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Hello, and welcome back to Maximo Bite Size. A series of videos on the functional aspects of Maximo Manage.

Title

Good afternoon, it is Andrew Jeffery here and welcome to the seventh episode in the series on Asset Management. Today we’ll be introducing you to Location and Asset Specifications, and we will examine this from both a non-rotating and rotating perspective.

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Learning Objectives

We’ll start today in the Classifications application and look at a typical setup for location and asset classifications.

Then we will look at classifications and specifications from the Locations application, before turning to the Assets application and reviewing what happens when an asset (or location) references a rotating item. You’ll find in this case, that the classification and specification is controlled from the item record in the Item Master application, but you can control this if you know about a few hidden fields. 

So, let’s get started.

Classifications

The Classifications application will be found in the Administration module. Classifications are used throughout Maximo but the main places where it is used is with Items, Locations and Assets and unsurprisingly this is where it started out life. It is used with Service Requests and Work Orders and consequently Ticket Templates and Job Plans both at the header level and the task level. It is also used through the purchasing applications, on the lines of a material requisition, purchase requisition, purchase order and on a material receipt and invoice line. Getting to know how classifications work is important because they are used so widely both in the core Maximo applications as well as on add-ons and industry solutions, for example, the Health, Safety and Environment Manager (HSE) adds classifications to a further 16 objects.

Classifications is an object which allows you to define records at the System, OrganizationA structural element of a Maximo database which is used for data sharing and is often aligned to a legal entity of an organisation. More or SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More level . In the example for a PUMP the Organization and Site fields are blank and read-only, this is a System level classification. You can only decide the level of the classification when you are inserting a record.

Classifications exist in hierarchies , and can have parents or children, equally they can exist on their own without being part of a hierarchy, and for Locations this is often the case, for example Meeting Rooms, Offices, Restrooms, Kitchen, Grounds, etc.

Asset classifications often exist in hierarchies of two levels – Pumps – Centrifugal, Pumps – Rotary, Pumps – Reciprocating. Notice the use of nouns to describe the classification. If you looked at types of Compressors you could also have Centrifugal, Rotary or Reciprocating, although you might say Rotary Screw Compressor, or Reciprocating Air Compressor. The noun of Centrifugal could be used with both a Pump or a Compressor, and Maximo is designed to reuse these nouns and so it might be worth spending time to work out the classifications that you wish to use. 

Each noun is a classification that you can see in the action Add/Modify Properties – Classification . What you see as records in the Classifications application are records from the CLASSSTRUCTURE object, the object that links classifications together into a hierarchy. We still call these records classifications because it goes with the application name, but a more correct term would be class structure records or classification hierarchies.

At the bottom of the screenshot, you can see a table window called Use With which defines the objects that the classification (or rather the class structure record) can be associated with. In the example, for the PUMP classification hierarchy it is ASSET, ITEM, LOCATIONS and WORKORDER.

For rotating assets, you would normally use a Use With Object of ITEM and ASSET, for non-rotating assets just ASSET. For locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More that reference a rotating item, then ITEM and LOCATIONS, if a rotating item is not used on a location, then just the LOCATIONS object is used.

For each classification you can add a set of attributes of type ALN, NUMERIC, or TABLE and the DATE type was introduced in Maximo Application Suite v8.8. A Table type allows you to use data that is held elsewhere in Maximo, for example, a Person or a Company. 

The classification and its set of attributes is known as a specification. When the attributes and their values describe the location, asset, or item, they are then referred to as the location spec, asset spec or item spec respectively.

There is a description generation function in the Classifications application that will create a description for an asset, location or item based on the classification description and attribute values, their prefixes, and units of measure, and we’ll talk about that more in another podcast episode and video. 

The attribute names can be shared across multiple classifications, and it is good practise to try to share attribute names, otherwise you will end up with a lot of similar sounding attributes, and it will be difficult to determine which to use if you did try to reuse them. Trying to clean-up classifications and attributes later can be time consuming. The Add/Modify Properties – Attributes action is used to predefine the attributes, but if you used a new attribute on a classification Maximo would ask you whether you would like to add it.

For a rotating asset that exists at an operating location then you might say that the classification can be used with the objects ITEM, ASSET and LOCATIONS. However, some of the attributes may not be relevant to the location and some may not be relevant to the asset. You can control this for each attribute using the button called ‘Use with Object Detail’ found at the end of the Attributes table window. If you are going to say that a lot of the attributes are relevant to an asset but not the location, or vice versa, then you should ask yourself whether they should share the same classification.

Location Specifications

We are in the Locations application and the Specifications tab and for location BR240 – Circulation Fan #2 – Main Office HVAC, you can select a classification using the Classify drilldown, or use the Class Description field to search for a classification using a text search. Searching for Centrifugal in the MAXDEMO database will find Fans\Centrifugal as well as Centrifugal Pump. I’ve selected Fans\Centrifugal, and Maximo has found the corresponding classification record FANS \ CENTRIF and its six attributes have been copied from the corresponding Classification record, the Classification’s Specification, to create the Location Specification, which you can see in the table window at the bottom of the screenshot.

Normally the Alphanumeric, Numeric, Table and Date columns will all be null, and you would now proceed to enter the values to complete the Specification. In this example, the SPEED and CAPACITY attributes already have a numeric value. This is because the Use With Object Detail for the classification, attribute, and the LOCATIONS object has a Default Numeric Value . You might notice in the screenshot in the bottom left corner that there is no option for setting a default date value. You can define the order in which the attribute is displayed, using the Sequence field , and you can make an attribute a mandatory field when creating the location record. 

Notice there is a New Row button and there is also a Delete Row button on the Location Specification.

You can use the Section field to break the Location Specification into separate areas. This allows the same attribute to exist multiple times, one in each section. For example, use sections for Before and After, or Left and Right situations. The Section field is found in the details area of the table window.

With a Location Specification filled out with its attribute values you can now search for locations using the Classification field in the More Search Fields dialog. There is also an action called Attribute Search, which allows you to find locations based on a specification attribute having a certain value. The same capability exists for Items and Assets.

Asset Specifications

We are now in the Assets application and the Specifications tab, and you will find that it looks almost identical to that which we saw earlier in the Locations application. The Asset 11430 is a Centrifugal Pump that belongs to Rotating Item PUMP100, this makes it a rotating asset that can be moved to a repair shop and then a storeroom waiting to be issued again. All seven attributes that make up the asset specification have a data value, either an alphanumeric or a numeric value. These attribute values should have come from the Rotating Item as we will see in the next section.

On an asset (or location) there is a way of determining whether the classification and specification is being controlled from the associated rotating item, the classification field will be read-only when the record references a Rotating Item.

There are three differences between a Location Specification and an Asset Specification. You will find that in the Details area there are two fields for an Asset Specification record, Linear Type and Continuous, both are used only with linear assets. If you were looking at a linear asset, then the details area would have several fields in a section called Linear Segment Details which allows you to position the attribute values over a segment or point on the linear asset. The third difference is that with an asset you get a history of attribute changes in the View Asset Specification History action, there is, unfortunately, no similar action for a Location Specification.

There are two hidden YORN fields:

• INHERITEDFROMITEM is set to one if the value was derived from the associated rotating item
• ITEMSPECVALCHANGED is set to one if you change a value that was inherited from a rotating item. This stops the item specification from updating the asset specification attribute for the asset where the value was changed.

Item Specifications

I’ve navigated from Asset 11430 and the Rotating Item field to the Item Master application and item PUMP100. As you can see from the screenshot the item has the same classification and the same set of attributes in the item specification as the asset had in its asset specification. The attribute values for NPSH and DRIVER are blank on the item and were filled in on the asset.

If you update the value for an attribute in the item specification, then any assets or locations linked to the item through the Rotating Item field will also be updated. The Item Master record drives changes through to the assets and locations that are linked to it. This will also be the case if you add a new attribute to the item specification it will be added to the associated locations and assets. This might take a while if there are many assets and locations linked to the rotating item, so do have some patience. 

You can stop the update of an attribute on a location or asset specification by setting the hidden field ‘Item Specification Value Changed?’ to one. This tells Maximo not to update the asset or location specification for this attribute if it is changed on the item specification.

Also, if you add a new attribute to an asset or location specification then the ‘Inherited from Item?’ field is set to zero, which tells Maximo not to consider that attribute when looking to update the asset or location specification from the item specification.

But what if you never wanted an item specification attribute to be set on a location and/or asset? Well, there are two hidden fields on the item specification object called ITEMSPEC:

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

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

Therefore, if some item specification attributes are not relevant to an asset, then change ‘All Asset Specs Use Value’ to zero. Similarly set ‘All Location Specs Use Value’ to zero if an attribute is not relevant to a location specification. Have both attributes set to zero if the attribute is only useful for procurement or inventory purposes.

So, what happens if you clear the classification on an item or reclassify the item? Remember the item is the master and the classification on the rotating asset is read-only. The classification will be cleared on assets and locations that reference the rotating item unless there has been a change to one of the attribute values on the location or asset. Reclassifying the Item Master record will also reclassify any associated assets or locations.

Thank you for watching

I hope you have enjoyed this episode on Location and Asset Specifications and found it useful and thank you for watching. We would like to see you back in our next episode when we will take a closer look at Asset Subassemblies and Spare Parts. Don’t forget to hit the Subscribe button, and if you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up.

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Until another time, Goodbye.