Overview of Maintenance Programs
Maintenance programs are used to define and generate a daily preventative maintenance forecast for one or more affected assets operating in a maintenance-enabled organization. The forecast is then used as the basis for creating preventative maintenance work orders, thus reducing the workload for maintenance planners, and allowing them to focus on maintenance program auditing, optimization, and exception-based events.
The programs are generally based on an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) service manual. This service guidance is translated and adjusted to fit a customer's operational requirements through the creation of work definitions. Then, these definitions are used as the basis for the creation of work requirements, which defines how often they're due. The forecast can be created based on a calendar pattern, day interval, utilization meter.
Program Modeling
Programs are always created in the context of a specific maintenance-enabled organization. But, before you create any programs, consider if the program manages only the assets operating in the same organization or it also considers assets that are operated across other organizations within the same master organization. Also consider if these assets remain in the same operating organizations over time, or they may be transferred to another operating organization at some point in the future.
Here is some guidance for modeling maintenance programs:
| # | Scenario | Decisions on Program Modeling |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | If an asset is operated and maintained in the same maintenance organization | Create a maintenance program that considers assets in the same organization. |
| 2 | If an asset is operated in a nonmaintenance organization and is maintained by one or more organizations over time | Create a program that is enabled for cross-organization assets. See the last row in this table for more details. |
| 3 | If an asset is currently operated in a maintenance organization but may be operated and maintained in different maintenance organizations over time | Create a program that is enabled for cross-organization assets. See the last row in this table for more details. |
| 4 | If an asset is operated in a maintenance organization, but may be transferred to another operating organization during its lifetime | Create a program that is enabled for cross-organization
assets. Organization relationships must be defined to create work orders across organizations. Optionally, you can set an asset maintenance parameter to not require relationships. See the How You Create Maintenance Programs topic to learn more. Note: If you
decide to create a cross-organization program, define a single
maintenance organization that can be designated as the central
planning organization. While you can create cross-organization
programs in any maintenance organization, modeling them in a single
organization will reduce complexity and improve
visibility. Note: Avoid modeling preventative maintenance for a
unique asset using both methods at the same time, as it can be
difficult to manage same asset across programs or
organizations. |
For item-based work requirements, if the program is enabled for enabled for cross-organization assets, then you can decide if the work requirement will automatically or manually include assets that operate in other organizations. Regardless of the asset inclusion method selected, you can always include or exclude assets from the work requirement using the affected assets page. Therefore, even though a program is enabled for cross-organization assets, you ultimately can control which assets will be forecasted and considered for work order creation over time.
Forecasts will always be created based on where an asset is operating at that point in time. For assets operating in a maintenance organization, work orders are expected to be created in the same organization. Assets operating in a non-maintenance organization will be maintained in a different maintenance organization. Once a forecast due date is generated, and before a work order is created, you can recommend an alternative due date or work order organization if the program is enabled for cross-organization assets. These requests can be submitted using the Manage Forecasts page or REST API for a specific forecast due date. This capability will help planners adjust to short-term changes in an asset’s maintenance availability or short-term assignment to a different organization. Additional details and validations are covered later in the section entitled How You Manage Maintenance Forecasts.
Once a program creates its first work order, the option to enable or disable a program for cross-organization assets can’t be updated. Therefore, if there is a chance that assets may be maintained in different maintenance organizations over time or asset may transfer organizations, you should enable the program for cross-organization.
Work Requirement
You can create work requirements for each service interval task, or even a group of related service interval tasks for one or more assets. The tasks define how often the service is required, the expected resource and material requirements, and the steps required to complete the task. A work requirement is first created in a status of Draft. Once you have defined the header, forecast method, and work definitions, it moves to a status of Active and is ready to be forecasted. You can edit but not delete a work requirement after the first work order is created for the work requirement. Optionally, you can end date a requirement to stop forecasting.
A work requirement can be defined to apply to an asset or an item. For an item-based requirement, you decide if all or only certain assets will be forecasted. An item-based requirement resolves to an asset level in the forecast, so you can define a common work requirement for one or more assets. This includes assets in the context organization as well as across organizations.
The start date is used to define the first date in which a forecasted due date is calculated. Typically, this date is set in the future, but it can also be set in the past to set the sequence of intervals of a cycle-based forecast.
For each work requirement, you will define a forecast method. This can be based on a calendar pattern, day interval, utilization meter. You can even have competing methods, such as Calendar vs Meter or Day Interval vs Meter, using a whichever comes due first rule.
One or more work definitions are then associated to a work requirement. If using a cycle-based forecast, you can define on which intervals each work definition is due. Use the concurrent requirements option to define whether you want to suppress or merge the work requirements on over lapping intervals in a cycle.
The work requirement is then used as the basis for generating a forecast for the associated work definition(s) and for creating work order(s). By design, it's expected that each work requirement creates a unique work order for each due date in the forecast for an asset. This work order could be based on one or more work definitions, as defined in the work requirement, over time. Therefore, it's important to understand how to translate service intervals into a work definition and then further model its frequency in a work requirement.
As part of maintenance program, you can perform the following tasks:
- You can create and edit a maintenance program.
- You can create multiple work requirements for a maintenance program.
- You can create a calendar pattern and associate it with multiple work requirements in the same program.
- You can generate the maintenance forecast in the context of a program using a scheduled process.
- You can view the maintenance forecast in a Gantt chart or calendar. You can also search and restrict information to be displayed on the Gantt chart. This is used to confirm the forecasting methods and intervals are correctly aligned with the preventative maintenance schedule that's desired.
- You can also do the maintenance forecast in the Manage Forecasts page. You confirm the forecasting methods and intervals in a results view. You can optionally request an alternative due date or location for a forecast due date, skip a due date, as well as create or cancel work orders.
- You can further review the forecast by creating a report or analysis using OTBI. For more details, refer to the Reports and Analytics chapter of this guide.
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You can create maintenance work orders in the context of a program using a scheduled process. You can then view the details in the Gantt chart or calendar.
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You can automatically create maintenance work orders based on the forecast using a scheduled process.
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After the forecast is confirmed, the best practice is to automatically create the maintenance forecast and work orders using a scheduled process. This program should be scheduled to run frequently to create work orders for execution.