You use installed base management to represent and manage products at the customer site and products that are used internally. You can assign pieces of equipment, materials, serial numbers, and documents that belong together as installed base components (components) of a common installed base.

You can also use installed base management if you want to record for documentation purposes which parts belong to an installed base.

• An installed base could comprise an airplane with all components that require servicing.
• An installed base could also comprise an airplane that has not yet been assembled, but whose parts are to be managed in the planning and manufacturing phases as belonging together.
• An installed base could also comprise two wings, that are to be integrated in the general installed base "airplane" after being manufactured.

You can use installed base management instead of a maintenance bill of material (maintenance BOM).

An installed base presents the following advantages in comparison to a maintenance BOM:

• Multi-level representation of components
• Temporal limitation through the recording of installation and dismantling times for components of the installed base
• Components do not have to be represented as equipment master records
• You can record additional data for the components (for example, batch, revision level)

Installed base management is part of the Plant Maintenance (PM) and Customer Service (CS) application components.

Installed base management with tree control enables you to display and maintain the structure for each installed base and its components. You can perform the assignment of a component to the installed base directly in the structure maintenance screen. You can change the order of the components at any time.

From within installed base management, you can access the structure maintenance screen either via the header data for the installed base or via the individual components. If you access the structure maintenance screen via the individual components, you can display the entire structure at all times or enter a component on the initial screen and determine the levels that should be displayed.

You can assign a master record to several installed bases, but you should note that a piece of equipment, functional location, or material with serial number may only exist in one installed base at any one time.

Installed base management does not (at present) support the following functions:

• Representation of an equipment hierarchy
• Inclusion of customer data
• Display of a document hierarchy (to do this, use the tools of the Document Management System)
• Documentation of changes using change documents