Don't miss two upcoming webinars on SAP Management of Change and on SAP’s Environment Management application and register today.

Achieve transparency and accuracy in your emissions management business process with SAP’s Environment Management application

DATE: Thursday, March 10, 2016, Time: 11:00am EST / 8:00am PST / 5:00pm CET

As the list of stakeholders requesting environmental and sustainability data grows, corporations are challenged with the need to have an accurate, transparent and auditable business process to produce this data. Deploying a global business process to calculate and report your emissions data not only requires the ability to collect operations data in a timely manner, but also requires the ability to estimate/calculate the same data with accuracy and consistency. SAP’s Environment Management application gives customers the ability to collect, calculate and report their emissions data with a global, transparent and auditable business process. This webcast will give you a solution overview and a live demo of the new Emissions Management functionality supported by the SAP Environment Management application. Register Now.

Implementing Management of Change procedures that work

DATE: Wednesday, March 16, 2016, Time: 11:00am EST / 8:00am PST / 5:00pm CET

Companies running Process Safety Management are mandated to have a formal Management of Change (MoC) approach in place, but since regulations are not prescriptive, companies often rely on various disparate procedures including forms being passed around on paper or via email. On the other hand, it has become abundantly clear, that a good MoC system yields great benefits, not only in terms of preventing process industry disasters, but also by eliminating disruptions of any kind that can lead to quality problems, or other commercial losses. In this webinar, we will present how SAP Management of Change makes it easy for users to handle change requests and all associated activities. Companies can set up automatic processes that fit their organization and eliminate ambiguities and tedious tasks for all involved parties. You will also learn about the latest Feature Pack of SAP Management of Change that has been built to significantly reduce the implementation effort and increase the flexibility of the solution even further. Register Now.

If you missed the past webinars of the SAP EAM Webcast Series, you still have the chance to watch a replay of these sessions.

We are looking forward to seeing you online!

Within this blog i intend to make you aware of the fact that setting user status on operation level has never been as easy as in Web User Interface.

In the Web User Interface of EAM you are able:

• to identify the current user status of an order operation via Quick View
• to set a new user status of an order operation as well via the Quick View
• to identify the current user status of an notification task via Quick View
• to set a new user status of an notification task as well via the Quick View

This is possible and as well documented in the  Innovation Discovery

1) Client :  It is the highest hierarchical unit in the SAP system. All areas of an organization that are to be integrated into SAP, should be included under one client.

2) Controlling area : An organization unit within a company used to represent a closed system for cost accounting purpose.A controlling area may include single or multiple company codes that may use different currencies. These company codes must use the same operative chart of accounts. All internal allocations refer exclusively to objects in the same controlling area.

3) Company Code :It is the smallest organizational unit of Financial Accounting for which a complete self-contained set of accounts can be drawn up for purposes of external reporting. This includes recording of all relevant transactions and generating all supporting documents required for financial statements.

4) Maintenance Plant :A Maintenance Plant is an organizational unit within Logistics, serving to subdivide an enterprise according to procurement, maintenance, and materials planning.

5) Maintenance planning plant :Maintenance planning plant is a logical location where the maintenance activities on technical objects are planned. The Maintenance Planner Groups who plan and monitor the maintenance activities are defined at the maintenance planning plants. Maintenance planning plants determine if the maintenance planning is centralized, decentralized or partially centralized.

If maintenance is centralized, then there would be one Maintenance Planning Plant for all the Maintenance Plants. if it is decentralized, then there would be a Maintenance Planning Plant for each Maintenance Plant. if it is partially decentralized, then there would be Maintenance Planning Plants, looking after a few Maintenance Plants each.

Business Process & master data Impacts :

a) Material Planning based on maintenance task lists and maintenance orders

b) Management and scheduling of maintenance plans

c) Creation of maintenance notifications

d) Performance of maintenance orders

e) Location-wise analyses on different performance parameters like costs, downtime's, breakdowns etc. are possible at the Planning Plant level.

f) Definition of technical objects, maintenance task lists etc.

6) Locations : Location is a place in a maintenance plant at which a technical object is physically located. It allows a plant to be classified according to spatial or situation criteria.

Locations are used for informative assignment only. We can only use Locations as a match code or as parameter criteria in reporting.

7) Plant section : Plant sections are processing units/ production areas within a maintenance plant. These are subdivision of maintenance plants. Machines or sets of machines that are represented in the system as pieces of equipment or functional locations are installed in plant sections.

We can indicate the place for which a maintenance task was requested with the plant section. We also, can establish a contact person for Plant Maintenance using the plant section. Plant sections are assigned to Maintenance plants.

8) Maintenance planner groups : A group of employees responsible for planning and processing maintenance tasks in a plant. Planner groups or Maintenance Planner groups must be defined separately for each planning plant. Depending on the size and structure of your company, a maintenance planning group may be an individual department (for central work preparation), a group of Technician or a workshop.

9) Work Center : Work Center is an organizational unit that defines where and when an operation must be performed. The Work Center has an available capacity. The activities performed at or by the Work Center are evaluated by charge rates, which are determined by Cost Centers and Activity types. Centers and Activity types are defined and detailed in Finance & Controlling Module. Work Centers can be: Machines, People, Production lines or Groups of craftsmen.

Thanks for reading through. Please visit http://sapeambook.blogspot.in/

Here is a list of cut-over tasks that should be considered during go-live.

Please contribute:

• Create default variants for selection screens e.g. IW28/9
• Create default layouts for ALV displays e.g. IW38/9
• Strategies for maintenance plans
• Create initial measurement documents which are required for counter based maintenance plans
• Schedule maintenance plans from start-date of go-live
• Number ranges (manual transports)
• Data for application Z tables (i.e. non-customizing tables)
• QuickView/ABAP Query reports
• Transfer open orders/notifications from legacy system to SAP
• Classes & Characteristics (you can ALE these from one system to another)
• Batch programs/interfaces: e.g. schedule background jobs like IP30/CO99/KO8G, custom developed reports/programs, etc.
• Run program RI_IFLOT2IFLOS if you are using alternative labels for functional locations
• Stock levels for maintenance spares
• SmartForm fonts
• Printer settings for barcodes
• Parameter ID settings (transaction SU3)
• User favorite menus (requires Z program)
• User personal lists (requires Z program)
• Selection-variable settings (transaction STVARV )
  

Technical Objects/Master Data :

Technical Object is a generic term for,

                     1)   A component in a technical system on which a maintenance task is performed (functional location).

                     2)  A physical object that is maintained as an autonomous unit (equipment).

In Other words, Technical Object is nothing but an object which requires Maintenance. In Plant maintenance basically there are two main types of Technical Objects.

Technical objects are maintained in the SAP System in separate master records. If you want to represent part of a technical system as a technical object, you can:

    a) Manage individual data.

    b) Perform breakdown, prepared, or planned maintenance tasks.

    c) Record maintenance tasks that have been performed.

    d) Collect and evaluate technical data over long periods of time.

    e) Track the costs of maintenance tasks.

    f) Track which piece of equipment was installed when at which functional location.

1) Functional Location :

The business object functional location is an organizational unit within Logistics, which structures the maintenance objects of a company according to functional, process-related or spatial criteria. A functional location represents the object at which a maintenance task is to be performed. A functional location represents system area at which an object can be installed. The objects that can be installed at functional locations are called Equipment.

You create a functional location in following cases,

a) When you have to perform maintenance task on a particular part of your complete technical system and record the same.

b) When you have to track the maintenance history of a particular technical object.

c) When you want to represent a major equipment which consist of many small equipment.

d) When you have to monitor Maintenance  Cost.

1.1) Functional Location Category : An indicator that let you differentiate functional locations according to how they are used. Each location category required in the system is described using parameters. The number of functional location categories in a system depends on the number of parameter constellations required

1.2) Structure Indicator for Functional Locations : Numbering of functional Locations will be based on the structure indicator. The Structure Indicator defines the format of the code used to describe the Functional Location hierarchy. The Structure Indicator determines the edit mask and the number of the hierarchy levels when you create functional location structures. The edit mask defines:
  a) the total length of the functional location number.
  b) the lengths of the individual blocks of the functional location number.
  c) the characters allowed.

2) Equipment :

Equipment is a representation of every important and expensive  individual component of a machinery such as Pump, Engine, Motor, Tire etc.

The business object "Equipment" is an individual, physical object that is to be maintained

independently. It can be installed in a technical system or part of a technical system. We can manage all types of objects as pieces of equipment. Equipment can also be managed as "assets" in Asset Management.

All types of device as pieces of equipment (for example, production utilities, transportation utilities,test equipment, production resources/tools, buildings, PCs) can be identified as Equipment.

Each piece of equipment is a separate master record and an individual maintenance history can be set for each one. The system manages the master records for pieces of equipment at client level. This means that their numbers are valid for the entire corporate group.

This will facilitate,

     a) Defining breakdown / Preventative maintenance tasks.

     b) Measuring specific parameters.

     c) Classification data.

     d) Collection, evaluation, retrieval of data including cost of maintenance, history and usage.

     e) Spare parts planning.

2.1) Equipment Categories : An indicator used to differentiate pieces of equipment according to its characteristic & usage. In SAP, Equipment categories control the number assignment of Equipment. There are two possible options when you are creating a piece of equipment:

a) Internal number assignment

The numbering shall be internal (SAP generated internal number) and is limited to 18 characters.

b) External number assignment

You can enter your own equipment number as per the configured number ranges in the SPRO settings.

2.2) Technical Object Type  : It is the sub-division of the equipment category, which allows a more detailed description. This allows, grouping of pieces of equipment that have the same use. These object types can be alphanumeric.

3) Bill Of Material :

Bill of material is a term used for spare parts which are to be replaced but no history is to be maintained. There are different types of BOM - Production BOM, Maintenance BOM, Costing BOM, Construction BOM. etc. These types of BOM are used for different purpose based on Enterprise business requirement.

In Plant Maintenance, we use Maintenance BOM which is devided into three subcateogires such as

Functional Location BOM, Equipment BOM and Material BOM.

Other Master data in SAP PM

Other than Functional location, Equipment and Bill of Material, there following important master data items in SAP PM module.

1)Task list : List of maintenance task to be performed by a technician to maintain a particular technical object.

Maintenance Task Lists describe a sequence of individual maintenance activities which must be performed repeatedly within a company. These are the master data for Preventative Maintenance Process. There are three types of maintenance task lists that can be distinguished from one another using indicators:

Equipment Task List

Equipment task lists have a specific link to a piece of equipment. Using equipment task lists,

you can centrally define and manage maintenance tasks for your pieces of equipment.

Functional Location Task List

A functional location task list is assigned to a specific functional location. Using a functional

location task list, you can centrally define and manage maintenance tasks for your functional

location.

General Maintenance Task List

General maintenance task lists are task lists that are used for general maintenance tasks.

They do not refer to a specific technical object. Using general maintenance task lists, you can define and manage sequences of maintenance tasks centrally, and use them for

maintenance planning.

2)Measuring Points : Measuring points are physical and/or logical locations ( of a technical object) at which a particular condition is described − for example, the temperature, pressure etc. You can enter measurement readings for each object to be maintained.

3)Measuring Counters : These are resources that enable you to represent the wear and tear of an technical object or the consumption or reduction in its useful life. E.g. Running hours of a machine, Mileage indicator of a vehicle. You can enter measurement or counter readings for each object to be maintained.

Other items like maintenance plans, measurement documents we will cover in Maintenance planning process page.

4) Catalog profile/Code groups /codes :  Catalog Profile is a combination of code groups from several catalogs. Catalog is a compilation of code groups with related contents.

Code Groups consists of data on problems, damages, causes and Corrective action to be taken or taken is recorded in the system

Codes are the means with which this data is managed in the Plant Maintenance (PM) application components. There is a corresponding code for each set of findings. The codes are grouped together in code groups according to particular characteristics.

5) Warranties : Warranties define the scope of the services that a company performs at a technical object in the event of damage or problems. You can assign warranties to pieces of equipment, functional locations, or serial numbers. When warranty is assigned to a technical object, The system can automatically check when processing a maintenance notification/ order.

6) Classification of Technical Objects : Classification consists of Class and Characteristics. Its basic function is as a repository for all the characteristics the objects can have. These characteristics can then be used to group similar objects together in classes. Classification system is used to maintain technical parameters (as characteristics) of a technical object and to group similar objects in a class. Characteristics will have values for the relevant object. Classification helps in identifying similar objects quickly & easily

Thanks & Best Regards,

Amol Khairnar

SAP EAM - SAP Enterprise Asset Management, SAP Plant Maintenance

SAP EAM team in collaboration with SAP User Experience and Design team is pleased to invite you to the SAP Fiori Customer Co-Innovation Forum Q1/2016. During this forum, various SAP tam would showcase new Fiori Apps developed and released SAP.

SAP EAM team would be presenting the first transactional app to create maintenance request during this virtual event. Customer Co-innovation forum, provides a unique experience of viewing features of new app and provide expert advice to the team about how you would see new app can be further improved. The event has been planned with two time slots so that everyone from SAP eco-system across the globe can participate, learn about new functional enhancements and provide their valuable insights.

Use following link to register for this event.

https://experience.sap.com/participate/fiori-q1-2016-customer-co-innovation-forum/

Even as an experienced SAP GUI User the following happens quite often:

• You choose the an Matchcode but  the result list is empty.
• So use the next one but the result list does not display the object you are searching for.
• Next  matchode now you got similar objects but the result columns does not allow you to distinguish which of the ones is the right object to select
• So you open a new modus to display the details of the object

this is quite frustrating for the end user and leads to the fact that the people do not like how the system is reacting . Observations tell us that User spend up to 30 % of the time with searching the right Equipments, Functional Location, Task List ...

Within the new EAM Web User Interface we have tackled this issue and we found a solution which suits the purpose of the value help much better.

Now you are able to:

• Modern search across different fields like Description, Long text, Planer Group, ...
• Search across different Objects like General Task List, Equipment task List, Functional Location Task List
• Refine the search according criteria
• Define your area of responsibility an prepopulate the search with criteria like plant, Planer Group and object type
• Display more details of the Objects

This is possible now for the following Objects within EAM:

• Functional Location / Equipment
• Task List
• Maintenance Plan
• Maintenance Item
• Notification
• Order
  
  
  

You find this new feature  inInnovation Discovery under the Innovation

"Enterprise search" functionality plus Master Data Information Center within the SAP Enterprise Asset Management solution"

here you find:

• Demo
• Screenshot
• PDF Document summarizing the innovations and how to activate

we hope this suits the users needs much better.

To achieve better return on investment for any equipment, important components of costs along with equipment availability needs to be analyzed and corrective measures needs to be prepared.

For example, a plant may measure types of work (preventive, predictive, failure and modifications), labor and materials to identify important gaps in their maintenace capability. Let us assume that such analysis will provide information that 10% of the work is predictive, 40% is preventive, 30% is unexpected failure and approximately 20% of the PM is short closed each month. Although at high level this may look OK, but there could be huge overlap between preventive and predictive maintenance. Such unintended overlap increases costs and it occurs because of various activities like Preventive Maintenance and Predictive Maintenance are not planned in a unified system.

Most plants can build their PM programs over long period of time. Creation of PMs are done because they are hopped to reduce failure. Over time, these Preventive maintenance plans will grow to include inspections. Plants may observe some high visibility incidence that may require additional PM. The frequency will be set and the PM applied to every piece of equipment that is similar to the one that failed. It is natural that if machine failed, the boss is unhappy, and PM makes the boss less unhappy. Over time, the number of PMs Increases to the point that many aren’t being completed; even with an extensive PM program, there are still failures that can’t be eliminated.

With PM program getting stabilized with addtional failures, plant would begin additionally a PdM program by monitoring a few pieces of highly critical equipment with vibration analysis (where there usually is some success). In most cases these New PdM program also brings in additional benefits and leads to increase that success, the program would grow. If the organization has a lot of support corporately for implementation of PdM, they would typically apply the technology to 50% of their known assets and use all available technologies. To determine how many assets to monitor, the plant should determine how many technologists it can support and then buy the equipment needed to perform the work.

Conclusion: A well planned maintenance strategy needs mix of Preventive and Predictive methodology. Planning these strategy should be clearly documented along with what benefits it would bring in. Maintenance strategies are compiled and corresponding benefits are noted, it can be used along with current performance to identify possible future improvements in the area derive higher utilization of assets..

Dear SCN users,

I have been active on SCN since last one month and I have observed many open threads where experts have given their answers which are correct and helpful but users did not bother to close these threads.

I would like to highlight few benefits of closing threads on time.

1) If you close threads on time, beginners can learn form these threads. Most of beginners they do refer "answered" posts on SCN.

2) if yous issue is not resolved even after multiple experts suggestions, that particular issue can be identified as entity of Continuous improvement and can be logged to influence.sap.com for future development & Patches.SAP Customer Influence: Enterprise Home

3) Updating your thread regularly improves collaboration between all SAP consulting experts across globe and Idea exchange takes place fruitfully.

Likewise there are many helpful returns of being active and careful about your discussion threads.

As a member of this SCN community, I would like to request everyone to follow the SCN rules of engagement properly.

Best Regards,

Amol

Do you have ideas on how SAP can add improvements to Plant Maintenance transactions?

Login with your S-user account and make your request or vote on other peoples request.

https://influence.sap.com/EAMPMPRM

EAM solution helps organizations efficiently and sustainably manage the whole lifecycle of physical assets. Tools for managing production equipment, roads, machinery, vehicles, facilities, and power grids can help them reduce operating costs, minimize risk, and manage capital expenditures more effectively.

In  the area of Enterprise Asset Management SAP just recently kicked off a new customer connection cycle on February 2nd.

The project workspace is now active for collection of improvement requirements until April 16th, 2016

Find more information and additional links here:

https://influence.sap.com/ct/ct_a_view_blog.bix?c=BDCE9FC5-DCD4-45B7-939A-31DC30A49673&bID=916FFD27-3DA7-4D04-8CF3-4D9F13628A54

Dear All,

I have come across one of the good requirement posted on influence.sap.com. ( ID: D10681).

Extend the field code to 8 digits.

Using the Catalog - Code groups in QS41 and QS42, the field code is not supporting that many scada systems sends out alarm codes contaning more than 4 digits.

Extending the code field will support the use of interfaces from external systems creating notificaitons in SAP PM. Then there is no need for creating conversion rules to get the interfaces to work.

Requested release*

SAP ERP 6.0 EhP7

Describe current pain points and obstacles

Conversion rules is need for getting the interfaces from external systems to work when catalog - code groups are used in SAP to reflect the alarm codes send from external systems into SAP.

You can follow this request on the link mentioned below.

https://influence.sap.com/D10681

Regards,

Amol Khairnar

While the topic of predictive maintenance (PdM) receives heightened recognition, because of new IIoT-enabled machine intelligence, it can be easy to get trapped in the belief that PdM and Asset Performance Management (APM) are the same.

It is understandable, because definitions around APM can be vastly different, depending upon who is supplying the definition. However, by most accounts, PdM focuses on the predictability of potential asset failure and equipment reliability, where APM looks at risk factors and performance interdependencies beyond the machines.

According to ARC's definition for APM, "Asset performance has many dimensions including financial, health & safety, environmental, and sustainability.  Achieving these goals requires a collaborative effort by all groups involved in the use and care of the facility to manage the interdependencies that constrain performance.  To do this, they need an asset information management system that can deliver complete, accurate, timely information to APM workflows and enable seamless sharing of information across all APM stakeholders, internal or external to the organization."

Consistent with ARC's approach for APM, Asset-intensive industries like Oil and Gas, have always focused on the much bigger operating picture, by incorporating people, process, and assets into a well-defined, highly efficient, and proactive holistic management approach known as Operational Integrity.

While it would be silly not to acknowledge that improved machine connectivity and intelligence does positively impact PdM operations, it would be equally naive to presume that improved machine intelligence alone, provides the greatest overall business value for Asset Performance Management.

Looking closer at ARC's definition of Asset Performance Management,  let's focus on three of the areas they consider as critical success factors:

1) " manage the interdependencies that constrain performance."

2) " deliver complete, accurate, timely information to APM workflows."

3) "seamless sharing of information across all APM stakeholders, internal or external to the organization."

Manage Interdependencies that Constrain Performance

Until the day arrives, when machines operate other machines without people, Companies must manage the risk and performance dependencies, between how their people, processes, and equipment work together. While machine automation is eliminating many jobs, many of these machines still involve workers tied into other processes and performance dependencies beyond the machines  Whether a machine stops from a mechanical failure or, due to a related employee or environmental safety incident, the result is the same for a company- lost productivity and added cost. The same applies, when that same equipment is subject to local operating permits for reporting air emissions or Wastewater. Failure to comply with operating permits can result in a company losing its license to operate, and if not managed efficiently, the permits process can be quite costly to administer for these businesses.  Not fully capturing, analyzing and managing risk and performance dependencies, between machines, people, and processes, place a company's operations at risk and increases operating costs. When most catastrophic failures occur, it is when multiple and seemingly unrelated factors and processes fail together.

Moreover, as we move forward, a larger part of a company's future asset performance management strategy must be tied to the recruitment, training and retention of its workforce. Manufacturers face two significant challenges impacting its future operations- a knowledgeable workforce leaving the market and the need for a new generation of workers and skills sets required to run the digitize manufacturing operations of the future. How well a company is able to balance these two shifting market dynamics will ultimately impact the success of its future operations.

Deliver complete, accurate, timely information to APM workflows

While the term Integration often is overused, what separates genuinely integrated solutions from non-integrated reporting based solutions, is the ability to trigger a meaningful workflow.

In the prior example, let's suppose that an accident occurred, which resulted in damage to the equipment and an employee injury.

From a required workflow perspective, new actions need triggering to document and correct that occurrence.

• The incident and factors leading up to that incident need capturing.
• All the associated financial costs, involving the people and impacted equipment need to be captured, documented and updated.
• Based upon the severity of the incident, OSHA incident reports may need to be created and filed.
• New maintenance requests need to be generated to initiate and generate the required work orders.
• The maintenance work needs to be scheduled and include repair and safety instructions for the workers for fixing that specific piece of equipment.
• Spare parts may be required, and parts inventory needs checking and potentially updated.
• Companies might not have the right technician skills in-house to repair the equipment, so they may have to look outside the company for contract labor.

       and etc., etc.

Supported by predefined business rules and integrated digitized systems, between maintenance, finance, HR, procurement and EH&S related processes, the system can automatically trigger any new required workflow. In the absence, of having this integration,  APM related procedures would need to be separately managed, which increases operating costs and the risk of non-compliance with company operating policies and regulatory reporting requirements. Well-defined end to end processes, fully supported by digitized, integrated systems, reduces operating costs and improves APM joint business collaboration within and outside the company.

Seamless sharing of information across all APM stakeholders, internal or external to the organization 

The part of the statement above, I will focus on, is related to sharing information "external to the organization."  In the digital economy, companies must think and operate more broadly. Business processes, including APM, are increasingly becoming intertwined with an organization's business ecosystem. Companies must learn to manage their business as part of a larger network and APM is no different.  Being able to operate successfully and leverage a company's entire business ecosystem is why having a digitized operating core is so critical. A digital operating core empowers companies to create the right kinds of connection points that seamlessly integrate internal and external stakeholders, supporting APM processes, across an enterprise's entire extended supply chain.

While improved machine intelligence, Big Data, and the IIoT are very positive developments for PdM operations, PdM by itself, can't sufficiently address the other non-machine related risk and performance interdependencies, required for overall APM success.

I invite you to learn more, by attending one of our upcoming conferences, where SAP customers will be sharing their best practices for holistically managing APM and EH&S related processes.

• SAP EAM-Centric
• TA Cook EHS Conference
• Chemical Best Practice Conference

We look forward to meeting with you and helping you on your digital journey.

1) Client :  It is the highest hierarchical unit in the SAP system. All areas of an organization that are to be integrated into SAP, should be included under one client.

2) Controlling area : An organization unit within a company used to represent a closed system for cost accounting purpose.A controlling area may include single or multiple company codes that may use different currencies. These company codes must use the same operative chart of accounts. All internal allocations refer exclusively to objects in the same controlling area.

3) Company Code :It is the smallest organizational unit of Financial Accounting for which a complete self-contained set of accounts can be drawn up for purposes of external reporting. This includes recording of all relevant transactions and generating all supporting documents required for financial statements.

4) Maintenance Plant :A Maintenance Plant is an organizational unit within Logistics, serving to subdivide an enterprise according to procurement, maintenance, and materials planning.

5) Maintenance planning plant :Maintenance planning plant is a logical location where the maintenance activities on technical objects are planned. The Maintenance Planner Groups who plan and monitor the maintenance activities are defined at the maintenance planning plants. Maintenance planning plants determine if the maintenance planning is centralized, decentralized or partially centralized.

If maintenance is centralized, then there would be one Maintenance Planning Plant for all the Maintenance Plants. if it is decentralized, then there would be a Maintenance Planning Plant for each Maintenance Plant. if it is partially decentralized, then there would be Maintenance Planning Plants, looking after a few Maintenance Plants each.

Business Process & master data Impacts :

a) Material Planning based on maintenance task lists and maintenance orders

b) Management and scheduling of maintenance plans

c) Creation of maintenance notifications

d) Performance of maintenance orders

e) Location-wise analyses on different performance parameters like costs, downtime's, breakdowns etc. are possible at the Planning Plant level.

f) Definition of technical objects, maintenance task lists etc.

6) Locations : Location is a place in a maintenance plant at which a technical object is physically located. It allows a plant to be classified according to spatial or situation criteria.

Locations are used for informative assignment only. We can only use Locations as a match code or as parameter criteria in reporting.

7) Plant section : Plant sections are processing units/ production areas within a maintenance plant. These are subdivision of maintenance plants. Machines or sets of machines that are represented in the system as pieces of equipment or functional locations are installed in plant sections.

We can indicate the place for which a maintenance task was requested with the plant section. We also, can establish a contact person for Plant Maintenance using the plant section. Plant sections are assigned to Maintenance plants.

8) Maintenance planner groups : A group of employees responsible for planning and processing maintenance tasks in a plant. Planner groups or Maintenance Planner groups must be defined separately for each planning plant. Depending on the size and structure of your company, a maintenance planning group may be an individual department (for central work preparation), a group of Technician or a workshop.

9) Work Center : Work Center is an organizational unit that defines where and when an operation must be performed. The Work Center has an available capacity. The activities performed at or by the Work Center are evaluated by charge rates, which are determined by Cost Centers and Activity types. Centers and Activity types are defined and detailed in Finance & Controlling Module. Work Centers can be: Machines, People, Production lines or Groups of craftsmen.

Thanks for reading through. Please visit http://sapeambook.blogspot.in/

Scenario

You wan to know the currently assigned "Number Range number" to a particular task list type.

Introduction on Number ranges for Task lists in SAP PM :

There are majorly 3 task list types used in PM module such as

A - General task list - External Number range possible ( T-code - OIL4 for defining Internal/External Number range)

T - Functional location task list - External number range NOT possible in standard SAP. ( T-code - OIL5 for defining internal Number range)

E - Equipment task list - External number range NOT possible in standard SAP. ( T-code - OIL0 for defining internal Number range)

( Note : This blog is intended for scenario statement mentioned on top. For more information on Number ranges please refer an excellent document written by Sir Jogeswara Rao.Want to learn about Number Ranges?)

Question :

How will you know NR number assigned to a Task list Type in SAP PM?

Answer :

Option 1 - By going to OIL4/OIL5/OIL0

Lets take an example you want to identify active internal number rage for General Maintenance task list. Go to OIL4 transaction. Here If you click on "NR Status" button, you will see list of all existing Number ranges available for that particular task list type. By looking at NR status column, you can guess which Number range is active currently. But challenge comes in picture when you see more than one Number range is having used numbers in number ranges as shown in following screen.

Work-around - Go to IA05, create a general task list, if your group number is taken as 100005, you can assume NR number 03 is currently active. If your group number is taken as 49, you can assume NR number 01 is currently active for task list type A.

Option 2 - By following SPRO path for Routings

This is more accurate and less time consuming way to identify the NR number assignment for your task list type. Go to SPRO menu path mentioned below.

Production - Basic Data - Routing - Control Data - Maintain Task List Types and Set SET/GET Parameters

Here if you execute Maintain Task List Types and Set SET/GET Parameters you will be asked to enter a task list type as below. Enter task list type ( example A in our case) & Click  on continue button.

In above picture, you can see that internal NR number 01 is currently active for Task list type A.

Thanks & Regards,

Amol Khairnar.

Technical Objects/Master Data :

Technical Object is a generic term for,

                     1)   A component in a technical system on which a maintenance task is performed (functional location).

                     2)  A physical object that is maintained as an autonomous unit (equipment).

In Other words, Technical Object is nothing but an object which requires Maintenance. In Plant maintenance basically there are two main types of Technical Objects.

Technical objects are maintained in the SAP System in separate master records. If you want to represent part of a technical system as a technical object, you can:

    a) Manage individual data.

    b) Perform breakdown, prepared, or planned maintenance tasks.

    c) Record maintenance tasks that have been performed.

    d) Collect and evaluate technical data over long periods of time.

    e) Track the costs of maintenance tasks.

    f) Track which piece of equipment was installed when at which functional location.

1) Functional Location :

The business object functional location is an organizational unit within Logistics, which structures the maintenance objects of a company according to functional, process-related or spatial criteria. A functional location represents the object at which a maintenance task is to be performed. A functional location represents system area at which an object can be installed. The objects that can be installed at functional locations are called Equipment.

You create a functional location in following cases,

a) When you have to perform maintenance task on a particular part of your complete technical system and record the same.

b) When you have to track the maintenance history of a particular technical object.

c) When you want to represent a major equipment which consist of many small equipment.

d) When you have to monitor Maintenance  Cost.

1.1) Functional Location Category : An indicator that let you differentiate functional locations according to how they are used. Each location category required in the system is described using parameters. The number of functional location categories in a system depends on the number of parameter constellations required

1.2) Structure Indicator for Functional Locations : Numbering of functional Locations will be based on the structure indicator. The Structure Indicator defines the format of the code used to describe the Functional Location hierarchy. The Structure Indicator determines the edit mask and the number of the hierarchy levels when you create functional location structures. The edit mask defines:
  a) the total length of the functional location number.
  b) the lengths of the individual blocks of the functional location number.
  c) the characters allowed.

2) Equipment :

Equipment is a representation of every important and expensive  individual component of a machinery such as Pump, Engine, Motor, Tire etc.

The business object "Equipment" is an individual, physical object that is to be maintained independently. It can be installed in a technical system or part of a technical system. We can manage all types of objects as pieces of equipment. Equipment can also be managed as "assets" in Asset Management.

All types of device as pieces of equipment (for example, production utilities, transportation utilities,test equipment, production resources/tools, buildings, PCs) can be identified as Equipment.

Each piece of equipment is a separate master record and an individual maintenance history can be set for each one. The system manages the master records for pieces of equipment at client level. This means that their numbers are valid for the entire corporate group. This will facilitate,

     a) Defining breakdown / Preventative maintenance tasks.

     b) Measuring specific parameters.

     c) Classification data.

     d) Collection, evaluation, retrieval of data including cost of maintenance, history and usage.

     e) Spare parts planning.

2.1) Equipment Categories : An indicator used to differentiate pieces of equipment according to its characteristic & usage. In SAP, Equipment categories control the number assignment of Equipment. There are two possible options when you are creating a piece of equipment:

a) Internal number assignment

The numbering shall be internal (SAP generated internal number) and is limited to 18 characters.

b) External number assignment

You can enter your own equipment number as per the configured number ranges in the SPRO settings.

2.2) Technical Object Type  : It is the sub-division of the equipment category, which allows a more detailed description. This allows, grouping of pieces of equipment that have the same use. These object types can be alphanumeric.

3) Bill Of Material :

Bill of material is a term used for spare parts which are to be replaced but no history is to be maintained. There are different types of BOM - Production BOM, Maintenance BOM, Costing BOM, Construction BOM. etc. These types of BOM are used for different purpose based on Enterprise business requirement.

In Plant Maintenance, we use Maintenance BOM which is devided into three subcateogires such as

Functional Location BOM, Equipment BOM and Material BOM.

Other Master data in SAP PM

Other than Functional location, Equipment and Bill of Material, there following important master data items in SAP PM module.

1)Task list : List of maintenance task to be performed by a technician to maintain a particular technical object.

Maintenance Task Lists describe a sequence of individual maintenance activities which must be performed repeatedly within a company. These are the master data for Preventative Maintenance Process. There are three types of maintenance task lists that can be distinguished from one another using indicators:

Equipment Task List

Equipment task lists have a specific link to a piece of equipment. Using equipment task lists,

you can centrally define and manage maintenance tasks for your pieces of equipment.

Functional Location Task List

A functional location task list is assigned to a specific functional location. Using a functional

location task list, you can centrally define and manage maintenance tasks for your functional

location.

General Maintenance Task List

General maintenance task lists are task lists that are used for general maintenance tasks.

They do not refer to a specific technical object. Using general maintenance task lists, you can define and manage sequences of maintenance tasks centrally, and use them for

maintenance planning.

2)Measuring Points : Measuring points are physical and/or logical locations ( of a technical object) at which a particular condition is described − for example, the temperature, pressure etc. You can enter measurement readings for each object to be maintained.

3)Measuring Counters : These are resources that enable you to represent the wear and tear of an technical object or the consumption or reduction in its useful life. E.g. Running hours of a machine, Mileage indicator of a vehicle. You can enter measurement or counter readings for each object to be maintained.

Other items like maintenance plans, measurement documents we will cover in Maintenance planning process page.

4) Catalog profile/Code groups /codes :  Catalog Profile is a combination of code groups from several catalogs. Catalog is a compilation of code groups with related contents.

Code Groups consists of data on problems, damages, causes and Corrective action to be taken or taken is recorded in the system

Codes are the means with which this data is managed in the Plant Maintenance (PM) application components. There is a corresponding code for each set of findings. The codes are grouped together in code groups according to particular characteristics.

5) Warranties : Warranties define the scope of the services that a company performs at a technical object in the event of damage or problems. You can assign warranties to pieces of equipment, functional locations, or serial numbers. When warranty is assigned to a technical object, The system can automatically check when processing a maintenance notification/ order.

6) Classification of Technical Objects : Classification consists of Class and Characteristics. Its basic function is as a repository for all the characteristics the objects can have. These characteristics can then be used to group similar objects together in classes. Classification system is used to maintain technical parameters (as characteristics) of a technical object and to group similar objects in a class. Characteristics will have values for the relevant object. Classification helps in identifying similar objects quickly & easily

Thanks & Best Regards,

Amol Khairnar

SAP EAM - SAP Enterprise Asset Management, SAP Plant Maintenance

SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition, delivers on the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data with out-of-the-box business applications to improve the health of assets and optimize their operation and servicing.

It runs on an extendable, high-performing data processing platform, which can process huge amounts of fused Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) data using sophisticated machine learning algorithms. The standard product offers a flexible extensibility concept that allows you to adopt the capabilities you need.

SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition, brings the power of Big Data and IoT into existing service processes to enable manufacturers of equipment to provide differentiating and higher margin service offerings to their customers and at the same time improve product quality by better understanding root causes of failures.

The IoT Applications of Asset Health Control Center and Asset Health Factsheet comprise the main components of SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition.

The Asset Health Control Center allows users to analyze a ‘fleet’ of assets to monitor health and prevent failures and initiate preventive counter measures that trigger service or maintenance notifications, orders or requests to enable a closed-loop maintenance and service process.

The Asset Health Factsheet provides a 360° view on a single asset. Together they provide the holistic management of asset health and decision support for maintenance schedules and resources optimization based on health scores, anomaly detection, spectral analysis and machine learning.

Operationalized Analytics and Data Science Services

Insight Providers are micro-services that provide analytical and predictive functionalities that are consumed by applications and are shipped as part of the SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition. Insight Providers consume data from the fusion services and implement the business logic to expose the insights. Customers can productize their domain knowledge as custom Insight Providers to enhance their competitive edge.

Applications are the user interaction shell or ‘mash-ups’ of Insight Providers, which each have one particular functionality, their own UI, and are technically built as stand-alone “micro services”. Customers or partners can develop custom applications and custom Insight Providers on top of the open and extensible SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition platform.

SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition, is a scalable, extensible and integrated solution built on a high-performing big data platform that provides:

• IoT connectivity to enable device management, monitoring and data transfer utilizing various protocols
• Scalable and cost-effective storage for time series data, cleansing and management utilizing ‘schema-on-read’ which results in minimum effort and maximum flexibility when uploading data
• Distributed and fault-tolerant processing of batch and streaming data in analyses
• IoT base services that includes sophisticated predictive modeling and analysis tools for the whole lifecycle of dealing with statistical models, discovering the data, “learning” such models, relearning them and scoring assets
• Process integration with existing business systems to drive insight to action

SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service, on-premise edition, goes far beyond traditional products and offers a rich set of analytical features, machine learning capabilities and functions for display to apply predictive insights in real time to optimize asset maintenance and servicing. The integration into SAP’s business suite makes it unique and offers customers a complete process from Thing to Insight to Action.

For more, please have a look at:

• Solution Brief
• Solution Video
• Customer Story: Kaeser Kompressoren
• Customer Video: Kaeser Kompressoren
• Customer Video: Trenitalia

Hello Friends again,

Thought of preserving a solution evolved while helping a member in a recent discussion

Objective:

To Control Order Release Authorizations using user-exit IWO10002 .

Order Releasing authorities at various levels will have their own limits for Releasing an Order (sometimes called DOP or Delegation Of Powers). Here we are discussing a situation where the Plan Costs should not go beyond the respective limits assigned to the users for Releasing an Order.

The Solution:

Step1

Create a Ztable (say ZPLANCOST) wtih TMG (Table Maintenance Generator to update the Table Entries)

Do not forget to enter the currency Reference fields as shown below.

Step2

Have the entries, UserIds vs the Allowed limit of Plan Costs for Release. like shown below

Step3

Put this code in include ZXWO1U02of user-exit IWO10002.Tv_stat

With this code in place, when the user ABCD_EFGH tries to release an Order (with CRTD status) where the Plan Cost is more than 5000 the system will throw below error (when clicked on REL flag).

Means the user ABCD_EFGH will not be able to release the Order.

Step4

We are talking about Plan costs, means we are talking about things after the Order is Saved. If someone tries to Release at the time of Order creation itself with excessive plan costs the code will not stop.

For  this purpose we need to put the following code in the include ZXWOCU07 of user-exit IWO10009, which stops the user from Releasing an Order during its Creation (IW31).

DATA: v_stat TYPE char1.
SELECT SINGLE iphas FROM afih INTO v_stat WHERE aufnr = caufvd_imp-aufnr.
IF v_stat = '0'.   DATA:v_cost     TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt      TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt01    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt02    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt03    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt04    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt05    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt06    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt07    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt08    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt09    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt10    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt11    TYPE bp_wpl,        v_wrt12    TYPE bp_wpl.
SELECT SINGLE cost FROM zplancost INTO v_cost WHERE uname = sy-uname.
SELECT SINGLE wrt01 wrt02 wrt03 wrt04 wrt05 wrt06 wrt07 wrt08 wrt09 wrt10 wrt11 wrt12
FROM pmco INTO ( v_wrt01, v_wrt02, v_wrt03, v_wrt04, v_wrt05, v_wrt06, v_wrt07, 
v_wrt08, v_wrt09, v_wrt10, v_wrt11, v_wrt12 ) WHERE  objnr = caufvd_imp-objnr AND 
wrttp = '01'.    v_wrt = v_wrt01 + v_wrt02 + v_wrt03 + v_wrt04 + v_wrt05 + v_wrt06 + v_wrt07 + v_wrt08 +  v_wrt09 + v_wrt10 + v_wrt11 + v_wrt12.
ENDIF.
IF v_wrt > v_cost.   MESSAGE: 'Plan costs exceed your DOP limit, Order can not be released.' TYPE 'E' DISPLAY LIKE 'I'.
ENDIF.

This throws the error below if some one tries to do so.

Note

Because we have TMG for Ztable, we will be able to maintain the Table entries in the Ztable (Add, Modify or Delete) in PRD client through SM30.

This solution evolved while my answering the discussion Using Permits to form Release Strategy   But the code in the present blog has been improvised to take care of more possibilities of Plan costs.

Conclusion

• I feel that one valuable thing in the above code is when a member studies and understands the code, he/she understands the table PMCO and its cost fields.
  
• These solutions often become significant not for their being able to directly applying and resolving issues, but for triggering ideas and adopting them to our own similar issues. So look for the applications in your own area which could make use of the above solution.

Regards

KJogeswaraRao

Preface

As a functional, its always important to know the tables in SAP. Specifically when it comes to support projects, it becomes more challenging to find the exact table where your transaction data gets stored. There is an excellent document by Maria on this topic.How to find ABAP Tables and Fields

Through this blog, I would like to share one simple way to know the tables which get populated when you perform any transaction in SAP.

What do you need to know?

You just need to know Archiving objects in SAP PM/EAM. I have listed them as below

Scenario

For analysis on some issue, you want to know all CO tables which are updated once you do Time confirmation OR perform goods issue against an order?

Lets find it using SARA

1) Execute T-code SARA

2) Enter Archiving object PM_ORDER. Press Enter & Click on Database tables.

3) As shown in above screen, you will see two radio buttons Tables with deletion& All tables.Check & Browse the list of tables for relevant information based on table descriptions. In our example scenario, we need to know CO tables. Following screenshot shows some of the CO tables. LIkewise you can scroll down for more list of tables. & check these tables in another session by accesing SE16N transaction.

Advantages of using SARA for finding the tables

1) As a functional, you can troubleshoot any process related issues, by checking its relevant tables from the complete list using SARA

2) If you are writing a Functional Specs, you can get detailed information on table & articulate your FS in order to have effective & time saving communication

3) Easy way to find object linked tables when it comes to cross-modules integration.

4) As shown in above screenshot, you can take a backup for these list of tables for your future reference.

Hope you find it useful for your day to day activities in your SAP projects.

Good Luck.

Best Regards,

Amol

Dear Friends,

Today I am having another piece of knowledge to preserve which is a non-routine solution worked-out while trying to help one amongst us. Let's see the What and Hows about it.

Objective

Our friend has configured a Measuring Point Category 'C'. He wants the system should allow users to Create (IK01) only Measuring Points but not Counters.

What is the issue?

Functionally this looks very much possible through the Customizing tcode OIMRC  where we can hide fields using MeasPointCategory  as the Influencing field. So he selected Hide radio-button for field IMPT-INDCT (MeasPoint is counter) for the influencing field value as category 'C' .

You might have understood that the whole exercise is to hide the Counter checkbox from IK01 initial screen. 

The result (The issue).

The Checkbox disappears only after we fill the MPT category (C) and click on the refresh button in the application toolbar of IK01 initial screen. Means user is free to create the Counter on any Mpt category inspite of efforts to hide the Counter checkbox through customizing.

So how do we achieve this?

First I explored the available IMRC user-exits but none was found fitting into this need. Then I though to explore the Implicit Enhancement Point in the IK01 program namely SAPLIMR0. After few minutes of working, I could succeed.

Here is the Solution

I created an Enhancement named ZPM_INDCT  at Line3  in the include LIMR0F18  (of the above program i.e., SAPLIMR0).. Then I put a simple code shown below  and activated the enhancement.

IF impt-mptyp = 'C' and impt-indct = 'X'.

   MESSAGE: 'Creating Measuring Point as Counter is prohibited' type 'E'.

ENDIF.

With this code in place, when user tries to Enter inside the IK01 Create screen with Tick in the Counter checkbox and with vale 'C'  in the MeasPtCategory field, he gets an error pop-up shown below and he will have to exit, rerun IK01 and correct himself.

It is a very simple job for a beginner of ABAP. . For the convenience of implementation I am giving herewith  the implementation screen of the Include.

So that's all. Hope this piece of knowledge will be found of help to few members.

Author's other posts

Regards

KJogeswaraRao