Good morning and welcome to Maximo Bite Size, a podcast on the functionality of Maximo Manage. Today is the seventh episode in the series on Asset Management and we will be discussing Location and Asset Specifications.
A specification is a set of attributes associated with a classification and is used widely across Maximo. The starting point is to enter the classifications and their attributes in the Classifications application and to associate the classification with the Use With Object of LOCATIONS or ASSET. In core Maximo classifications are used on over 25 objects, and there are at least another 20 objects where a classification is used on an HSE object.
Locations and Assets can be different to classifications used by other objects depending on whether they are based on a rotating item, or not. We will discuss those differences and point out features of classifications which may be used on locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More and assets, but less so on other objects.
Location and Asset Specifications (for non-Rotating)
Classifications can exist in hierarchies with multiple levels, two should be sufficient for locations and assets. For assets you could have hundreds of classifications, think of each classification as a noun that you join with other nouns, for example the noun centrifugal can be added to pumps, fans, and compressors.
For example, a Centrifugal Pump is made up of two classifications Pump and Centrifugal, and the class structure which joins these two classifications into a hierarchy – Centrifugal Pump. This has attributes of Size, Speed, Capacity, Total Head, etc. The attributes can be reused on multiple records in the classification hierarchy, and it is worth planning a set of generic attribute names.
The attributes can be of three types, ALN, NUMERIC and TABLE. A fourth DATE attribute type was added to the Service Request, and recently in Maximo Application Suite v8.8 it has been added to several other objects including Items, Locations and Assets, but it is not available on all objects. ALN and NUMERIC types will be used, TABLE type rarely on location and asset specifications. A TABLE type is a lookup against data held elsewhere in Maximo, for example you could use a table lookup to lookup a company or a person.
The use of domains to provide a set of values will be common, an ALN domain on an ALN type attribute, a NUMERIC or NUMRANGE domain for NUMERIC type attributes. The use of a Unit of Measure will also be common for location and asset-based attributes.
There is a description generation function in classifications that can be used to generate the location and asset description from the classification descriptions and attribute values. Each attribute value can have a prefix and the unit of measure abbreviation is used as the suffix to an attribute value. For example, Pump,Centrifugal, Size 8.0, 60.0 FtHd, 750.0 RPM is a generated description for an asset, Size is a prefix, FtHd and RPM are unit of measure abbreviations.
Some attributes may be added at a parent level in the classification hierarchy if they are common attributes to all children classifications. The ‘Apply Down Hierarchy’ field is checked on the attribute and on the child classification the attribute will show in the ‘Inherited From’ field the classification from which the attribute was derived, this could be a grandparent if the classification hierarchy had three levels.
The Section attribute allows attributes to be grouped together and for an attribute to be referenced multiple times in the same classification. Section is part of the unique index of a Class Specification.
Location and Asset Specifications (of type Rotating)
The first thing that you might notice about Locations and Assets that reference a Rotating Item is that the Classification field on the Specifications tab is read-only. This is because the classification and its attributes and values are being controlled from the item or tool. When an item’s specification is updated with new values there could be hundreds of asset or location records that are being updated, so be patient.
When you are working with rotating assets then the classifications in the class hierarchy will need to reference a ‘Use With Object’ of ITEM or TOOLITEM in addition to ASSET. For locations that reference a rotating item, then a ‘Use With Object’ of ITEM and LOCATIONS will be needed.
Once the classification exists on the asset, derived from the rotating item, you can add new attributes, change values, or delete attributes that are not required. There are two hidden fields that are controlling this. ‘Inherited from Item?’ is set when the asset’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. This second field stops the item specification from updating the asset specification attribute for the asset where the value was changed.
There are two hidden attributes on the Item Specification which control whether the attribute should be copied to all Asset Specifications and Location Specifications. These default to one and this sets the ‘Inherited from Item?’ field when the asset or location is associated with a rotating item, therefore the feature of inheriting attributes and their values from rotating items can be switched off.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode when we will review Asset Subassemblies and Spare Parts.
The music is called Busy City from the group called TrackTribe, please check them out on TrackTribe.Com, all one word.
Until another time, goodbye.
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