Legislation demands that an engineer must track and record any movement of refrigerant gas in an official logbook. There also needs to be a back-office system that shows all the work completed on equipment.
Says Greg Hill, Principal Consultant at Joblogic: “While it is possible to record work completed on paper-based systems this can be time consuming and lead to errors when a second person inputs the data into the back-office system. With each piece of equipment and all the cylinders having their own logbooks, it can take time to find all the necessary paperwork, discover what needs completing on an asset, do the work and then fill in each of the logbooks with all the correct information.
“Using the Refcom F-Gas Tracking Module, the engineer will know what work they need to do before they arrive to ensure that they have the right tools and equipment to get it right first time. Having completed the work they simply input the relevant information into the Joblogic Refcom App on their phone or tablet which will then automatically populate the online logbooks and the back-office systems to save time and avoid any errors.”
Further time savings are possible if a company decides to use QR codes to identify individual assets within an HVAC system since the engineer can then simply scan the equipment to find out about its service history and the work that needs doing. This will also automatically find the form for that asset to make it easier and faster to complete and record the job. With each asset in a system having its own logbook, automating the track and trace system will save hours of time so that the engineer can complete more work.
Says Graeme Fox, Head of Technical for Refcom: “We wanted a software system that would report data straight into the correct forms to ensure compliance. We also wanted to make the task simpler and faster for our members and take advantage of all the technology that is available to ensure accurate track and trace, such as for example using QR codes.
“It is vital that HVAC engineers are fully compliant with F-Gas legislation and there have been occasions where data has been missed or the logbook has been incorrectly filled in so that a job was not compliant. This is generally an honest mistake and people may not even realise that they have not met the legislative needs.”
All Refcom members will receive a free user licence for the new software module which includes a back-office reporting system, logbooks and the facility to add the mobile app for an engineer. This allows an organisation to plan and schedule future maintenance work and customise and produce reports in whatever format they want.
Related tags: HVAC