Chapter 2. Assets 23 2.3.1 Meters and meter groups You can create meters and meter groups in the Meters application and then within the Item Master application, associate a meter to an item or a meter group on a rotating item. As mentioned in 2.3, “ Meters” on page 22, meters can be of three types: continuous ( kilometers life- to- date, liters consumed), gauge ( a temperature reading), and characteristic ( a color, a vibration level, a sound level). When you associate a continuous meter to an item and then issue the item to a work order, asset, or location, IBM Maximo Asset Management updates the associated asset or location record with the quantity that was issued and decreases the storeroom balance of that item. ( This process happens only when the meter on the item matches the meter on the asset or location.) For example, you might have FUEL defined as a meter and GASOLINE as an item. Within Item Master, you can associate the meter FUEL to the item GASOLINE. When you issue fuel for an asset, such as a truck, IBM Maximo Asset Management decreases the balance of the fuel in the storeroom by the amount issued, and in the Assets application on the Meters tab, you can see that the amount of fuel issued to the truck increases by the issued amount. This approach allows you to track fuel consumption for that asset. With MILES for example, you can track the life- to- date of a vehicle and its consumption average of miles that a vehicle uses by day or by month. To do that, when associating with an Asset, you have to specify an Average Calculation Method of SLIDING- DAYS and specify the Sliding Window Size. The two methods to calculate an average can be by using the last readings ( sliding- readings) or by the last days ( sliding- days). In both cases, you specify the quantity of days or the reading in the field Sliding Window Size, as shown in the example in Figure 2- 12. Figure 2- 12 Average Calculation Method on Assets application The field Average Units/ Day indicates the average in the period that is specified as the Sliding Window Size; the Life to Date for Asset field indicates the sum of all readings, such as the odometer of a car for example.