Definition

When you structure your company’s technical systems, you have the option of representing a hierarchical equipment structure with the use of superior and sub-pieces of equipment. This is useful, for example, when you want to divide large pieces of equipment that are installed at a functional location into smaller units, that you can also manage in the system as pieces of equipment.

You can also use structuring of superior and sub-pieces of equipment even if you do not use functional locations.

Use

A superior piece of equipment is a complex system that is made up of several individual pieces of equipment. You can represent the structure of the system by installing individual pieces of equipment in the superior piece of equipment.

All the elements of the structure represented by the superior pieces and the sub-pieces installed in them are themselves pieces of equipment. They are objects that are to be maintained as autonomous units and for which an individual maintenance history is to be built up.

You can structure a complex system with as many levels as you require using superior and sub-pieces of equipment. You can install as many sub-pieces of equipment as required in superior pieces of equipment. A sub-piece of equipment can itself be a superior piece of equipment to several other sub-pieces of equipment. This produces the hierarchical structure:

Pieces of equipment can be installed in various superior pieces of equipment in the course of their useful life. It is also possible that this useful life contains periods when they are not installed or when they are in stock.

The individual equipment usage periods in superior pieces of equipment are recorded if the appropriate settings have been made within your system. The system creates a usage period list, in which it makes one entry per equipment usage period, for each piece of equipment. This list forms part of the equipment history.

Example of an Equipment Hierarchy