Hello, how are you today?
Let’s look briefly at the equipment master in SAP PM today. What is an Equipment master? Good question.
SAP has what is called the “Technical Object Structure” which is a bit like an asset list and the Equipment Master is a part of this. It holds information about an individual item of equipment and is very important in reliability engineering. The technical object structure in SAP is a hierarchical structure that represents the organisation of your plant. Functional Locations, Equipments, Assemblies and Bills of Materials are a part of the Technical Object Structure.
The equipment master is the record for an item of equipment and contains a lot of data of interest to the Maintenance Manager, Reliability Engineer, Planner, Supervisor and Technician.
Let’s have a look at a few of the fields of data and talk about what they are.
Rule 1
Some of this data is duplicated in the Material Master (transaction MM03). You need to decide where it is best kept. I’m sure you don’t want to maintain data in 2 separate places. Often it is best kept in the material master.
These are in R/3 version 4.6C which is very similar to 4.7
Equipment Category
This field is populated when you create an Equipment Master record. You define the different equipment types in configuration. This field helps with managing equipment. Some examples of equipment categories are
o Rotable equipment
o Traceable equipment
o Statutory equipment (such as pressure vessels which have statutory maintenance requirements)
o Asbestos (equipment contains asbestos)
o Mobile equipment
o Cranage
The types of categories should be decided in the context of your business processes. That is, what is required to support the way your company manages its assets. Don't try to use this for managing equipment criticality, that is what the ABC indicator is for.
User status.
This is defined by your business to assist in managing assets. Types of users statuses could be
o Being tested
o Being repaired
o Decommissioned / Retired
o Scrapped
o RCA investigation
o RCM analysis
o Warranty (warranty management in SAP is pretty average)
User status’s can be used for searching for equipments, in reporting and for flagging the current status of the equipment
Valid from date
Generally identifies the date from when the equipment became operational, also has been used as the installed date
Determines from when the meantime between failure calculations begin. If this date is not entered the mean time between failures calculations begin at the time the first notification is created for it.
Expiry date
Gives the end date of service. In most cases, this would be open ended, but there will be occasions an end date is entered such as an equipment trial or perhaps lease equipment.
Address field
There is an address field under the Location tab. I have only seen it used occasionally but some uses are
When test equipment is allocated to a technician. Create an equipment master for the test gear and include all the relevant data. When the test gear is given to a technician, record who has it in the address field.
If your company is into facilities management, building addresses can be added. I wouldn’t use it as a substitute for maintenance plant, plant section etc, as that doesn’t fit the way SAP has been designed.
That will do for today, I will talk more about fields in the equipment master in my next Blog where I will also discuss the class overview.
If you have any questions on what fields are used for, please drop me a line to mick@windsorbusinesssolutions.com.au
Keep safe & kind regards
with compliments
Mick
Mick Windsor
Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd
e-mail: mick@windsorbusinesssolutions.com.au
web site: www.WindsorBusinessSolutions.com.au
Hello folks, I hope you are having a great day. As I mentioned in my last dispatch, I attended the Mastering SAP PM conference last week, held at beautiful, tropical Broadbeach on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
Wow, what a conference! It just gets better each year. Over 330 delegates from many countries, heaps of interesting speakers and with the theme of “Improving Business Performance”, everyone that I spoke to said they were learning lots and having a sensational time. There was certainly a lot of networking going on, particularly at the networking breakfast to break the ice, and especially at the cocktail party on Monday night.
Khan Ellis and Matthias Wobbe from SAP gave highly informative presentations and mingled with delegates, discussing various SAP subjects. They also commented on the very high level of system maturity in the Australian SAP community. High praise indeed.
Phillip St Baker, Vice President Business Improvement from QNI (a BHP Billiton company, he was formally the manager of BHP Billiton’s Global Maintenance Network) spoke on building the right business case, developing the right approach and commitment and ensuring business benefits are delivered. It is often difficult in getting support from executive management for improvements, but Phillip certainly shone the spotlight on some powerful techniques to gain that support.
So much happens there, so many exhibitors to see, people to meet, SAP to discuss, as I said last week, it is an event not to be missed in the SAP PM world. Check out their website at www.masteringsap.com and don’t miss next years conference.
See you there.
Keep safe & kind regards
with compliments
Mick
Mick Windsor
Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd
e-mail: mick@windsorbusinesssolutions.com.au
web site: www.WindsorBusinessSolutions.com.au
Hello, how are you today?
I am attending the Mastering SAP Plant Maintenance Conference next week at Broadbeach in tropical Queensland, Australia. It is an annual event and this years theme is “Increasing Business Performance”. With 2 days of conference and a variety of interactive workshops to choose from on the 3rd day, it is a huge learning experience for SAP PM users, Engineers, Managers and even for companies wondering if they should implement SAP PM. There are case studies and learning’s from many major companies including BHP Billiton, Samancor Chrome from Sth Africa and the New Zealand Defence Force. There are many other presenters as well.
Matthias Wobbe, Product Manager for Asset Lifecycle Management at SAP AG and Kahn Ellis, Product Manager, Asset Lifecycle Management, SAP LABS will also speak there.
An event not to be missed in the SAP PM world, check out their website at www.masteringsap.com for more detail. If you can’t make it this year, bookmark your calendar for next year. I am fortunate enough to be a Chairman at the conference this year which will also allow me to catch up with old friends, make new friends and learn a lot more about the exciting world of SAP PM
Keep safe & kind regards
with compliments
Mick
Mick Windsor
Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd
www.WindsorBusinessSolutions.com.au
Hello, how are you today? I hope your day is going well.
Do you use SAP? Going to a new job or shifting offices and don’t want to lose your favourites or don’t want to manually re-enter them again. Don’t worry!
In the SAP easy access menu screen, follow the menu path Favourites > Download to PC. A ‘save as’ window will appear so you can select where to store your favourites. This could be to your desktop, server folder or a memory stick.. When you are at your new location, just reverse the procedure. Follow the memory path Favourites > Upload to PC. An ‘open’ window will appear. Just upload them from where you stored them.
Do you have any Hints and Tips for using SAP. Send them to me to share them with all the other readers to make all our lives easier
Keep safe & kind regards
with compliments
Mick
Mick Windsor
Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd
www.WindsorBusinessSolutions.com.au
Hi, my name is Mick Windsor and I am happy to be a blogger here at the Reliability Web. Briefly about myself, my background is primarily in electronics and I have done several years in the mechanical trades. I have been in different roles including plant manager, maintenance strategist and now I run Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd specialising in SAP and Plant Maintenance
I will generally talk about maintenance systems and maintenance business processes, focussing more on SAP PM. I can talk about SAP PM functionality and I will try to give some SAP hints and tips and will post some good websites for you. Quite happy to discuss reliability and RCM as well. I look forward to hearing from you.
Mean Time Between Failure
How is the Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and Mean Time Between Repair (MTBR) calculated in SAP. MTBR is the same as Mean Time Between Failure
Transactions:
o MCJB - MTTR/MTBR Equipment
o MCJC - MTTR/MTBR Functional Location
Inputs required
o Valid from date in technical object (functional Location or equipment)
o Breakdown box in the notification ticked
o Start and finish time of failure entered in the notification
The mean time to failure is calculated from the valid from date. If this date is not entered, it is calculated from the date of the first notification. The breakdown box must be ticked to indicate a failure and the failure start and finish time record the length of time that the equipment was down due to failure. The start and finish time of failure is most important as it gives you the data to calculate MTTR and MTBR.
You can also get these in the report
o Number of breakdowns
o Length of downtime
o Mean Time To Repair
o Mean Time Between Repair
Terminology
There are no standard maintenance definitions around the world and there are a plethora of definitions and three letter acronyms. Check out this list of articles containing heaps of definitions from Sandy Dunn’s great Plant Maintenance website to find out what that acronym or term means.
http://www.plant-maintenance.com/maintenance_articles_terminology.shtml
Keep safe & kind regards
with compliments
Mick
Mick Windsor
Windsor Business Solutions Pty Ltd
www.WindsorBusinessSolutions.com.au