Last Updated on November 19, 2022 by maximosecrets

The two primary applications involved in Planning & Preventive Maintenance are:

• Job Plans, a template for a work order
• Preventive Maintenance, a record for defining the schedule of periodic based inspections and preventive maintenance

Job Plans

When a job plan is applied to a work order it create a work plan. The job plan is then the tasks and the resources needed to perform those tasks or the resources needed for the whole job. Job plans can be set at the system level or be specific to a site or an organization.

• If a job plan is defined at the organisation level then it can only be applied to the work orders for the sites that belong to that organization.
• A work order can apply system wide job plans and those specific to its organization and those specific to its site.

In regulated environments job plans may be set to allow revisions to be created, a revision is a copy of the job plan. Only one revision of the job plan can be set to a status of active and it is only the active job plans that can be applied to a work order. A revision history is maintained and can be reviewed.

Job plans and their tasks can be classified and may have a specification of attributes. This is used in audits, surveys and inspections where the attributes reference a question to be asked for which an ALN or numeric answer is provided. As there can be multiple tasks to a job plan the questionnaire can become quite detailed.

When a job plan has multiple tasks then precedence logic can be applied between these tasks. A feature called Flow Control can be set-up to automatically set to in progress one task when its predecessor tasks have been completed.

There are a number of fields which are copied to the work order when the job plan is applied. The fields in the responsibility section; supervisor, crew, lead, work group, owner, owner group and crew work group, are all copied. The two constraint fields, Start Constraint Offset and Finish Constraint Offset are integer values in hours which when applied to the work order with target dates calculate a Start No Earlier Than and Finish No Later Than date. This creates a time window around the work order target dates, a period in which the work order should be started and completed. There are similar responsibility and constraint fields on the Preventive Maintenance application and in general these fields will take priority if both the PM and the job plan have different value for the same field.

On the job plan tasks there is a field called Nested Job Plans which allows a job plan task to reference another job plan which itself could contain tasks which might reference a nested job plan. This creates a work order hierarchy when the job plan is applied to the work order. A hierarchy of three levels, parent work order, child work orders and their tasks is quite practical, a fourth level is probably not.

The job plan task has a Meter field. This is the meter name of a meter of type Gauge or Characteristic. When the job plan is applied to the work order then Maximo will search for Condition Monitoring records for the asset or location and meter name, if found Maximo will insert the measure point number against which the measurement will be recorded.

The four tabs at the bottom of the job plan application allow the labor, materials, services and tools to be planned. Each record can relate to a specific task or to the job plan as a whole.

• Labor – Normally used to define the Craft or Crew Type needed to perform the work, a quantity can be specified. If multiple craft records are created without referencing a task then this indicates that multiple labor need to arrive for the work order at the same time. Tasks will allow the labor to have a staggered start when precedence logic is applied between the tasks.
• Materials – Material items are defined in the Item Master or Inventory applications. A quantity can be requested. The storeroom in which the item will be issued can be provided and when referenced the unit cost and line cost will be calculated. A Direct Issue item will be a material item that needs to be sourced externally in which case the storeroom will not be required. If a Vendor is selected then the last price for the item from this vendor will be used for the unit cost and to calculate the line cost.
• Services – Service items is a type of item that cannot be held in a storeroom, they will be typically requested through the creation of a Purchase Requisition or Purchase Order. On the Service Items application a site must be entered before a vendor can be selected. If the service item has been purchased previously from the vendor then the last price is used for the unit cost and to calculate the line cost.
• Tools – Tool items is the third type of item and are defined in the Tools application. A tool can be held in a storeroom using the application Stocked Tools. The checkbox Reservation Required will need to be checked before selecting the tool storeroom against which the reservation will be made.

Job plans can sometimes be quite similar. When this is the case they might be consolidated into one and the tasks, labor, materials, services and tools conditionally applied. The condition is set up in the Conditional Expression Manager application. When the job plan is applied to a work order each record with a condition is evaluated and if the condition is met for the task, labor, material, service or tool then it is copied to the work order.

The Work Assets tab is used for:

• Associating job plans with specific locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More and assets. This can help users with the selection of the right job plan on the work order.
• Associating job plans with specific items, locations, assets and a safety plan. This is used to default the safety plan onto the work order when the job plan is applied to it.
• Associating job plans with a specific rotating item so that when the item is purchased a work order is created in order to install or commission the rotating asset. The work type of the work order to be created can be referenced.

The Job Plan application is often extended by other products or industry solutions to add additional functions. For example, Scheduler adds fields to handle appointments, maintenance windows or to indicate whether downtime is needed. Service Provider allows one or more customers to be associated with the job plan.

Master PM

A master PM is a template for a PM. The master PM is associated with a rotating item defined in the Item Master application and then the user can create PMs for selected locations and/or assets that reference the same rotating item. There is an action Update PMs for updating PMs associated with the master PM. A set of checkboxes controls what data on the PM is updated from the master PM, extended date, seasonal dates, job plan sequence, time based frequency and work order information.

PMs can be time based or meter based, consequently the master PM allows this information to be set-up. Time based is a set frequency in days, weeks, months or years. A check box allows the next due date to be determined from the target start date or the actual finish of the previous work order. Meter based PMs allow the next due date to be determined from the actual readings of one or more continuous meters. A PM can be both time based and meter based in which case whichever falls due first will cause a work order to be generated.

The master PM allows active seasonal dates to be set up. These are the seasons in which if the PM falls due during the period of the season then the work order will be generated, if it falls due outside of the season it will be generated for the first day of the next season. The active days of the week can also be selected. If Monday through Friday are selected then if the PM falls due at the weekend then the work order will be generated for the following Monday.

The master PM can have a single job plan or a job plan sequence. For example, a monthly PM might have one job plan which is performed each month, but then a different job plan is applied once per year. The first job plan has a sequence of 1, the annual job plan has a sequence of 12. Every 12^th work order we apply a different job plan to the generated work order. The annual job plan would typically have the same tasks as the monthly job plan but additional ones to support the annual maintenance.

There are other fields on the Master PM which are copied to the PM; work order information, lead time, extended date and alert lead but they will be discussed in the next section.

Preventive Maintenance

A PM record generates a work order and is used for frequency based inspections and preventive maintenance. A PM does not have to be associated with a master PM and often it doesn’t, if it is a checkbox will allow the PM to override updates from the master PM.

The first thing to recognise is that a PM is associated with a specific site, the site against which the location, asset or route is referenced. A master PM is defined at the system level. A PM either references a location or an asset, it cannot reference both, the PM can also reference a route. There is a validation to check that the PM references a location, asset, route or a GL account, however, what is normal is either a location, location and route, or an asset. For meter based PMs a location or asset is required.

The frequency, seasonal dates and job plan sequence tabs are similar to that found on the master PM application.

• Lead time is the amount of time needed to cover the longest lead time of materials. It is added to the slack time which is how far ahead of time you need in order to prepare or group the work orders prior to assigning them to labor or crews. Lead time plus slack time is how far ahead of the next due date work orders are generated.
• An extended date is a date in excess of the next due date which is used to extend the period before the next work order will be generated. The next work order of a PM wouldn’t normally be delayed beyond the frequency cycle otherwise it might cause an issue with the sequencing of the job plans. For example, a 3 monthly PM might be extended for a period up to 1 month.
• Alert lead only has an effect when changing the status of a corrective maintenance (CM) work order. If I need to perform CM work then as a planner I need to understand whether there is PM work which will fall due shortly as I may choose to perform the PM work early and fix the CM work order at the same time. The alert lead when applied to time based PMs is the number of days before the PM will fall due where I wish to be alerted when performing CM work. For a meter based PM it is the number of units to go before the PM will fall due.
• Work order information is data copied to the work order, for example, the work type, priority and work order status of each generated work order.

The responsibility section is a set of fields which are copied to the work order and which are the same set found on the job plan. Similarly start and finish constraint offsets are also found on the job plan.

PMs can exist in a PM hierarchy. A work order hierarchy is created when the PM at the top of the hierarchy is generated. The status of the PM can be rolled down the hierarchy. The PM statuses are Draft, Active or Inactive. A series of inspections performed at the same frequency at the same physical location can be grouped together using a PM hierarchy. The child PMs can reference a route. PM hierarchies can also be useful for grouping PMs which need to be performed together at an annual shutdown.

To aid long term planning a PM can be forecasted without generating work orders, this action can also be applied to multiple PMs and run as a background task. The PM must be active and set to allow forecasting to take place. Once generated the forecast dates can be modified and later dates reforecast based on the amended dates. This allows a non-linear schedule to be established, the forecasted dates will be used to determine when to generate work orders. Forecast dates can be locked/unlocked.

The Forecast Cost tab uses the forecast dates to generate a projection of costs for the PM, it will only appear if there is a Maximo Scheduler license. The Calculate Costs button will take into account job plan sequences, routes and nested job plans and use the costs defined for the labor, materials, services and tools defined on the associated job plans.

Work orders can be generated from one or more PMs either manually or as a background task, a Cron Task. Work orders can be generated for those PMs which are due today or a number of days ahead, a value that you specify, this is sometimes referred to as the slack time. There are also background cron tasks for generating PM forecasts and for calculating PM forecast costs.

Routes

A route is a set of locations or assets (the route stops) that are applied to a PM or directly to a work order and which creates a group of work to be performed at the same time. When applied the route creates either child work orders, tasks, or records in the multiple assets, locations and CI table, one record for each route stop. Routes are often used during inspections, surveys or audits. The job plan to be performed at each route stop is either determined from the PM, manually applied to the work order, or if the route is defined to create child work orders then a job plan can be specified for each route stop. Therefore, routes can be used to inspect or perform preventive maintenance work on a set of similar assets or a varied set of assets that might be at the same location and where the work is to be performed at the same time.

Hazards

The Hazards application allows a library of hazards to be created. Hazards are defined at the organization level. A hazard may be a hazardous material, if so, it would be normal to store the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) as an attachment to the hazard record.

A hazard can have a set of precautions which are used to inform workers how to reduce the risks associated with the hazard. A hazard can also have tag out procedures defined to help workers follow a process when they encounter the hazard.

Precautions

The Precautions application defines a library of precautions and displays the hazards against which they have been associated. Precaution records are defined at the site level.

Lock Out / Tag Out

A tag out record is defined for a location or asset and is therefore defined at the site level. One or more lock out operations are then defined against the tag out record. The lock out operations are performed against other locations or assets and are required to be performed by the worker in a specific order prior to the work and then in a specific order after the work has been completed, the apply sequence and the remove sequence.

Safety Plans

A safety plan pulls all the safety information together for a location or asset, it is defined at the site level. The work assets for the safety plan are selected and then the action Select Hazards is used to apply the hazards, precautions and tag out rules related to the work asset to the safety plan. Additional hazards, precautions, hazardous materials and tag out rules can also be applied when there are safety related locations and assets.

The work asset and safety plan combination are then referenced on the work assets tab of a job plan so that when the job plan is applied to a work order which references the location or asset all the related safety information is copied onto the work order.