It is typically a fact that the leadership in facilities not only has very little practical
knowledge of how the software works, but more importantly do not understand
what the work effort is comprised of in SAP to perform the needed tasks to
achieve a solid reliability improvement process. Understanding what your team
has to understand is always a key to leadership success.
Materials Management:
x The data conversion process of stores inventories often does not include
the standardization of the materials naming convention. Computers are
very selective spellers, and do not know the logical connection between
BRG, BRNG, and BEARING. Imagine the difficulty in locating parts in
a sister facility where the nomenclature can be entirely different. Many
companies complain that stores inventories are too high, but do not invest
in a standard naming process that will facilitate even identifying materials
between facilities.
x There are a surprising number of plants that are using SAP but not yet
planning work orders. When planning is not done, one trap that often
happens is bypassing the order when obtaining the material and charging
the material to a cost center. As with any charge within SAP PM, if it is
not charged to the order, the costs are not linked to the Plant Maintenance
Module properly and invalidate much of the cost data.
Without a doubt, describing the problem and not the solution is the largest
opportunity with notifications. It is a natural reflex to assume a solution
when there is confidence to do so, but the vital failure symptoms and
characteristics are often bypassed. This failure data is the foundation of
reliability improvement and root cause analysis if someone just takes the
time to enter it into the notification. On the flip side, closing out the
notification with the final results is also often overlooked.
A prevalent issue in most plants is the lack of understanding of what each
notification type means. Notifications are the heart of the history for the
work that is being performed. It is so important to create the proper type
notification so transactions that occur in the background with SAP align
with the need. Does failure data need to be captured or not? Does this
Notification require a work order to be created or not?
It is not a common practice to see a reliable use of the equipment
downtime tracking feature. Having MTBF is a great tool in setting
Preventive Maintenance Route cycle times.
Many organizations do not take the time to convert the documents of the
preventive maintenance route checklists to individual steps within the task
lists. The missed opportunities include not having confirmable steps by
the mechanics documented in SAP as well as time tracking the durations
Production Opportunities:
x
The most damaging words that are heard from production teams is It is
not my job to write notifications and do basic preventive maintenance on
the equipment. One of the reasons is that many times they are not trained
to use or even understand the system like maintenance uses the system.
Operators are often the first line of defense in the reliability. No one can
describe the problem better than the person that was there. Production
very often the untapped resource of the SAP PM / Reliability effort.
Activity Reports are a great underused resource. If you believe in the
concept of documenting near miss reports to predict safety issues and
improve safety performance, then developing a discipline for operators
creating activity reports should create a parallel benefit to the reliability
effort.
Management for parts, Financial for cost tracking) to align getting the work
planned, executed, and documented.
Planning is an area that most people take for granted in SAP. The
thought is out there that SAP will help me plan work. But in reality, the
processes for planning work should already be in place and SAP the tool
to help you implement those processes. Planning is all about assigning
parts, labor estimates, requisitions for outside purchases, etc. So the
craftsman can focus on the work, not designing the plan real time during
an outage.
The capability to benchmarking work orders for future work is an often
overlooked. When the Task List is mentioned, it is nearly always in the
context of a preventive maintenance route, and rarely in reference to a
task list that is attached to a specific piece or type of equipment that can
be effortlessly attached to the order to create a preplanned order,
materials, requisition templates, and labor.
The vast majority of Work Orders have only one operation. The same
argument used to detail task lists into multiple steps is also true here.
Many times there are steps that need to be performed by different crafts or
discontinuous steps, natural divisions of work.
Ironically, with all of the computing power available, the craftsman more
often than not lack the documentation that could help them do the job
more effectively. The ability to attach nearly any type of document and
print out permits, bills of materials, and drawings, among others into shop
papers is not used in many facilities. The person that needs the
documentation the worst is often the one that does not receive it.
This process, more than most, suffers from the I just fill this box in
because I was told to syndrome. All of these things should be shared up
front as to why they are important and how they will make a difference.
Craftsman spend valuable effort confirming time and entering work order
feedback. Frustration sets in when the information they have spent time
inputting is not being used or worse, not even looked at. It is really
important that this information is reviewed and feedback is given back to
the craftsman so they know that it has added value. Better yet, they want
to see improvements that result from their efforts. People at the front lines
are in a new world spending time at a computer screen. Make their effort
valuable or they will stop doing it.
Craftsman
Production resource tools
Materials
Equipment availability
Relationships between work orders
Scheduling Opportunities:
x
x
To start off in little chunks, you may want to consider using revision codes.
To schedule work to a specific week or event. This will allow you to pull
up work quickly and plan according to the current revision date.
SAP PM provides the ability to schedule work to an individual craftsman
level by the day, but many organizations have been warned to stay away
from this cumbersome process. As a person that performed this process
for three years on the front lines of a manufacturing facility, I am perplexed
as to why that perception exists. It is true that the configuration tables
have to be set up correctly and the HR Module properly aligned, but the
ability to easily schedule through the capacity planning board and print out
weekly and daily schedules out of SAP is a great advantage. All the
processes (for example materials supply) are linked when SAP PM
scheduling is used.
And even better, if you have craftsman
entering/confirming time in SAP, then schedules can be easily updated
based on their feedback.
In Summary
The opportunities listed here represent the things I wish I had known at Go-Live.
The problem is, most are not anything that we could have changed at the time,
but there is solace in the knowledge of what you are building toward. Training at
Go-Live is much like the proverbial sip out of a fire hose. There is only so much
information we can process at one time. Most facilities are provided with
adequate information to get started, what they lack is clear direction and a path
to get there with what they are trying to achieve with the SAP PM Module as a
tool.
Within this document, many opportunities are discussed. The solutions to these
opportunities are sometimes the simple check of a box in a configuration table
and sometimes the change of a culture. Either way, knowing what the
opportunity is, is half the battle.