Plant Maintenance (PM)
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Overview
What is Plant Maintenance (PM) in SAP?
There are several compelling reasons due to which the businesses use SAP Plant Maintenance. Operational efficiency is just one of them. There are great opportunities for companies to enhance their maintenance processes with SAP Plant Maintenance or SAP PM.
In this post, we shall discover how SAP PM can be instrumental in driving better results in terms of maintenance procedures and other essential components. We shall also be learning about the modules the system encapsulates. More importantly, we shall also study about the important considerations the businesses must know before implementing the module.
So, let’s begin!
Inclusions of modules in SAP Plant Maintenance
Before knowing what each of the submodules offer us, we must know what these submodules or the inclusions of SAP PM are. So, here they are:
As we have discussed in the previous paragraph, SAP PM is a module designed specifically for looking after the maintenance processes of a business. The system is required and utilized by organizations that involve a lot of machinery and equipment. In other words, industries like manufacturing, transportation, and utilities are the ones where the system is demanded.
SAP PM Equipment Master Record
The maintenance plans are the predesigned strategies that define how the maintenance actions will unfold. This includes the following:
- Creating Task lists: These lists include all the pointers required to execute each activity.
- Scheduling: Here, a certain time period is assigned to each activity within which they must be completed.
- Work center management: The work centers are the locations where the maintenance activities will take place. They can be virtual or physical places.
Spare parts and material management
This submodule oversees the management of spare parts. Here are the other essentials:
Spare parts catalogue: This is the database that provides information about the available spare parts and materials.
Material master: This acts as the central repository with data of all materials required in maintenance.
Inventory management: This feature allows tracking the levels of spare parts and materials in stock.
SAP PM Multilingual Text
This submodule of the SAP PM is very helpful for companies that involve working in different languages. With this feature, they can achieve the following:
- Creating multilingual short texts
- Creating long texts
This can be done for each part of the equipment and functional location.
SAP PM Breakdown Maintenance
Undertaking corrective measures in times of failure of equipment is called breakdown maintenance. With PM breakdown maintenance, users can respond to a malfunction efficiently and in a timely manner.
The process is undertaken in situations such as these:
- Equipment does not function optimally well.
- Production gets impacted due to a technical glitch in equipment.
SAP PM Corrective Maintenance
This module includes all the steps that are in the preventive and regular maintenance process. Preventive maintenance includes routine checks to ascertain that the machines are working fine. Corrective maintenance includes correcting a malfunction by creating a notification in the system.
SAP PM Refurbishment Process
In SAP PM, refurbishing is defined as the action of repairing and returning the spare parts to the warehouse. Within this process, the users can uninstall the damaged equipment from the maintenance plant. After this, it can be moved to the warehouse.
SAP PM Warranty Claim Processing
This feature is instrumental in handling multiple claims automatically. The process can be a bit complicated. This is owing to the lengthy process and the age of the product. This feature of the SAP PM is integrated with other modules of SAP. These include the Material Management module, SAP SD module, Customer Service, and others.
SAP PM Information System
SAP Logistics comprises Information System that helps in storing and retrieving information about other systems. These systems are Purchasing Information System, Plant Maintenance Information System, Retail Information System, and so on.
The Plant Maintenance Information System includes the following fields:
- Standard Analysis
- Information structure
- MTTR/MTBR
- Characteristics and Key Figures
Things to consider while implementation of SAP Plant Maintenance
The key considerations in the implementation of SAP PM module are as follows:
Defining Clear Goals: By understanding from the stakeholders and other experts, companies can define clear objectives about the implementation of the SAP PM module. They can also chart out the key outcomes they wish to achieve with the help of this implementation.
Assembling a cross-functional team: With representatives of different teams such as maintenance, IT, operations, and procurement, it will be easier to identify the key derivatives from the process. Finance team can also be roped in for the same for guidance over the budgeting techniques.
Executive Sponsorships: The process must be backed by the higher management. This will aid in securing essential resources.
Requirement assessment: Analyzing the existing maintenance process can help in understanding requirements.
Change management: This is about knowing the changes that the implementation will bring with it and draft plans to overcome sudden changes. There could be organizational or cultural change that may need to be addressed. So, define strategies to deal with those and equip the teams with enough study material to tackle the changes.
Mobile and remote access: You may want to consider giving a remote and mobile access to the technicians after implementation of SAP PM. This way they can access the system even from the field.
Ensure proper training: Remember to provide enough and adept training to the end-users. The end-users include the technicians, schedulers, planners, and so on.
How will BPX help implement SAP Plant Maintenance?
This section will help us understand the role of BPX in simplifying the implementation of the SAP PM module. Let’s check it here:
1. As-Is Process: Here, the BPX takes cognizance of the as-is process of the system. By understanding this process, business and BPX both can have a clear picture of the current workflows and scenarios in plant maintenance.
2. Business Blueprint (Gap-Fit & To-be)/ SAP functional specification document: With the insights from the previous process of as-is, BPX identifies the gaps and starts developing a blueprint for the business. They study the gaps between the current process and the SAP PM capabilities.
BPX also chalks out the functional specifications based on the business requirements. They then move on to documenting these requirements which will serve as the bridge between the as-is and to-be processes.
3. Master Data Migration/ Item Master Configuration: Equipment records, functional locations, and spare parts are some of the essential data that will require migration. BPX helps in validating and cleansing the data as well.
4. System Configuration / Realization (as per To-Be) along with customization
With the collaboration of technicians, BPX oversees the configuration of the SAP PM module. They ensure that the configuration is in sync with the business requirements.
5. UAT: BPX oversees the user acceptance testing phase. They study the user feedback by giving them test scenarios. The feedback is critical in implementing any changes that may be required at this stage.
6. Go-Live Preparation: This is the lead-up to the go-live phase. The BPX conducts workshops and training sessions to educate the users further about the features and functionalities of the system.
7. Go-Live: This is the phase where the SAP PM system is finally available for real users like planners, schedulers, and technicians.
8. After Go-Live Support: Throughout the process and even after the implementation, BPX ensures its assistance to all the team members.
FAQs
This section includes answers to the most asked questions regarding SAP PM.
SAP PM is an efficiency tool that organizes maintenance activities for an organization. Tasks under Plant Maintenance are interconnected. Therefore, this module of SAP is integrated frequently with the other modules:
- Production planning
- Material management
- Sales and distribution
The key responsibilities of the SAP PM module are given as follows:
Inspection: This is done to evaluate the existing condition or performance of the technical system.
Preventive Maintenance: This includes actions to maintain a good level of availability of the technical system.
Repair: This involves all the steps that are essentially performed to restore the ideal or the original condition of the system.
Here are the important steps that entail the process of work order notification under SAP PM:
- Notification
- Newly-created work order
- Creation of purchase request
- PO created
- Parts issued to work order
- Approval and planning of work order
- Scheduling and releasing
- Execution
- Closing