Describing Master Data Used in SAP EAM

You should use functional locations to structure your systems in the following conditions:

• You want to represent the structures of the technical systems in your company according to functional criteria.
• You need to perform and record maintenance tasks for certain parts of your technical system.
• You need to store technical data for certain parts of your technical system and evaluate this data over a long period of time.
• You want to monitor the cost of maintenance tasks for certain parts of your technical system.
• You want to analyze the effects of the usage conditions on the likelihood of damage to the installed equipment.

The identification for functional locations is created using the structure indicator.

The structure indicator consists of the following input fields:

• Coding template:

  A coding template is used to control the characters that may be used for identification (letters, numbers, or both) and how these characters are grouped or split.

• Hierarchy levels:

  The hierarchy levels are used to define which level ends at which character, as well as the number of hierarchy levels the structure may contain.

A functional location can be identified using a maximum of 40 characters, which is the maximum length of the coding template.

You should always create an equipment master record for a technical object in the following situations:

• You need to manage individual data for an object.
• You require breakdown, planned, or preventive maintenance tasks for an object and need to record them.
• You need to collect and evaluate technical data for an object over a long period of time.
• You need to monitor the costs of maintenance tasks for an object.
• You need to record the usage time of an object at functional locations.

Additional data, or links in the master record for the equipment, can also be activated as tab pages or called up using a button.

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

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 (Customizing).
• 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). In Customizing, you can set which fields should be monitored in this way.

The previous method for assigning equipment to an asset was to enter the asset number in the relevant master record; this functionality still exists. Several pieces of equipment can be assigned to an asset, but a piece of equipment can belong only to one asset.

You can ensure integration between Asset Accounting (FI-AA) and Plant Maintenance (PM) by synchronously creating or changing equipment and asset.

You can set up the system to automatically create an equipment master record whenever you create an asset master record. In this case, the system copies the values of certain master data fields, such as the Company Code and the Inventory Number. If you change master data in the asset at a later point in time, the system then automatically updates the fields in the equipment master record and the other way around. You can also set up a workflow that informs someone (the person responsible in PM, for example) when assets are created or changed.

If assignment is performed in the view Sales: General/plant data, the profile is displayed automatically in the view General plant data/Storage 2 (and vice versa). The combination of material and serial number is unique on the client level.

Two options are available for linking the equipment, material, and serial number:

• The material and serial number can be assigned to an existing equipment manually.
• The system creates the equipment and serial number automatically during a posting.

Assigning a serial number to a piece of equipment enables the equipment to be managed from an inventory management perspective.

This means that you can use the material serial number to manage the equipment from Plant Maintenance from a Material Management perspective. Managing equipment in this way is desirable, if, for example, an object that was previously only managed as a piece of equipment is to be dismantled and transferred to the warehouse.

You perform the assignment in the serialization data of the equipment master record. If you enter a material that already has a serial number profile for the serialization of individual pieces of equipment in the equipment master record, the system displays the last serial number assigned for this material (if a serial number was already assigned). In this way, you can connect the new serial number directly to the last serial number assigned.

You can manage the relationship between the material and equipment as follows:

• You can synchronize the equipment number and the serial number with each other.
• You can synchronize the material coupled with the equipment with the material in the Construction Type field of the equipment (Structure tab page).

Material BOMs are always used in plant maintenance when a number of similarly constructed objects have to be maintained.

The aim of using a material BOM is to create one BOM and then assign this BOM to the technical objects, instead of creating a BOM for each technical object. This avoids the use of redundant BOMs.

A material BOM is a BOM that is first created for a material independent of a technical object.

To create a material BOM, you must perform the following tasks in this sequence:

1. Create a material.
2. Create a material BOM for the material.
3. Assign a BOM to one or more technical objects (equipment or functional location).

You can make the assignment(s) in the respective master record using theStructure view. The number of the corresponding material is entered in theConstructiontype field.