This blog provides an overview of innovations in SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2105 for Asset Management. For better readability, this blog is divided into 3 sections. You can navigate directly to the section you are interested in by clicking on a specific entry:
Maintenance Operations
Resource Scheduling
SAP Maintenance Assistant
Watch my video and get a quick overview of our 2105 highlights:
Video 1: Highlights for Asset Management in the 2105 release
Maintenance Operations
Perform Maintenance Jobs
One-stop solution for maintenance technicians
The new SAP Fiori app Perform Maintenance Jobs is a one-stop solution for maintenance technicians. It covers all aspects and functions required for executing a maintenance job. The application enables maintenance technicians not only to plan, assign, see all the associated information required to execute the job but also to post and return components, record time, update malfunction findings and measurement readings.
Fig. 1: SAP Fiori app Perform Maintenance Jobs – one-stop solution for maintenance technicians
The component section in this application, provides Post, Return, and Add Measurements buttons.
- The Post action allows you to issue goods.
- The Return action allows you to return goods.
- The Add Measurements button allows you to save measurement results for an object.
Fig. 2: SAP Fiori app Perform Maintenance Jobs – Post, Return, Add Measurements actions
The attachment section in this application, allows you to download and view attachments associated to operation, order, equipment and functional location.
The machine learning feature provides appropriate damage code and object part as part of the value help. You can view the proposed damage code and object part for an existing maintenance order. Before coming to the machine learning feature in the next chapter, watch the next video in which my colleague Markus Oertelt shows the capabilities of the new app in a system demo.
Video 2: Capabilities of the Perform Maintenance Jobs app
Note:
The new Perform Maintenance Jobs app is the successor of the My Maintenance Jobs app. The My Maintenance Jobs app is deprecated and will be deleted from the SAP Fiori Launchpad in the release after SAP S/4 HANA 2111. The deprecated app may no longer be available by default on the SAP Fiori Launchpad. In this case, you can find it in the app finder until it is deleted. We recommend that you switch to the successor app as soon as possible. As you can imagine, we are no longer implementing new features into the deprecated app like the one described in the next chapter. Another reason to switch to the successor app.
Intelligent Scenario for Damage Code and Object Part Prediction
Already since the last release, maintenance technicians can use Machine Learning algorithms to propose the most likely damage code by automatically analyzing information that is already being collected during the maintenance process (see my 2102 blog). With this newest release, we have now extended the machine learning capabilities to also suggest the object part code.
Fig. 3: Intelligent Scenario Management app – New scenario for Object Part prediction
The damage code and object part suggestions are based on the information available for the notification, such as notification type, description, plant, functional location, equipment number, short text, and long text. Additionally, object part is also one of the influencing factors for predicting damage code. The benefits of the machine-learning based suggestions for malfunction details in notifications are obvious: Not only does this increase data quality, it also decreases the time needed to find the proper damage and object part codes.
Fig. 4: Perform Maintenance Job app – Machine-learning based suggestion of Object Part
Watch the video below which consists of two parts:
In the first part an Analytics Specialist enables machine-learning based suggestions for damage code and object part in the Intelligent Scenario Management app.
The second part of the system demo shows the machine-learning based suggestion for the object part when a Maintenance Technician opens the value help of the object part field within the Perform Maintenance Jobs app.
Video 3: Enable the machine-learning based suggestions for malfunction details via the Intelligent Scenario Management app and use the intelligent scenario in the Perform Maintenance Jobs app.
Maintenance Request
Capture Detection Method
The Maintenance Request has a new field to capture Detection Method along with Detection Method Group during maintenance request initiation (Create Maintenance Request app). With this feature, you can provide information about the activity which was used to discover a failure. This important information helps in evaluating the effect of maintenance.
Fig. 5: Create Maintenance Request app with new field to capture the Detection Method
During the Screening Phase you can view and edit Detection Method for maintenance requests in the Screen Maintenance Requests app.
During the Work Execution Phase the Perform Maintenance Jobs app allows you to view and edit the new field Detection Method.
For further information about the predefined Detection Methods read the SAP Help.
Event based prioritization – Assess priority screen compatibility with mobile/iPad
Since the 2011 release, new SAP Fiori apps are available for the new “Best Practices” end-to-end processes which allow you to perform your daily work both on PCs and mobile devices (see my 2011 blog). Unfortunately there was a small gap for maintaining requests on mobile devices. The Assess Priority screen did not support mobile devices with the first launch of the maintenance request apps.
Now we have closed this gap. The Assess Priority screen in Create Maintenance Request app, My Maintenance Requests app, and Screen Maintenance Requests app has been enhanced to support usage on mobile phones. Now these apps allow you completely to perform your daily work both on PCs and mobile devices.
Fig. 6: The Assess Priority screen support usage on mobile phones.
Maintenance Backlog Overview
The Maintenance Backlog Overview app provides the maintenance planner a single screen view to see the details of the maintenance backlogs (orders/notifications). The planner can view the backlog based on the planning buckets that are selected in the filter section. The user interface of this landing page includes a filter section and two separate cards, the Backlog card and the Quick Links card.
Navigation
Now you have new navigation possibilities from the chart view to the relevant apps that provide overview tables and processing options.
Navigation by using Quick Links
The Quick Links card is an easy to use card with which a user can navigate to the specific app (without any filters).
The below apps are currently supported:
- Screen Maintenance Requests
- Manage Maintenance Notifications and Orders
- Find Maintenance Orders and Operation
- Find Maintenance Order
Fig. 7: Quick Links card on the Maintenance Backlog Overview app
Navigation from the card header
Navigation is enabled from card header to Manage Maintenance Backlog app.
Fig. 8: Navigation from the Maintenance Backlog Overview app to the Manage Maintenance Backlog app by clicking on the card header
Quick Filter
In the Manage Maintenance Backlog app, you can now use the Orders in Preparation quick filter to check the availability of components, services and resources specifically for the maintenance orders in the Preparation phase.
Fig. 9: Manage Maintenance Backlog app with Orders in Preparation quick filter
The Orders in Preparation quick filter allows you to view a pre-filtered list of all the maintenance orders that are in the Preparation phase. The quick filter is available in the Stock Components, Non-Stock Components, Services and Resources area.
You can also navigate to this pre-filtered list from the Maintenance Backlog Overview app by filtering the maintenance backlog by phase and clicking on the orders in the Preparation phase in the chart.
Maintenance Order
Enhanced ATP Check
You can now use a rolling time period for the selection of maintenance orders when scheduling recurrent ATP runs in the Schedule Material Availability Check app. In addition, a new processing logic has been implemented to reduce the period of time during which orders that have been selected for an ATP run are locked for editing.
- When you schedule a recurrent ATP run, you can use the new Relative Scheduled Date field to specify a rolling time period for the selection of maintenance orders instead of a time period with a fixed start and end date. The rolling time period is always relative to the date on which each ATP run is processed. You can use the predefined options in the input help and choose either a single day or date range in the past or in the future. The system then includes all maintenance orders in the recurrent ATP run which have their scheduled start date in the selected time period. As a system administrator, you can create additional relative date functions in the Manage Date Functions app.
- Orders that are included in a material availability check are locked for editing while the background job is processed. To minimize the period of time during which the orders are locked, the system groups the orders by the required materials and sequentially processes these groups. Consequently, orders are only locked for editing while a corresponding group of materials is processed.
Fig. 10: Schedule Material Availability Check app with new Relative Scheduled Date parameter
ODATA APIs
With the 2105 release, a few new ODATA APIs and enhancements of existing APIs are available. The next figure provides an API overview:
Fig. 11: API overview
For further details, check the SAP API Business Hub and the What’s New document.
Please also note the new CDS views which are made available for Maintenance Operations.
Resource Scheduling
Maintenance Scheduling Board
Remove Constraints
In the Maintenance Scheduling Board app, you can now remove constraints for order operations. For this purpose, we provide a new Remove Constraints button. You can now remove any existing constraints like the Must start on constraints for order operations that are not yet in process.
Show Work Center Utilization
In addition, you can use a new setting to visualize the utilization of performing work centers in the chart. The new Show Work Center Utilization setting allows you to indicate the utilization of performing work centers in the Gantt chart. A color-coded bar indicates for each day on which the work center is open whether work center utilization is below 75%, between 75% and 100%, or above 100%. The tooltip for the bar shows the aggregated utilization data for each day (utilization percentage, capacity load, and available capacity in hours).
Last but not least, we’ve added several new attributes that you can use as filters and to show more information in the table area.
Fig. 12: Maintenance Scheduling Board app – New app setting Show Work Center Utilization
Fig. 13: Maintenance Scheduling Board app with the new features ‘Remove Constraints’ and ‘Show Work Center Utilization’ (see red outlined)
Cross-App Navigation: Open Maintenance Scheduling Board for Selected Orders
You can now open the Maintenance Scheduling Board app directly from the Manage Work Center Utilization app and the View Maintenance Schedule for Assets app.
The new button Show in Maintenance Scheduling Board will open the selected orders in the Maintenance Scheduling Board app. The selection of orders will be applied as a filter in the Maintenance Scheduling Board app.
Fig. 14: Cross-App Navigation: Open Maintenance Scheduling Board app from the Manage Work Center Utilization app.
Fig. 15: Cross-App Navigation: Open Maintenance Scheduling Board app from the View Maintenance Schedule for Assets app
New filters and fields related to Technical Objects and Phase Control Codes
You can now display more fields and use additional filters in the resource scheduling apps. The What’s New document lists the new fields and filters per app in a table.
As an example, the next figure shows the new filter for technical objects in the Resource Scheduling for Maintenance Planners app.
Fig. 16: Resource Scheduling for Maintenance Planners app with new new filter for technical objects
Watch the next video which shows new features like cross-app navigation and remove constraints in a short system demo.
Video 4: SAP Fiori app Manage Work Center Utilization with cross-app navigation to the Maintenance Scheduling Board app where the user removes the Must start on constraint from a dispatched operation
SAP Maintenance Assistant
New mobile application for maintenance technicians
The SAP Maintenance Assistant is our new mobile application for maintenance technicians using SAP S/4HANA Cloud. SAP Maintenance Assistant is a native mobile application with full offline capability. By downloading the relevant business data onto your device, you can take advantage of all functionalities in offline mode. With this app, you can leverage the native device capabilities like the built-in camera for barcode scanning.
The SAP Maintenance Assistant is built from the makers of the SAP Asset Manager to follow the 9 process phases defined in the best practice maintenance processes for SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
Thereby it helps users to manage and execute work orders and operations, create and manage maintenance requests, and assess request priority using the event prioritization matrix. The solution captures time confirmation, takes measurement recordings, views reading history and trends, and records malfunction data for relevant technical objects.
Fig. 17: SAP Maintenance Assistant – Offline Mobile Maintenance Execution
In the next video Zack Frazier who is the Product Manager for SAP Mobile Asset Management explains the new mobile app and demonstrates its use on his tablet.
Video 5: SAP Maintenance Assistant – new mobile application for maintenance technicians
Thanks for reading this blog post. Stay tuned!
You will find a collection of my SAP S/4HANA Cloud release blogs here:
Recently, my colleague Markus Oertelt has started an interesting blog series about
Discrete Industries in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, check out the following links:
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info here
- Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here and previous release highlights here
- Product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist
- SAP S/4HANA PSCC Digital Enablement Wheel here
- Early Release Webinar Series here
- Inside SAP S/4HANA Podcast here
- openSAP Microlearnings for SAP S/4HANA here
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community: here
- Feature Scope Description here
- What’s New here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- Implementation Portal here
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