Chapter 7

Plant Maintenance

Plant Maintenance
The increased complexity of maintaining the optimum condition and efficient usage
of buildings, managing the supply and disposal of transport systems or the up-
keep of hardware and software systems, plays a decisive role in the long term
success of an organization. At the same time, the number of legal stipulations
affecting the planning, processing, and verification of maintenance tasks has in-
creased as well as the number of strict environmental regulations governing those
tasks.
These are all compelling reasons for equipping the maintenance department of
your organization - both as an internal department and as an external service
provider - with suitable instruments to support the efficient planning and process-
ing of tasks, as well as the management of maintenance information. The R/3
Plant Maintenance application component is a comprehensive solution that can
be used across all industry sectors for the control and management of these exten-
sive maintenance tasks. The easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) simplifies
operation in all application areas.
Plant Maintenance is a high-performance component, integrated within the logis- Scope of Activities
tics chain of the R/3 System, which supports you when carrying out all mainte-
nance tasks such as:
q Detailed representation and management of objects to be maintained (master
data)
q Detailed planning and processing of maintenance tasks
(for example, inspection, preventive maintenance, repair)
q Construction and modification of plants
q Capacity, scheduling and resource planning
q Cost planning and determination
q Recording of a task-based, function and object-oriented history.
The Plant Maintenance application component is an integral part of the R/3 Sys- Integration
tem with direct links to the Logistics, Accounting, and Human Resources (HR)
modules. The continuous exchange of information with other component areas in
the R/3 System ensures a state-of-the-art database. In addition, the integrated
work flow management contributes considerably to the optimization of your busi-
ness activities.

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7 Plant Maintenance

Figure 7-1: Scope of Activities and Functional Procedures in the Plant Maintenance System
Integration with Funds Management specifically supports:
q Planning, budgeting, and monitoring of complex maintenance operations in
connection with the various functions of the Project System
q Direct verification of available budget resources, if external procurement of
materials or services is necessary for the execution of maintenance tasks
q Cross charging the cost centers concerned with services performed internally
or with materials consumed from the warehouse
In the same way that Plant Maintenance is integrated with Logistics, Accounting
and HR, maintenance procedures can also be linked to other internal SAP systems
such as the Business Object Repository as well as with external solutions such as
Computer Aided Design, Plant Data Collection, or Geographical Information Sys-
tems. It is because of this cross application integration that the Plant Maintenance
component distinguishes itself as an open system.

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