Equipment master in SAP PM is a technical object which is used by production department or maintenance department for various purposes. It is important to track the maintenance cost and maintenance history log of equipment. SAP helps in doing so. By creating an equipment in SAP we can track cost and history periodically. Periodically means weekly, monthly, annually and so on. You can full fill this requirement in Equipment master in SAP PM.
Equipment creation in SAP S4HANA
Equipment creation in S4HANA is more or less same as in ECC but the user inteface and screens are changed slightly. You need to remember the new features or changes introduced in S4HANA. This will help to explain the features and changes to client and also in the interviews.
Fiori Apps
There are three key Fiori applications which can be used to process an equipment. In S4HANA equipment and functional location are together known as Technical objects. The three Fiori apps are:
- Create Technical Object
- Change Technical Object
- Display Technical Object
Step 1: Run t code IE01 to create an Equipment in SAP PM, or go to Logistics > Plant Maintenance > Management of Technical Objects > Equipment > IE01 (General)
Step 2: Create Equipment – Initial Screen will appear. Here you can select the relevant equipment category. Generally we use ‘M-Machines’ category. Other Equipment Categories available in standard SAP are:
P-Production Resource/Tools,
Q-Test/measurement equipment
S-Customer equipment
This can be asked in SAP PM Interview questions.
Step 3: Press enter and go to equipment master data main screen.
Step 4: Enter the short text (not more than 40 characters). There is option of entering long text also.
Step 5: In standard SAP there will be four tabs- General, Location, Organization and Structure. You may add more tabs as per client’s requirement. Complete layout of Equipment Master Data can be configured in SPRO.
General tab
Step 6: Click on General Data Tab. General Data tab is divided into three parts General Data, Reference Data and Manufacturing Data.
Step 6a: The first field is Class. This field is grey out (Display mode). To bring the class, click on the Class Overview button. Now select the Class type 002 for equipment. Afterwards enter the class. This class name is very important because it allows you to classify your technical objects into various classes in such a manner that you can maintain their specifications.
For ex: Suppose there are 1500 motors in your plant and you want to maintain their specifications such as Voltage, Current, power etc. Then you must use class and characteristics. Create the specifications as characteristics and assign them on the class. Create a class with name MOTOR. Once you assign the class to the equipment all the characteristics will be available to the equipment, where you can maintain its values like 440 Volt, 45 Ampere, 50 KW etc.
Step 7: Here we should enter object type. Object type is a division of technical object for precise description. For example: If Equipment Category is “M’, then you may select object type as Motor, Pump, Turbine etc.
This field can be configured in SPRO.
Step 8: Enter Authorization Group. Authorization Group is used when you want to give access to certain users to process data. Users who have the Authorization group in their role will be able to access and process that equipment.
Consulting Tip: Always recommend to use Authorization Group, if Client wants that Electrical Department users should not be able to see Mechanical Equipment and vice-versa. In such cases create Authorization ELE and MEC and give authorization to respective user.
Authorization Group can be configured in SPRO.
Step 9: You can enter Weight, Size, Dimensions, inventory no. and start-up date also.
Step 10: In Reference Data you may enter the Acquisition value (with currency) and Acquisition date.
Consulting Tip: This field is important because in future you can compare the maintenance cost and acquisition value on real-time basis. If Maintenance cost exceeds the Acquisition Value, then you may choose to scrap out the equipment.
Step 11: Then enter the Manufacturer Name and other details. For example: ABB, L&T, SIEMENS, SAMSUNG etc. This is Text field.
Consulting Tip: This field is very important, because there is an SAP Standard Report MCI2 based on Manufacturer.
Location tab
Step 12: Click on Location tab.
Step 13: Enter the Maintenance Plant. Select the Maintenance Plant where equipment is physically installed.
Step 14: Enter Location. Location can be Production Area, Warehouse, Admin etc. Location is configured in SPRO.
Consulting Tip: This field is very important, because there is an SAP Standard Report MCI3 based on Location.
Step 15: Next field is Room. This field can be used for information purpose. It indicates a specific room for asset or machinery. It is generally used in Real Estate Industry. It is a text field.
Step 16: Enter Plant Section. Plant Section indicates the production area in maintenance plant. We can also include the name and contact no. of Production In-charge of respective plant section. It is configurable in SPRO.
Consulting Tip: This field is very important, because there is an SAP Standard Report MCI3 based on Plant Section.
Step 17: Enter the Work Center from the drop down. This work center is actually PP Work Center linked to the maintenance equipment. Production department uses the equipment to produce goods. However, maintenance department does maintenance activities on the same equipment. Now, in order to avoid the clashes between the production activity and maintenance activity, it is needed to link the PP work center and maintenance equipment. This will allow the Production in-charge to see which equipment will be under maintenance in future. Thus, he/ she will not plan production with that equipment. Production in-charge can see the scheduled maintenance activities in the Planning board.
Integration: Assigning PP Work Center in the Equipment Master in an integration of PM and PP Module.
Step 18: Enter ABC Indicator. ABC indicator can be used to define the criticality of technical objects. For example: A – Very Critical, B- Medium Critical, C-Non-critical. This field is configurable in SPRO.
Consulting Tip: ABC indicator must be entered with equipment. Whenever, we execute any maintenance activity in SAP. ABC indicator automatically copied to the notification or maintenance order. Therefore it is available in all the maintenance order and notification reports. We can use them for further analysis. For example: In IW38 report, we can see how many equipment with indicator A are under maintenance i.e. how many critical equipment are under maintenance? This can also help in cost control and cost reduction.
Step 19: Enter sort field. Sort field is a simple text field, which can be used for tracking of equipment.
Organization tab
Step 20: Click on Organization tab. Organization tab is divided into two parts, Account Assignment and Responsibilities. Account assignment contains the company code, asset no., cost center etc. Responsibilities contains Planning Plant, Planner Group, main work center and catalog profile
Step 21: Enter Company Code. If you have entered the Maintenance Plant in Location tab, then company code of that plant will automatically appear here. However, if there is no entry there, then we will have to enter the company code manually from drop down list.
Integration: This is integration with Finance Module.
Step 22: Enter Assent number. Assent is created by Finance department. Like Equipment Master in SAP PM Module, there is an Asset master in SAP FI Module. Every asset requires integration with the respective Equipment. Once a one-to-one relationship is established between Asset and Equipment it makes very easy for Finance department to track the depreciated value and maintenance cost of an equipment.
Consulting Tip: We can configure the asset and equipment synchronization. It means, whenever any new asset is created with a certain category, automatically it will create new equipment with a certain category and vice-versa. This configuration is available in SAP FI configuration nodes.
Integration: This is an integration of SAP PM Module and SAP Finance Module.
Step 23: Enter Cost Center. Cost Center is SAP CO Master Data. It is created by controlling department. This entry is important because cost center entered here is automatically copied to the respective maintenance notification and maintenance order. Cost center the organization element where entire cost of maintenance is settled.
Integration: This is an integration of SAP PM Module with SAP CO Module.
Step 24: Enter Planning Plant. Planning Plant is the plant where entire planning of maintenance activities carried out. Based on organization structure business people can easily decide the respective planning plant for the equipment. This entry is important because when production in-charge creates any notification with reference to equipment, then planning plant will automatically copied to it. This will help in tracking and filtering of notification in reports. Planning plant can be configured in SPRO.
Consulting Tips: This field is important and must be entered because there are many reports based on planning plant. For ex: IW28, IW29, IW38, IW39, IW65, IW69 etc.
Step 25: Enter Planner Group. Planner Group is the group of persons who are responsible for planning of maintenance activities. It is configured in SPRO. Planner Group is created with respect to planning plant.
When you create a notification or maintenance order with reference to equipment, planner group is automatically copied to it in the responsibility sub-screen. This helps in tracking and reporting on planner group basis.
Consulting Tip: Generally Planner Groups are created like ELE – Electrical, MEC – Mechanical, INS – Instrumentation, CVL – Civil etc. It can also be created as 100, 200, and 300 up to 999. It should always be recommended to have a scope of expansion while creating planner groups.
We must enter the planner group in equipment master because we have SAP Standard Report MCI4 based on planner group.
Step 26: Enter Main Work Centre. Main Work Centre is the group of persons or machines responsible to execute the maintenance task in the field or plant area. It is a generally created like ELEC0001, MECH0001, MECHWRK etc. When you create a notification or maintenance order with reference to equipment, main work centre is automatically copied to it in the responsibility sub-screen. This helps in tracking and reporting on main work centre basis. We can see how many maintenance jobs are pending on a particular main work centre.
Step 27: Enter Catalog Profile. Catalog Profile contains the catalog, catalog groups, catalog codes and code texts. An equipment specific catalog profile will have catalog codes related to that equipment. When we create a maintenance notification, equipment specific catalog profile will be available to for maintaining the technical history in notification. If there is a catalog profile for notification then equipment specific catalog profile will override notification specific catalog profile.
Structure tab
Step 28: Click on Structure Tab.
Step 29: This is the time to install this equipment to the respective functional location. Functional location field in this tab is grey out (Display mode). You can not enter this field. But there is a small icon at the right extreme of functional location field. Click on it, a new window will pop up. Here you can enter the functional location from drop down. You can also enter the superior equipment and position of equipment on the functional location.
At the bottom of this window there is a button Install with Transfer. This button is very important. If you want to transfer all the master data like ABC indicator,Cost Center, Asset no., planning plant, planner group etc from the functional location then there is no need to maintain all the master data entries in equipment. Simply enter the maintenance plant and come to structure tab and enter the functional location and click on this button. All the master data will automatically copy from functional location to the equipment. This reduces the efforts to maintain entries in equipment master. System also gives option to the users if they want to copy only specific fields from functional location like user want to copy only planning data not the account assignment.
Step 30: Now functional location, superior equipment and position field will have values.
Step 31: Enter Technical ID no. Here system gives an option to maintain the technical id no. of technical object as per the engineering drawing or any other number. This is a simple text field.
Step 32: Next field is Construction Type. Construction type is a very important field. Here you can maintain the material bill of material. This material bill of material will have all the materials which are commonly used during maintenance like cotton waste, lubricant, silica gel, brush etc. Now at the time of maintenance you can open this list in the maintenance order in the component tab. There is a button with a flower on it at the bottom of component tab with name “List”.
All the entries are completed. Now you can SAVE your Equipment. Once you save your equipment, it will assign a system generated number. You can also assign external number, but this depends upon the number range definition in SPRO.