Understanding the Corrective Maintenance Process
The corrective maintenance repair process goes through several planning stages, such as preliminary costing, work scheduling, material provision, resource planning, and permits. You can also react immediately to issues that may lead to the shutdown of production facilities.
If required, a Maintenance Technician can create the required maintenance work orders and shop papers with a minimum of entries in the shortest possible time. The notification usually refers to a technical object and contains a description of the malfunction or the requirements. In addition, data can be entered in a notification to build up the history (for example, damage, causes, and so on). Based on a notification, maintenance tasks can be planned. This leads frequently, but not necessarily, to the creation of a maintenance order
A maintenance order is planned based on a notification. Typically, planning activities comprise the creation of order operations including planned work efforts and the reservation of relevant material or spare parts. You also plan for the materials (stock and non-stock) required to execute a task for each operation in the maintenance order. The materials can be Bills of Materials (BOMs) components for the reference object or freely assigned materials.
The cost can be calculated for personnel and materials at any phase in a maintenance order. Cost analysis based on the costs are (automatically) calculated in the maintenance order. The costs are calculated by default at header level of the maintenance order (for planned as well as for actual costs).
A Maintenance Planner ensures that the orders are processed in time. The Maintenance Planner must ensure that the materials are available, shop papers are printed, and orders are released for processing.
Before a maintenance task can be technically completed, the working times are entered in the time confirmation. After confirming a maintenance task, the order and notification are then completed. The completion of an order consists of two steps: technical completion and business completion. So if no more task is left from a maintenance perspective, then a maintenance order is set to technically completed.
The data in the settlement rule provides information on which account assignment object the costs are to be settled. The account assignment object is proposed from the master record for the reference object and can be changed when the first settlement rule is maintained for the order
Steps in Corrective Maintenance
The corrective maintenance process involves the following steps:
- Malfunctions and other requirements are recorded in a notification.
- Orders are created and planned based on the reported requirements. Planning encompasses the steps to be taken and the material required.
- The order runs through different checks (such as material availability checks and capacity planning) which are important for the release of the order. The system checks whether permits need to be approved, safety plans are required and if the work clearance requirements for certain areas are fulfilled. If no problems arise during these checks, the order is put in process. The shop papers are usually printed at this point.
- The order is executed. The required material for the order is withdrawn. This includes material that has not been planned, and therefore not reserved, by the order.
- Time confirmations and technical confirmations are entered in the system.
- The order is set to technically complete. The settlement of the order by Controlling (CO) can be performed before or after the technical completion of the order. Finally, the maintenance order is set to business complete. This step is executed by the Controlling department.
