Plant Maintenance for Technical AssetsThe lifecycle of a technical asset has the following phases:1.Investment planning

1. Collect details for planned investment projects (bottom-up planning)

2. Perform preanalyses and risk valuation3. Perform budget distribution

2.Project definition1. Define the scope of the project2. Define the project structure and time frames

3.Selection of vendors1. Invite bids2. Select vendors3. Create a purchase order or contract

4.Project execution1. Plan, control, and monitor the individual phases of the

project2. Perform cross-department and cross-company exchange

of documents during execution

5.Plant maintenance1. Structure technical assets and make the required

information available2. Plan maintenance tasks and assign resources3. Record the tasks performed and costs incurred4. Ensure a secure work environment

6.External procurement1. Procure external services2. Procure external materials3. Perform strategic management of vendor relationships

7.Shutdown1. Define the shutdown project2. Ensure professional and licit disposal3. Ensure the security of employees

8.Performance Management1. Monitor the performance of assets from an operational

and financial perspective

Plant Structure

The organizational levels are structured as follows: The client is the highest-level element of all the

organizational units. It corresponds to a corporate group with several subsidiaries. Within a client, the system always accesses the same database. The subsidiaries, with their own financial statements and balance sheets, are defined as company codes.

The plant at which the operational systems of a company are installed is called the maintenance plant. If maintenance work is planned at this plant, the maintenance plant is also the maintenance planning plant (planning plant for short). Locations subdivide a maintenance plant according to location-based criteria, such as site, building, and coordinates. A maintenance plant can also be subdivided into plant sections based on responsibility for production. The person responsible for the plant section is the contact person who coordinates production and maintenance (the plant engineer). In Logistics, the plant is one of the most important organizational units. It usually represents a production unit of a company.

The units of capacity in plant maintenance are managed as maintenance work centers. Maintenance work centers are assigned to the respective maintenance plant as workshops.

Types of Planned Maintenance

The maintenance organizations usually perform other technical activities that do not belong to plant maintenance; however, these activities are performed by using the same maintenance order planning and processing tools.

When you perform maintenance, you can use various strategies aimed at optimizing the asset availability. This helps minimize the risk of outages and maintenance costs.

The maintenance of a technical system comprises the following tasks:Inspection Determine the actual conditionMaintenance Maintain the target conditionRepair Restore the target conditionThe maintenance organizations usually perform other technical activities that do not belong to plant maintenance; however, these activities are performed by using the same maintenance order planning and processing tools. The maintenance organization not only performs maintenance activities such as the ones defined in DIN31051, but also other technical activities and therefore uses the same tools.The technical activities that are also performed by a maintenance organization are as follows:Modification or constructionCleaningRevisionsTool assembly and erection of fixturesProduction assistance

Cross-Plant Maintenance

A maintenance planning plant is the organizational unit in which maintenance requirements are planned. These requirements can either come from your own plant or from another maintenance plant assigned to this maintenance planning plant.

The planners within a maintenance planning plant are defined by the following maintenance planner groups:

Plant-specific planning Plant-specific planning is done in the maintenance plant (planning plant). In most organizational structures, maintenance measures are planned in the same plant where the maintenance requirement occurs. The maintenance orders are executed by workshops from the same plant, and the spare parts are stored in the same plant (for example, plant 1000).Cross-plant planning Multiple maintenance plants are assigned to a planning plant. For example, in a plant (for example, plant 1200) needs for maintenance because a technical system there requires maintenance (maintenance plant). All further functions (maintenance planning, order execution, and spare parts storage) are however, the responsibility of another plant.Other constellations Other constellations are also conceivable. The planning of a plant's maintenance measures (for example, plant 1300) and the spare parts procurement take place in another plant (plant 1000). However, the tasks are performed by workshops that are available locally.

Work Center

A work center is an organizational unit where work can be carried out. Examples for work centers are a machine, group of machines, a person, or a group of people.

In plant maintenance, work centers and employees are used in master data and maintenance orders as follows:

Responsible work center in the master record of equipment and functional location Responsible work center in a maintenance item Responsible work center in the header of a task list Executing work center in the operations of a task list Responsible employee in the order header Executing work center in the operations of an order

Work centers belong to the master data and provide the capacity that is required to perform a task. Basic data contains general data such as the work center category, description, and usage. Work center links provide the connection between work centers and other objects in the SAP system. You can link a work center to the following objects:

Cost center Qualifications Positions People

The links are valid for certain periods of time.

Work Center – Functions

The main functions of work centers are as follows: CostingYou can use costing to determine the costs of an internal activity by a product unit. The aim of costing is to assign to the various cost objects the costs that were incurred by them. If the work center is used in an operation, the link to the cost center provides activity types for valuating the operation. SchedulingYou can use scheduling to determine the dates when operations have to be performed. The time required for the operations must be calculated and compared with the time available in the work center. The standard values and quantities in the operations are used as the basis for this calculation. During scheduling, the start and end dates for the operations are calculated from this data by using formulas, which have been entered for scheduling in the work centers. Capacity planningIn capacity planning, the capacity requirements for the operations in the orders are determined and compared with the available capacity defined in the work center. In capacity planning, you can use work center hierarchies to aggregate (at higher-level work centers) the available capacity and capacity requirements of lower-level work centers.