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What I Wish I Had Realized at Go Live

Learnings from SAP PM Renewal Efforts


Lorri Craig, Reliability Solutions, Inc.
Hindsight is always 20-20. The implementation team that I was a part of knew
that making SAP PM effective in our facility would be a tall order, but looking
back, I think we did very well considering we did not have the experience of a
prior implementation process. Having a maintenance background was a real
advantage in understanding what processes we wanted to accomplish, we just
didnt know what success really looked like. Working hard as the SAP PowerUser was a rewarding job, but thinking of the potential successes that were
possible given some foresight is the real learning.
In this day and time, and the ability to communicate globally, there is no
reasonable excuse not to learn from learnings of other SAP PM
implementations. Now, as a part of an organization that provides support to
manufacturing facilities, I use my experiences to help design SAP PM Audits and
Training Sessions, and as a result have developed a good cross section of
lessons learned. Ironically enough, the growing pains that my team suffered with
at implementation, are the same ones that we see in many of the audits that we
have performed. Nearly every time we give a presentation on the audit process
or provide SAP training, the question is always the same, what can you share
with us on what you have learned?
There are two issues that raise above all others in Plant Maintenance Module
implementation.
The first is that the organization has a foundation of
Maintenance Best Practices and reliable business processes in place before golive. There are instances where maintenance organizations make the effort to
audit best practices and close gaps prior to allowing an SAP PM go-live to
proceed. This is a very prudent step, and always results in a better SAP PM
implementation. No CMMS can force best practices; it can only be used as a
tool to implement them. The second issue is in my estimation, the real strength
of the PM Module over the other modules, if handled correctly. The Plant
Maintenance Module, more than any other, taps the energy of the floor level
employees, where the information is input directly from the source. If the
company prepares this level of the organization properly, the results can be not
only effective, but empowering to a level of the business that is typically ignored.
The intent of this document is to characterize the findings that we see in most
SAP PM Installations that struggle with implementation. The Focus Area
structure of the Reliability Solutions, Inc. audit will be used as a framework of the
discussion.

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The Asset Structure


Functional Locations and Equipment
The asset structure consists of Functional Locations; the process based technical
hierarchy, and equipment, the base level of repairable and replaceable l objects
in the SAP PM Module. The facilities that properly design this structure are well
on their way to accurately tracking costs and reliability information at a level
where improvement can happen, and those who do not, have neither. The
Functional Location data determines the cost and information flow hierarchy.
Functional Location is also based on location and not subject to
interchangeability. Functional locations are process based and are used to
interface with the General Ledger accounting system. Measuring equipment
documentation processes and accuracy is important to establishing the
foundation on which the maintenance processes rely. Information such as bills of
materials, work center assignment, specific task lists, and equipment usage
histories are all tied to the equipment data structure. This data is used to build
reliability databases that are used to drive reliability improvement.
The Equipment/Functional Locations Opportunities
x

A vast majority of the stakeholders in SAP do not understand the process


difference between the Functional Locations and Equipment.
Understanding the difference between process based hierarchy and
reliability based designations is important to master.
Many technical object structures are not maintained effectively after the
initial set up. The automatic data transfer process is a powerful tool if
understood. After go-live, few organizations take the time to further define
the technical object hierarchy to better classify notifications so that
reliability history on equipment can be effectively retained.
Bills of Materials are rarely built as part of the asset structure. BOMs allow
planners to easily and quickly plan work orders and help craftsman locate
parts quickly for emergency work. Not having BOMs at go-live will
inherently doom every planner to spending 30-40% of their time learning
how to find parts instead of designing work plans and capturing reliability
information.

Extracting Business Decisions - Information Systems


The ability to extract business information from the SAP PM Module is the
bedrock of the justification of the implementation. This information is vital for
effective decision making How do you know where to focus improvement if
you do not effectively measure performance at a level where improvement is
manageable? The amount of data (and associated effort) that people on the
floor input into SAP PM is only justified if this information is used to make

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effective business decisions and action plans. The paradigm of extracting


information from the SAP PM Module is much like the power of searching the
internet. The information is powerful and easy to obtain once the knowledge of
how to search is mastered.

Information Systems Opportunities:


x

Many organizations do not train reliability stakeholders how to extract data


out of the SAP PM module. Not understanding how use selection screens
and variants precludes people from narrowing the information they need.
Not being familiar with list displays and variants not only will not allow
looking at general data patterns, more importantly will not allow for the drill
down functionality within SAP. And on a shared value plane, having the
ability to go in and use someone elses variant will save time by not having
to reinvent the wheel.
Asking for improvement without setting goals and benchmarks invites
mediocrity. Very few organizations go to the effort of building Key
Performance Indicators in the system at the start of SAP go-live. It is
important to understand exactly where you are with no guessing or
emotional responses. KPIs provide a common basis on which to
measure improvement and hold accountability.

Leading Improvement Leadership Support


Leadership is needed to assure proper use and benefits of the SAP PM Module.
In order for SAP to be successful leadership must:

Provide the tools for organization to learn the SAP PM Module


Understand the SAP PM Module
Set clear performance expectations
Measure performance
Hold accountability

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.

Leadership Support Opportunities:


x

Training in many organizations is to classroom train a core team (by


trainers that may or may not have practical experience) and this core team

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either performs classroom training or one-on-one training. Typically if any


Training materials are provided, they are text based, and often reside
unused in a locker or evolve into a cheat sheet of key strokes. The
better training processes have detailed job aids for each process, utilizing
both visual and auditory training. The best training efforts (and they are
rare) provide the stakeholders with true understanding of what to do and
why it is important, in a way that can be repeated.
Most organizations disperse formal training efforts after go-live. So much
is different from the sandbox training to the production system. Everyone
typically gets to a stage where they are better able to ask good questions
with a little understanding and knowledge under their belt.
Train the Trainer is often viewed as THE cost effective way to educate.
Few organizations dedicate those individuals to nothing but SAP duties
several weeks prior to Go Live, giving them the ability to learn and
understand the system before expecting them to teach it.
It is the rare organization that develops clear role descriptions and duties
within the SAP system. SAP PM is clearly a role based operating system.
Unclear roles create overlap and confusion.

Getting the Right Parts - Materials Management


The ability to procure the needed materials for work orders is often taken for
granted. Getting timely and accurate material reservations and delivery are
needed to facilitate timely work order execution. It is not unusual for the majority
of the planning effort to be chasing parts and part information.

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.

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Describing the Opportunity - Notification Processing


The Notification is the documentation of the reliability opportunity. The
Notification is the history interface for the PM module for reliability and failure
information. The quality of the Notification data input process is key to laying a
good foundation for an effective work order planning effort.

Notification Processing Opportunities:


x

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.

Avoiding Failure Preventive Maintenance


Preventive Maintenance is the proactive effort of the maintenance reliability
process. The key to success of preventative maintenance execution is
establishing effective job task lists that perform the needed actions to prevent
failure, and to apply those actions with timing that maximizes reliability vs. effort
value.
Preventative maintenance uses time based and condition based
processes.

Preventive Maintenance Opportunities:


x

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

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to facilitate preventive maintenance route time effectiveness. And who


wants to a file cabinet full of PMs any more?
Even with effective task lists, the creation of maintenance plans is one of
those things that are really overlooked during implementation. More than
once we have seen evidence of technically completing repetitive undone
preventive maintenance routes that stacked up because the maintenance
plan scheduling parameters where not set up correctly and
misunderstood. The ability to effectively manage and optimize preventive
maintenance plans is strength of SAP PM, but a good foundation of
understanding is imperative to make it effective.

Manufacturing Teamwork - Production


Production teams have the ability of to support the equipment reliability effort
through the SAP PM Module. Operator Basic Care is important to track as a vital
part of the reliability effort. Operator understanding and involvement in the
correct documentation needed for the notification process in SAP PM Module is
vital to the success of the maintenance effort.

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.

Getting the Work Done Right - Work Order Processing


Work Order Processing is creating, planning, executing, and properly closing
(and documenting) maintenance work orders. Work Order Processing is the focal
point of planning and cost tracking. The Work Order operations detail the steps
to be performed and the materials and resources needed to execute that step. It
also coordinates other SAP processes (Human Resources for labor, Materials

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Management for parts, Financial for cost tracking) to align getting the work
planned, executed, and documented.

Work Order Processing Opportunities:


x

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.

Learning How to do it Better Time Processing


Time processing focuses on accurately charging labor, statusing, and completing
the documentation on maintenance orders. Some organizations utilize the HR
Module to actually track payroll time, some organizations use external systems.
Either way, correctly capturing the vital statistics on every order is import to
building effective and accurate histories.
Time Processing Opportunities:
x

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.

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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.

The Right Person at Work Centers


Work Centers are the people resources needed to execute the maintenance
orders. Effective management of Work Centers provides the necessary
capacities and personnel to properly schedule maintenance work orders.

Work Centers Opportunities:


x Work Centers do more than just identify who will do the work or even as a
selection field to pull up a backlog, but that is what they are primarily used
for. Work Centers will become even more important when you start using
the Capacity Planning in SAP. Many organizations lack the hierarchical
structure within Work Centers to perform scheduling within SAP down the
road.
x Using outside resources as work centers is a great opportunity. This
provides the ability to assign work orders to that work center and will give
leadership the ability to track costs by contractor. It will be a more
effective way to track contractor costs than wading through purchase
orders.

At the Right Time Work Order Scheduling


Work Order Scheduling is the process to predetermine when orders will be
executed. Effective scheduling maximizes the resource value of:
x
x
x
x
x

Craftsman
Production resource tools
Materials
Equipment availability
Relationships between work orders

Scheduling Opportunities:

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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.

Lorri Craig has a background in maintenance in a large manufacturing facility that


includes maintenance scheduling and planning. When her facility began the process of
SAP PM Implementation, she was selected as a Power User to learn and train the
organization how to achieve reliability goals using the SAP PM tool. She is one of many
SAP Power Users across the country that took the initiative to grow the SAP knowledge
in her organization well past the goals of Go-Live.

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