When a government serving more than 4 million residents wanted to ensure preventative maintenance (PM) activities could be performed in the most efficient, effective manner, they turned to Tero and Azzier, Tero’s computerized maintenance management (CMMS) program. The government’s Infrastructure department wanted to ensure Azzier extracted the most current building information possible for all properties, whether active or inactive, which was stored in the Building and Land Inventory Management System (BLIMS) database.
In order for Azzier to track only the active sites where PM activities needed to be performed, it was necessary to identify and flag inactive sites and structures both initially and over time. Once a site or structure had been flagged as inactive in the database, maintenance activities would be terminated with Azzier generating no further notifications for them.
Developing a Solution
The Tero team developed a plan to achieve the two core goals. To execute the solution, they would leverage the Azzier Interface Module, creating a custom interface that would connect Azzier with the BLIMS system.
- Azzier would be able to extract all active sites and structures (i.e., buildings, parking lots and portables) from BLIMS inventory on a periodic basis (i.e., weekly/monthly) to ensure Azzier had updated information on buildings where PM activities needed to be performed.
- Azzier would be able to extract and flag inactive sites and structures using targeted granularity. From the Infrastructure department’s perspective, a structure could reach inactive status in one of two ways, sold or demolished.
However, if an owned building was sold to a supported stakeholder such as the School Board, Health Services, etc., the building needed to remain in the inventory as an active building. Since this building would now have an owner other than the Infrastructure department, the building would need to be treated as inactive within Azzier.
Specifying Extraction Criteria
To achieve the project goals, the Tero team determined the extraction process needed to satisfy the following conditions:
- Data in the BLIMS that matched existing entries in the Azzier Location table would be extracted for update in Azzier.
- If the OwnerID field in the BLIMS was no longer coded as INFRAS (which indicated it was active per the Infrastructure department), the status of the entry would be flagged inactive.
- If a status in the BLIMS was not listed as active or pending active, the status of the entry posted to the Azzier location table would be flagged inactive.
- Any active and pending active Structure IDs/Building IDs in the BLIMS where the owner was INFRAS, and where the IDs were not already in the Azzier Location table, would also be extracted.
- Tero developed a procedure to transfer the contents of the Location view (i.e., data extracted from the BLIMS, such as site and building information) into the Azzier Location table. This procedure would only update or insert records from that view. Both new and update interface methodologies would be supported.
This approach provided reassurance that Location records would not be deleted during the interface between the two systems and that record histories would be retained.
Achieving Success
With Azzier able to distinguish between active and inactive Location records, it updated all fields flagged “Inactive” to “1” (Active=0, Inactive=1). Inactivating the Location records removed all lists for inactive BLIM structures and sites in Azzier. It also prevents users from accessing them, maintaining accuracy in the process. However, if a history report is run, all records will still appear.
The solution saved valuable time by automatically moving data from one database to another while retaining accuracy and management of infrastructure data.
