Creating Orders

• Maintenance Order

  A maintenance order allows planning and execution of a maintenance task and calculates the relevant costs; tightly integrated with neighbouring solutions such as materials management and controlling and many others.

• Order Operation

  Operations describe the steps of the task to be performed within an order; they carry all necessary parameters such as required capacity, material, date and time etc.

In the second step, 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.

The instruments available for processing maintenance tasks are as follows:

• Orders are used to plan maintenance tasks, and plan or track the costs incurred.

• Orders offer planning functions for complex tasks.

• Orders can also be created as immediate orders without any planning.

• Notifications are used to convey maintenance requirements, the documentation for technical findings, and the documentation for activities performed.

• Orders and notifications can be used independent of one another. However, they are usually combined to utilize the advantages of both instruments.

The main elements of a maintenance order are as follows:

Order header

The order header data contains information that serves to identify and manage the maintenance order. It is valid for the whole maintenance order. Header data includes the number, description, type of order, scheduled dates for order execution, priority of tasks, creator, last person who changed the order, and so on.

Object list

The object list contains the objects to be processed (functional locations, equipment, assemblies, and serial numbers) and it is implemented if the same activity must be performed at multiple objects of the same type.

Operation

The order operation describes the tasks that must be performed, who performs those tasks, and what guidelines they follow.

The material list (component list) records the spare parts that are required and used when the maintenance order is executed.

Production resources and tools (for example, tools, protective clothing, trucks, and so on) are required to execute the maintenance order, but are not used up because they can be used again.

Settlement rule

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.

Costs

The costs view displays how much the estimated, planned, and actual costs are in the value categories for this order. There is a technical view and a controlling view available.

There are various ways to create a maintenance order.

An order can be created ...

• … based on a notification
• ... based on several notifications (with object list)
• ... with only one operation (Short Orders)
• ... with Operation List (complex planning)
• ... automatically by a maintenance plan.

If your maintenance task requires a more complex planning you create a number of operations within the operations list - according to the tasks you have to perform. You can structure your work in (main) operations and suboperations.

Key fields within an operation are:

• Operation number - determines sequence

• Performing Work Center - specifies the team that does the work

• Control Key - contains important parameters (calculation, confirmation etc.)

• Work - defines the capacity required (in hours or minutes)

• Duration - defines the duration (in hours or minutes)

• Capacities - defines the number of persons required

• Calculation Key - controls how fields Work, Duration and Capacities are linked

  Example: calculation key 1 means: Work / Capacities = Duration

  Example: calculation key 0 means: enter Work and Duration manually

An operation can consist of various suboperations, that is, a task can be split up in various sub-tasks, which then can be assigned to different Work Centers. Suboperations can be defined for the same operation number (for example, operation 0010 0010, operation 0010 0020, operation 0010 0030).

Suboperations have a limited functionality in comparison to (main) operations.

The suboperation has …

• … its own Work Center
• … its own field Work- to split work of main operation
• … its own view Requirements - to enter people for split work of main operation
• … no independent Duration and start/end dates
• … no Material Assignment
• … no Actual Costs (OLC orders)

You can classify the order operations according to their significance in the course of the maintenance or repair work in the operation table of the Operation Data area and in the operation details. In the Stage table column, you can classify operations and sub-operations as preliminary work steps (PRE), main work (MAIN), and subsequent work steps (POST), thus grouping operations and sub-operations according to the assigned execution stage.

The object list is an integral part of the maintenance order. It is used to collect and group the following data:

• Notifications for the same technical objects.
• Notifications for different technical objects.
• Technical objects without notifications.

As a result of collecting this data, the object list always consists of several objects to be processed.

If notifications are assigned to the order using the object list, the first notification in the object list appears in the notification field in the order header. This is indicated as the header notification.

Both the header notification, and the other notifications in the object list, can be separated from the order again. The object list does not control the order. Adjustment of work to be performed, update of history, or cost distribution are not performed for the objects in the object list.

Notifications can be assigned to either an existing order or a newly-created order. If the notification has a task list assigned, the operations of the task list can be copied to the operation list of the order. As a prerequisite, the integration of a notification with an order must be set in the IMG.

The following fields are available for the operations list:

• Functional Location
• Equipment
• Notification
• Plan Date for Notification (in case the notification was generated from a maintenance plan)

The notifications assigned to an order are copied to the object list of the order.

In the settings of an order type, you can define how the object list entries of an order, influence the operation list of an order.

For example, the creation of a maintenance order combining various notifications, which are each linked to a different task list.

The following options are available:

• Assignment of order operations to object list entries is set to inactive (default).
• Assignment of order operations only for notifications, created via maintenance plans.
• Assignment to order operations for all notifications.
• Assignment to order operations to all object list entries.

  For example, also for equipment, functional locations.

Delete Notifications or Operations

If a notification is deleted from the object list of an order, all corresponding operations that came with the task list of the notification are deleted from the operation list of the order. Also, if the operations linked to a notification are deleted from the operation list of the order, the corresponding notification is also deleted from the object list.

Header Notification

When an order is created based on a single notification, this notification becomes the header notification. The assignment of the header notification to an order can be deleted. If several notifications are assigned to an already existing order, you can define one of these notifications as the header notification (provided the order doesn't have one yet). This assignment can also be deleted.

Notification Long Text

When an order is created based on a notification, the long text of the notification can automatically be copied as the long text of the order (note - this can only be done during the creation of the order). This must be activated in the IMG for each notification type.

Assignment of Documents to Maintenance Orders

In order to support planning processes, documents of SAP document management can be assigned, displayed and created, both at the order level and the operation level. Documents in SAP document management is master data created to maintain and manage all kinds/types of real documents such as technical drawings, text documents, photos.

The document info record comprises various features (e.g. different document types, versioning) and offers security for the originals, which is stored in a specific repository.

Cost calculation is an integrated function of maintenance orders and is carried out automatically based on the planned and consumed resources.

In this context a distinction is made between orders which accumulate costs on the order header and orders which accumulate costs on the order operation.

Although most of the maintenance order types such as PM01 and PM02 use postings at header level, there is the requirement to calculate and post costs at operation level.

An order must have either a header-based or an operation-based costing. You cannot have mixed-mode costing.

Calculation at Header Level versus Calculation at Operation Level

Costs for maintenance orders are calculated by default at header level. The operation account assignment (OAA) solution allows you to calculate costs of maintenance orders at operation level. Header totals are summed dynamically, as required. No costs are stored on the OAA order object database.

Postings at Header Level versus Postings at Operation Level

Costs for maintenance orders are settled by default at header level. The operation account assignment (OAA) solution allows you to post costs of maintenance orders at operation level. An order must have either a header-based or an operation-based costing. You cannot have mixed-mode costing.

Header-costed orders usually create their settlement rule automatically based on the account data of the reference object in the order header.

Orders with operation account assignment use the same logic, i.e. based on the reference object in the order header, but create a settlement rule for each operation.

If a technical object is assigned to the operation, the settlement rule for the operation will be created based on the data of this object.

Costs in the maintenance order can be displayed in two different view:

• By Value Category (Cost Category)
• By Cost Element (Detailed Cost Analysis)

The maintenance order is integrated with Controlling (CO), Accounting (FI) and Materials Management (MM).

When planning work for a work center within in an order operation the correct cost element (CO) is automatically found. When planning a material with a certain quantity a direct integration with Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) is available. In addition, the correct account (FI) and the corresponding cost element (CO) is automatically determined.

As an alternative to working in SAP Fiori Launchpad you can use the following transactions.

For the On Premise edition they are available via SAP GUI for Windows.

In addition, every transaction also has a SAP GUI for HTML version.

Transactions for Maintenance Orders:

• IW31, IW32, IW33 - Create, Change, Display Order
• IW38, IW39 - List Editing Change, Display