Graphical Maintenance Planning with Fiori

[stefanwest]

“Sophisticated and Complexe Fiori Apps in ECC 6.0 are possible and it does not (yet) have to be S/4 HANA” – this was one of the key findings of our Maintenance Planning project at Deutsche Bahn (german railways).

 

But one thing at a time.

Before our project, the Deutsche Bahn maintenance team had many difficulties to harmonize the planned maintenance tasks. Maintenance was first planned in MS Excel and later migrated to SAP via LSMW with great effort. This resulted in many inaccuracies and errors during migration.

As a result, the technicians had to drive to the same technical facilities several times to perform similar maintenance tasks. This was inefficient and cost intensive.

There was a lack of an integrated display and rough-cut planning view in SAP.

 

In order to improve this situation, a fully integrated planning board should be implemented, which, in addition to the functional requirements, should also correspond to the latest technology. The UI should be as intuitive and easy to use as possible.

 

After having seen what the SAP UI5 SDK already covers, the Deutsche Bahn has decided to implement the planning board with an SAP Fiori App.

 

Moreover, it was decided, together with the implementation partner Axians NEO Solutions & Technologies GmbH, to implement the project using agile project methodology SCRUM and the prototype implementation in the first phase with SAP Build. With SAP Build, feedback (e.g. on coloring and calendar display) from key users could be obtained very quickly. In addition, a heat map enabled the developers to gain valuable information about user behavior and let them make changes directly in the prototype.



Figure: first prototype UI5 and embedded Excel with SAP Build

 

This approach was exactly the right choice for the customer, as it was a step-by-step approach to the final solution. Where the existing Excel sheet was simply integrated in the first prototype, a standard Fiori Gantt chart was soon able to cover the same information.

After the preparatory analysis phase, it took only two sprints to enable the key users to test the new app with mock data. Another two sprints later with three weeks each to go live with the final solution.

 

At the end, the Deutsche Bahn is now able to graphically display maintenance plans over a long period of time, reschedule or harmonize them, simulate maintenance plans that are inactive or not yet started and start or activate them.

 



Figure: final Fiori App with selection criteria and graphical gantt

 

The infrastructure needed for this project is as simple as you would expect for web applications today. In addition to the existing SAP systems (ECC 6.0), only the embedded Fiori Frontend Servers and Services had to be installed and configured to display the contents in the browser (IE11 in this example) and to be able to execute the functions.



Figure: system infrastructure

 

 

 

Key findings of the project:

 

During this implementation of the first complex Fiori App for both sides there were several findings. The most relevant discovered as key findings are illustrated in the following figure:

 



Figure: Key findings of the project

 

As Axians NEO we intensively are focused with all topics that our customers have in the area of SAP plant maintenance and asset management. For this reason, we are already planning adjustments and extensions to the planning board for further purposes.

Examples of this are:

• PM planning board for easy assignment of technicians to orders and operations


• Pool Asset Management for internal rental of equipment (vehicles, other equipment).

 

 

For direct access to the German Blog - please also check https://www.axians.de/de/blog/2018/05/09/grafische-wartungsplanung-mit-sap-fiori-gantt/