Elapsed time between records the thing to do? Please help? (1 Viewer)

jmonica

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Hi,
So here's my dilemma. A few years ago a I created a Db that we use to perform inventories with. A big part of our business is making sure that our counters are keeping up the pace. On average we need a team of two people (One counting, one entering into program) to count 100 lines or records per hour. That's 1.67 records per minute.

On the main data entry form I have a text box that shows their current record count, which obviously increases by with each record that they add. The QTY of the actual items doesn't matter, just the number of records or lines, which is what the box shows.

Now for my problem. I have to come up with a way to indicate to the user (Counter) if they are keeping pace with the 100 line per hour average or if they are falling behind. Ultimately I'd love to be able to show a bar graph and a few controls that show, "Time to enter last item was 3 minutes" or something similar, as well as their average lines or records per hour based on their current pace, etc.. Something like "You are below the average" or better yet, I could just have the line count box turn yellow or red when they fall beneath the 100 per hour average and green when they are meeting or exceeding that average.

After working on this for 2 days I am now back to a blank page and am stuck. My last idea was to calculate the time between the previous record entry and the last or most current entry and do some calculations based on that but my brain is fried. I've been googling and hacking code for 2 days and gotten nowhere with this. Yes, I am new to Access and VBA. I haven't done anything with is since I spent 4 months creating our inventory database program.

Does that sound like the right way to go about this or does anyone have any other ideas on how I might be able to accomplish my goal? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
 
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Uncle Gizmo

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For clarity, when you say a hundred lines or records do you mean entries into a database table?
 

plog

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You are actually talking about 2 different metrics-- comparison of the last 2 items and the average of all items. Which one do you prefer to use?

Actually you could do both: A--One box that shows the overall average since they began working and B--the elapsed time since the last record was entered.

The key to A. is having 2 variables to store data from record to record. One would capture the initial load time of the form, the other would keep a total of records processed. Then everytime the form moves to a new record, subtract the initial load time from the current time and divide by total records to get the average.

For B. you don't really need to store anything, just make it a clock that counts up. Whenever a new record is entered reset it to 0 and then count up every second so the user knows how long its been.

Both displays could us a green/yellow/red system. If metric is faster than expected show in green; if metric is within 10% of goal show yellow, if slower show red.
 
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jmonica

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Yes, I was referring to 100 entries into the DB. Thanks for your helpful reply. You have me steered in the right direction. Now, I just have to figure out how to accomplish it, but that's half the fun!. As long as I know now that someone who knows what they are talking about says that it's doable, I'm going to devote the time to figuring it out. Thanks again for your reply! I appreciate your time.
 

JHB

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Happy you - that they not have been counting how many use able code line you've produced the last 2 days!
Without knowing your business, but with a lot of experiences of counting in connection with balance inventory, it could stress your teams unnecessary and lead to faulty balance sheet, if you introduce such a monitoring system.
It was only my to cent. :)
 

gemma-the-husky

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time to enter last item - set the time when they start, time when they finish. If required store these with the record.

generally - set a "now" indicator time stamp when a record is entered. then you can do a top 100 query of the users records, to find the total time, average time, etc etc,
 

jmonica

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Happy you - that they not have been counting how many use able code line you've produced the last 2 days!
Without knowing your business, but with a lot of experiences of counting in connection with balance inventory, it could stress your teams unnecessary and lead to faulty balance sheet, if you introduce such a monitoring system.
It was only my to cent. :)
Thank you for your input. I appreciate your comments. We've been in this business for over a decade, so I have a fairly good handle on our staff and what they are capable of. We have other methods of ensuring accuracy. Thanks
 

jmonica

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time to enter last item - set the time when they start, time when they finish. If required store these with the record.

generally - set a "now" indicator time stamp when a record is entered. then you can do a top 100 query of the users records, to find the total time, average time, etc etc,

After reading your reply again, I wanted to say "Thanks" again. This is the best answer yet in terms of a good solution. I think this is a great and fairly easy way to do exactly what I need to do without having it get too messy. This is exactly why I come to AWF. The smartest people hang out here and are always helpful. Thanks again!
 

gemma-the-husky

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out of interest, depending on the accuracy you want/need, this gets elapsed time in 1000's of a second


Code:
 Public Declare Function my_gettickcount _
     Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetTickCount" () As Long

timestart = my_gettickcount
do stuff
timeend = my_gettickcount

elapsedtime = (timeend - timestart)/1000 & " seconds"
 

jmonica

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Awesome Thank You!!! I actually just need it down to the minute and second. I plan to have a box with a label that says something like.

"That item took 1 minute and 19 seconds to count" The Minutes and Seconds would each be in a control and reflect the actual time that it took obviously. It's killing me that I can't work on this today. I have another project that I have to finish up first so I can't jump; on this until tomorrow. Thank You again!
 

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