The Instrument Maintenance & Calibration System (IMCS) is
a high-performance Windows-based database program, specifically
designed for tracking instrument history. In IMCS, the term
"instrument history" refers to information regarding
the type and identification of the instrument, where it is and
who’s using it, what problems are ongoing with the
instrument, as well as what problems have occurred in the past
and how they were corrected. IMCS allows you to schedule periodic
maintenance and inspection events, and to keep track of when they
were done and what the outcome was. The program comes with an
extensive array of reports, and allows you to create your own
reports if you own Crystal Reports.
In short, IMCS is a fast, easy-to-use, and comprehensive solution
to a pressing need: the ability to maintain long term, organized,
and readily accessible maintenance history on laboratory
instruments and other types of equipment.
This TechFax will provide a more detailed explanation of what
IMCS can do, along with several screen snapshots so you can see
how the program is organized.
The idea behind IMCS is quite simple – provide a very easy
to use equipment tracking program. The achieve this, IMCS uses an
Equipment List, as shown below. You can resort this list just by
clicking on any column header. You can limit the equipment
displayed in the list to a certain type of equipment, or a
particular department, or by whether the equipment is In Use or
not, as well as a variety of other criteria.
The Equipment List provides instant access to detailed information on any piece of equipment: you just double-click on the row you want.
This brings up the "Detail Cards", which are a
series of index cards showing all the detailed information known
about the instrument. There are five cards: Status (for
identification and location), Vendor (for purchase information),
Service (for warranty and other service contract information),
Problems & Maintenance (we’ll look at these closer in a
minute).
IMCS was designed by people who use laboratory instruments for
people who use them. The interface was designed to be very easy
to use for the novice, but still packed with features and power
for the expert. For example, notice that button that says
"Jan 1" (it looks like a calendar)? Anywhere you need a
date to be entered, you can click a button and up pops a
multi-year calendar, just select a date and click OK! And the
little "+" buttons allow you to quickly add new
Departments and Equipment Types on the fly.
The Problems and Maintenance tabs are really the heart of IMCS. The problem tab is used for keeping track of equipment trouble. When a problem occurs, the user enters the date and their name and department, and then a description of the problem (which can be quite long if needed). You can generate reports and work orders that show problems which are "Open". When the problem is corrected, the Resolution tab is filled out (see below), and the problem is marked "Resolved". In this way, problems never get lost, and the solutions are always available for the next time!
As you can see, there is a lot of power packed in to an
intuitive screen layout. IMCS uses the Crystal Report Engine for
reporting, and comes with a wide variety of reports for listing
equipment by type, department, status, or ID#; for printing work
orders; for listing vendors, and for showing open problems or due
events.
If you have to maintain records about your instruments, you owe
it to yourself to try IMCS.
The Maintenance tab is where you schedule events. In IMCS, an
event is some operation you intentionally want to perform,
perhaps at some time in the future. Instead of having to remember
it, you tell IMCS about it, and when you want it to occur. Then
IMCS notifies you when the event becomes "due". IMCS is
really good at scheduling events. For example, what if you need
to do a Preventative Maintenance operation on some instrument,
every week? You can tell IMCS when the first due date is, and
then to schedule it weekly, and IMCS will do it automatically!
You have a wide variety of options for how often to schedule an
event, from once, to daily, to semi-annually, and just about
anything in between. You can also set the maximum number of times
to perform the event, and optionally run some other application
for maintaining external data (like an excel spreadsheet with
calibration records).
Requires Windows 3.1, 95 or NT
P/N A12091 (Single User) $349.00................ International
Price $471.00
P/N A12092 (Multi-user license or Network version for up to 15
workstations) $1,999.00......................... International
Price $2,689.00
P/N A10054 (Crystal Reports) (Not required for IMCS) $195.00...
International Price $263.00
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