Overview

The SAP PM application component provides businesses with a comprehensive software solution for all maintenance activities that are performed within a company. PM in SAP stands for Plant Maintenance. This module contains the function for plant maintenance. It contains the following major activities.

• Inspection - all measures which establish the actual condition of a technical system.
• Preventive maintenance - all measures which maintain the ideal condition of a technical system. The purpose is to maintain the high availability of technical systems, for example, production plants, in the long term for the business.
• Repair(corrective maintenance) - all measures which restore the ideal condition of a technical system. The purpose of maintenance processing comprises of several levels, which do not necessarily all have to be implemented in full.  Therefore, it is possible to process a repair using many planning stages, such as preliminary costing, work scheduling, material provision, resource planning and permits. However, it is also possible to react immediately to damage events causing production shutdown, and to produce the required orders and shop papers with the minimum of entries in the shortest possible time.

This module is highly integrated with MM, QM, SD and CO modules.

Plant Maintenance consists of three broad areas of: Master Data, Maintenance Processing & Preventive Maintenance with Solvay's development of Safety Management within the application.

Key Performance Objectives in Maintenance include

• Maintaining a high level of OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness)
• Maintaining and optimal balance between Cost of Breakdown vs. Cost of Prevention
• Utilizing concepts such as TPM, RCM etc. to contribute in Lowering Operating costs and minimize adverse effects on Equipment, Operating resources and increase efficiency.

 
Master Data:-

To effectively manage SAP Maintenance activities in an organization, you need to divide the existing maintenance structure into technical objects. Technical objects are used to define the machine types that exists in an organization and using the object characteristics, you can further define other technical objects.

To show technical objects in the system, you should know about maintenance planning and structure in the organization. This involves the task of defining the maintenance plant and maintenance of the planning activities in the system.

Plant Organizational Structure

SAP PM organizational structure includes the following organizational units:

• Client: Client is highest level of an organization structure. It includes all the subsidiaries within one corporate group.
• Company Code: Each subsidiary is represented with a company code in SAP system. Each company code has its own balance sheet and P&L statement.
• Plant: Plant is one the most important structures in SAP PM organizational structure. It is the place where manufacturing of products takes place. One company code can have multiple plants.
• Maintenance Plant: Organizational unit where operational systems are installed is called a maintenance plant.
• Maintenance Planning Plant: This is a plant at which the maintenance operations are planned. It is possible that requirements come from own plant or from another maintenance plant assigned to the maintenance planning plant. In most cases, the maintenance planning plant is same as the maintenance plant.
• Plant Section: A maintenance plant can be divided into subparts which are known as plant sections. For example, a plant can be divided into production area, store, electrical substation, etc.
• Location: Location is the place where a functional object is physically installed in a plant section. It is used for informative purposes.
• Maintenance Planner Group: It is a group of employees responsible for planning and processing of maintenance tasks in a plant. A different maintenance planner group is created for each plant.
• Work Center: Work center is an organizational unit where maintenance activities are performed. It belongs to master data. Work center defines where and when the maintenance operation will be performed. Work center is assigned in task list, maintenance order, and maintenance operation line items. Machine/group of machine or person/group of people can be represented as a work center.

A work center is used for different purposes as follows:

• Costing: There is link between a cost center and a work center. Costs can be calculated if a work center is assigned in a maintenance operation because the link to the cost center provides the activity type. In activity type, the rates are maintained on a variable basis or as fixed rates.
• Scheduling: Scheduling is used determine start and end dates of maintenance operations based on a predecessor or successor operation. During scheduling, the start date and end date are calculated based on formulas maintained in the work center.
• Capacity Planning: The formulas related to capacity planning are stored in the work center. In capacity requirement planning, the required capacity for operation is determined from the available capacity in the work center.

Functional Structuring In this type of structure, you divide your technical system as per functional locations. With the division of the product line into functional locations, an individual unit can act as functional locations in the system.
Object Related Structuring In this structuring, you divide your technical system into pieces known as equipment. An equipment is an individual object, which can be placed in a technical system or a part of the technical system.
Functional and Object-based Structuring It is a combination of both the functional and object-related structuring using equipment and they are divided as per functional location.
In this structuring, your functional location tells where the technical tasks are performed and equipment represents the object with which tasks have to be performed.
Note − In short, it can be said that a functional location is an organizational unit that is used to maintain the objects of a company as per the functional area, process-related or spatial criteria. A functional location represents the place at which a maintenance task is to be performed.

Detailed data of technical installations of -

• Functional Location
• Equipment
• Bill-0f-Material (BOM)
• Task List
• Link to Technical Documentation (DMS)

Click on this link on the details of Master Data.

Maintenance Processing:-

Planned Regular Work: Detailed data of regular jobs which are periodic & cyclical. It contains the maintenance items, cycle, tasks and the required resources.
Maintenance Request: A maintenance request is a targeted instruction to the maintenance department to perform an activity in the manner described. As in the case with an activity report, malfunction or demage report - Notification.
Approved Job: Work order which contain multiple operations/sub-operations for one or more technical objects. It has information on who is responsible for the job along with the resources - manpower, duration, tools, or spare parts.
Work Order Preparation / Execution: Work order which contain -

• Detailed work sequence documents (permits)
• Material (spare parts) / Services reservation
• Time / Services confirmation

Acceptance Work: Technical closure of work order.
Reporting: Operating reports on costs, Breakdown analysis of technical objects, Maintenance KPI (Mecano) etc.
 
Click on this link on the details of Maintenance Processing.
 
Preventive Maintenance:-
 
The objective of preventive maintenance is to avoid system breakdown whereby causing production breakdown. It is used to perform periodic inspections, preventive maintenance tasks & repairs. This is achieve by creating & maintaining maintenance plans, to define dates & maintenance activities planned for technical objects.
Following are the key benefits of using Preventive Maintenance in an organization:−

• The activities that are performed in Preventive Maintenance are stored in the form of task lists.
• You define the extent and inspection work, and when the preventive maintenance should be performed with details of the functional location or pieces of equipment.
• You also define the cost-based assignment of Preventive maintenance task lists.
• You can also perform a review to find the cost of preventive maintenance activities to be performed in future.

Click on this link on the details of Preventive Maintenance.