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Getting the most out of Your Versiv™ Investment

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Overview

Congratulations on your purchase of the Versiv Cable Certification System. Versiv is designed to make the cable certification process much more efficient, so that contractors can save time and money, finishing jobs and getting paid faster. But purchasing the Versiv testers is only part of what you need to do in order to realize the total savings that Versiv can provide.

On This Page

• Technology is not Efficiency
• On the Road
• What it Costs
• Technology is not Efficiency
• LinkWare Live Eliminates the Drive
• LinkWare Live Does a Lot More
• Keep Your Tester Up to Date
• Save up to 35 Hours a Month
• OK, it’s Great, but What Will it Cost Me?
• The Adoption Process
• Step By Step

Technology is not Efficiency

The first automated factories had one large steam engine that drove multiple smaller tools through a system of shafts, pulleys, and belts. As you can imagine this was pretty inefficient what with the wasted energy, not to mention the danger from large moving objects everywhere a worker might turn.

When the first electric motors came along, factory owners simply replaced the big steam engine with a big electric one and there little increase in productivity.

Later, engineers realized that by putting small electric motors in each tool, they could eliminate the complex drive systems and productivity exploded.

So how are you going to use Versiv? Let’s start with an example of a new way of doing things.

On the Road

It’s late afternoon and your team has just finished a job. Now it’s time to grab the testers and head back with the results. So your tech gets in a truck and heads back to the office. Given it’s late in the day, that’s probably going to take a long time in traffic. Did he have to leave early to get back in time? Are you paying him overtime? Just how much is this costing you?

What it Costs

The table below shows what this could be costing you, based on two trips a week, and the IRS estimate of vehicle costs. (Commercial vehicles are likely more). The result is a lot of spending to drive results around, a non-value-adding activity.

Technology is not Efficiency

It’s late afternoon and your team has just finished a job. Now it’s time to grab the testers and head back with the results. So your tech gets in a truck and heads back to the office. Given it’s late in the day, that’s probably going to take a long time in traffic. Did he have to leave early to get back in time? Are you paying him overtime? Just how much is this costing you?

LinkWare Live Eliminates the Drive

LinkWare Live can eliminate that expense and time. With LinkWare Live, you upload results directly from the tester at the jobsite to our cloud service over Wi-Fi. The system automatically assigns results to the right job, even when you move testers around and mix the results up – saving time for your administrator who generates the reports. The whole process takes just a few minutes and burns no gas or rubber.

LinkWare Live Does a Lot More

LinkWare Live does a lot more than just let you upload results. The project manager starts the process by remotely setting up the tests and cable ID’s. Techs at the jobsite download those setups to their tester. As tests are completed, the results are loaded back up to the cloud where the reports administrator can access them using LinkWare PC to generate project documents. At any time, project managers, or even customers, can access the service to check on the progress of the job. The net result is faster setup, fewer mistakes, and faster job completion.

Keep Your Tester Up to Date

LinkWare Live can keep your testers up to date as software and standards change. This typically happens three or four times a year. If you’re testing to the wrong limits, you run the risk of having your results rejected by the customer or perhaps when the customer applies for a manufacturer’s warranty.

The scary fact is that most testers aren’t up to date. Our service center reports that 75% of the units that show up for calibration don’t have the latest software or limits. We update those units, of course, but the fact is that most customers are running this risk.

LinkWare Live users can avoid this liability. Whenever they connect their tester to the cloud service, it checks the software and lets them update it if necessary.

Save up to 35 Hours a Month

When you add it all up, LinkWare Live can prevent a lot of problems that contractors face: testing to the wrong limits, lost test data, consolidating test results, incorrect cable ID’s and more. In a survey of over 800 customers worldwide, they reported spending almost 35 hours a month on problems that LinkWare Live is designed to prevent.

OK, it’s Great, but What Will it Cost Me?

The good news is that there’s not out of pocket expense for LinkWare Live, but there is some work involved. Like the factory story at the beginning, you’ll need to change things a bit to take advantage of LinkWare Live. So, let’s talk about how to get rid of all those belts and pulleys.

The first step is to get leadership and the team committed to the process. Project Managers, Technicians, and Administrators will need to understand what to do to make the implementation a success.

The Adoption Process

Adopting LinkWare Live takes a few weeks. First, you’ll need to figure out who on your team does what and get their buy in. Then, it’s time to create the account and train the team. After that, it’s time to start implementation by picking a project, adding the instructions to the tester bags and start using it. After a couple of weeks, it’s time to check your progress and see how well it’s paying off for your firm.

Step By Step

1. Order Wi-Fi adapters for each Versiv mainframe. You can find them at:

• http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN725N-Wireless-Adapter-150Mbps/dp/B008IFXQFU, or
• http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wi-Fi-Micro-Adapter-WNA1000M/dp/B004VDR37K

2. Assign one of your team the role of the administrator. They will set up the account, and then use LinkWare Live invite the other team members to the account by email. Finally, they will assign the Pro licenses to the Project Managers, which will allow them to set up testers through their accounts.

3. Choose who in your organization will be responsible for the roles and responsibilities below. Most organizations will have multiple Project Managers and Technicians. Some organizations might combine other roles, for example, the two Administrators.

• Owner
  • Get commitment from the team to use LinkWare Live
  • Provide team with equipment needed (WiFi Adapters, hot-spots for data access on job site)
• LinkWare Live Administrator
  • Create and maintaining the LinkWare Live account
  • Adding/Removing users and managing permissions to the account
• Project Manager / Operations Manager
  • Create test setups and cable ids as per spec
  • Track certification job progress
• Technician
  • Download test setups to the tester
  • Upload test results from the tester
• Reports Administrator
  • Download test results from LinkWare Live to create test reports

4. Schedule and hold training. You can access the training materials at www.flukenetworks.com/linkwarelive, under “Resources”. The roles you’ve identified above will require training as shown in the table at right.