TRCS Hiroba User Manual

TRCS Hiroba (“Hiroba”) is a self-hosted facility layout planning tool. It runs on one computer or server inside your facility and is used through a web browser by anyone on your local network — no software is installed on individual devices, and your layout data never leaves your building.

1. Key concepts

Hiroba organizes work in a hierarchy: Facility → Building → Floor → Plan → Option. Your license covers one Facility, which may contain multiple buildings and floors. A Plan is a floor's background (its footprint). An Option is an editable layout placed on a plan — you can have many options per plan to compare ideas.

Scale is the foundation of Hiroba. Every footprint and every piece of equipment is stored at verified real-world size. Whenever geometry enters the system from a CAD file, you confirm its true dimensions before it is saved — see §5.

2. Signing in & roles

Open the address your administrator provides and sign in with your username and password. Two roles exist:

• User — create and edit layouts, build the equipment library, print.
• Admin — everything a user can do, plus manage user accounts, delete library items and options, manage the facility name, and handle licensing.

Change your own password any time from the account controls. Admins can reset passwords for others.

3. Building the facility tree

From the home screen's left panel, add a Building, then a Floor within it, then a Plan on that floor. Give each a clear name (e.g. "Main Plant" → "Production Floor" → "2026 Baseline"). Most facilities are a single building with one floor; the structure supports more when you need it.

4. The equipment library

The equipment library is yours — you build it, and it belongs to your facility. Each item carries: Informal Name, Asset ID, Cost Center, and Functional Location, plus its confirmed width and depth. You can add a simple rectangle manually, or — far better — import the real machine footprint from a DXF file (§5). Library items appear in the editor's tray for placement.

Admins can delete library items; anyone can deactivate an item to remove it from the tray without losing it.

5. Importing from DXF (scale)

Export a DXF from AutoCAD (SAVEAS → DXF) and use Import equipment from DXF (or import a plan footprint). The import wizard has four steps:

• Pick layers — select which layers make up the object; everything else is ignored.
• Calibrate — click two points whose real distance you know (corners snap precisely), then type that distance and choose its unit. This sets the scale exactly the way AutoCAD's "scale by reference" does.
• Cross-check (required) — pick two points on a different feature whose real size you also know (a door ≈ 36″, a column bay, another machine) and enter that size, then click Verify. Hiroba independently confirms the calibrated scale agrees with this second measurement to within 2%. You cannot reuse the calibration points — it must be a genuinely separate measurement.
• Confirm dimensions — Hiroba shows the resulting real-world size (with a bounding-box overlay). You confirm it before anything is saved.

6. The layout editor

Open an option to enter the editor. The canvas is true-to-scale (a 120-inch machine is 120 inches wide). Wheel to zoom, drag empty space to pan, ⛶ Fit to reframe. Drag items from the tray to place them. Select a piece to rotate (R or the 90°/15° buttons), duplicate, or delete (Delete).

7. Options & branches

Full options are complete alternative layouts of a plan — use them for whole-floor studies like material flow or shipping routes. Branch options focus on a region: click ⬚ Branch from selection, drag a box over a work cell, and Hiroba creates a cropped copy of just that area. Duplicate this tab then makes identical copies so you can develop Concept A / B / C of that cell side by side. Tabs across the top switch between all options on a plan.

8. Check-out, saves & versions

A layout is view-only until you check it out (✎ Edit). Check-out is exclusive — others can view and print while you hold it. Save writes a versioned snapshot; Done checks it back in. A forgotten check-out releases automatically after a period of inactivity. Every save is retained, so earlier versions can be restored.

9. Working as a team

Hiroba is multi-user: everyone on your local network works in the same facility through their own sign-in, at the same time. Collaboration is controlled rather than free-for-all — closer to version control than a shared whiteboard — so two people never overwrite each other and the official layout is never changed by accident.

What each role can do

How parallel work stays safe

• Exclusive check-out. Only one person edits a given option at a time (§8); everyone else can still view and print it. Work on different options or branches proceeds in parallel with no collision.
• The Master is protected. A plan's official layout is admin-controlled — users propose changes in their own options or branches, and an admin promotes the chosen one once it's approved.
• Every save is versioned and attributed, so you can see who changed what and restore an earlier version at any time.

A typical day

• Sign in with your own account and open the plan you're working on.
• Create a new option — or Branch from selection to take just your work cell — and ✎ Edit to check it out.
• Drag equipment from the shared library onto the to-scale plan; Save as you go (each save is a version).
• Click Done to check it back in so a teammate can take a turn; print or hand it off for review.
• When the team agrees on a direction, an admin promotes it to the Master — the new official layout.

10. Printing & PDF output

Click 🖶 Print / PDF from the editor. Choose 8.5×11, 11×17, or Arch D (24×36), with an optional full-bleed setting. Hiroba selects the largest standard architectural scale that fits and renders the sheet to true scale, with the title block and an equipment schedule (quantities, asset IDs, cost centers, functional locations, dimensions). Branch options print their focused region.

Every sheet carries a scale-verification ruler at the bottom. After printing on paper, measure it with a physical ruler — if it does not match its marked length exactly, the printer rescaled the sheet and you should reprint at 100%. A placed item whose library entry was deleted prints as a red ⚠ MISSING marker (never a silent placeholder) and is flagged on the schedule.

11. Administration

Admins manage user accounts (create, deactivate, reset passwords, set roles), rename the facility, delete library items and options, and handle licensing. The system prevents removing the last administrator so an install is never locked out.

12. Licensing

Hiroba is licensed per facility. The administrator activates it with a product key (online, or via an offline activation file if your network blocks outside access). If the license cannot be verified within its grace period, or the subscription ends, Hiroba enters read-only mode — you can still view and print existing layouts, but not edit — until it is reactivated. See your administrator and §11 of the Setup Guide.

13. Backups & data

All Hiroba data lives in a single folder on your facility's Hiroba computer. TRCS does not store or have access to your layouts, equipment data, or users.

Admins have a Backup & data panel on the facility home page:

• ⬇ Download backup (.db) — a complete, consistent snapshot of everything (layouts, library, users, history). Save it off this machine on a schedule. This works even in read-only mode.
• ⤓ Restore database… — upload a .db backup to restore the whole system. Hiroba verifies the file and stages it; it is applied (and your current data auto-backed-up first) the next time the service is restarted. Do not hand-copy data.db while the service is running — use this button.
• Export / Import library — move just the equipment library between facilities as a JSON bundle (imports are de-duplicated, so re-importing the same bundle won't create copies).

Your IT department should still schedule a copy of the downloaded backup to off-machine storage. See §5 of the Setup Guide.