Key Terms used in this lesson
Equipment
Individual object for which maintenance has to be performed and recorded.
Serial Number
Individual object within the stock of a material number; to be tracked in various business processes.
Individual objects that can be a part of bigger technical structures and for which a separate maintenance history must be constructed, are mapped by using equipment.
A piece of equipment is an individual physical object that you would maintain as an autonomous unit. Pieces of equipment usually represent single objects such as pumps, motors, and vehicles for which maintenance tasks are to be performed and recorded.
A piece of equipment can be installed at functional locations. A piece of equipment can be linked to a material if there is a need for inventory management.
Criteria for Creation of Equipment Creation
You always create an equipment master record for a technical object under the following conditions:
You need to manage individual data for the object.
When breakdown, planned, or preventive maintenance tasks are required for an object, you need to record the maintenance tasks.
You need to collect and evaluate technical data for the object over long periods of time.
You need to monitor the costs of maintenance tasks for the object.
You need to record the usage time of the object at functional locations.
Equipment Master Record
In the standard system, the master record for a piece of equipment uses the following views:
General: Class, object type, reference data, manufacturer data, and so on
Location: Location data and address
Organization: Account assignment (for example, company code, cost center) and responsible entities (for example, maintenance planning plant)
Structure: Higher-level functional location, superior equipment, and so on
Equipment and Serial Number
A piece of equipment with its equipment number can only be used in Asset Management and Customer Service.
The equipment number cannot be handled in other areas.
If you want to put a piece of equipment on stock – for example because it is defective and you want to refurbish it - you first have to assign a serial number.
A serial number is an individual, single part within a stock of a material number - and therefore can well be combined with a piece of equipment.
With the combination of an equipment and a serial number you can handle an individual, physical part not only in Asset Management and Customer Service but also in Materials Management and other areas.
Usage List
A piece of equipment can be installed and dismantled at functional locations. You can also monitor the installation times for a piece of equipment from both the functional location view and the equipment view.
In the case of a piece of equipment that is linked to a material, when you dismantle the damaged piece of equipment, the system can automatically place it in storage. Likewise, when a piece of equipment is installed, the system automatically releases it from store inventory.
To install a piece of equipment at a functional location, the following prerequisites must be fulfilled:
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 further control this by using the Individual Installation option.
The installation locations for equipment in a technical system are documented in the usage list. The usage list forms part of the equipment history.
Equipment usage periods can also be displayed from the functional location view.
Along with changes to the installation location, the usage list also documents changes to other fields of the master record (for example, cost center and asset).