Inspection 

Purpose

All tasks for determining the actual condition of a technical asset are inspections. As a rule, inspections are performed as a bundle of tasks, that is employees measure the actual condition of several assets in the form of inspection circuits. During these inspection circuits, they record the actual conditions and initiate follow-up measures, if necessary. The follow-up measures could be maintenance tasks or repairs. 

You can use this business process to guarantee the following activities.

·        You can identify weak spots before they appear and reduce consequential damages.

·        This allows you to initiate the right tasks at the right time, thus keeping the work required to a minimum.

·        You can increase the safety and availability of assets and reduce their operating costs.

Prerequisites

A prerequisite of this business process is that the assets to be inspected and the inspection measures and the corresponding target conditions are known. Inspections can also be performed through remote monitoring of assets. The system has open interfaces for recording and transferring the data.

Procedure

The following business process runs in SAP ECC:

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       1.      Create inspection plan

Within master data creation, you create a maintenance plan, which generates a maintenance order of a service entry sheet for the inspection in the system according to the intervals that you specified.

       2.      Schedule and monitor maintenance plan

A background program, which runs at the regular intervals you specified, calculates the maintenance schedules and generates the maintenance call objects (notifications, orders, or service entry sheets) on schedule.

       3.      Create / process notification

The background program generates a maintenance notification in the system when one is due and if there is a corresponding maintenance plan category for it.

       4.      Generate worklist for notifications.

The responsible maintenance technician selects his or her worklist and then decides how to proceed for each notification.

       5.      Print notifications

If the maintenance worker does not need an order to process the task, he or she prints the notification papers. He or she then performs the task.

       6.      Create / process order

The background program generates a maintenance order in the system when one is due and if a corresponding maintenance plan category exists.

Alternatively, you can generate a maintenance order for further processing from the maintenance notification that was generated by the background program.

       7.      Determine optimum route for inspection

To keep the inspection route as short as possible, the maintenance planner enters the optimum sequence of the assets to be inspected in the maintenance order.

       8.      Plan and schedule order

The maintenance planner assigns the work required to the responsible maintenance areas. The planner plans the anticipated work times, spare parts, production resources and tools required, the involvement of external companies, and the anticipated work completion in the maintenance order.

       9.      Perform work clearance management

If work clearance management is turned on, you release the order before it is actually carried out.

   10.      Put order in process and print or download to mobile device

The maintenance planner releases the order for processing and prints the shop papers for the worker. If Mobile Asset Management is in use, the maintenance worker downloads the orders to mobile devices.

   11.      Post material movements

If spare parts are needed for the maintenance work, you get the necessary parts from storage. The stock manager posts the withdrawal with reference to the maintenance order.

If spare parts for the order were ordered from external companies, then the goods receipt is posted with reference to the purchase order for the order.

   12.      Post external services

If an external service provider has provided services for the order, you record their services with reference to the maintenance order.

   13.      Confirm time

After completing his or her tasks, the maintenance technician confirms his or her time with reference to the maintenance order.

   14.      Enter technical data

The maintenance technician records the technical details of the defect that he or she repaired, such as the damage code or the cause of the defect.

He or she also enters the current measurement values and counter readings for the assets concerned.

   15.      Update asset structure

If the maintenance technician must replace assemblies in an asset, he or she then updates the functional location structure.

   16.      Upload data from mobile device

If Mobile Asset Management is used, you upload the up-to-date data from the mobile device to SAP ERP.

   17.      Settle and complete order

The maintenance planner technically completes the maintenance order. The order settlement, which can be made manual or automatic, distributes the costs that accrued for the order to the defined settlement receiver. Then you can do a business completion of the order.

   18.      Archive maintenance documents

You can remove maintenance orders and notifications that are no longer needed in the system  and archive them.

   19.      Perform evaluations in plant maintenance information system (PMIS)

You can analyze the recorded data in the plant maintenance and information system, for reporting and planning purposes.