Thursday, March 12, 2009

User Created Component Hand Receipts
















Today’s discussion is about Component Hand Receipts in PBUSE. I will record the PODCAST as soon as I get my voice back. For now, you will have to read my contribution.

In the last Software change package, they added a feature that many of you may not be aware of.

The primary hand receipt holder can use the Catalog, Component module to view component listings.
There is a LOGSA tab which will provide components of an item that has a Supply Catalog – meaning sets, kits, and outfits. It will not provide component listings for an item that has only a TM or does not even have a standard LIN.

However, with the newest change, if you were to go to the Copy Component Data tab, you can view user created component listings. Not just the ones you have made but Component listings entered into PBUSE by any other PHR. This prevents you from having to start from scratch. However, caution must be used. Some of these user created listings may not be exactly what is printed in the TM as the owner may have changed it.

So, for an example, I want to show you the user created component listings for an M1A1 (T13168). First, choose the Column Name option LIN (that is the default option). Then type in the M1A1 LIN - T13168. Then press the execute button.

13 pages of listings are returned.

You can then view some of them and select the one closest to what you want. Then simply press the apply button.

Let’s say you are RIP/TOA’ing with a unit and you want to use the entire user created catalog listings that the unit you are replacing had. You can do this individually or you can do it for the entire UIC.



















To do the entire, click on the Copy Entire UIC button on the top left.

You’ll be given a chance to enter in the UIC you want to pull from and the UIC you wish to place the component listing.

By copying the entire UIC, I copied (within about 30 seconds), all of the user created catalog listings from one UIC to my UIC.


















Isn’t this a great improvement?


















Well, when I saw what you can do with this capability, I thought about how we can use this in the PM community. This is how I see it.
Can you really trust anyone else to have the right component listing in their PBUSE. I would be very hesitant to blindly use another’s listing without going through it line by line to see if it is correct. If there was just some way that you could be certain that the listing was right, that is the one you would choose instead of looking at what everyone else has.

So, if the PM could mark the user created component listing with”MASTER COPY” or something like that, you could easily pick it out. In fact, if “MASTER COPY” was always used in the Publication Desc field, you could search for MASTER COPY for any item that you want the listing for.

To take a look at what I am proposing, go the Copy Component data tab, check User Created, and then search for LIN FA506Q. Right at the top you should find a component listing for a RAID Tower Sensor System under UIC W27PFF marked as Master Copy.

Then do query for the entire UIC W27PFF. You will see two different Maser Copy component listings.

What do you think?