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SAP ERP - A Powerful Platform for Implementing the Best
Maintenance Practices
C.M. Tripathi*, A.S.K. Mohandas, T. Ravindran
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Project ICE
13th Floor, Core 4, Scope Minar, Laxminagar, Delhi-110092, India
Phone (O): 011-22406148, Fax: 011-22446426
*E-mail:tripathi_cm@ongcl.com
Abstract
The capital intensive organizations like ONGC, having widely spread operational areas, spend huge
quantity of resources towards Asset Management. Success of such mega organizations, largely
depend on sustainable productivity for which proper upkeep of capital assets is a prerequisite. This
calls for a systematic approach for scheduled maintenance of the assets to minimise breakdowns and
higher expenses on the upkeep of the critical equipments/systems. Efficient and resilient repair
facilities require effective integration with material management and financial processes, to ensure
timely availability of required inputs and optimum maintenance cost. The integrated maintenance
management package from SAP, implemented in ONGC at different Assets, process platforms and
plants as part of project ICE, fulfils these requirements.
The SAP ERP platform for Maintenance management of the assets provides solution for
implementing the scheduled maintenance activities with predefined maintenance tasks, package,
strategy, craft skill and material requirements as per the best maintenance practices and OEM
recommendations. The integration feature with other functionalities like Material Management and
Finance, helps tracking the maintenance cost in terms of manpower, material and services. The
package is capable of generating standard reports like MTTR/MTBR, cost history etc and provides
powerful statistical and analytical tools for realistic decisions on replacement plans and corrective
measures. Additionally, the customized reports like compliance monitoring of scheduled activities,
master data and order status, system status, work centre capacity utilization etc, developed to meet
ONGC specific requirements, further enhance the efficacy of the package. The add-on lifecycle data
management (LDM) module facilitates easy access to drawings and documents of the assets and
equipments, on the users desktop.
The SAP ERP platform therefore provides solution for integrated Asset Management which in turn
facilitates implementation of best maintenance practices, ensures maximum availability of assets for
operations and optimum utilization of resources. The solution further helps better planning for
resources, monitoring and control of inventory and also the maintenance expenses. A top driven
change management initiative is recommended to ensure the religious usage of the system across
the organization so as to avail the benefits of this powerful ERP platform.
The integrated Asset Management system as a part of SAP ERP Platform has significantly helped
standardisation of maintenance processes, creation of structured master data of assets/ equipments,
maintenance plans for critical systems along with resource requirements for implementing the best
maintenance practices. The customized reports provide useful and quick information on master data,
scheduled maintenance compliance and resource utilization whereas the standard reports provide
analytical information to arrive at a maintenance cost up to Systems/ Equipment level. The integration
aspect of the SAP platform is useful in exercising control on maintenance expenses whereas the
implementation of scheduled maintenance practices, ascertains the sustained reliability and
availability of Assets/Equipments for operations.
Introduction
The focus of the maintenance management is to ensure that all the assets/equipments meet and
continue to withstand their design specifications. The maintenance organization within a company
therefore plays a lead role in adapting the best maintenance practices. This necessitates
standardisation of maintenance processes inline with the organizational requirements and facilitations
for in-time availability of material and services. Such facilitation, in turn, requires integration with other
functional areas like operations, material management and finance.
The SAP-ERP solution implemented in ONGC provides the necessary integrated platform for
scheduling of maintenance activities, planning/ provisioning, posting of material and external services
to maintenance order, capturing maintenance cost incurred on material, manpower and services and
updating the equipment history. Besides, the system provides required qualitative and analytical
reports for improving the availability of the equipment and also facilitating the strategic decisions on
replacement of assets. The paper focuses on the best maintenance practices, their mapping in ERP
system and the methodologies adapted for implementation.
Work Control
Maintenance Organization
and Structure
Training and
Skills
Maintenance
Best Practices/
Excellence thru
SAP-ERP platform
Maintenance Planning
and Scheduling
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SAP EAM
BW
Maintenance
Planning
Master Data
Functional Location
Equipment master
Bill of Materials
Task Lists
Strategies, Cycles,
Counters,
Plans
Maintenance
Execution &
Documentation
Notification Creation
M Order Creation
M Order Confirmation Notification Closing/
Completion
Posting of materials,
Internal labour, External
Services
Maintenance
Analysis
Strategy
Evaluation
Info System
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However, if the majority of maintenance work is planned well in advance, the inventory and
procurement process can be optimized. All aspects related to management of spare parts like
reservation of materials for particular job, recording where materials are stored, determining when
more materials should be purchased, tracking shipment receipts and management of inventory, need
to be considered.
The PM module of SAP has end to end integration with material management module and provides
on line tracking of material and their availability status across the storage locations of the
organization. The spares/ components required for planned jobs are assigned to operations within the
respective task lists and these are copied to the maintenance plans. The materials assigned against
task list operations facilitate consolidation of requirement at installations/ plants level and planning in
advance, particularly for critical equipment. Additional developments have been done to fulfil the
specific needs of the maintenance material planning by categorising the materials as one-off, regular,
consumables etc.
Work Flows and Controls: This practice involves documenting and tracking the maintenance work
that is performed. A work order system is used to initiate, track, and record all maintenance activities
like planning, assigning materials required, scheduling of job operations, assigning personnel,
reserving materials, recording costs, and tracking relevant information such as the cause of the
problem (if any), downtime involved (if any), and recommendations for future action. The work may
start as a request that needs approval. Once approved, the work is planned, then scheduled,
performed and finally recorded. Judicious recording is essential for true and realistic analysis.
Recording and tracking of all the maintenance activities through work order system helps in effective
planning and scheduling.
In SAP system, Maintenance Notifications are used to describe the condition of the technical object,
or to report its malfunction and request for repairs whereas the Maintenance Orders are used to plan
the execution of maintenance activities in detail, monitor the progress of work and settle the costs of
maintenance activities. Completion of maintenance tasks in notification updates the maintenance
history of the equipment for futuristic reference and evaluation. Various types of Maintenance
Notifications and Maintenance Orders have been configured for better analysis, reporting, monitoring
and controlling the maintenance activities. All types of maintenance activities are classified under
planned and unplanned maintenance and can be separately monitored for better control. Workflow
from notifications to maintenance orders with proper release and status controls, attachment of
hot/cold work permits and lock-outs for systems having both driver and driven units have been
incorporated to ensure smooth and safe work flow and control. Applications of permits and approval
processes are facilitated through work clearance management (WCM) for smooth and safe execution
of operations. Add on Life Cycle Data Management Module facilitates on line reference to relevant
documents and further enhances the usability of the system.
Technical and Interpersonal Training: This function of maintenance insures that the technicians
working on the equipment have the technical skills required to understand and maintain the
equipment. Additionally, those involved in the maintenance functions must have the interpersonal
skills to be able to communicate with other departments in the company. They must also be able to
work in a team or natural work group environment.
Prior to ERP package implementation, SAP has conducted a hands-on, behavioural pattern of training
programme for core team members, responsible for the project implementation. Later, in line with the
roll out plan, training programs were effectively conducted for power users and end users identified for
transacting and capturing the activities in the system. Cross functional training and refresher training
programs are regularly organized to build user confidence and ensure system usage. Behavioural
pattern of change management was adopted for ensuring effective change.
Operational Involvement: The operations or production departments must take enough ownership of
their equipment and support the maintenance efforts. Though the extent to which operations group is
involved in maintenance activities may depend on the complexity of the equipment and the skills of
the operators, it is always aimed at supporting the maintenance resources and let them concentrate
more on advanced maintenance techniques. Operational involvement is essential in different activities
like inspecting equipment prior to start up, filling out work requests for maintenance, completing work
orders for maintenance, recording breakdown or malfunction data for equipment, performing some
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basic equipment service like lubrication, performing routine adjustments on equipment and executing
maintenance activities with need based support of central maintenance group.
Involvement of operation team in identification of malfunction/defects, triggering of workflow,
execution of embedded maintenance jobs during operations etc can be well incorporated and
identified through SAP system. Various standard analysis like planner group analysis, object class
analysis, manufacturer analysis, damage analysis, cost analysis, breakdown analysis etc are feasible.
Micro level analysis of qualitative and quantitative data is also possible through flexible analysis or
queries.
Predictive Maintenance: Here, the focus is basically on investigating and purchasing technology that
solves or mitigates chronic equipment problems. For example, rotating equipment is a natural fit for
vibration analysis, electrical equipment a natural fit for thermograph and so on. Predictive
Maintenance (PDM) inspections should be planned and scheduled utilizing the same techniques that
are used to schedule the preventive tasks. Provisions for recording various measurements related to
vibrations, operating parameters etc and triggering a workflow through setting limits can be
incorporated. SAP PM can have smooth interfaces with online data systems like SCADA (supervisory
control and data acquisition) and other digital probes, by which events can flow directly to SAP
system. Additionally, files can be directly uploaded to record measurements into the system.
Reliability Centered Maintenance: Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) techniques are applied
to the preventive and predictive efforts for optimizing the programs. If a particular asset is extremely
critical for the operations, then the appropriate PM/PDM techniques are applied. If an asset is going to
restrict or impact the production or operational capacity of the company, then another level of
PM/PDM activities are worked out with a cost ceiling in mind. If the asset is going to be allowed to fail
and the cost to replace or rebuild the asset is expensive, then another level of PM/PDM activities is
specified. There is always the possibility that it is more economical to allow some assets to run to
failure, and this option is considered in RCM. The RCM tools require complete and accurate asset
data for its effectiveness.
The SAP PM module supports implementation of predictive, preventive and reliability centred
maintenance practices. To accomplish this, the equipments are classified according to their criticality
and maintenance plans are specified for critical equipments. Classification of jobs are done as
condition based, condition monitoring and regular maintenance for evolving RCM. Operational
involvements and concepts of total productive maintenance are developed by means of process reengineering and selection of proper workflow for processes.
Total Productive Maintenance: Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is an operational philosophy
whereby everyone in the company understands that their job performance impacts the capacity of the
equipment in some way. This invites attention of operations group to take care of true capacity of the
equipment and not run it beyond design specifications to avoid unnecessary breakdowns. Population
of proper master data including characteristics and their values in SAP PM module and reference to
available analytical information from technical and costing history ensures precautionary attitude and
total productive maintenance.
Financial Optimization: This statistical technique combines all the relevant data of an asset, such
as downtime cost, maintenance cost, lost efficiency cost, and quality costs. It then balances that data
against financially optimized decisions, such as when to take the equipment off line for maintenance,
whether to repair or replace an asset, how many critical spare parts to carry, and what the maximumminimum levels on routine spare parts should be. Integration of SAP Plant maintenance module with
various other functions like finance and materials management facilitates financial analysis and
evaluations related to various cost categories like total planned costs, total actual costs, manpower
costs, material costs, service costs etc. and helps optimization of total maintenance expenses.
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Failure Mode
Effect
Maintainable Item
Condition
Cause
Maintenance Action
Problem (Coding)
Tasks -Custom or Type Code
Object Part
Damage
Cause
Activity
Technical evaluations, work center capacity evaluations, cost analysis and other key performance
indicators designed specific to the industry are available for monitoring the performance of the
maintenance functions and ensure best practices. Reliability, Availability, Maintainability (RAM)
analysis and a host of other standard parameters like mean time to repair, mean time between
failures, root cause analysis etc are possible in SAP. Additional developments like daily progress
monitoring through DPR and subsequent monthly reports are devised to ensure performance
evaluation and planning for further improvement.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Performance indicators are valuable tools for highlighting the
areas with potential processes to be benchmarked. Based on certain set of performance indicators, if
it is found that a maintenance process, such as preventive maintenance, needs to be improved, and it
is difficult for company to identify the necessary changes to improve, then a benchmarking project
becomes essential. It is very important to develop KPIs for maintenance functions and evaluate these
indexes over a period of time both within and outside the company to understand and establish the
performance and trend. Several such Key Performance Indicators have been defined in the system. In
addition to standard SAP maintenance indices, several performance indices have also been
incorporated in the system, based on ONGC legacy practices and recommendations from
maintenance management teams.
Enhancements: Applications of SAP Enterprise Portals, SAP Netweaver, advanced technologies like
Mobile Asset Management, Product Lifecycle Management can further enhance the usability of the
plant maintenance module. SAP system can have interfacing with most of the software systems used
in maintenance practices and online data systems like SCADA and online probes.
Conclusion
The paper highlights the best maintenance practices mapped in SAP-ERP system and their
implementation. It is concluded that judicious usage of the powerful features of SAP PM Module,
creation of exhaustive master data, proper configuration, application of interfaces wherever required,
re-engineering of business processes with special attention towards bench marking and
standardization facilitates adoption of best practices in maintenance management. The real benefits
of accurate and on line data is made available to the maintenance fraternity with careful
configurations, validation of new processes and usability of the SAP system.
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Acknowledgement
The authors are thankful to Shri K S Jamestin, GM-Head HRD for the constant encouragement and
guidance to bring in several validations for effective integration with other functional areas and
realistic implementation of best maintenance practices, during his tenure with Project ICE. The
authors also express their thanks to entire team of Technical Services for providing valuable inputs
and maintenance activity catalogues adhering to best maintenance practices. Last but not the least;
authors are thankful to all the members of Plant Maintenance module for their continuous support.
References:
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