Universal MTR Database System Author Michael Anthony Petranech January 2004Page 1
Typical MTR Report:
DATA FLOW/STORAGE/FUNCTIONS SUMMARY:
1. Data Collection Devices/Methods. (DCDM)
Third party hardware, OR manual methods, used for determining the chemical and mechanical properties of material being tested.
2. Data Retrieval Hardware and Software.
Computer(s) with programs and hardware interface(s) to collect and verify* the data from the DCDM. Either manually or electronically entered.
3. Data Transmission Software.
Software to transmit data to the database using pre-determined format with encryption and security protocols.
4. Protection Services.
Software, hardware and procedures to protect the database and system from unwanted influences.
5.Data Interface Services.
Software to accept data from the Data Transmission Software and store that data in the database. Performs integrity tests and further data verification.
6. DATA Services.
The actual database. This would include any backups, shadows, disaster recovery methods etc. of the data and the system. Further it would include paper copies turned into microfiche, tapes and any other form of data storage. Further all services that would be expected from a Database Management System. E.g. Reports, validity checks, communication, integrity assurance, backups, etc., and the list is exhaustive.
7. Data Server Services.
Software that honors requests for data and hands that data to the Data Distribution Services.
8. Data Distribution Services.
Software to send the data to the requestor in the format requested.
9. Data Requests.
Requests for data in whichever format the data user requires.
Paper, Email, FTP, EDI, XML, PDA, Pocket PC, Internet, etc.
Requestors: Inspectors, Auditors, Investigators, Legal Agents,
QA/QC Inspectors, Manufacturers, Distributors, etc.
*The numbers used to verify the information retrieved will come from the main database, which in turn will obtain it’s information electronically from the people who create the ASME and ASTM standards. This will be updated hourly, daily or whatever is deemed necessary.
Required : Services/Operations/Property/Materials/Tools/Devices/Etc.:
1. Data Creation.
Niton Units, Manual methods, Labs, etc.
Cables and peripheral hardware/software.
Support Personnel
Documentation
2. Data Retrieval Hardware and Software.
PC, Handheld, Laptop, Etc. with computer program(s) to collect the data from data created manually or Electronically in step 1.
Support Personnel.
Documentation
3. Data Transmission Software.
Software to transmit data to the database using
Pre-determined format with encryption and security.
Support Personnel.
Documentation
4. Protection Services/Network Services.
Software, procedures and hardware to protect the database and system from
outside influences and natural catastrophic occurrences.
Support Personnel.
Documentation
5,7,8.Data Interface and Data Transfer Services.
Software to accept, pass, verify, encrypt, format, send, massage and
store data in the database.
Support Personnel.
Documentation
6. DATA Services (DBMS).
The actual database. This would include any backups, shadows, disaster sites, redundant systems, etc. of the data and system. Further it would include storage of microfiche, tapes and any other form of data. Plus all services that would be expected from a database. E.g. Reports, validity checks, communication, etc., and the list is exhaustive.
Support Personnel.
Documentation
(Tools, IDEs, DBs, FTPs, Research data, etc.)
9. Data Requests (Presentation Services).
Design reports, web interfaces, literature, HTML Docs, Interfaces, etc.
Support Personnel.
Documentation
Global Tangible Opportunities/Savings/Benefits:
DISKSPACE UTILIZATION: Record Length (1025) * MTRRecords plus backups, shadows etc.
Elimination of redundant data storage. Greatly increase data accuracy, integrity and
decrease storage requirements.
Decrease in hardware maintenance and replacement.
Decrease in backup devices, backup storage, hardware maintenance and replacement.
Misc. Storage Systems:
Paper, Disc Drives, Microfiche, Zip Drives, Flash storage, Tape Devices, Etc.
PAPER FILES:
Decrease in paper usage and purchase. Environmentally friendly.
Decrease in fire hazard.
Elimination of storage areas and related costs/devices.
Save on postage, fax costs, internal hand delivery/routing, printing,
scanning to email/store, retrieval/locate time, filing time, etc.
LABOR UTILIZATION:
Decrease in labor to enter, maintain, transfer, retrieve, locate, distribute, mail, print and read data.
Decrease in Information System labor to create systems, or manual labor systems, to manipulate,
maintain, file, store, verify, distribute, create, support and analyze data
and other systems.
Data Entry:
Entry labor and IS support.
Data Research:
Lookup/find/retrieve files/data, phone calls to vendors-customers etc.,
Email to/from vendors-customers etc., snail mail procedures, fax procedures,
printing data, filing data, reading/analyzing data, IS Support, etc.
Data Distribution:
Lookup/find/retrieve files/data, phone calls to vendors-customers etc.,
Email to/from vendors-customers etc., snail mail procedures, fax procedures,
printing data, filing data, reading/analyzing data, IS Support, etc.
No More of :
Data entry, printing, local deliveries (internal), external delivers, handling, retrieving,
storing, filing, finding, hunting for data, verifying correctness and trying to read MTRs.
Global Tangible Opportunities/Savings/Benefits (continued):
ELECTRONIC TRAFFIC: ((((1025 bytes X 8 bits) X transactions) + graphics Bits + overhead Bits) X BPS) / 60 /60 = bits per hour * $/hr
Substantial decrease in future electronic traffic.
Increase in bandwidth availability, decrease in transmission times.
Fewer failure points.
Decrease in network equipment maintenance and replacement.
Decrease in network personnel to monitor and maintain network traffic.
Decrease in present and future electronic traffic.
EQUIPMENT/SPACE REDUCTION:
Decrease equipment and computers to store, backup and maintain data.
Decrease in electronic data transmission equipment.
Elimination of physical storage areas and units (microfiche equipment, cabinets, folders, etc.).
AUTOMATION SERVICES:
Programs, data, programming, software, software tools, hardware, personnel to
create and maintain automation systems and the data.
AFFECTED AREAS:
Receiving, manufacturing, inventory, QA/QC, inspection, Engineering, Customer Support,
Field Support, Sales, I.S./I.T., Marketing, auditing, shipping, etc.
Global In-Tangible Opportunities/Savings/Benefits:
EASE OF ACCESS:
Data is always in the same place.
Consistent and unchanging:
lookup interface
reporting
data exchange
24 X 7 access.
Variety of access methods.
STANDARDS ENFORCEMENT:
Retrieve from Standards agencies daily.
One set of rules, programs enter and verify data and standards enforcement.
One data set helps ensures data integrity, consistency and validity.
Standard/Finite and consistent reporting format and data transfer format.
Since only one place maintains the data easier to enforce standards
Governmental and private sector monitoring decreased to one place to retrieve reports and data.
DATA & SYSTEMS RELIABILTY:
Fewer data entry/modification points lessen data integrity-consistency corruption.
Less equipment requires less maintenance and machines so less failure.
Also allows for more backup functions, disaster recovery, redundant systems,
shadow operations and the like.
State of the art hardware, software and personnel.
Protection from wrongful lawsuit.
REPEATABILITY:
Single data source establishes uniqueness.
Single data flow/source decreases instances/occurrences/introduction of
data corruption, ambiguities, redundancy, validity, data specific errors and
general errors.
TRACEABILITY:
One data source with simple links to data originators.
Single route to determine data flow versus unlimited and growing permutations.
SECURITY:
Single source offers greater security do to less areas to secure.
Procedures, systems and material requirements are reduced due to limited and controlled
geographical locations.
LIABILITY REDUCTION and DETERMINATION:
Enforced creation of verified material reduces creation of non conforming material; hence,
elimination/reduction in liability due to distribution of non-conforming material.
Single source and limited data paths eases path back to creator of non-conforming material;
however, due to enforced standards at material creation, determination of distributed non
conforming material should be eliminated or at least greatly reduced.
System
Details
SYSTEM DETAILS INDEX:
17-20GENERAL OVERVIEW, DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS
21OBJECTIVE/GOAL SUMMARY (Incomplete)
GENERAL OVERVIEW
Steel and plastic is found everywhere. You come in contact directly or indirectly with steel and plastic when you drive over a bridge, ride in an elevator, fly on a plane, put on your glasses, flush your toilet, drink from the sink, eat a meal, get a shot, take a pill, drive your car, fly in your space shuttle, exercise on a machine, fire a rifle or drive your tank into combat, well not all of us do that, but I think you get my point. Steel and plastic touch everything in our lives. If we do not come in direct contact with them, somehow they are involved in the production, transportation, delivery, and storage etc. of everything. For the remainder of this document whenever steel is mentioned please remember that this would also include plastic, so steel would mean steel and plastic.
Not wanting to be overly dramatic, but what does happen when something goes wrong. A building that is supposed to withstand tremendous heat from a fire collapses because the steel used to build it was not up to specifications. A bridge collapses. Food is poisoned due to too much Silicon in the steel it passed through during processing. Baby food is tainted because the plastic pipes used for manufacturing the food has too much or too little of a certain compound in it. The pacemaker fails due to a bad wire. Your glasses break. Your dental implants break. Too much magnesium in the pipes that processed the food poisons your Thanksgiving dinner. The list is endless and global in nature. And when things do go wrong people die, people get sued and everybody is unhappy. Then the system has to back track to find out what went wrong, where and at how many points. Given the present state of things as far as tracking and storing data on these elements this can be a daunting and error prone task.
Further, the amount of resources used to support the present system is phenomenal and not necessary. I do not intend to place blame; it is just that this has not occurred to anybody until now. Like electricity was always there, it just needed to be discovered. Now a better way of doing the business of distributing and storing the critical data on steel and plastic has been discovered. That is what this entire document is about: Demonstrating the way this can be accomplished and pointing out the shortcomings of the current system.
This is how the current system works. I will only discuss the method of passing and storing critical information on steel. Also I cannot go into great detail about some of the engineering aspects because I am not an engineer; however, I have been exposed to enough information in this area to make this presentation with confidence.
Steel has chemical and mechanical properties. It takes an exact amount of certain chemicals to produce certain grades of steel. So much carbon, manganese, chromium etc. For example: a piece of 316L stainless steel produced to an ASME SA 479 spec can have between 0.01% and 0.10% of nickel. No more no less otherwise it becomes something else. The mechanical properties have to do with things like the tensile strength, elongation, hardness, grain size and others. The mechanical properties determine when a piece of steel will break under certain stresses, or how much it can stretch before it snaps and things of this nature; hence, the mechanical properties.
When a mill produces a piece of steel as a billet, bar, slab or whatever, the steel at this point has exact chemical and mechanical properties determined by testing. These properties are recorded either mechanically or manually in the form of a paper document and or electronic storage. The paper document, or electronic document, is called a MTR or Material Test Result. This MTR displays the critical chemical and mechanical properties of the steel at the time of production. An example of what a MTR might look like, and the data it carries, can be found earlier in this document.
Next the mill sells the steel to distributors, manufacturers, and fabricators or to whomever they deem fit to sell it to. At this time the MTR is passed to whomever purchases the steel. This is where the problem begins and will be detailed later. Please refer to the diagram on page five of this document for a visual representation of how this works.
The chemical properties of the steel usually will not change throughout its lifetime, but the mechanicals may. If the purchaser of the steel bends it, heats its, rolls it or something like that the mechanical properties change, and are again recorded and stored electronically, manually or both. A distributor will not change the properties; however, they do record and store the data.
This process continues and the possible permutations of creation, storage and passing of the data can become amazingly complicated and diverse as can be seen on the visual representation on page five.
The visual shows the life of one piece of steel and it’s corresponding MTR. If none of the companies that purchase the steel do anything to the steel purchased the storage and transfer of the mechanical and chemical properties will be stored and passed up to 18 times. Now if anybody bends this steel then the number goes up. This is with only pour of a certain type of steel. Exactly how many times this goes on in a single day is probably uncountable. Using the current method anyway. Further one piece of steel could be turned into hundreds of parts. Now the number of MTRs and data transfer/storage can become uncountable. For certain, almost uncontrollable.
To further complicate the issue each distributor, manufacturer, fabricator, assembler has it’s own method of storing and passing the data. There is no uniform MTR in place. Everybody has his or her own format. Difficult to believe, but true. I have included several MTRs at the end of this document from some of the companies I have encountered and you will see there is limited if any consistency between MTRs.
Now on to how this data is entered into the systems involved in this process of passing and storing the data for the MTR. Some companies will store the data electronically on disk then pass it electronically to those who are capable of accepting it electronically. Some will use manual data entry to enter the data as it is printed on the MTR they receive. Some simply store a copy of the original MTR, a scanned image, on disk. They almost all store a paper copy to the best of my knowledge. When the steel and its MTR gets to the final implementation of the steel the process stops. The final user of the steel also stores the MTR data.
That sums up how the process works today. It works, but it critically needs major improvements and change. Next I will describe some of the shortcomings of the current system.
One critical issue is data integrity, validity and accuracy. If the information is entered manually the possibility for errant data entry emerges. A simple transposition changes the way a value is being reported. If being stored and transmitted electronically the possibility for error decreases; however, due to the uncountable paths the data may travel the possibility for data corruption still exists. Further with electronic transfer the available electronic pathways for data transfer are being consumed; hence, slowing down the entire information super highway. Not to a great extent, but enough. With more and more production of steel and plastic in the future this will only increase as the permutations of data pathways for each MTR increases. It could become a real hindrance, and no matter what it is not needed. With the proposed system this will not be eliminated, but do to far fewer data pathways it will be dramatically decreased, and far easier to control.
Now let us discuss some of the equipment and physical requirement issues to support the current system. Each creation of MTR data requires, and is not limited to and may not include all of the following: copiers, data transmission equipment, data entry systems, data storage devices, power supplies, physical space, phone systems, backup systems and the like. Each of these requires maintenance, replacement and is subject to breakdown. Again, always remember the phenomenally large scope of this MTR issue. This is a global issue involving literally thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of transactions per day.
What about the paper needed to support the current system? If we consider the limited resource of our forests to create paper the need for a new system is clear. Based on 1,000 MTR transactions per day, which we can speculate is far less than what actually occurs; we can calculate the following estimates. Take the 1000 transactions and multiply it by 18 permutations from page five. 18000 times 365 per year are 6,570,000 pieces of paper per year. Now let’s speculate there is probably at least 100 more transactions per year than that and it comes to a whopping 657,000,000 pieces of 8 X 11 inch paper. Now using the information from one (1) tree makes 8333 sheets of paper. So it will take 78,843 trees to produce the paper needed. And I am being conservative with the amount of MTRs produced per year. Now to my way of thinking that’s a lot of trees and it’s only going to grow in forest consumption. If we consider the amount of power and other resources needed to process the amount of trees to produce the paper there will be other significant and monumental savings.