Measuring points in the R/3 System describe the physical and/or logical locations at which a condition is described, (for example, the coolant temperature in a nuclear power station after the coolant has left the pressure vessel, or the number of revolutions at a rotor shaft of a wind-driven power plant).

In Plant Maintenance, measuring points are located on technical objects, in other words, on pieces of equipment or functional locations. For example, in a storeroom for fruit, a certain room temperature has to be created and maintained. The temperature is kept constant by a regulator, and is also checked regularly by a measuring device. The storeroom is represented in the system as functional location SR1-FR2. The temperature measuring device is then created as measuring point 23 for functional location SR1-FR2.

Measurement readings are taken at measuring points in particular measurement units at particular intervals. For example, the temperature in degrees Celsius of the coolant in the coolant pipe that leaves the pressure vessel at the nuclear power station, or the number of revolutions per minute at the rotor shaft of the wind-driven power plant.

To enable you to differentiate more easily between the individual measuring points and provide them with a unit, you assign each measuring point to a characteristic from the classification system.

You can only use characteristics that are numerical and to which a unit (for example, ‘degrees Celsius’, or ‘millimeters’) has been assigned. You can use the characteristics to evaluate similar measuring points.

Before you can create measuring points or counters, the valid measuring point categories must be defined in Customizing for Measuring Points, Counters and Measurement Documents.

For many measuring points, the same measuring point attributes are valid. For example, the number of the measurement position might have to be unique for each client, and a particular catalog type for code groups is valid for all measuring points. Measuring points are grouped in the system by measuring point category. Each measuring point category is identified by a key, which is the first thing you assign to the measuring point when you create it in the system.

You might have the following measuring point categories in a system:

Measuring points are uniquely identified by the numbers that they are assigned internally. Since this number is not descriptive, you have the option of giving the measuring point a text or a descriptive number to describe the position of a measuring point at a technical object. You can do this in the field MeasPosition in the master record of the measuring point.

The overview of an object’s measuring points is always sorted by the system on the basis of the measurement position. You can change the entry in the field MeasPosition at any time, for example, if you determine after a few months that a particular measurement position at which measurements are taken very frequently is too far down the list.

The entry in the field MeasPosition only needs to be unique if this has been defined in Customizing for your system. In Customizing, you can define that the measurement positions of a measuring point category:

• Can be entered without a check for uniqueness
• Must be unique for each technical object
• Must be unique within a client

The measurement range represents the values that a measuring instrument or counter can display. For example, a thermometer can measure temperatures in a measurement range between -20 and +45 degrees Celsius, or a tape measure can measure lengths in a measurement range between 0 and 10 meters.

In the case of measuring points, you can define that only readings that fall between the upper and lower limits are possible. If, for example, the thermometer in your company can only display temperatures in a measurement range between -20 and +45 degrees Celsius, a measurement reading of 90 degrees Celsius is outside the measurement range limit.

In the case of counters, the measurement range limits do not apply to the counter readings that are read, but to the total counter reading determined by the system. For example, a milometer can display values from 0 to 99,999. Since vehicles of this category have an expected life of 200,000 miles as a general rule, a counter overflow will occur several times before this total counter reading is reached. The employee responsible will enter a measurement range of 0 to 200,000 for the milometer.

You use the measurement range unit to define the unit in which the measurement is made by the measuring instrument. This unit does not have to correspond to the unit of the characteristic that you have assigned to the measuring point or counter. However, it must share the same dimension in order that the system can convert the entry in the measurement document into the unit of measure of the characteristic. If you have, for example, assigned a characteristic with the unit "degrees Celsius" to a measuring point, you can enter "degrees Fahrenheit" as the measurement range unit, if this is the unit of the thermometer being used. However, units such as "meters" or "kilograms" are not possible in this case, as they do not belong to the same dimension "temperature".