Calibration Manager 4.0
Calibration Manager from Blue
Mountain Quality Resources helps track and manage the calibration
and maintenance of measurement equipment, including inventory,
scheduling, reports and certifications, and record management.
This robust program has all the functions you'd expect
in a calibration program and more. It can be set up to automatically
calculate and update due dates. Users can find, sort, replace
or filter records using simple commands. Drop-down menus
minimize error entry and maximize consistency. Records can
be archived, which improves system performance by decreasing
the number of records that are searched and maintained.
Screen clutter, a problem with some programs, is reduced
through the use of data objects--data fields (e.g., a vendor
name) that can be clicked to drill down and bring up additional
information. In fact, one of Calibration Manager's strengths
is this 3-D approach to data display.
Calibration Manager consists of several functional areas:
Administrator Tools (a separate program), security and compliance
issues, equipment calibration history, and reporting functions.
Administrator Tools--This module allows administrators
to manage and maintain accounts; assign security levels
and user access privileges; create work orders, tag systems
and workflow templates; and set auto-reminders.
Work orders assign an ID number to each task to help with
tracking and identification. A tag system tracks items by
location within a facility. Workflow templates define the
steps and requirements for calibration and maintenance.
Compliance--Audit trails isolate and track changes
that affect specific items (e.g., changes to the system
configuration, users or datasets). It records the original
setting, new setting, initiator, time and date, and the
results are displayed in a printable table. Changes to the
Equipment History and Equipment Master modules also show
up in the audit trail. There are also system and dataset
logs that track any changes and an electronic signature
(E-Sig) function when documents must go through a signature
loop.
Equipment calibration history--Two sets of records,
the Equipment Master and Equipment History, show the details
of each particular tool.
The Equipment Master stores general equipment information
for each item, including calibration scheduling, maintenance
and other events normally associated with that equipment.
Equipment History shows calibration results and manages
the information related to completed events. It also contains
"snapshots" of an item at the time an action is
performed, which is useful for tracking information that
changes periodically.
One welcome feature is the addition of a recycle bin.
Anyone who has worked in database programs is familiar with
the frustration of deleting information by accident. When
information is deleted in Calibration Manager, it goes into
a recycle bin. From there a system administrator can restore
it. Only purging the recycle bin will permanently delete
the information.
Each piece of equipment is identified by a combination
of two fields, a system ID and component ID. Most of the
information displayed is in a table view format--a simple
summary of rows and columns. Double-clicking on any record
will display a detailed view of that record.
Defining a piece of equipment as a standard adds another
level of tracking to the system. Standards are color coded
to show their status: active, retired, removed or past due
for calibration. Reports can be generated to perform reverse
traceability if a calibration standard is found to be out
of tolerance.
The measurement data screen has several sections for tolerance
codes, received out of tolerance and pass/fail. Also associated
with measurement data is configuration data (e.g., nominal
set point, tolerance, limits, units, etc.; information on
specific procedures and calibration standards, comments,
etc.; and calibration data).
Calibration Manager uses Crystal Reports with a selection
of 30 templates that can be used as is or as a template
for creating specific reports.
This best-in-class product is targeted toward large multisite
companies. However, small companies, particularly those
that must comply with or be audited to a federal or international
standard, will benefit from Calibration Manager.
Craig S. Howell is the owner of CPM Labs, a full-service
calibration and ultra-precision measuring lab located in
Rancho Cordova, California. Fax him at (916) 635-4489. Letters
to the editor about this review can be e-mailed to
letters@qualitydigest.com.
Calibration Manager 4.0
Requirements: Client--400 MHz Pentium;
64 MB RAM; Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP or 98. Server--700 MHz
Pentium; 512 MB RAM; SMTP; IIS 5.0; Windows 2000 Server
(SP 2) and Microsoft SQL Server 2000.
Price: Single-user license starts at about
$2,500. Multiuser and/or multisite pricing is dependent
upon options and number of concurrent users.
Contact:
Blue Mountain Quality Resources
208 W. Hamilton Ave.
State College, PA 16801
Phone: (814) 234-2417
Fax: (814) 234-7077
E-mail: calman@coolblue.com
Web: www.coolblue.com
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