Claiming and Registering Tools During Production Execution

The Track Tool Usage app is mainly used by production supervisors and operators to view the status of available tools and claim or unclaim a particular tool as required.

The Track Tool Usage app offers the following capabilities:

• Search for equipment
• Display the following information about equipment:
  • Material
  • Serial number
  • Equipment status
  • Plant and storage location
  • Claimed by, claim type, claimed for, claim date, total time claimed
• Claim equipment in the following scenarios:
  • To be used in operation activities
  • To be used by user
  • To be used in the Work Center
• Unclaim claimed tools
• Put equipment on hold
• Release equipment from hold

Claiming a tool from the Track Tool Usage app is only possible in the status ESTO and if assigned to an operation activity that has the status Initial, In Process, and Paused.

The status of a tool determines if it is available for claiming or not. The status and action schema defines how an action such as claim, unclaim, hold, or release changes the status from one state to another state. The complete status life cycle of a trackable tool is shown in the schema in the following figure.

The production operator looks at their work queue to find out if any trackable tools are needed for the next operation they will start. If tools are needed, they can go from the work queue to the Track Tool Usage app to claim the tool for the operation

Alternatively, the production operator can use the Perform Work app to look for registrable tools and navigate from here to the Track Tool Usage app for claiming. To register the tool, use a scanner device or select the available equipment/serial number from the F4 value help.

The following information and actions for trackable tools are available from the Perform Work app:

• Display information about PRTs in the left view of the screen.
• Scan by equipment or serial number or UII or select the available equipment/serial number from the F4 value help.
• If an equipment was claimed to be used in this OA, it can be auto registered via an action handler assigned to the Start action (action handler to auto register the tool instance’s serial number/UII).
• Auto claim the equipment at registration via an action handler, if it was not already claimed in the Track Tool Usage app before.
• Unregister equipment that has been registered by mistake.
• Unclaim the claimed tool.
• Provide navigation to the Track Tool Usage app.
• Perform the unclaim action automatically via an action handler assigned to the Complete action.
• Check whether the equipment is in the "PRT Not Ready for use" status. In this case, the equipment can’t be registered. The error message will display.
• Check whether all registrable equipment has been registered at completing OA via an action handler assigned to the Complete action, if PRTs configured as registrable in OA.
• Enhance interactive WIs to support PRTs registration.

Register and unregister actions are recorded in the production action log, including a time-stamp with the user who executed the action. Detailed information about the tool, such as serial number and UII, is added to the Product Genealogy report and As-Built hierarchy.

• Enhancements to Authorization Objects: Provide the ability to control authorizations for managing tools via the new authorization object C_MPE_TTU.
  1. Allow users to claim and unclaim PRTs.
  2. Allow users to put/release PRTs from hold.
• Enhancements to BADIs:
  1. Extend the Order Update interface’s BADI with information about OA level and tool assignment to OA to support custom extensions for tool determination at order release and update.
  2. Introduce a BADI to perform inventory posting for the tool instance from one storage location to another during claim/unclaim.