Describing Technical Objects in Defense Maintenance

Defense and Security enables specific maintenance, repair, and overhaul. You are involved in implementing the SAP Defense and Security (DS) industry solution. You need to learn about the different types of technical objects used in DS-specific plant maintenance.

The introduction and explanation of the technical objects in Defense Maintenance are illustrated below by an example of a frigate. Of course, any other technical object could be illustrated here.

The business object functional location is a technical unit that structures the maintenance objects of a company or army according to functional, process-related or spatial criteria.

Functional locations are hierarchically ordered structures that represent a technical system, building, or part thereof.

You can structure the functional location according to process-oriented criteria, such as spatial, technical, or functional criteria.

The aim of creating a functional location is to structure a technical system or building into units that are relevant for Plant Maintenance (PM).

You can use functional locations to structure your systems in the following cases:

• You want to represent the structures of the technical systems in your company according to functional criteria.
• Maintenance tasks have to be performed for individual areas in the structure of your technical system and this work must be recorded.
• Technical data for certain parts of your technical system has to be stored and evaluated over a long period of time.
• The costs of maintenance tasks have to be monitored for certain parts of your technical system.
• You want to analyze what effects the usage conditions have on the likelihood of damage to the installed equipment.

The following are characteristics of functional locations:

• Order number derived by structure indicator
• Number reveals position within hierarchy
• Creation and ordering within hierarchy in one step
• Functional location represents location of installation
• Functional location supports costs assignments

Instead of creating each technical system or building from scratch, the so-called Reference structures can also be used. This makes it possible to take over complete structures and then to individually define them. It is important to understand that there is no further relationship between the Reference Locations and the Functional Locations after a structure-copy has been created. If the Reference Location changes over time, it will have no further effect on the structure of the existing frigate. In addition, the created frigates have no relation to each other and can be completely individualized. Furthermore, not only is the structure copied, but also previously defined measuring points can be referenced.

Before you can create functional locations and reference functional locations in the system, you must define the structure according to which you want to set up the locations in the system. You do this using so-called structure indicators.

You can use the structure indicator to do the following:

• Define and control the generic structure of the functional location labels
• Make the hierarchy levels within the functional location structure visible in the location labeling
• Use the automatic system functions for the generic location structure when you create the locations

You can see that this example of a Structure Indicator has seven hierarchy levels. Each of this levels have a different combination of characters. Each of the different letters represents one type of character.

A = Alpha, N = Numeric, X = Alphanumeric, S = Special

From a technical point of view, it makes sense to define standardized basic structures for weapon systems and to use them holistically. In this figure, a work breakdown structure for ships from a functional perspective is presented. If you want to use such a structure, you must design the structure indicator according to the functional layout. Afterward, the Functional Locations can be created according to this structure.

The master record for the functional location uses the following views:

General

This view contains class, object type, reference data, and manufacturer data.

Location

This view contains location data and addresses.

Organization

This view contains account assignment and responsibilities.

Structure

This view contains structure indicator, higher-level functional location, and equipment.

Additional data or links in the master record for the functional location can also be activated as tabs or called up using pushbuttons.

The business object equipment is an individual, physical object that is to be maintained independently. It can be installed in a technical system or a part of a technical system.

You can manage all types of devices as equipment (for example, production utilities, transportation utilities, test equipment, production resources/tools, buildings, PCs).

You must create an equipment master record for a technical object in the following cases:

• You need to manage individual data for the object.
• Breakdown, or prepared or preventive maintenance tasks, are required for an object and must be recorded.
• Technical data for this object must be collected and evaluated over long periods of time.
• The costs of maintenance tasks for this object are to be monitored.
• You need to record the usage time of this object at functional locations.

Examples for equipment:

• Means of Production
• Means of Transportation
• Test equipment
• Production resources / tools
• Customer devices
• Buildings / Properties
• Vehicles

Equipment can be installed and dismantled at functional locations.

You can monitor the installation times for a piece of equipment from both the Functional Location view and the Equipment view.

The following prerequisites must be fulfilled in order to install a piece of equipment at a functional location:

• The equipment category must permit an installation.
• The "Equipment Installation Allowed" option must be activated in the master record for the functional location. You can restrict this option by using the "Individual Installation" option.

Equipment has its own history and it records operational times, as well as maintenance activities.

The equipment master record uses the following views in the standard system:

• General
• This view contains class, object type, reference data, and manufacturer data.
• Location
• This view contains location data and addresses.
• Organization
• This view contains account assignment and responsibilities.
• Structure
• This view contains structure indicator, higher-level functional location, and equipment.

Additional data or links in the master record for the equipment can also be activated as tabs or called up using pushbuttons.

You can use the time-based data to monitor a piece of equipment dynamically. This data is used to track changes to the equipment over a specific period of time. If your system is customized accordingly, it automatically creates a new time segment whenever certain changes are made in the master record. The time segment describes the equipment usage.

The figure, Overview and SAP Defense and Security Specific Equipment Enhancements, shows the standard technical objects that are also used in other SAP modules, and the Defense specific enhancements of the equipment. In the following parts of the training, the technical objects shown will be explained further. For better understanding, the technical objects are always shown in the different colors in the training documents.

In the SAP industry solution Defense and Security, equipment enhancements are used to support specific military requirements. D&S Specific equipment enhancements are grouped under the concept of Operational Equipment, which can be of the type Master, Site and Critical, depending on the use case.

The master equipment is an enhancement of the Equipment object type to include additional properties needed to meet the requirements of armed forces, police, and aid organizations.

A master equipment represents the weapon system or platform and it is always installed at the top level of the structure (and never below that). The cutout from the frigate hierarchy shows the horizontal integration of the master equipment with other areas like the Force Element, Stock, and the possibility to use the technical Status.

The integration to Force Element is twofold:

• Utilizer is the force element where the master equipment is located in inventory.
• Owner is a relationship between the master equipment and a force element which is maintained explicitly (directly). The owner typically represents maintenance planning responsibility.

It is not possible to delete a Master Equipment in standard implementation, due to the need to preserve history.

A critical / site equipment (CSEQ) is an equipment that represents either a site equipment, a critical equipment or a combination of both.

By clicking on the Create Critical/Site Equipment button, the standard equipment becomes a Site Equipment from a technical point of view. If you want this equipment to be able to carry an additional technical status, the user can simply set this themselves. This turns the site equipment into a Critical Equipment. The critical equipment is based on the site equipment and is used to represent major important systems or components, such as ship engines, and displays their operational and technical status.

The site equipment can be used as a single object or can be installed everywhere in the structure. It provides limited capabilities of the master equipment.

An example for a site-equipment could be a mobile test bench, which is (in this case) not installed at a technical structure. The Mobile test bench is a single object belonging to the airbase and is usable in several operational sites (Hardened aircraft shelters 12 and 13). Unlike the critical equipment, the site equipment has no technical status. However, it has an operational status, which always indicates whether this site equipment can be used or not. In addition, the site equipment has the property that it can be tracked at any point in time.

A critical equipment is based on site equipment and is used to represent very important systems or components, such as ship engines, and shows their operational status and technical status.

Critical equipment is used to represent very important systems or components, such as ship engines, and shows their operational status and technical status. The technical status of some of the critical equipment should impact the technical status of their superior in the structure, such as the ship itself.

In this example, the site equipment is not considered as a single object, but is part of a structure.

A material is a tangible product that can be bought, produced, and sold. When items are serialized, the assignment of material-serial number combination to an equipment is unique.

This uniqueness is important because the material / serial combination is the link to other SAP modules such as material management (SAP MM).

In the SAP system, a material is usually defined as a number in a customer-specific number range, however it is customary for Defense customers to manage materials by external numbering by either NATO (NSN) or manufacturer items (MPN).

The material number uniquely identifies a material in the SAP system

Example: In the example structure of the frigate, the material 4711 describes gas turbines with the same form, fit, and function while the Equipment number 10000001 refers to a specific serialized item.

One of the top priorities of our customers is being able to ensure the safe condition of their assets and technical objects at all times. In the maintenance process technical planners and maintenance technicians work with objects that are characterized by complex product structures. The Configuration Control component allows configuration checks for these diverse products. One of the aims of this component is to provide the roles involved in the maintenance process with information on valid parts. The whole product structure can also be validated. The asset, or part of the asset, must have a valid configuration when it is released for operation. At present, the functions integrated in the Configuration Control component are mainly affected by the numerous maintenance activities performed during the operation of an asset.

With the help of the Master-Parts-List a system-side structure can be built up, which defines how exactly a structure of for example a specific ship like a frigate has to look like. Furthermore, it is possible to define a maximum configuration. For example, it can be allowed that not only one specific gas turbine can be installed as equipment under the function location gas turbine, but gas turbines of several manufacturers. Configuration control can therefore be used during maintenance work to check directly whether a component corresponds to the previously authorized configuration. Configuration Control is likely to discover data reporting incompleteness's, such as a new engine was installed in reality but the installation was not completed correctly in the ERP.