This scenario comprises the processing of planned (periodic) and unplanned services at the customer company.

In the case of unplanned services, information is usually entered in the form of problem notifications that you refer to later as the central information objects for service data during the execution of unplanned services at the customer company.

To do this, the execution dates must be monitored automatically. The integration of contract management and the execution of periodic services is ensured by an automatic monitoring of dates on the basis of maintenance plans.

Within the framework of the scenario Repairs Processing at the Customer Site you can use the integrated business functions of the following SAP application components:

When periodic maintenance tasks are executed for an object, it is often the case that particular activities have to be performed in a fixed cycle at certain time intervals, or based on a counter reading. You can represent such cycles in maintenance strategies. The strategies can be used centrally for all maintenance plans. You define the concrete time or performance-based cycles, for which maintenance activities are to be performed at the customer company, in individual maintenance packages that are maintained within the strategy.

You use task lists for plannable services, for which you know what types of services are to be performed, but not the due dates. A task list contains all information that is required for planning service orders:

• The necessary worksteps (operations)
• The time required for each operation
• The work center
• The necessary spare parts
• The necessary utilities

You use maintenance plans for services that have to be performed on a periodic basis. You use maintenance plans to determine both the scope of the service tasks that are due, as well as their due dates. You create a maintenance item in a maintenance plan for one or more maintenance activities. Maintenance items determine at which serviceable items the planned activities are to be performed. You can assign the required maintenance strategy to the maintenance plan.

The scheduling of the service tasks can be either time or counter-based, or a combination of the two. In addition to the strategies, there are also scheduling parameters for each maintenance plan, with which you can react flexibly to short-term or object-based changes.

You can also include task lists in maintenance plans. During maintenance plan scheduling, the system automatically copies the task list data into the generated service order.

The system calculates the execution dates based on the strategy and scheduling parameters that have been specified, and automatically triggers the corresponding service orders, that form the basis for executing the services, on the due dates.

Generally, maintenance planning at the customer company is based on agreements in a service contract. In this case, settlement of the service orders is performed via the service contract.

In the case of periodic services being performed at the customer company, service orders are generated automatically by the system by the scheduling of maintenance plans.

The creation of the problem or service notification is the central starting point for processing the problem. You can initiate all necessary processes for rectifying the problem from the service notification, also including the dispatching of service technicians to rectify the problem in the field.

If a service technician is required during processing of the customer problem, you can perform preliminary planning in the service notification for subsequent service processing using tasks.

You create a service notification with information about devices, contact persons and the problem description during the following worksteps:

• Object determination
  If your customer does not know the equipment or serial number of the serviceable item installed at his or her company, it is possible to search for items using various search functions (for example, a search within the customer’s functional location structure list, or a search of equipment by customer) or by performing a self-defined search (for example, using company-internal matchcodes).

• Object information screen
  In the Object Information screen, you can display information about the status of the last notifications, the object history and the classification data, as well as perform a warranty check. You can also decide here whether a spare part has to be delivered to the customer.

• Partner determination
  You can select the partner (for example, customer, contact person, technician) using a list of contact persons for the reference object, or enter one manually.

• Problem description
  You can specify, identify and select problem data by using texts, damage classification, and damage and object codes that are proposed by the system.

• Processing
  You can specify activities that are required for service processing in the service notification.

• Completion confirmation
  You can create completion confirmations for the tasks to be performed at notification header or notification item level, for example, the description of the cause of damage, the damage code, or the activities that were performed.

You create a service order on the basis of the service notification to enable detailed planning of the required service activities during refurbishment of a serviceable item at the work center. You can plan in detail the necessary operations, dates, technicians, and materials (for example, consumable parts, spare parts, and repairable spares) in the service order. Task lists reduce the amount of time spent planning to a minimum. In addition, you can issue permits that are required for performing particular operations and define follow-up tasks.

You can use the service order when performing the following activities:

• Planning of worksteps
  You can plan in advance operations that are to be processed internally or externally in the service order.
  When you put the service order in process, the system automatically creates material reservations and purchase requisitions for planned stock materials and operations that are to be processed externally.

• Monitoring of task execution
  The service technicians perform the customer services on the basis of the service order and use completion confirmations, material consumption or travel expense notifications to document the progress being made.
  When doing this, various communication interfaces to the service technician can be used (for example, short messages using a pager and completion confirmations via mobile phone).
  The work progress of a customer problem can be documented either in the service notification or in the service order using different confirmation statuses (for example in process, partially confirmed, technically completed), so that you are always informed about the current status of the work. The service technicians can enter important technical findings in the object-related completion confirmation, such as measurement and counter readings, damage locations, machine breakdowns, or changes to the piece of equipment.

• Entry and settlement of costs and revenues
  See Settlement and Completion.

Withdrawals of required spare parts and materials from the warehouse are posted as a goods issue.

If the customer requests a specific service product or service, you can immediately create a sales order (service product order) from the service notification, based on which further processing takes place.

You use a sales order to define a one-off agreement to deliver products to a customer, and when doing so, the following central functions are available to you:

• Costing and pricing
• Availability check
• Transfer of requirements to demand management
• Delivery scheduling
• Credit limit check
• Export control

The service products are named in the sales order. The system supports the you when determining the correct parts by making available the bills of material and the configuration data for the device.

By implementing the SAP application component Warehouse Management (MM-WM), you can pick spare parts and process any differences that arise within inventory management for the warehouse, within the framework of delivery processing.

You trigger shipping processing by creating deliveries from orders that are due to be shipped. The system checks both the availability of the product, and the validity of the shipping deadlines.

Goods issue represents the completion of shipping processing. It results in a reduction of stock and an update in the balance sheet account valuation in Financial Accounting (FI). You perform the goods issue posting for the spare part that is to be delivered from the warehouse, by specifying the movement type that corresponds to the goods issue for a sales order.

Depending on service agreements, the customer either receives the delivery free of charge, or is billed for it on the basis of the delivery note.

The transportation of spare parts to the customer requires transportation processing. This comprises the following areas:

• Transportation planning
  You can use transportation planning to group the deliveries that are due to be transported. It comprises all activities that are to be performed before a shipment leaves the shipping point. This includes the following tasks:

• Appointing a forwarding agent
• Organizing the means of transport
• Specifying the transportation route
• Defining individual legs of the route, to determine the best possible route
• Defining shipping deadlines

Various shipping document types are available for the different forms of transportation activities (for example, individual shipments, stop-off shipments). The shipping documents serve as the basis for performing transportation planning.

• Transportation processing
  Transportation processing comprises all activities that have to be performed when a means of transport leaves the shipping point. This includes, for example, the weighing and loading of materials or spare parts.

You can use the order confirmation to implement the following confirmation types:

• Completion confirmations of time
• Invoice receipts
• Entry of services performed
• Goods issues from the warehouse
• Technical completion confirmation report
• Measurement and counter readings
• Equipment changes

Time sheets (CATS) can also be used by internal and external employees to enter time data for all applications. Completion confirmations are generated from working time data entered (for example, to update capacity requirements and dates, or calculate costs).

The time sheet is equipped with an approval procedure for the time data entered.

Costs incurred are automatically recorded in the service order and can be checked in the cost report at any time. You have the following options during the settlement of a service order:

• For a service order without reference to a service contract: The service order is revenue-bearing and can either be settled to a profitability segment, a controlling object, a G/L account or to another settlement receiver.
• For a service order with reference to a service contract: The service order is non-revenue-bearing and can only be settled to the service contract.
  You can refer to the service contract when you create the service notification.

The completed service orders, together with their notification, order and object data, automatically create a service history in the system for each individual device and asset. This data is made available to you, enabling you to perform analyses of past service activities and planning for future activities over long periods of time.

The service history comprises:

• A usage history for the customer devices
• A history of completed orders and notifications, including the resources used

You can use historical order creation to subsequently transfer an historical order that does not originate from the SAP System, but whose service history data you would like to include in your analyses.

You can bill services that have been defined in the system by service product master records with their respective prices. You can create credit and debit memos in complaints or rebate processing.

When performing resource-related billing for services, you base this on the actual resources that have been used (materials consumed, time spent) and other expenses in the form of kilometers traveled or direct costs, and present these costs to the customer in a billing document.

You can perform resource-related billing as soon as a service order has been confirmed as being complete. When this happens, all costs that have arisen as a result of the order are collected in the order.

If no service contract exists or cover is not provided by the contract and the order type permits revenue postings to the order, you can directly create a billing request (debit memo request) for resource-related billing for the service order.

Depending on the service agreement, the costs are either settled internally (for example, if the service is covered by a service contract or warranty) or billed to the customer. It is possible to refer automatically to special price agreements in the service contract (for example, special prices for spare parts or particular discounts for services).

You create the actual billing document for the customer during billing processing on the basis of this billing request.

It is also possible to bill fixed prices.

The creation of the billing document is performed on the basis of deliveries (products) or expenses for services in orders. Billing plans support you when performing periodic or milestone billing.

The billing document is completely integrated in Financial Accounting (accounts receivable accounting) and Profitability Analysis. This means that the creation of a billing document triggers postings to the appropriate financial accounting and cost accounting accounts.

The Logistics Information System (LIS) is part of SAP’s Open Information Warehouse, whose objective is to integrate the data of various information systems, and to make available and easily accessible all company information that is important for decision makers (Executive Information System, EIS).

Important information is recorded in the LIS statistics database during every business transaction. When this happens, a quantitative reduction of the data volume takes place, due to the periodic recording, and also a qualitative aggregation of the statistics-relevant information.

The SAP System provides various methods for analyzing the data:

• Predefined standard analyses, which you use to analyze generally known and required data constellations without having to make any further settings

• Flexibly defined, customer-specific programs, with which you can define your individual list layouts and specific formulas

In the Service Management Information System (SMIS), you can use all the options described above specifically for Customer Service analyses.

You can perform both object-related and customer-related standard analyses in the SMIS:

• Object-related evaluations refer to information about rectifying the malfunction, or maintenance (for example, devices, manufacturer, notification processing, service orders, service notifications, malfunction analysis).
• Customer-related evaluations refer to information from Sales and Distribution (for example, customer, services, sales contracts, orders, sales organization).