Mining SAP PM for Reliability Success John Hoke and Lorri Craig Reliability Solutions, Inc.

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1 Mining SAP PM for Reliability Success John Hoke and Lorri Craig Reliability Solutions, Inc. For those of us in maintenance, our world has changed forever. The implementation of enterprise software systems has inextricably linked the way that maintenance work gets done with the parallel processes of Materials Management and Procurement, Human Resources, and Accounting and Financial Systems, to mention just a few. From the CEO s point of view, having all of the processes in alignment and talking to each other is a major step toward gaining the small business flexibility and agility with the leverage of a vast asset base. For those of us in maintenance, we have become just a small part of a vast financial software system, and if we are to contribute to the CEO s vision, we must align our thinking for the greater good, and use the software tool to deliver our equipment reliability contribution to the business. Aligning our thinking means not only understanding maintenance, but understanding how we are linked to others in the organization and talking the language common to the entire organization. When parts are needed, we need to know how that need gets communicated quickly and effectively. With the power of the software at hand to do many things simultaneously, the power and agility is available. The trick is understanding how maintenance best practices and the enterprise software tool come together. The purpose of this paper is to outline a process that will mine the SAP Plant Maintenance Module within an SAP installation and provide information and direction on delivering the value promised with the software installation, and much more importantly, support the equipment reliability effort to increase uptime. This Could be Your Installation SAP Plant Maintenance has a unique place within the SAP system in that this module requires participation from a large contingent of personnel, mostly at the shop or plant floor. These individuals are not always the computer savvy types that systems like SAP inspire, and when a financially based software system is introduced to people that thrive in mechanical and electrical knowledge, helping the two skills merge effectively is a challenge. Some of the barriers to an effective SAP PM Reliability effort can include: 1. Production Participation - Equipment reliability is a shared responsibility between the operator and the mechanic, and often the production teams have minimal involvement in the SAP processes in SAP PM. 2. Leadership Participation - Often the issues are two-fold, the leadership has not invested in learning the SAP PM processes, and more importantly, do not set up Key Maintenance Performance Indicators within the SAP Module so the employees can measure their performance in a real time mode. 3. Data In / No Information Out Everyone involved with SAP goes to great lengths to meticulously input data that rarely shows itself as better business decision-making, through reports or just a better way of performing an important task.

2 4. Business Processes Putting a structured software process on top of loose or non existent business processes (repeatable, reliable processes to get work done) is a recipe for disaster. Hoping SAP will correct for lack of solid business processes has not proven to be an effective strategy. 5. Departmental / Facility Variation The lack of uniformity between operating units within the facility or company wide will bottleneck performance and improvement just trying to get alignment. Issues as fundamental as standard naming conventions for materials so that inventories can be shared are difficult for many organizations. 6. SAP Plant Maintenance Understanding Software and software process knowledge is the largest barrier. The lack of skills begins with the implementation phase of SAP, when some of the common implementation missteps include: a. Teaching SAP from Text Based Slides Learning SAP is very visual and seeing the screen while theory is taught is important. b. The Train the Trainer Process Oftentimes the trainer in this scenario lacks the practical experience to relate real life situations to the people who are learning. c. Teaching the Keystrokes - Many classes teach the keystrokes and not the logic or process behind the keystrokes. This becomes rote memory instead of the process knowledge needed to deal with issues and improve. d. Teaching a Pre-Scripted Methodology Training processes are often laid out so perfectly that real problems do not arise. How often have you heard the self help home improvement person on TV say This is what you do when the wall is not square? This is another argument for having experience in the teaching role and the need for teaching the key lessons learned. All these issues, and many more can be the reasons that a facility is not getting the return for the SAP investment, and more importantly, just making it difficult to get work done. Defining the 12 Focus Areas of SAP PM Defining a methodology to perform any audit process must begin with a definition of each of the focus areas to be measured and investigated. Each of the focus areas must contribute to the bottom line, and in this case, equipment reliability. It is important that anyone undertaking the audit process understand the business case for each focus area. The focus areas proposed (SAP PM as designed), with their associated business case are: 1. Equipment - Measuring equipment documentation processes and accuracy is important to establishing the foundation on which the maintenance processes rely. Information such as Bills of Materials, Work Center assignment, specific Task Lists, and Equipment Histories are all tied to the equipment data structure. 2. Functional Locations - The Functional Location data determines the cost and information flow hierarchically. Functional Location is also based on location and not

3 subject to interchangeability. Functional Locations are process based and are used to interface with the general ledger accounting system. 3. Information Systems Information Systems provides information for effective decision making. The amount of data that SAP collects and displays is only justified if this information is used to make effective business decisions and action plans. 4. Leadership Support - In order for SAP to be successful leadership must: a. Provide the tools for the organization to learn the SAP PM Module b. Understand the SAP PM Module c. Set clear performance expectations d. Measure performance and hold accountability 5. Work Centers - Effectively using Work Centers allows labor driven work to be effectively scheduled and to accurately track labor costs. 6. Preventive Maintenance - The key to success of preventative maintenance execution is establishing effective job task lists that perform the needed actions to prevent failure, and to apply those actions with timing that maximizes reliability vs. effort value. Preventative maintenance uses time based and condition based processes. 7. Production - Operator Basic Care is important to track as a vital part of the reliability effort. Operator understanding and involvement in the correct documentation needed for the Notification process in SAP PM Module is also vital to the success of the reliability effort. 8. Materials Management Materials Management facilitates the effectiveness of material reservations and delivery to allow timely work order execution. 9. Time Processing - Understanding the interface between the Human Resource Module and the Plant Maintenance Module is important to applying accurate plant labor costing to the work order process. This Cross Application process also allows work order execution parameters to be input into the system such as Work Order status. 10. Notification - The notification is the history interface for the PM Module for reliability and failure information. The quality of the Notification data input process is key to laying a good foundation for an effective Work Order planning effort. 11. Work Order Scheduling Effective scheduling maximizes the resource value of : a. Craftsman b. Production Resource Tools c. Materials d. Equipment availability e. Relationships between Work Orders 12. Work Order Processing - Work Order processing is the focal point of planning and cost tracking. The Work Order operations detail the steps to be performed and the materials and resources needed to execute that step. It also coordinates SAP processes to align getting the work planned, executed, and documented.

4 Designing an Effective Audit Process Reliability $olutions, Inc. We have all been part of an audit process and few of us enjoyed it. There have been times the benefit has been marginal if not non-existent. The entire focus of an audit is to take a representative sample set and represent the well-done s and opportunities within the focus areas defined in the organization. The challenge is to get reliable information and not deal with emotion driven issues. With the information gathered, analyzed, and categorized; a prioritized opportunities list is developed and from that an action plan is designed to facilitate the needed improvement. The best value involves making absolutely sure that the low hanging fruit are identified as well as the largest value driven opportunities. In order to make this happen, the key elements of the audit process should involve: 1. Being Organized It is important to do as much pre-work as possible prior to the audit so that not only is the time on site minimized (and associated travel costs), but more importantly, minimizing the time needed for facility personnel. 2. Supporting Data SAP offers a bountiful amount of transactional and structural data and this can be used to perform most of the actual performance analysis. The data tables as well as tools such as the action logs provide excellent detail for not only analysis, but also supporting data for preparing for change. 3. Human Element With the supporting data in place, there is little need to spend much time asking people what is happening. A better process is to discuss barriers and opportunities and get the people involved in the analysis process, harnessing the power of synergy and collective thought. 4. Priorities and Scoring Even though the auditing process should travel the width and breadth of the opportunities, facility reality and limitations necessitate categorizing the opportunity to fit the real world. Not everything is of equal importance. Scoring the elements of the audit should be fair and true to what is happening. 5. Software Barriers Within SAP there exists configuration options that may not be available to facilities and this should be taken into account in the scoring process. Items not available should be noted but not scored. As with every auditing process, being judgmental is a watch-out. Walking in with a set of best practices as a benchmark will only be of value when you are open minded to learn from each and every audit experience. The subjects of any audit are very keen in their ability to sense when an audit or auditor is there to help them or just criticize them. Recognizing the cultural barriers is important to the success of building an effective audit and action plan. Drilling down to the root cause of performance issues typically reveal that system understanding is more the opportunity to be tackled. The Plant Maintenance module reaches down to the shop floor for most of the information, and identifying the needs and barriers to this portion of the organization requires understanding SAP from the maintenance side rather than just from the software perspective.

5 The Reliability Solutions Inc. SAP Plant Maintenance Audit Process The Reliability Solutions Inc. SAP Plant Maintenance Audit is a highly structured and versatile process that encompasses over 120 Best Practices for proper utilization of the SAP module. The Audit Best Practices were developed with a foundation of Maintenance Best Practices and incorporating the tools needed from SAP to properly implement these maintenance procedures. Each focus area consists of from 4 to 16 best practices that are individually investigated and scored. With each of the Best Practices prioritized jointly with the facility, a scoring profile is developed to assess opportunity. The opportunities are then prioritized and presented for action planning. The Audit is developed with two MS Access Databases, the first being the SAP Data Analysis, and the second being the Data Capture from the Interview Process. The audit process is well documented and highly repeatable from audit to audit. The actions of each audit are pre-determined as shown in a sample of the work process shown below. The audit is designed to acquire and document learning s with the same passion for standard processes that the audit itself tests for in SAP and maintenance best practices. The structure of the databases is also designed to handle multiple plants within a client structure to allow for client-wide opportunity identification as well as within the plant itself. The audit only addresses the best practices that work toward maintenance best practices. There are many features with SAP PM that add value to the reliability and work order execution functionalities, but it is important to recognize the need to grow into the capabilities of SAP. The RSI SAP PM Audit is scored against an ideal, where all of the functionality that SAP provides is utilized as a reliable process. The scoring is more of a progressive improvement scoring system as opposed to an absolute score. The IMG configuration and the availability of parallel business modules, such as Materials Management, Human Resources, and CATS modules will influence the capability of the specific SAP PM installation. The Plant Maintenance module is designed to be an integral part of the overall financial management of the facility, and not having the companion modules to Plant Maintenance in place hinder the total functionality. This is accounted for in the audit process.

6 The Data Dump and Analysis Reliability $olutions, Inc. SAP has a well designed process for extracting data into usable formats. The data tables are designed prior to the actual data dumping process so that standard information (and resulting graphs and views) is readily available. Example Portion of the Data Dump Table Structure Display Variant Fields Focus Area Trans. Code Selection Variant Column A Column B Column C Column D Equipment IH-08 Present Active Equipment Equipment Description ABC indic. Main WorkCtr Functional Locations IH-06 Present Active Functional Locations FunctLocation Description ABC indic. ABC ind. orig. The use of MS Access with the associated pivot table functionality and graphics allow for an infinite number of analysis perspectives with the data input into the database. One particular facet of the analysis involves mapping the users with the actions such as notification generation. Notification generation is a function that all stakeholders in equipment reliability should participate in. Notifications are analyzed for completeness and the quality of the problem description. The Notification Type is compared to the problem described to make sure that the actions configured in the SAP PM Implementation Guide for each type suit the type of problem described. For example, the audit verifies that equipment failures are recorded as Malfunction Reports so that SAP will automatically prompt for recording of Damage Codes and Cause Codes for reliability history. The data base is used to develop performance documentation that is used to not only assess performance but more importantly develop correction action plans and provide the user with a way to measure improved performance. The data base typically will incorporate nearly a years worth of data to attempt to capture a yearly business cycle to include regular and outage data. The illustration below is a demonstration of how the Data Dump process is executed in three steps: 1. The Tables used to house all of the SAP data. 2. The Queries that are developed to do the data analysis. 3. The Pivot Table Graphs that display the results.

7 The RSI SAP PM Audit Data Dump Process The data in the graph is used to spur an investigation as to why maintenance / operations participation in notification generation is different between areas. The pivot table format is used to vary the data views to narrow down the opportunity in different views. For example, data above can be viewed by role with just two clicks of the mouse.

8 The Interview Section Reliability $olutions, Inc. With all of the SAP performance data and analysis in place, the interview portion of the audit is ready to be performed. With a representative sample of interviewees across the organization in place, the interview process is specifically designed by organizational role. The responses are recorded and scored and entered into the interview database. With the interview process complete and input into the database, the results of the scoring are available by selecting the reports and charts above. The flexibility of the pivot table format provides multiple views to get the right reporting view to flush out the opportunity at the root and localize the issue if it is not facility-wide. All of the responses are recorded for analysis but not for publication. The reporting structure is also designed using the pivot table functionality of MS Access. The intent is to look at the opportunities by department, by role, or even by plant. The reporting can be drilled down by focus area all the way down to the best practice level. The ability to dissect the scoring is especially helpful in developing training plans that address only the needed areas. Training is expensive, and localizing the issues is one way to maximize the training value. The reports can be tabular or graphical, and examples of the graphical summary and detail reports are as follows:

9 Focus Area Scores by Department This graph shows the opportunities in Leadership Support, Production Involvement, Time Processing, and Order Scheduling. With the use of the departmental indicators, it is apparent that the organization is relatively aligned across the facility. Focus Area Detail by Job Role This graph demonstrates the Work Center effectiveness across the Maintenance Roles.

10 Designing Improvement Reliability $olutions, Inc. With the scoring in place, the opportunities are developed and the prioritization is in the following format. Recommendations are classified by Impact, Effort, and Urgency using a High, Medium, and Low classification. Low hanging fruit is typically categorized as High Impact, Low Effort, and High Urgency. Focus Area Recommended Action Plan Impact Effort Urgency 1 Leadership Train Leadership in SAP PM High Low High 12 Leadership Establish KPI Reports in SAP High Medium High 13 Information Systems Train on Selection Variant and Display Variants High Medium Medium Equipment / Functional Location Equipment / Functional Location / Materials Management Equipment / Functional Location Assign ABC Indicators to Equipment High Medium Medium Develop Bills of Materials Process Medium Low Medium Implement Data Origin Review Process Low Low Low Red Indicates IMG Configuration Support Required Conclusion SAP has provided many organizations the tools to master financial control of their organizations, but melding the equipment reliability with the financial tool often is an ongoing effort after implementation. The purpose of conducting an audit of the SAP PM processes is to develop action plans to achieve a level of SAP performance that will support equipment reliability excellence. The highly structured nature of SAP requires that the auditing process also be structured in a way that measures key performance indicator and flushes out the key opportunities to improve. The audit process described is a reliable and well documented process and will provide any organization the vision to ultimately achieve the level of performance that SAP PM can allow.

11 John W. Hoke and Lorri A. Craig represent Reliability Solutions, Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in the SAP Plant Maintenance Module and how maintenance organizations can develop the skills to fully utilize the software to achieve business results. With an extensive operations and maintenance background to supplement SAP PM Module Certification from SAP, Reliability Solutions, Inc. offers a unique skill set to customers who are committed to educating and energizing their personnel to delivering value for the SAP investment in equipment reliability. Reliability $olutions, Inc. john@reliabilitysolutionsinc.com / lorri@reliabilitysolutionsinc.com office mobile / fax