking him to fill out a piece of paper may not be all that useful. What people dislike about "quality" is a lot of meaningless forms, logs and other paperwork. IMO, you should be hesitant to add extra forms/logs to something that is already being kept electronically.

 

[Eredhel]

We are a small but growing shop and this is something I try to be careful of. I don't want to over burden us with paperwork or paint us into a corner. My initial goal has been to minimize our paperwork requirements until we find we have to keep a record of something, whether from an auditor or whatever.

I'm not sure how long that will work but I'd like to avoid building into a large and unnecessary document department. I've noticed one of our customer's, which is a huge company, does a lot of things they don't have to and I'd like to avoid that down the road.