Plant Maintenance Basics

SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) Overview

SAP Plant Maintenance is a core SAP ERP module, integrated into the logistics chain of the R/3 System, that helps management and performance of maintenance tasks, including:

• Representing organizational structures within maintenance
• Representing and managing maintenance objects in detail
• Planning and processing maintenance tasks in detail:

1. Inspection ; Determining the actual condition of a technical system
2. Preventive maintenance ; Maintaining the ideal condition of a technical system
3. Repair ; Restoring the ideal condition of a technical system
4. Constructing and modifying technical systems

• Processing external services.
• Performing cost planning and determination
• Recording important data and enabling a maintenance information system 

What are the Benefits of SAP PM?

SAP PM can consolidate all inspections, supplemental work, and corrective work into one common, standardized corporate-wide maintenance management system.

- Improved visibility enables drive towards planned and preventive maintenance.

• Integration with MM, FI/CO and HR/CATS captures cost information directly to the Work Order without rekeying, interfaces or validation errors.
• Integrated processes automate reserving inventory and purchasing goods or services. 

     - Increase procurement process efficiency, more control of availability of materials and purchased services.

• Equipment information can be standardized so that consistent data is being collected and maintained.
• Preventive Maintenance inspections and procedures can be standardized so that a consistent process is used throughout the corporation and like-for-like analysis can be performed.

     - Standardized like-for-like reporting , basis for rolling out best practice and tracking          compliance

• Complete picture of costs and failures associated with an Asset.

      - Full cost visibility, powerful tool for decision whether to maintain or replace.

• Planning of the work order will support improved utilization of both internal and external resources.

SAP PM Structure Overview

SAP PM can be thought of as having three major sub-modules or processes.

SAP Plant Maintenance Terms

• Functional Location - An organizational unit in Logistics that structures the maintenance objects of a company according to functional, process-oriented, or spatial criteria. 
• Equipment - Individual, physical object that is maintained independently
• Bill of Materials (BOM) – list of materials and quantities (spare parts list)
• Work Center - The maintenance group responsible for performing the work. 
• Planner Group - The individual or group who is responsible for planning and scheduling maintenance work.
• Task List - Pre-defined procedure for a repair or inspection. It can include the requirements for internal labor and material, external labor and materials, and the specific instructions required to perform the task.
• Measuring Point – A physical point where measurements are taken for an equipment or device.
• Maintenance Plan - defines the schedule for a preventive maintenance activity or activities and groups similar Maintenance Items together so that similar preventive maintenance work can be performed in the same time frame
• Notification- A detailed maintenance request document which holds information on a technical object (functional location or equipment) and maintenance requirements
• Work Order - A detailed work planning document which holds details on resources, components, costs and labor required to complete specific maintenance work 

Plant Maintenance Integration

SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) is integrated with all SAP Modules.  The following module integration points will be discussed in detail:

• MM (Materials Management: Purchasing, Stores)
• FI (Financial Accounting: Accounts Payable)
• CO (Controlling: Costing, Financial Reports)
• HR (Human Resources: CATS Time Entry)
•         PS (Project Systems: Capital Projects)

Financial Integration

• Financial postings are validated and posted in real time within the SAP system
• Actual costs for materials, labor and services are captured in the SAP work order
• SAP PM Work Orders costs are settled directly to a SAP cost object (Cost Center, WBS Element, Internal Order) within the SAP system
• Comparison reports for Planned cost verses Actual costs are standard by work order, groups of work orders, equipment lists and functional location lists

Materials Management Integration

• Material Requirements Planner (MRP) is integrated to SAP PM to order new stock taking into consideration future work order material demands
• Requisitions for non-stock materials can be created automatically from the SAP PM work order
• Requisitions for services can be created automatically from the SAP PM work order
• Purchasing is notified of the work order demand, procurement is commenced, goods and/or services are received and actual costs are captured in the original SAP PM work order for final settlement.

Human Resources Integration

• Cross Application Time Sheet (CATS) can be used as an electronic time sheet for maintenance technicians
• Time Confirmations to a SAP PM work order are calculated by an individuals hourly rate or burdened rate
• Individual maintenance technicians can be assigned unique rates based on skill set, apprenticeship level, location, etc.
• Individual maintenance technicians can be assigned to a specific work order or task with in the work order
• Qualifications can be established and reviewed prior to assigning maintenance technicians to a work order

Project Systems Integration

• Standard integration between Project Systems (PS) and Plant Maintenance (PM) enable maintenance personnel to be assigned to and work on a project work order.
• PM is designed with Capital work order types
• Capital work orders can be planned by either engineering or maintenance and assigned to a maintenance crew (SAP Work Center)
• Materials, Services and Labor are confirmed against the capital work order and settled to the capital project automatically with in SAP

Other Integration Points

QM – Quality Management

• Integration with QM enables the creation of detailed results documentation for inspections along with an accompanying where-used list and the management of test equipment used in QM with the PM component.

SM – Service Management

• Integration with SM allows Maintenance Activities for other organizations to be contractually managed and billed.

External Systems

• As a leading ERP system, SAP has integration relationships with companies that offer , for example, GIS systems, Mobile Solutions, Plant Data Collection, Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), Screen Simplification Tools.

SAP PM – Core ERP Module Basics

SAP PM is a module of the SAP ERP Central Component.

• This means it is already installed as a part your SAP FI/CO/PS implementation, can be utilized without further installation work.
• SAP PM database is completely integrated with other core ERP modules making it easy to create reports that draw data from several modules.
• SAP basic functions such as security, password administration, navigation training, database administration, development and configuration standards will apply to SAP PM with little modification.
• Master Data is shared across modules and does not require interfaces or processes to synchronize , for example, Material Master, Work Center.
• SAP integration has many advantages – it does demand process discipline because the financial perspective will always need to be reflected in operational transactions.

SAP PM Master Data

SAP PM Master Data: Information about all equipment which is being maintained (including location related data) is detailed in the associated Master Data Records

• SAP PM Master Data is information which tends to remain static over time. 
• Master Data defines the objects which we are interested in (FLOC, EQ) and the attributes of those objects that are used for search, classification, reporting.
• Attribute examples could include manufacturer, model, serial number, design specifications, size, weight, spare parts, location specific data, etc. 
• Master Data helps to represent the physical structure of your systems in SAP based on the Maintenance requirements.

Functional Location

Functional Location (FLOC) is an SAP concept that describes where an equipment is located logically.

• Functional locations are built in a hierarchy so that a user can start at a general location and drill down to a specific location. 
• Functional Locations are a basis for organizing Assets logically, facilitating search for Assets and as a roll-up mechanism for reporting.  
• The design of Functional Location for an organization must consider all the potential uses.

Equipment Master

Equipment Master (EQ) describes a specific equipment and its attributes such as manufacturer, model, serial number, status, design specifications, size, weight, etc.

- Examples of equipments could be the machinery, production Equipments,  etc.
- Equipment may have sub-equipment linked to them, which can be defined and maintained in their own right.

• Equipments are “installed” into a Functional Location so that the relationship of equipment to location can be established and maintained. 
• If the Equipment is removed, then it is “dismantled” from the specific location and its replacement equipment is “installed” into the Functional Location. 
• Installation” of Equipments into Functional Locations also provides the ability to track failures and work by equipment, location, or both.

Equipment Bill of Materials (BOM)

Equipment Master (EQ) describes a specific equipment and its attributes.  The Equipment may or may not be defined as a Material Master in the MM Module.

An Equipment BOM is a data structure that describes the structure of an equipment in terms of MM Material Master Numbers.  The BOM may be a complete structure , intended to describe the construction of the Equipment, or a partial structure , for example to designate spares. 

•  SAP can track changes to the BOM over time.
•  BOM can be unique to a specific equipment, or using the ‘construction type’ field one BOM can be assigned to multiple equipments of the same type.

Work center

   The Work center usually represents one person or a department, responsible for ensuring that the maintenance work in an order is executed

Functions:

• Costing can be determined based on the standard values specified for the activity types
• Scheduling can be done for the operations

Classifications and Characteristics

The SAP Classification system is a powerful feature that enables classification schemes to be set up for Functional Locations, Equipment .

Classification enables the definition of additional fields, together with business rules – i.e. mandatory / optional, validated against list of entries.

Classification entries can then be used to search for and to report on different objects.

• Classifications are used to group Functional Locations and Equipment Master records of the same type
• Characteristics are assigned to a Classification
• Individual Characteristic values are assigned at the unique Functional Location or Equipment Master record to indentify specific attributes for that object.
• Characteristics can record many different types of attributes, such as what something is, different measurements and dimensions values, where it is and what is its status.

Measuring Points

A Measuring Point is a physical or logical point where measurement readings are taken.

- Measuring Points can be assigned to equipment or functional locations (each can have more than one measuring point)

• A Measuring Point is a physical or logical point where measurement readings are taken.
• Measuring Points are configurable for specific applications and can be used as counters.  Examples:

1. Odometer readings
2. Run time in hours
3. Thickness readings for wear points
4. Temperature readings
5. Vibration analysis point

• Measuring Points can identify the automatic creation of a Preventive Maintenance Work Order when a reading is captured outside of the desired tolerance.  E.g. change oil every 3000 miles