Maintenance Processing

The Plant Maintenance (PM) application component supports the planning, processing and settlement of maintenance tasks for the entire maintenance area.It gives you a clear representation of maintenance processes, providing a solid base for rational decision-making as regards cost-intensive technical systems, replacement investments and changes in maintenance strategies. It distributes up-to-date information on a regular basis to all the departments affected.

The organization of a company, and in particular of the maintenance department, determines which employees perform these steps in which areas, and the amount of detail in which the data for the individual steps needs to be entered. For example, one company may plan a task in great detail, while another company will only plan a rough outline for the same task.

1) Maintenance Notification : 

Maintenance Notification means with which, company notifications are created and managed in the area of Plant Maintenance. It is a mode of communication between Operations & Maintenance department and between Maintenance departments. System Malfunction and Maintenance requests are created as Notifications. Maintenance department can also generate Notifications for recording the activities performed by the department / requesting maintenance from other departments. Maintenance Notification contains,

       a) General data of the Problem

       b) Date & time when the problem is reported

       c) Name of the person who reports the problem

       d) Information regarding the object

       e) Planner group & Work Center to whom the Notification is reported

Structure of Maintenance Notification : 

A maintenance notification consists of a notification header and one or more items. Maintenance header data is information that is used to identify and manage the notification. It is valid for the whole maintenance notification. Depending on the notification type, the notification items contain data describing the problem or malfunction that occurred, or the activity that was performed in greater detail.

Notification Types : 

The following notification types are predefined in the standard system:

Problem Notification(M1): Notification of a malfunction or problem that has occurred

Maintenance Request (M2) : Request for tasks to be performed

Activity Report (M3) :  Documentation of activities that have been performed

In addition to the above standard notification types, you can also define your own user-specific notification types.

2) Maintenance Order

Orders form an important part of the detailed planning of tasks and their accompanying documentation in Plant Maintenance. A technician on site must execute tasks at a technical object. For this, materials, utilities and staff must be planned and costs estimated. The order supports you with these tasks, since it primarily contains data for planning and executing tasks, which must be performed at the technical object in question.

Orders are generally used to:

a) Plan tasks with specific reference to type, scope, deadlines, and resources

b) Execution and Monitoring the performance of tasks

c) Define rules for account assignment and settlement

d) Definition of budgets

e) To record, display, and settle the costs generated by the tasks

f) Technical and business completion

g) Billing and Controlling for service orders

h) An order contains operations that describe the individual work steps. For greater detail, operations

i) can be divided into sub-operations.

Operations can be performed sequentially, in parallel or overlapping. Their sequence is defined in relationships. Operations and sub-operations can be processed internally or externally. Suitable Work Center has to be selected for the operation to track the manpower.

An operation or sub-operation to be processed internally is assigned to a Work Center, which is responsible for its execution. For complex and extensive maintenance work, several lower-level orders can be assigned to one order. In this way, order hierarchies can be created. Graphic below shows the complete process of breakdown maintenance.

2.1) Maintenance Order types : 

The order type is a classification characteristic for orders. It consists of control information that is important for managing orders. The order type is client-based. This means that each order type can be used in all controlling areas. For example, the following order types are available in the standard system:

PM01 for maintenance orders (PM)
PM04 for refurbishment orders (PM)
PM05 for calibration orders (PM)

Maintenance Order Planning and scheduling :

Once the maintenance order is created, the next step is to plan the jobs like Activities -Internal, Activities-External, selecting Stock Material, Non-stock material and External services. The maintenance tasks that are to be performed at a technical object often require detailed advance planning, in order to minimize the time that the object is not productive. The more accurately you plan a task, the more efficiently it can be performed by the employees on site. This is extremely important in the case of objects that cause bottlenecks and may lead to a shutdown when they are out of order.

We can also specify the work center, which will carry out the task and schedule the order considering the available capacities, duration etc. In case of external activities, suitable work center has to be selected. After you have planned an order with all its operations and components, you can use the scheduling function to determine the following data:
    a) The actual execution dates based on the dates specified in the order and the time specifications in the operations.
    b) The capacity requirement needed to execute the order, based on the data in the operations.
    c) The date at which a particular material should be available.

2.2) Releasing the Maintenance Order : 

When you have finished planning with all the necessary specifications, you can release the order. Only then can the employees on site start the activities described. The concerned Maintenance planner / Engineer would perform this activity. The material from stores can now be issued against the maintenance order with reference to the reservation number. A Purchase requisition is created automatically in case of external services and non-stock material. The Materials management team would carry out further processing of the Purchase requisition. The planned cost for the order is now available.

Note: In case of External services, the Control key of the operation has to be changed from PM01 to PM03.

2.3) Confirmation Of Order :

As soon as an order has been released and the work is begun, the employees involved can enter completion confirmations in the system.Based on the feedback of the persons who have actually executed the job / worked on the maintenance order, the data related to duration, material consumed is recorded. The findings related to the object could also be recorded from this screen. The actual cost thus gets accumulated at order level.

2.4) Technical Completion of Order : 

After completion of the maintenance activities, the technical findings and other parameters need to be recorded. This information forms the basis for reports related to downtime, system availability etc. After the confirmation of individual operations, the maintenance order has to be completed by which it acquires the status as technically complete.

2.5) Order Settlement : 

The Maintenance orders are created for execution of maintenance activities. All the costs incurred while carrying out job are transferred to the Maintenance Order. The Maintenance Order is just a cost object. The costs include,
                   a) Material cost
                   b) Internal labor cost
                   c) Service costs
The costs eventually have to go to cost objects in accounts from the Maintenance Order. This process is known as Order Settlement.

2.6) Business Completion of Order

All the maintenance orders need to be closed to complete the life cycle of the order. The orders, which are not fully settled, cannot be closed. In case, Maintenance costs are to be recovered from Insurance agencies, it would be handled separately. Settlement of cost is a regular activity, which should be carried out as frequently as desired. During settlement, cost from completed Orders is settled against valid receivers. The maintenance order can now be completed in terms of Business completion and closed