Last Updated on November 19, 2022 by maximosecrets

Crew Work Groups are used to limit what crews can be assigned to work; a crew can belong to a crew work group. A work order can inherit its crew work group from a Preventive Maintenance record or a Job Plan and when you make an assignment the available crews are those that belong to the crew work group.

When using Graphical Scheduling you need a way of filtering the work orders to schedule, when working with crews this could be a crew work group. The Crew Work Group field appears on the List Tab of the Crews application.

Crews were added into Maximo before Work Zones, they existed first in Maximo for Utilities. Crew Work Groups were used in a similar way to Work Zones, but of course were only applicable to Crews and not to Labor. Work Zones should be used in preference to Crew Work Groups as they are used in the Graphical Assignment optimization models. You might find a reason to use both.

Person Group defines a Crew Work Group

A Crew Work Group is defined in the Person Groups application. A Crew Work Group is a pool of people, who would also have labor records, which can be used on one or more crews that share the same Crew Work Group. If you use the Select Value on the Crew Work Group field in the Crews application, you will find it is initially empty.

When a Person Group is added you would provide a description and decide whether it is going to be used within the Crews application, if so then you would check the “Crew Work Group” attribute. In the example we have created Person Group 1037 – Needham Overhead Line Crews and marked the crew as a Crew Work Group.

The action “Make Available to Crews” is available from the List tab and operates against the selected set of Person Group records. When used it sets the check box “Crew Work Group”, there is no dialog other than to tell you how many Person Group records this action will affect.

The People/Labor added to the Person Group representing the Crew Work Group are not verified when you make Labor Assignments on the Crew, but this could be easily configured especially for the select value on the Labor field when the New Row button is used. This would leave the New Unrestricted Row to be used for adding Labor that does not exist as a member of the Person Group, see the article on Crews – Labor and Tool Assignments.

Crew Work Group on Job Plans

The Crew Work Group will be found in the Responsibility section of a Job Plan. I’ve created a new Job Plan OHLXIN01 for BEDFORD site with description “Needham Overhead Line Transformer Inspection” and have selected 1037 in the Crew Work Group field. The responsibility section also has a Crew field, but I think it unlikely you would use this on a Job Plan. If you did, it would be filtered by the Crew Work Group, so make sure you enter this first.

As you are going to enter a Crew Work Group which is defined at the Organization level it makes sense to at least enter the Job Plan at the Organization level, or SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More level as I have done in this case. In fact, if you enter a Crew Work Group without an Organization or Site you will receive the error message “BMXAA2142E – Job Plan xxxxx must be defined at the organization or site level.” You can enter a Job Plan without an Organization or Site, save the record and later enter the Crew Work Group, but better for the job plan to be defined at organization or site level.

You will also find the Crew Work Group on the Job Plan Tasks. Of the other responsibility fields, you will find Owner and Owner Group also exist on a task.

It is always good practise to make sure that you enter a duration for each job plan, in this case I have entered 1:50.

When I use the New Row button on the Labor tab of the Job Plans application the Crew Work Group is populated from the same field from the job plan header. I have also entered the Crew Type of BOSOHL and 1:30 minutes of work effort needed by the team. The rate was derived from the Override Hourly Rate on the Crew Type record and this derived a Line Cost of $105.00. If no override amount, then it would come from the Hourly Rate field. Note. The required hours are the number of hours for the crew, and not the total hours across the members of the crew. There are three crew positions in the BOSOHL crew type, in this case the total hours would be 4:30.

There is a Crew field on the Job Plan – Labor tab, but it would be unusual to create Job Plans specifically for crews. Perhaps a specialist crew assembled for specialist work with a rate that is different due to the special nature of the work to be carried out. If you did use the Crew field, then the Rate is derived from the Override Hourly Rate on the Crew record. The Hourly Rate on the Crew record will be zero until you have assigned some labor to the crew, so you might want, in this case, to rely on the crew’s override hourly rate.

The Crew Type and Crew fields are mutually exclusive, you can only enter a value in one of these fields.

If you take a look at the Tools tab you will find that the BOSBTRUCK tool that is required by the BOSOHL crew type has also been entered for the same 1:30 hours, this was done automatically. The rate of $10.00 has come from the Tool Rate for the Organization, found in the Tools application and Tool/Organization Details action. Note. As Maximo will add the tool record from the Crew Type or Crew to the Job Plan and apply the tool rate, this provides the reason why the Override Hourly Rate fields should exclude the rates for using the tools, otherwise the tool charges will effectively be included twice.

I have change the status of Job Plan OHLXIN01 to make it ACTIVE.

Crew Work Group on Preventive Maintenance

On the Preventive Maintenance application in the Responsibility section there is both the Crew and Crew Work Group fields, the Crew Work Group field is just below the Owner Group field, and so out of sight of this screenshot.

I have created a new PM 1020 – Overhead line Transformer Inspection Sector W3 with an associated Route of PM1020 and used the Job Plan we have just made active OHLXIN01. The Work Type INDX – Inspection – Distribution is one I created in the OrganizationsA structural element of a Maximo database which is used for data sharing and is often aligned to a legal entity of an organisation. More application and Work Order Options – Work Type action.

The Crew Work Group is 1037, the same as it is on the Job Plan and I have entered the BOSOHLW crew as they are the ones who handle sector W3. There is no filtering in the Crew field to make sure that it belongs to the Crew Work Group already entered, as there is in the Job Plans application. The Crew Work Group and Crew will be copied through to the work order.

I haven’t entered any frequency criteria, nor any route stops, I’ll probably pick up on this record with another article. We’ll make the PM active and use the Generate Work Orders action and uncheck the Use Frequency Criteria to generate a work order. Did you know you could generate a work order from a PM without any frequency criteria? It might be used for shutdown/outage work, or special work orders/hierarchies created from time to time.

Crew Work Group on Work Order Tracking

In the Work Order Tracking application, we can find the work order 1284 generated from the PM with the INDX work type at WSCH – Waiting to be Scheduled status. No LocationA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More or Asset is referenced, but then this is only a test record. Job Plan OHLXIN01 was applied.

Scrolling to the bottom of the Work Order tab we find the Responsibility section with the Crew and Crew Work Group values copied from the PM record.

If the PM has a Job Plan and these two responsibility fields are left null on the PM, then they are copied onto the work order from the Job Plan. If they exist on both the PM and Job Plan, then they are copied from the PM to the work order. If the Crew Work Group has a value on the PM but the Crew is blank, then the Crew field can come from the Job Plan if it belongs to the same Crew Work Group.

If you enter a crew on the PM and a crew work group on the job plan and the crew does not belong to the crew work group, you will get an error on PM generation and the work order will not be generated. Normally, I recommend as a good guide to only use the Responsibility fields on the PM or the Job Plan but not both. However, in the case of Crew Work Groups I would consider adding the Crew Work Group on both the Job Plan and the PM and making sure that they are set the same. On the PM the Crew Work Group is acting as a guide to the Crew field entered on the PM record. On the Job Plan the Crew Work Group is added to the Job Plan Labor records when they are created.

On the Plans tab the Labor record (WPLABOR) was created as a copy of the Job Plan Labor record that we saw earlier, including the Crew Work Group of 1037 and Crew Type of BOSOHL. The Work Order Planned Tool record (WPTOOL) was also copied from the Job Plan Tool record.

In the Work Order Tracking application on the Assignments tab the Assignment record was created from the work plan labor record including the Crew Work Group of 1037 and Crew Type of BOSOHL. I have used the Select Value on the Crew field and assigned Crew BOSOHLW and the assignment status was changed from WAITASGN – Waiting Assignment to ASSIGNED. The Scheduled Start is time now. Note. The Crew’s select value does not filter crews by matching with the Crew Work Group, that can be easily configured if needed.

I have actually removed the Crew field and the assignment status has returned to WAITASGN – I want to show you a difference with the Available Crew button.

When using the Available Crew button, the dialog allows you to filter for available crews between two dates. In this case, you can see that the Crews have been filtered by both the Crew Type and Crew Work Group. It has also found the first available Start Time, which is next Monday 09-Nov-20 at 08:00 and this will be the Scheduled Start on the assignment when selected.

Note. Crew assignments can be made, although as yet there are no Labor or Tool Assets assigned to the chosen crew.