Last Updated on November 1, 2023 by maximosecrets

On the Locations application there is a Rotating Item field. This field allows you to reference an item or tool that is marked as “Rotating?”. A location cannot exist in a storeroom, as can an asset, so the term “rotating” in this case means a reference to a rotating item, rather than rotating stock – stock that moves in and out of a storeroom – which is associated with a rotating asset.

The reference to a Rotating Item is only available if the type is set to OPERATING, for all other location typesThere are eight location types of which the most common one is an Operating Location. More it will be read-only. The Rotating Item field will be blanked and made read-only if you change the location type.

The use of a rotating item on an operating location is to leverage some of the templating capability that is also made available for rotating assets and their association with a rotating item. There are four main functions that can be provided when referencing a rotating item.

Applying a Meter Group

In the above screenshot when we associated location 1017 with rotating item AJE02 the Meter Group from item AJE02 was copied – CLASS8.

The meters that belong to the meter group are copied to the location to create a set of location meters. Meters in the meter group can be of any of the three types, continuous, gauge or characteristic. If the rotating item field on the operating location is blanked, the meter group and its meters would be retained.

Creating a Location Specification

When we associated location 1017 with rotating item AJE02 the Classification from item AJE02 was copied – PUMP \ CNTRFGL. This creates a location specification; the attributes are copied from the classification’s specification and the values for attributes that also exist on the item’s specification are copied to the same attribute on the location specification.

Notice that the classification is read-only. You cannot use the Clear Classification action as you will receive the error “BMXAA2256E – Field Classification is read-only.” The default position is that the classification’s values are determined from those on the rotating item.

If you navigate to the rotating item and in the Item Master application update one of the attribute values, SIZE has been updated to 3.2.

Then, after refreshing location 1017 from the database, you will find that the location’s specification has also been updated, it will have been on all the locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More (and assets) that reference this rotating item.

There are two fields which are hidden by default which are playing a part in this illustration:

• “Inherited from Item?” is set when the location’s specification value was inherited from the item’s specification value.
• “Item Specification Value Changed?” is set if you change the value of the attribute from that which is on the item’s specification.

If you updated an attribute’s value on the Location Specification, it would no longer be updated from changes on the associated rotating item for the same attribute. If you created a new attribute on the location specification it would be on this location record only, it wouldn’t be on the item’s specification.

There are two fields on the Item Specification which are also hidden:

• All Asset Specs Use Value (ALLASSSPECUSEVALUE)
• All Location Specs Use Value (ALLLOCSPECUSEVALUE)

These two fields are defaulted to 1 and what they do is set the “Inherited from Item?” field on the asset specification record and the location specification record when the asset or location is associated with a rotating item and the classification is copied.

If you wanted the copying of the item specification to work for rotating assets, but not for locations that reference the rotating item, at least not for all attributes, then set the ALLLOCSPECUSEVALUE to 0 for the attributes that you do not want to be copied through to the location specification.

Apply Item Assembly Structure

There is an action in the Location’s application called Apply Item Assembly Structure. This can be used for creating a model library in the Item Master application and using the models to quickly create a location hierarchy based on applying those models. 

This can be illustrated will an example.

1. A new vessel for a Fast Crew Supplier 2610 is created with a rotating item that represents the main systems that make up that type of vessel.
2. The action Apply Item Assembly Structure creates all of the level 2 and 3 locations in the hierarchy based on the item assembly structure associated with the rotating item for the vessel.
3. On the newly created propulsion system location, which also has its own rotating item reference, the action Apply Item Assembly Structure is used again to create all of the subsystems, components and the operating locationsA location with a location type of OPERATING. More on which rotating assets will be created.
4. Similarly, the action Apply Item Assembly Structure is used to create the subsystems, components and operating locations for the steering system location.

This process continues through all the systems building out the location hierarchy.

In Maximo, after applying the three Item Assembly Structures the 17 descendent locations were created which you can see from the Open Drilldown action.

Creating a location hierarchy with 5 levels.

In theory, a location hierarchy and an item assembly structure can have many levels, but there is a practical limit. The Item Assembly Structure tab in the Item Master application works quite well with 3 levels, and at a push a 4^th level. Therefore, if creating a set of models in the Item Master application I would advise against exceeding 3 levels, instead, look to join to another set of models further down the location hierarchy. Applying an extra layer of models to the location hierarchy will provide for a 7-level location hierarchy, without having more that 3 levels in any Item Assembly Structure.

When applying an item assembly structure to a location to create a location hierarchy, all of the items in the hierarchy of the item assembly structure need to be marked with “Rotating?” checked. An operating location has no concept of a spare part.

Master PMs

The last area which can be utilised when associating a rotating item to a location is that you can generate the PMs for the operating location by creating a Master PM that references the rotating item, in this case Master PM 1008 and the rotating item AJE02 we saw earlier.

The two check boxes on the right-hand side determine whether PMs will be created for the item based on the association with a location or asset.

The Create Associated PMs action is then used to generate a PM for the selected assets and locations that belong to the rotating item AJE02. There are two tabs Asset and Location, on the Location tab I have selected just location 1017. On pressing OK you receive a list of the PMs’ created, in my case just the one “BMXAA2753I – Created PM 1030 for asset/location 1017.”

In the Preventive Maintenance application PM 1030 has been created and linked with Master PM 1008, it references the location 1017.

The Master PM is a template for PM records. Ideally you would determine the characteristics of the Master PM first before creating any asset or location PMs from it, but there is the ability to use the action “Update Associated PMs” to update the PMs that are linked with the Master PM for one or more sites. Within the Master PM application there are various check boxes to determine what parts of the Master PM will update the PMs.