Implementing Condition Monitoring in SAP Asset Performance Management

1. Condition Monitoring: The practice of actively monitoring and diagnosing the current operating status of an asset.
2. Technical Object Viewer: A feature in SAP APM where users can view asset master data, including measuring points, counters, and characteristics.
3. Alerts: Notifications created within SAP APM based on certain conditions that signify deviations from normal operations.
4. Rules: Defined actions within SAP APM that automate condition monitoring processes, such as calculations or the generation of alerts and notifications.
5. Calculations: Processes in the rules engine meant to use various types of data to compute other indicators automatically.
6. Aggregation: A rule function that summarizes data from child equipment up to a parent level in the asset hierarchy.
7. Scheduled Rules: Rules that operate on a defined timetable to raise alerts or notifications based on asset data.
8. Streaming Rules: Rules triggered by data updates, meant to raise alerts or notifications immediately after data changes.
9. Indicators: Time-series data that track the performance or condition of an asset, which can be input manually, through IoT devices, or through measurement documents.
10. Dynamic Assignment: In rule configuration, the process of applying rules to objects that fit certain criteria automatically.
11. Static Assignment: Assigning rules to specific equipment manually within SAP APM.
12. Condition Editor: The interface in the rules engine where users specify the conditions under which certain actions or alerts should be executed.

In this lesson we will walk through a general overview of the condition monitoring capabilities and functionalities that SAP APM enables for assets. Condition monitoring centers around being able to actively monitor and diagnose an assets current operating status. The foundation of this functionality revolves three main tiles: Technical Object Viewer, Alerts, and Rules. These tools give the end user visibility into the current condition of an asset as well as the ability to act on given conditions by creating defined actions like calculations, alerts, and notifications. In this overview we will walk through these tiles and explain each of their functionalities as it pertains to condition monitoring.

Pictured above is the technical object viewer in APM. Here you can view asset master data including measuring points, counters and characteristics which are aligned with your back-end system. There are five separate tabs that you can walk through in this viewer:

1. Information is where you can see the equipment master data like category, object type, manufacturer and structure information.
2. Class - Characteristics displays all of your specific characteristics and values that are assigned to the object.
3. Indicators is the time series data tab for an object. This contains most of the information that you will use for condition monitoring. Indicators can either be populated through measurement documents, IoT connection, or manual entry in this screen. The indicator tab contains all of the indicator cards which give you source information as well as other relevant details on the time series data.
4. Indicator Monitoring contains a 2d visualization chart where you can see your time series data history and overlay the chart with alerts as well as some thresholds and indicator forecasting.
5. Analytics displays any failure curve analytics charts that you may have created for an asset.

In APM in addition to time series data you can also create alerts and notifications against given objects either manually or automatically via the rules engine. Currently to view these the only place they are visible is in the alerts tile from the home screen. There are plans in the roadmap to make these visible in the technical object viewer screen as well as an explorer view similar to ASPM however currently they only live in this tile. The alerts application itself is rather simple with a list of all the alerts in your APM system with filters at the top for narrowing down the results. On this screen relevant users are able to choose specific alerts, change alert statuses or convert alerts directly into notifications which are linked to the given alert in APM.

If a user chooses an alert they are able to view the screen above. Here you can see additional details on the alert like it's origin as well as an indicator chart and if an alert uses deduplication a count of how many duplicate alerts would have been raised. Deduplication is like a snooze button for a condition where if you have alerts that are being raised automatically whenever a condition is violated deduplication can prevent the system from creating an alert for every single violation. Rather than have many alerts all for the same short time period deduplication can raise one alert and then for the selected time period count how many times the condition was violated after the first alert.

As it stands Alerts only live in APM but if converted into notifications a notification object is created in your back-end system. Currently there is no way to view the notification itself in APM however the notification ID will be linked to the alert that it originated from. 

The rules engine is the backbone of the condition monitoring capabilities in APM. The previous two applications are there in order to view data and give users the ability for some manual interaction but the rules engine empowers users to automate their condition monitoring practices.

This is done through 4 different rule types:

1. Calculation Rules: These rules are meant to use indicator, characteristic and attribute data to calculate other indicators. Calculation rules run automatically whenever new data that is used in the rule is updated.
2. Aggregation Rules: These rules move data up an asset hierarchy. This can be done through 3 functions: Min, Max, and Average with more to come in later releases. These functions run by aggregating individual indicator data from child equipment indicators up to the parent level and will run like calculation rules on relevant data updates.
3. Scheduled Rules: Scheduled rules run on a defined schedule and are used to raise either Alerts or Notifications. These can use characteristic, indicator or attribute data like calculation rules in their conditions however do not automatically run on data update but rather on their schedule.
4. Streaming Rules: Similar to scheduled rules in that they are meant to raise Alerts and Notifications with the main difference being these rules run on data update rather than on a given schedule.

With these 4 rules users are able to define their conditions to automate calculations, move data up the asset hierarchy, and ultimately automatically generate alerts and notifications.

Video Summary

Learn about SAP Asset Performance Management and Asset Health Monitoring in this informative video. Discover how condition monitoring and rule creation can help generate alerts, maintenance notifications, and calculate new indicators.

Pictured above is the initial Information tab displayed to a user when they choose a rule. This tab contains long text as well as data points like last changed on time and last evaluated time.

In the Configuration tab users define the data set to be used in the rule. Rules can be assigned either statically (to specific objects) or dynamically (by defining a filter criteria). Dynamic rules are automatically assigned to any objects fitting the filter criteria while static are assigned only to the specific equipment listed in the data set. NOTE: for both assignment methods all of the indicators characteristics or attributes that you wish to use in your conditions must be shared between all the objects in the data set. For indicators this means the positions characteristics and categories much all match across the objects. For all rules except for scheduled rules whatever data is defined here is used as a trigger point for the rule. This means if any of the selected indicators, characteristics or attributes in the data set are updated the rule will be triggered to run for the given equipment that the data is updated on. This does not mean that the rule will evaluate for all equipment in the data set at once but rather it will evaluate just for the object the data update occurred on. Not every data point defined in a data set has to be used in the conditions though but everything that is defined will be used as a trigger.

Finally in the Rule Editor tab is where you define the conditions you want to execute when the rule runs. These are the conditions for your condition monitoring. The editor displayed above is for calculation rules however below are examples of aggregation rules, scheduled rules and streaming rules. You are able to use all the data points that you defined in the previous screen in your rule if and then conditions. Indicators will have latest previous and oldest values along with timestamps for those values available to you while attributes and characteristics will only have the most recent stored value available. The rules engine uses SAP Business Rules Expression Language 2.0 and supports most of it's functions except for aggregation and select functions. For a full list of supported functions you can view the SAP help documentation for APM.

Aggregation rule editing is simply a drop down list for indicator aggregation method.

The Scheduled Rule editor has the relevant notification field if necessary or just an alert type field along with a schedule configuration.

Streaming rules are similar to scheduled where if they are raising a notification, you have the notification fields or for an alert the alert type field however, they lack the scheduling portion as they run on data update.

Together these three applications support your condition monitoring practices in APM. In the Rules tile users can configure and automate their conditions which either output calculated indicator values or actionable items like alerts and notifications. This data is then displayed in the Technical Object viewer or Alerts tile for further analysis and verification or manual intervention. As of now there are updates planned in terms capabilities in the rules engine to support more complex calculations and scenarios as well as additional analytical screens for viewing condition data in order to enable more in depth views into your assets current operating status.