Blog

Release Notes For March 2020

RELEASE NOTES FOR March 2020

Major Release Notes/Prerequisites for 2020 Updates:

  •  Must install V3.0.2019.1227 prior to any 2020 update
  • Application Server must have .NET 4.8 installed (requires server reboot)
  • IIS must have URL Rewrite 2.0 installed

NEW

Continuous Improvement

  • Goal Board: When creating a new goal board, if an existing goal board exists for the same area and shift, a warning and link are provided to potentially avoid creating a duplicate goal board. (3/6) 
  • When completing an audit task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text when entering a new line of text on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Human Resources

  • Job postings page has been updated to V3 (3/20) 
  • When completing an audit task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text when entering a new line of text on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Maintenance

  • Changed meter-based task generation to not create duplicates in the event an incorrect meter-reading would caused multiple projects to generate. A warning will be provided and further projects will not be created until the previous one has been completed. (3/13) 
  • When completing an work order task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text (replaces the vertical scroll bar) on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Enginering

  • When completing an audit task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text when entering a new line of text on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Project Management

  • When completing an audit task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text when entering a new line of text on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Company

  • Company Configuration has been updated to V3. (3/13) 

Quality

  • When completing an audit task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text when entering a new line of text on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Safety

  • When completing an audit task, the Description and Comments box now expand to fit the text when entering a new line of text on desktop and mobile (3/27)

Notifications

  • {{CurrentDateTime}} shortcode has been added to notifications.  (3/20) 

FIXED

Reports

  • Several features of Reports were broken in IE. Charts did not load, Configure button not responsive, Sorting of columns was not working in Internet Explorer. (3/27)
  • Note: we recommend moving away from IE to a modern web browser for better Thrive performance (3/27)

Continuous Improvement

  •  Fixed issue where a default department on goal boards could cause the incorrect reason codes to appear on the issues screen. (3/13)

General

  •  Fixed issue where menu items didn’t display text when viewing Thrive on mobile devices. (3/13)
By |2020-03-27T16:01:20+00:00March 6th, 2020|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For February 2020

RELEASE NOTES FOR February 2020

Major Release Notes/Prerequisites for 2020 Updates:

  •  Must install V3.0.2019.1227 prior to any 2020 update
  • Application Server must have .NET 4.8 installed (requires server reboot)
  • IIS must have URL Rewrite 2.0 installed

NEW

Human Resources

  • Employee Types page has been updated to V3 (2/21)
  • Documentation Codes page has been updated to V3 (2/21)
  • Termination Codes page has been updated to V3 (2/21)

Company

  • Document Types page has been updated to V3 (2/21)
  • Company Links page has been updated to V3 (2/21)
  • Documentation Codes page has been updated to V3 (2/21)

FIXED

Continuous Improvement

  • Goal Boards – Fixed color issue when using Run Rate and Percentage for the color range. (2/14)

Custom Data Tracking

  • If a CDT grid has a calculated column, adding or editing records now works without receiving an error. (2/7)
  • Custom Data Tracking fields with drop down items, table look ups, or default timestamp did not get converted during the prior update of Custom Data Tracking tools. This update will run one time to correct previously converted CDT forms and any conversions that take place with this update. (2/21)
  • Site is now a pre-defined custom lookup (2/28)
  • Standard lookups have been added (Site, Active Employees, Active Users) (2/28)

Inventory

  • In Parts, when automatic part numbering is enabled, the next part number is maintained separately by site. (2/7)
  • In Parts, performing advanced searches from the list view and then opening a part no longer causes errors on the detail page. (2/7)
  • When opening up a Vendor, the contact list now shows only contacts for that vendor and the “missing column” error no longer appears when trying to add a contact. (2/28)

Maintenance

  • Added DefaultStatus and InputRequired fields to flow through when copying a task item.  (2/21)

Human Resources

  •  Performance issues with Training Certification Dates (Training Due) and the Curriculum Matrix screens. (2/28)

Admin

  • When using a custom list in form security, editing the list will not change the way list items appear on a page, especially if it has been customized. (2/7)
  • In form security, permissions can now be set for the job history grid on the job code page. (2/7)
  • Changing the authentication type from anything else to “Active Directory” and then clicking save would result in the page crashing when clicking save or cancel. The authentication type can now be set to Active Directory without experiencing the error.(2/28)

General

  • When creating filters ( in reports, notifications, or grids), if the filter used “contains”, “does not contain”, ‘begins with”, or “ends with” and the results included line breaks, incorrect results were returned. (2/21)
  • If a file didn’t have a standard content type (txt, zip, pdf, etc) then an error would occur upon uploading an attachment. (2/21)
  • Fixed an issue when a notification was set up with criteria that included “OR” criteria but did not include grouping (parentheses). (2/28)
  • When using a different language, date formatting is now displaying properly on the scheduling window. (2/28)

Reports

  • Integer columns no longer show decimal places by default  (2/21)
  • Reporting charts now have the option to display a trendline (2/21)
  • Report drill-down and printing is now working correctly. (2/28)
By |2020-02-28T20:22:06+00:00February 7th, 2020|Release History, Thrive Updates, Uncategorized|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For January 2020

RELEASE NOTES FOR January 2020

Major Release Notes/Prerequisites:

  •  Must install V3.0.2019.1227 prior to any 2020 update
  • Application Server must have .NET 4.8 installed (requires server reboot)
  • IIS must have URL Rewrite 2.0 installed

NEW

  • More Spanish translations throughout Thrive (1/10)

Custom Data Tracking (CDT)

  • Custom Data Tracking has been updated to Version 3. The latest version includes (1/17)
    • improved search/sort/filter tools
    • ability to share ownership of the form
    • can link CDT fields to any table/field
    • can use form security to rename CDT fields for better viewing on grid, reports, etc
    • can use the Thrive report builder to create reports on CDT data

Human Resources

  • Training Certification Dates – An employee now can be “opted out” of future scheduled training classes via either the Training Certifications Dates or Classes pages. (1/17)
  • Curriculum / Job Codes – The Job Code page now allows for linking to a Training Curriculum so that employees with a specified Job Code will automatically be added to the Curriculum list (1/24)
  • Job Codes – The Job Code page now has an additional grid that shows active employees in that particular job code (1/31)

Inventory

  • Manufacturers page has been updated to V3. (1/17)

Safety

  • The OSHA reporting requirements now include Employer Identification Number (EIN) for “covered employer”. EIN has been added to the OSHA 300A Setup and the CSV export to match the OSHA electronic reporting upload template. (1/17)

FIXED

Company

  • Custom Data Tracking- Allow security administrators to have full rights to CDT shared users. (1/31)
  • Custom Data Tracking – Fixed an issue where a user might experience either a “Restricted Access” or “Page could not be displayed due to error” after opening a different CDT item. (1/31)

General

  • Training – Fixed issue where training sign up would error when the Class hours field was blank (1/3)
  • Links (such as Notification links) linked to corrective actions were failing to route properly (1/10)

Human Resources

  • Curriculum- Inactive Employees no longer appear in curriculum attendees. (1/31)
  • Curriculum – Added Manager Name to curriculum grid. This enables you to export the grid and have access to the manager’s name instead of their employee number. (1/31)

Continuous Improvement

  •  Goal Boards – Corrected issue with red/green colors on goal boards when the color was dependent on displaying the target rate (as opposed to quantity) and displaying the target for the day (as opposed to the current job/run) (1/3)

Inventory

  • Purchased Parts: The Part Usage tab on the Purchased Parts details page did not contain any column headings in the default layout which could give the appearance of no usage records. Added a default layout to ensure user would see records, but the user can still change their layout (1/10)

Reports

  • Reports based on the report template “CI Event Follow-Up Homework” should not error out anymore. (1/17)
  • Standard printable reports performance have been improved. (1/17)
  • Report totals are now functioning properly when using the {{CurrentUser} filter (1/31)
  • Fixed issue where summary information (totals) did not display on grid if the “Toggle Shorten Text” option was unchecked. (1/31)

Admin

  • Form Security – Default values for Spanish language setting was not updating/saving/displaying properly (1/24)
By |2020-01-31T20:48:26+00:00January 3rd, 2020|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For December 2019

RELEASE NOTES FOR December 2019

NEW

User Settings – Spanish

  • Expanded Spanish Translations (On Going)

Human Resources

  • Training Certifications – Added Employee Manager and Employee Shift to layout (Dec 13)
  • Training – Training attendees can now be added by manager (Dec 13)

FIXED

Reporting & Dashboards

  •  Update redirect from old reporting format to new report format for pre-existing reports/links (Dec 13)
  •  Corrected error where certain Group Names could cause an error (Dec 13)
  •  Corrected an intermittent issue with attempting to re-name column/field headings on the text portion of the report (Dec 13)
  • Reports created using the templates “Project Assignments by Location” or similar for each reporting module contained an incorrect join statement which could have resulted in unexpected/incorrect results in the report. The templates and all reports with the matching table definitions are fixed with this update (12/27)

General / Admin

  •  Improved error handling and messages for unplanned events (Dec 13)
  •  Update the user account setup screen so that Thrive password is not visible when selecting the Active Directory login option (Dec 13)
  •  Fixed Calendar not loading properly/fully (Dec 20)
  • Removed a Company configuration setting that would cause the menu to appear incorrectly at times. (12/27)

Continuous Improvement

  •  Goal Board – When goal board was set to display “Run Rate” instead of “Qty”, occasionally the target job quantity would display “0” instead of the actual quantity (Dec 20)
  •  Goal Board – Clicking “Change Shift” twice on a goal board would cause a duplicate goal board to be created (Dec 20)
  •  CI Events – Now assigning a default Status value to CI Events and correcting the display text for the status on the Event detail page (Dec 20)

Customer

  • Customer – Fixed an issue where non-admin users were not able to view the customer detail page (Dec 13)
By |2020-01-03T17:31:36+00:00December 18th, 2019|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For November 2019

RELEASE NOTES FOR November 2019

NEW

User Settings – Spanish

  • Users can now select a language/culture setting for Spanish language. As of this release the majority of the home screen, menu, and Maintenance area of Thrive now have Spanish environment (Nov 8)
  • Continue role out of Spanish translations on buttons, toolbars, etc throughout Thrive (Nov 22)

SF – Safety Incidient

  • Updated the safety occurence number (incident/accident number) field so that links in reports will open the safety incident record. (Nov 1)

FIXED

Internet Explorer

  • Added error handling during the login process for Internet Explorer. (Nov 22)
  • NOTE: Thrive Support for Internet Exploer will end January 31, 2020

Reporting & Dashboards

  • Dashboard menu permissions for re-naming were not appearing when user should have had access to re-name. (Nov 1)
  • When a (non administrator) user was made an OWNER of a DASHBOARD, the user was redirected to a No Access page when trying to access the Report/Dashboard Sharing screen. This has been corrected so that Dashboard Owners (administrator and non-administrator) can access the Dashboard Sharing setup page. (Nov 1)
  • Reports with long chart total formulas would fail due to truncation of the formula and return a SQL error message. The process was improved so that long formulas are now handled. (Nov 22)

Discussions (Project, NCR, etc)

  • Attempts to download a Discussion attachment (other than image file types) would result in being redirected to the No Access message. Security settings have been updated so that users with view access to a public discussion can now download the attachments. Users must belong to a private discussion thread in order to download attachments in private discussions. (Nov 1)

Home Screen

  • My Activities: The link for requisitions in the Approval Needed / Requisitions was incorrect resulting in the link opening the requisitions list instead of the requisition detail. The link now opens the requisition detail form for the item referenced on the home screen. (Nov 1)

HR – Time Off Documentation

  • Fixed error and now allows updating a Time Off Documentation Entry without a Time Off Type (Nov 1)

PM – Projecet Management

  •  Newly added Project Type values were not showing up in the Project Type drop down lists. Project Types no longer need to be specifically marked as active (check/uncheck inactive box) after inserting. (Nov 8)

MT – Maintenance

  • Improved the performance of the printed Maintenance Work Order Report (Nov 8)

CI – Continuous Improvement

  • Fixed an issue where the page could crash if no status was provided on a Project Detail page. (Nov 15)
By |2019-11-22T18:19:18+00:00November 1st, 2019|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For October 2019

RELEASE NOTES FOR October 2019

FIXED

Inventory

  • Performing advanced search on parts and then opening the detail view of the part has been fixed. (10/11)
  •  Inventory Locations went missing on the main menu, but has been returned (10/18)
  • When adding or updating a part, the “Site” field is now required. (10/25)
  • Binoculars next to Part Number filter sites based on the user’s site. (10/25)
  • Security Table was corrected for Related Equipment on the Part page. (10/25)

Engineering

  • When adding or updating a part, the “Site” field is now required. (10/25)

Reporting

  • Improved performance of filtering. (10/25)
By |2019-11-08T15:34:17+00:00October 11th, 2019|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More

The Hidden Waste Lurking in Your Operation

The 8th Waste in Lean Operations

If you have spent any amount of time in or around Lean Manufacturing, you no doubt have heard of the Seven Waste originating from the Toyota Production System (TPS).
For those not familiar with those waste, the list looks like this (the order changes depending on your source but for the sake of using the TIMWOOD acronym we will use the following sequence)
1. Transporting
2. Inventory
3. Motion
4. Waiting
5. Overproduction
6. Over / Excess Processing
7. Defects
An internet search will return numerous good reads on the above list so I will turn the focus to a lesser known but oft included 8th waste. The additional waste category may take on differing names such as Human Potential, Not-Utilizing Talent, Non-Utilized Talent, Skills, etc. Regardless of the name, the waste stream is real and left unresolved can lead to frustration and disengaged employees. Examples of this category of waste include employees asked to follow blindly without empowerment, mismatching employee skill sets to the designated role, disregarding personality types, or asking employees to complete work with little perceived value. It is this last idea that will be explored below in the form of data administration.

Hidden Waste

Data administration can easily hide in the chasm between the manufacturing line and the front office. The manufacturing line gets plenty of attention to its waste: scrap rate, 1st pass yield, rework, downtime, etc. In the operations leadership and management environment data administration waste sometimes goes unchecked, though certainly not unnoticed by those suffering the consequences of processes with built in repetitive data administration. While at times necessary, data administration can lead to excess hours of non-value-added work, and generally becomes an anchor holding down the continuous improvement process.

Let’s address this form of waste with a fictional example of production data tracking.

 

Manual Data Tracking

ACME Cycles is a contract manufacturer of bicycles branded for small market bicycle shops. Business has been strong, and the backlog is growing. Pressure is starting to mount as the spring sales season is coming. Any missed delivery targets will become lost sales opportunities. Samantha is the Plant Manager and wants to track the number of units produced per hour, defects/issues observed on the line, scrap, and work stoppage (downtime). Samantha has created a form to track each category of information and assigned John, the tandem cycle assembly line leader, to ensure the form is completed and turned in at the end of the shift for his line. Each of the assembly lines has a similar process. At the end of the shift, the line leaders are tasked with entering the information into a spreadsheet for the next 30 minutes (or 60 if there are higher than normal downtime and defect issues for the day), except for the unicycle line as they always seem to be doing their own thing. Once the data is entered, the line leader then spends another 30 minutes updating charts and creating a summary for review by the operations team at their stand up meeting the next morning. Great, we have a well-defined process, each person knows their role, and information is made available the next day for review and follow up. But wait, we are going through a lot of paper and the customer doesn’t really care to pay for that cost. What about John? Would the customer be more willing to pay for his time pushing paper and updating spreadsheets or making defect free bicycles?

 

Transitioning to Electronic Data Submission – Leads to Shifting, Not Solving

Samantha finds the information valuable but recognizes the opportunity to improve the process. She really needs John present at the line to keep the team on track. The pressure to deliver on time continues to mount so she would also like to have the information available for review at the midpoint of the shift as well as the end of the shift. The team decides to change the process and have the operators enter their information directly into a spreadsheet (to eliminate paper and the data entry by John). The team goes full speed ahead by putting PC’s on the line for operators to input their data and creates spreadsheet templates and shared folder storage system for each line to maintain their respective information. John doesn’t have time to update the spreadsheets at the midpoint of the shift and is now working overtime to keep pace with the busy season. Ernesto, Operation Team Lead, is now tasked with extracting information from each assembly line’s spreadsheet and merging it into a master spreadsheet across all assembly lines. John is feeling better because he is no longer spending 30-60 minutes per day administering spreadsheets and charts and is back on the line leading the team where he feels most fulfilled. Samantha likes the twice per day updates which allows the team to make corrections to the process sooner. What about Ernesto? We have only managed to shift the data administration from one role to another, but it still exists, and we have started down the path of spreadsheet chaos. And the customer? The bicycle will take them somewhere and give them enjoyment such that they will gladly trade their hard-earned money for the expertly assembled frame, wheels, and pedals. However, they can’t ride a spreadsheet and therefore still not interested in paying for the time spent on data administration and creating charts.

 

Avoid Burn Out – Finding the Right Tool for the Job

Thankfully, Samantha is an experienced operations leader with a lean background. She is engaged with her team and recognizes that Ernesto is now thrust into a situation where he is burning repetitive energy collecting and collating information for the rest of the team. Ernesto is staying at work extra hours each week in order to keep up with the original workload and the newly added data administration requirements that shifted his way when the team made the move to twice daily updates. Samantha and her team have benefitted from the information they have been collecting and analyzing, yet she doesn’t want her team to suffer the burnout and frustration associated with spreadsheet chaos and the waste in the data administration of the process.
Samantha does her research and finds the perfect solution for her team. She has found a web-based tool that allows her team to configure the forms to enhance their process. They can now capture all the input at the source and bypass the spreadsheet. The team has already defined their KPI’s so they build report templates that can be used by each assembly line individually or rolled up at the plant level. The reports are then dropped onto a dashboard to be used by the team during the daily stand up meetings. No longer is it necessary for John, Ernesto, Samantha, or any other member of the team to spend an hour or two per day working on data administration. The data collected at the assembly line flows into the dashboards in real time. John is feeling supported by his management team because not only has the new real time analytics tool made data entry even easier, but he now has a tool that can provide real time notifications to his support network when his line is experiencing issues. His team has red/yellow/green visual indicators that help them see when they are falling behind the schedule. The real time visibility leads to seeking assistance sooner and there are no more surprises at the end of the shift. Ernesto is relieved to remove the repetitive data administration tasks from his job description and is back to leaving work on time and assisting with his daughter’s soccer practices that he has been missing for the past two months. Samantha not only has a happy and engaged team, she now has real time status tracking of the operations and doesn’t need to wait for the twice daily updates to find out if they are gaining ground on the delivery backlog.

While the story above may be fiction, similar situations are being played out in manufacturing operations all over the world. There is a somewhat typically maturation process that companies go through starting with paper, then hybrid, then fully electronic. There are even some lean practitioners in the school of thought that tracking on paper/white boards forces a better level of engagement and brings awareness to the information being collected and that electronic tracking is not beneficial. [That topic of debate is worth its own article in the future]

 

Spaghetti Systems

As a company attempts to improve their process over a period of years, maybe decades, it is commonplace to end up with different solutions for each department. Quality has a tool for nonconformance and defect tracking and possibly another software solution for gage and calibration management. The continuous improvement leader has a tool for tracking events and projects. Production uses a different set of tools to manage productivity and efficiency. Don’t forget about maintenance, someone needs to keep all those lines running and with that team comes their own CMMS to track work orders and planned maintenance activity. Somewhere in all this software spaghetti mess is the big CRM meatball.

Scattered Information

With all these systems in place, the organization might be feeling good about having electronic tools to track their key processes within each department. However, it is then that they find themselves back to the data administration frustration, albeit one layer up (i.e. shifted) on the org chart, because the systems do not talk to each other. At this point, the managers are extracting information from each of their respective systems and putting them into the top-level management presentation formats for review.

 

Thrive Software Platform for Operations

You may be wondering, what if that same tool that Samantha engaged for operations productivity and efficiency tracking also contained all the tools needed by the quality, continuous improvement, safety, and maintenance departments? Imagine the benefits to the management team if a single dashboard could show the KPI from each department in real time. Consider the training benefits for employees that transfer from one department to another and no longer need to learn to use a new software tool, but rather just adapt current skills to a new set of departmental processes and procedures. If such a system existed, wouldn’t that mean that facility work request that I entered on my mobile phone while walking into work this morning, the customer complaint call our quality team took a few minutes ago, and the five units that just left the assembly line headed for the shipping dock are already on my dashboard? The answer is an emphatic Yes!
The above scenario may sound like more fiction, but this is where Lean Technologies turns this story into reality using the Thrive software platform.

If you would like to hear from Thrive users experiencing this new reality, check out the videos page.

or want to talk to someone on the Lean Technologies team about transforming your reality, drop us a note

By |2019-09-24T17:30:52+00:00September 24th, 2019|Manufacturing, Productivity Tools, Thoughts|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For September 2019

RELEASE NOTES FOR September 2019

NEW

Notifications

  • Added the ability to create a copy of a notification. (9/6)
  • More granular security that take a user’s site into account when determining which notifications they can manage. (9/6)
  • SMS functionality has been improved. It is now possible to setup notification recipients based on data fields from a form. (9/13)

Reporting

  • Ability to show “static” data labels for printing and visibility. (9/6)
  • Rearranged the Report Configuration Tools to emphasize more commonly used items. (9/6)
  • Added report descriptions to tool tip when hovering over the report listing. (9/6)
  • Added option to display only “My Reports” in the report listing. (9/6)
  • Added option to display the name of the report creator in the report listing. (9/6)
  • Disabled Reporting Tree drag and drop on mobile. (9/27)
  •  Added one touch expand/contract on Reporting Tree (9/27)

FIXED

Project Management

  • Added support for non alphanumeric characters on master projects. (9/13)

Reporting

  • Changing the visibility of the chart in the Save dialog was not working correctly. (9/6)
  • Fix for Dashboard Tree Report Names that were being shortened/truncated

Safety

  • Safety Data Sheets – Fixed issue where using advanced search might throw error on the page. (9/6)
  • Fixed issue where OSHA 300 log was not correctly handling the “All Other Illness” box (9/27)

General

  • Discussion mentions and people selections now filter on site. (9/6)
  • Calendar – Time Off items were not showing up on the calendar and were getting filtered out (9/27)
  • Issued caused by Chrome build 77 that prevented users from being to print Telerik (pdf) reports (9/27)
By |2019-09-27T19:04:10+00:00September 6th, 2019|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More

Release Notes For August 2019

RELEASE NOTES FOR August 2019

NEW

Reporting

  • Improved report searching with autocomplete, including the ability to show and search by report ID (8/2)

Human Resources

  • Added ability to automatically add new employees to Curriculums by employee type or any new employee. (8/23)

Project Management

  • Master Project ID is now linkable in forms and reporting. (8/7)

FIXED

Reporting

  • Setting the sort order to Descending for data fields in Configuration Tools was not working (clicking the column header was sorting correctly) (8/2)

General

  • There was a sizing issue with the menu in the last update when you opened it multiple times. This has been resolved.  (8/2)
  • Attachment button styling has been improved.  (8/2)
  • Attachment button no longer available in CLOSED status (8/2)
  • Improved database performance for login of AD accounts (8/23)

Maintenance

  • Permissions have been aligned in relation to meter history, meter update, and form security. (8/7)

Inventory

  • Correct linking to detail page for the requisition line item. (8/23)

 

By |2019-08-23T22:57:50+00:00August 2nd, 2019|Release History, Thrive Updates|0 Comments
Read More