Last Updated on January 4, 2023 by maximosecrets

Good afternoon and welcome to Maximo Bite Size, a podcast on the functionality of Maximo Manage. Today is the fifth episode in the series on Maintenance Planning and we will be discussing Job Plans.

A Job Plan is a template for a work order. Many of the features you will find on a job plan you will also find in the Work Order Tracking application. We will be discussing these features, but if you are looking for a reference to Dynamic Job Plans, then I will cover this separately as part of Work Management, it will be called Non-linear Dynamic Job Plans.

Job Plans

A job plan can exist at either the System, Organization or SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More level, the level is defined as SYSTEMORGSITE in the Database Configuration application. This is the level at which you wish to share the job plan across your organization. It cannot be changed after the record has been saved.

A job plan can have a simple status of Draft, Active, Inactive or Cancel. But a feature which is turned on 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 System Settings action can provide ‘Revision Control for Job Plans’ and this is enabled by default. When enabled the Revision field appears below the Job Plan and to change an active job plan you need to use the Revise Job Plan action which will duplicate the job plan record, increment its revision, and allow you to enter a revision description. The status then moves to PNDREV – Pending Revision. The previous revision is still active and will be used on work orders. When your changes have been made on the new revision this is made active and the previous revision is set to a status of Revised and becomes read-only.

In simple terms a job plan can have multiple tasks and when the job is performed there may be multiple Labor, Material, Service, and Tool requirements needed to perform the job. These are the four tabs at the bottom of the application.

When you perform the job on a work order in some cases you may want to perform all tasks, but there might be some optional ones which are performed in certain circumstances. For many years you needed to have two or more similar job plans for this, but now there is a feature called Conditional Job Plans where you can associate a condition with a task, labor, material, service, or tool record and if on the work order the condition evaluates to true the task is performed. The setting for this is found in the same place as for revision control in the section called Job Plans in the System Settings action, the attribute is called ‘Enable Job Plan Conditions’. If you enable this an attribute called ‘Set a Condition’ appears in the five areas of the job plan, allowing you to reference a condition created in the Conditional Expression Manager application.

If the condition is placed on a task, then if labor, materials, services, and tools are dependent on the same condition it is likely that they are tied to the task. The labor, materials, services, and tools do not need to be tied to a task this is optional but for any one job plan you should either reference no tasks, or always reference a task when entering labor, material, service, and tool records to the job plan. A mixture of the two on the same job plan should be avoided as you may encounter issues in other areas of Maximo for example in Maximo Scheduler which is expecting a single work order to work one way or the other.

For most Maximo clients the Template Type will be defaulted and remain as Maintenance and the Default WO Class will be set as WORKORDER. Most of the other fields in the Details and Responsibility sections are copied over to the work order when the job plan is applied to it. The Responsibility fields are also on the Preventive Maintenance application which can also reference a job plan. If the job plan is being used for a PM and the same attribute exists on the job plan, then you need to decide where you will put the value, in general, place it on the PM as this will take priority over the job plan. In the Links section at the bottom of the transcript there is a link to a Maximo Secrets article called Responsibilities on Job Plans, PMs and Work Orders.

A job plan can have a classification on both the header as well as its tasks. There are two Use With Objects on the Classifications application JOBPLAN and JOBTASK. If you add JOBPLAN you should also add WORKORDER as you want the classification to be accepted on the work order. Similarly, for JOBTASK you should add WOACTIVITY.

The Specifications tab on the job plan has two table windows one for the attributes associated with the classification on the job plan header, and below it the specification for the job task classifications, there is a task field as the first column. You do not get the same layout on the Work Order Tracking application only the specification associated with the work order classification. You need to navigate to the Activities and Tasks application to see the specification associated with each task’s classification. The Activities and Tasks application is often not used, if you are using job task classifications and specifications, then you may wish to consider configuring the Specifications tab on the Work Order Tracking application to show a second table window for the work order task specification attributes.

There are a series of fields associated with Process Flow Control which will be found on the job plan header as well as the tasks. The most likely scenario for this is on larger jobs with multiple tasks where successor tasks cannot start until their predecessors have completed. You can add Predecessors to tasks adding one of the four relationships (FS, SS, FF, SF) and a lead/lag in hours, a lead is a negative creating an overlap between tasks, and a lag is a positive value creating a delay between tasks. Process Flow Control is activated with the Flow Controlled attribute, and the Flow Action field is used to indicate the action to perform, for example WO INPRG which changes the task’s status to INPRG – In Progress, when its predecessors have moved to COMP – Complete. There is a setting in the Organizations application and Work Type action if you want the Start or Finish of process flow control to work between statuses other than INPRG and COMP for a particular work type.

You can associate an Inspection Form with both the job plan and its tasks. The inspection form is created in the Manage Inspection Forms work center. A good example of the use of this might be a risk assessment on one of the initial tasks, and an after-work completion questionnaire for one of the last tasks.

Many of the other fields on the job plan also appear on the tasks and are to do with scheduling capabilities. For example, whether the task should be included in a schedule, whether an appointment is required, whether a task is interruptible if the end of the shift is reached. There are other settings only on the job plan header, whether location or asset downtime is required, or whether the work will need to be performed in an asset or location maintenance window.

Job Plan Tasks

There are a couple of additional features of job plan tasks, the first is a Nested Job Plan. A job plan with tasks will create a two-level work hierarchy, a work order, and its tasks. Referencing a job plan on a job task which has itself job tasks will create a three-level work hierarchy, a parent work order, a set of children work orders, and each of these child work orders could have a set of tasks from the nested job plan references on the job plan tasks.

The other feature is to reference a meter of type gauge or characteristic. When a work order has the job plan applied then the asset and/or location on the work order task is used to find a Condition Monitoring point that references the meter. If one is found the Measurement Point is added to the work order task and the measurement and characteristic observations can then be added from the work order task. The action Enter Meter Readings is an alternative which is now more common.

Job Plan Labor

In the Labor tab you create the resource requirements normally for a craft or crew type with the number of hours required. For craft you can enter a quantity, for example I need two electricians, for crew types the quantity is one. Both Craft and Crew Type exist at the Organization level so the entry of either of these fields will enter the organization, which is a mandatory field.

When we enter a craft and use the select value, we may be populating the Skill Level, Vendor and Labor Contract fields from the record selected. We are picking a labor craft rate record, and this derives the Rate, and the Line Cost will be calculated from the rate, quantity, and hours.

You could enter a Labor or Crew if there is a strong preference that the work is to be carried out by that person or crew. This is unusual because it infers that the job plan is not reusable, it is extremely specific. For a Crew Type a Crew Work Group can also be entered.

The View Costs action will show you the Total Labor Hours and the labor, material, service, and tool costs for the job plan.

Job Plan Materials

In the Materials tab you are selecting an item from the Item Master or Inventory applications and entering a quantity required of the item. If you know the item is not in a storeroom, then you mark it as Direct Issue and when the job plan is applied to a work order and the work order is approved the item will be purchased and it will appear on a Purchase Requisition. For non-stocked items, the vendor may be suggested. If you believe the item is stocked, then the Direct Issue flag is left unchecked, and you can enter the Storeroom and Storeroom Site to source the item from. The cost of the item is derived using the Issue Cost Type of the item in the specified storeroom, for example it could be the average or standard cost.

If the selected item is condition enabled, you can select the required condition code. Note, if you do not use condition enabled items and aim to hide this section then move the Stock Category under the Details section.

Job Plan Services

In the Services tab you select a service item. If you have entered an organization then the unit cost and vendor will be derived, and the line cost calculated from the quantity required. The vendor is the default vendor for the service item in the organization.

Job Plan Tools

In the Tools tab you select the tool items that are needed to perform the work. If you have entered an organization then the rate is the Tool Rate found on the Tool/Organization Details action in the Tools application. You enter the number of Tool Hours required and the Line Cost will be calculated.

If a reservation will be required, you can enter the Stocked Tools storeroom and site against which the reservation should be made.

Work Assets

The Work Assets tab allows for multiple records to be associated with a job plan. The Work Asset is an asset, location, or item. This table is used for three reasons.

• To help filter the job plans specific to the location and asset that you have entered on the work order.
• To link a safety plan to the job being performed on a location and asset so that it could be defaulted onto the work order when the job plan is applied.
• To automatically create a work order when an item is purchased if it requires inspection or for a rotating item if the asset requires commissioning.

I’ll finish by discussing the first point, the other two will be discussed further as part of safety or receiving.

In the Work Order Tracking application, the Select Value on the Job Plan field has a field called ‘Show Job Plans for the Work Order’s Asset and LocationA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More Only?’ which by default is selected. This shows job plans where the location or asset referenced on the work is referenced in the Work Assets tab on the job plan, or if the location or asset on the work order has a rotating item, then it also shows the job plans where the Work Assets tab references that rotating item. If you have no work assets on your job plans, then by default there will be no job plans shown in the Select Value dialog. There is a reference to this in the Maximo Secrets article Applying Safety Plans which you can find in the Links section of the transcript.

One final thought. There are many fields on the Job Plans application, and this can put some clients off creating job plans except for those required for Preventive Maintenance. For reactive job plans there is nothing wrong with a job plan code and a description and nothing else. Over time this will build history on your work orders to give focus to the job plans that you should then build out with more detail.

I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode when we will be discussing Routes and Collections.

The music is called Drag Race from the group called TrackTribe, please check them out on TrackTribe.com, all one word.

Until another time, goodbye.

Links

Responsibilities on Job Plans, PMs and Work Orders – Responsibilities on Job Plans, PMs and Work Orders

Item on Job Plan Work Assets – Item on Job Plan Work Assets

Applying Safety Plans – Applying Safety Plans