Management of the Installed Base (SAP Library

Management of the Installed Base

Purpose

You use this component to structure and maintain your installed base. The installed base can involve very different objects and systems (for example, photocopier, fork-lift truck, software, buildings and other equipment).

Implementation Considerations

Depending on your specific requirements, you can represent the objects as follows:

As materials

This is advisable if you are working with a large number of similar or identical objects. You can use the material number for inventory management purposes, and to control stock movements.

As pieces of equipment (serialized or non-serialized)

This is advisable if you want to manage and possibly evaluate individual data, or if you want to perform regular, planned or unplanned maintenance activities and services.

As functional locations

This is advisable if you want to structure complex customer systems or represent and track pieces of equipment from a functional perspective.

As bills of material

This is advisable if you want to further categorize individual devices according to assembly and material.

Once you have structured the objects, you can:

Classify objects

Assign partners to the objects

Assign documents or drawings to the objects

Integration

If you want to represent a serviceable item,	...you should find out about the following components:
As a functional location	Functional Locations
As a piece of equipment	Equipment
As bills of material	Maintenance Bills of Material
As serialized	Serial Numbers

Features

You can maintain the following data for objects for which you perform services:

Classification data

If you have many serviceable items, it is useful to be able to sort them according to different criteria and to group them for analysis purposes. Using the Classification functionality, you can build up a hierarchically structured system of classes for your serviceable items.

For more information on the classification of technical objects, refer to the documentation PM - Structuring Technical Systems.

Partner data

You can enter various partners in the master record of a serviceable item, such as the object vendor and a customer. You can also branch to a separate screen to enter a number of different partner functions. In the partner data screen, you can also determine the settings for the various partners displayed, depending on your specific requirements. For example, you can display address data, phone number, and so on for a contact person.

You can find more information on partners in Partners in PM/CS Processing.

Documents

You can link object master records to document master records. This enables you to make reference to all documents relating to the serviceable item, (for example, construction drawings).

You can find more information on documents in Document Management.