Reference functional locations help you to save time when entering locations. Changes to PM data, for example, only have to be made once to the reference functional location.
For each category of reference functional location you can define the following:
These changes are then valid for all the 'genuine' functional locations that are derived from this reference functional location.
You can define various categories of reference functional locations here.
You should always use reference functional locations when you use several systems of the same category and you want to represent them with functional locations.
You have three filling machines with the same structure in your company. These filling machines are to be managed in the system with three different functional locations. You want to enter changes made by the manufacturer, for example, to the structure or to the technical data just once in the system.
Solution: You create a reference functional location for a filling machine. The actual functional locations or the actual filling machines are created with reference to the reference functional location "Filling machine". In the case of changes which affect all three filling machines the reference functional location is always changed. When the reference functional location is changed the actual functional locations, in other words, the actual filling machines, are also changed automatically.
The reference functional location category is used only for field selection. When a reference functional location refers to 'genuine' functional locations, the categories of the functional locations can be different. If you do not need a particular kind of field selection in the case of reference functional locations, you do not need to create any new categories of reference functional location.
Define the categories for the reference functional locations.