An alternative for Equipment Calibration in Asset Management in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition

[vijayalaxmimelavanki]

Calibration is the process by which instrumentation, gauges, meters, and other testing equipment are set up, checked, and maintained to ensure they continue to give accurate, precise, reliable results. A huge range of equipment including manufacturing instruments, devices and gauges can require calibration.

This is an important process under plan maintenance to calibrate test equipment and take appropriate measures based on the results.

As we are aware that in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Public edition the calibration scope item is not yet available as a standard scope item and this blog post explains an alternative to simple equipment calibration process with limitations.

Assumptions:

• No standard calibration scope item available yet

• No PM-QM integration (MICs/Inspection point/type)

• No inspection lot creation

Here we are using measuring point as calibration parameters whereas the respective measurement document serves as readings for each calibration.

Below is the process flow for the calibration process.

 

Process Flow

 

The prerequisite data would be as follows-

• Measuring Point for the test equipment

• Maintenance Task List

• Maintenance Plan

The process starts with the need for calibration for the test equipment with the task list comprising of the steps for calibration and parameters that must be calibrated, vendor details in case of external calibration.

This continues with a maintenance plan for the test equipment with time based single cycle or strategy plan where the equipment must be calibrated at regular/ defined intervals.

So once the maintenance plan is scheduled, there is a due calibration order generated as per the cycle length and scheduling parameters defined in the maintenance plan.

As we know that there is no feasibility to configure order type in SAP S/4HANA Cloud public edition, we can leverage maintenance activity type on the maintenance order to specify calibration activity/internal calibration/external calibration.

Maintenance Order

Similarly on the Equipment master we can use Sort field/Class and characteristics/Custom field to specify the test equipment as we cannot configure equipment categories.

So once the calibration order is generated, the execution remain the same as for any preventive /proactive order with a step of capturing measurement document for measuring point for the test equipment during the Execution phase via Perform Maintenance Jobs app.

Please note that Recording measurements from Perform Maintenance Job shall not create notifications based on condition. If customers wish to do that, they must record the readings from the app Create Measurement Document (IK11)

Perform Maintenance Jobs

Measuring point can be also configured to accommodate various conditions based on which the deviation notifications can be raised in case the reading goes above upper limit/tolerance or below lower limit/tolerance etc.

Measuring Point Conditions

For Internal calibration the labor hours can be captured by recording time spent and for External calibration, service can be added to the maintenance order, which creates a PR, converted to PO and completed with Service entry sheet. (Standard lean services). For external calibration, the vendor certificate can be attached to the calibration order and process can be completed with technically completing the order.

We can utilize app Change measurement documents to look at the measurement document created as a part of maintenance order.

Change Measurement Documents

To summarize, this way we can use the above process as a workaround for the calibration process in current SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

We still do not have the fixed timeline on when the calibration scope item will be delivered in SAP S/4HANA cloud, public edition but we can leverage this workaround meanwhile.

Thanks for your time and please share your valuable feedback and inputs in a comment below. Also kindly follow the tag SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Asset Management to watch similar content.

You can also post your questions at All Questions in SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Asset Management | SAP Community

[RajendraP]

Hi Vijayalaxmi,

The workaround is not ideal but quite helpful.

Is it possible to replace process flow with zoomed version? I find very hard to read the content inside the process blocks.

Best Regards,

Rajendra Pandey

 

[vijayalaxmimelavanki]

Thanks for the feedback, Rajendra.

I have edited the process flow. Hopefully its clear now.

BR,

Vijayalaxmi Melavanki

[a_elmasry]

Hi Vijayalaxmi,

Thanks for sharing this workaround, which could be helpful for us.

I just have some clarifications if you could help me with please:

1. Does it allow for qualitative and quantitative assessments in the measuring points? In other words, could we just use “Pass” or “Fail” as the acceptance criteria instead of specific numbers, and a deviation notification is raised whenever the assessment is "Fail"?


2. Are the "measuring points / documents" linked to the FLOCs, Equipment, or Maintenance Plans? And is it generated automatically with the WO as per the Maintenance Plan schedule?


3. Could we make it mandatory to capture the “measure points” during WO confirmation or TECO?


4. Does the “Deviation Notification” follow the same process as normal notification, which requires review and approval first? How do we differentiate which one is created automatically from measuring points vs. manually raised maintenance requests due to breakdowns?

Regards,

Ahmed Elmasry