Gantt Chart Display Clarifies Timing Issues for PartLife Program

PartLife is a program created to track the service life of race car parts. To do this properly, a number of different events must be recorded. When the car runs laps at a track, we need to record when that was and at which track. For the parts, we need to know when they were installed and when they were removed, and to which car or assembly. Of course parts can be installed on sub-assemblies, which are installed on sub-assemblies, and so forth until the assembly is finally installed on the car.

Imagine the complexity when different people are logging the car events, the assembly events and the part events. While PartLife does a faithful job of applying the miles from the car to the assemblies and on to the parts, it was easy for the events to be mismatched due to faulty record keeping or error during data entry.

When an error was detected, deciding where it was made and correcting it was possible but not trivial due to the potentially long chains of install events. What was needed was some technique for displaying the events relative to each other both in time and in the installed hierarchy. The phGantt tool provided a solution that fit well in our design and was implemented with a relatively small amount of code due to the built in properties, methods and behaviors of the control.

There’s a lot to look at in the sample form above, but that’s the nature of the problem being solved. First, at the top of the chart, there are rows representing the various chassis and configurations of those chassis. Exposed here is the Oval configuration of chassis AFX-01. The red bars indicate when each chassis/configuration ran laps. By reviewing this chart is it possible for the race engineer to check that the track sessions were all recorded at the correct time for the correct chassis.

Below the chassis, are assemblies and parts that may be installed directly to the chassis. The components of an assembly are contained within the assembly. In this example, Axle Assembly Rear serial number 01 is expanded. The dark blue color indicates the component is an assembly, the lighter blue indicates component parts. Every component part that may be used in the assembly is shown under the assembly. This permits the engineer to see not only which parts are installed currently, but also what his options are for replacing the part. Note that the total miles run for each part is shown in the column next to the part name and serial number to the left of the form.

Parts that are currently installed on the assembly are shown in medium blue, while the light blue color indicates that part is not installed on this assembly. It may however be installed on another assembly. Clicking on the bar will pop a tool tip box with the installation information for the component – when installed, what installed on, when removed, number of miles run.

The blue bars start and end when the part is installed or removed from an assembly. If a part is not installed anywhere, it will have no bar on this chart, but it’s row will still be present. The yellow bars represent track activity that is passed from the chassis to the assemblies and/or the parts. By glancing at this chart the engineer can tell which parts were installed when to which assembly and see where the component received use.

If an error is made, double installations of the same part will appear as two overlapping bars on the chart. A missing component will be apparent because there is no bar on the chart for a part of that type.

To further facilitate the maintenance of the data, changes to the underlying data can be made directly on this Gantt form, either by dragging the bars or by right clicking and entering data in the editing form that is presented.

For further information regarding ARS contact:

Carey J. Parks, Advanced Racing Systems