How to configure Phase maintenance model in SAP S/4HANA EAM?
Hello again! This is a follow-up to my previous article, where I showed you how does the Phase maintenance work from Business perspective. Personally, I find it as a cool thing, a game changer which can simplify daily work of your people with the system.
If you are curious about SAP Phase Maintenance configuration – follow the steps, which I prepared for you below, and you will be ready to go with the Phase-based maintenance in your SAP system.
Before we start – SAP Best Practices
We have to remember, that your people, especially from Maintenance Department should focus on the things they are the best at – it means pure maintenance work. The system should be intuitive, easy to operate and reliable – so they can spend couple of minutes each day to get what they need, and come back to their duties. Before we do anything in the configuration – one ‘small’ remark. Phase maintenance model is available for SAP S/4HANA 2021 onwards. It applies to either SAP on Premise and SAP Cloud.
Second thing is, this maintenance model is pre-delivered via so called SAP Best Practices (BP). These are some kind of packages, which once downloaded from SAP and imported to your system – implement the configuration automatically in your system. It means, the steps which you will see below could be done with less effort, via implementation of BP. But we all know, we would need some personalization in the future, so we have to understand the configuration anyway. It means, even if you use Best Practices, this article will be helpful for you, to understand all the aspects of the configuration.
You can access the relevant BPs for S/4HANA on Premise and Maintenance Model here: Reactive Maintenance (4HH), Proactive Maintenance (4HI).
1. Business feature activation
We start with the Business feature activation. Launch SPRO and find the below customizing path, then add the feature, which you see on the screenshot.
2. Defining Event Proritization – Consequences and likelihoods
This step consists of a few minor steps. First, we start by defining consequence categories. It is up to you, what categories you create in your system. By default, it is People, Asset, Environment and Reputation. Make sure you aligned with the Business, maybe in your case you need only People, Environment and for example Purchasing.
Once created, we save it and go to each of the categories by clicking the ‘Assign consequences to Consequence categories’. Here we have to determine the list of consequences. Below you will see, that each of the categories have 6 items. Of course, in your case it can be less/more. Everything depends on your needs, but it’s highly recommended to stick to the best practices provided from SAP.
Now, we have to define the likelihood of the events, that we determined in the above steps.
Then, we go to the ‘Define Consequence Category Group’. It’s just about creation of a group. In my case, I have created a one called ZEAM01. As you can imagine, you can have more groups in the future.
And now we jump to ‘Assign Consequence Category to group’. As you see, I’ve only assigned 3 out of 4 categories, which I determined in my first step. It means, the ‘Reputation’ category is not relevant for this group, and won’t be considered in event prioritization. By the way – this prioritization thing is available during Notification creation – if you do not know this functionality, check out my other article with the full business process for Phase maintenance model.
3. Defining Prioritization Profile
Now we have to create a profile, which will link the previous configuration steps with the Plant we select and Notification types. So, first – we create the profile.
We save it, and go down to ‘Assign Prioritization Profile to Plant and Notification type’.
Well done, now we go down one more time and assign Consequence Group and then the UI positions.
Here comes some time-consuming configuration. Now we have to config the priority for each consequence category and its likelihoods. This part defines, what priority will be picked by the system during Notification Creation and option ‘Assess Priority’. A User will answer the questions related to the Consequences you set up, and at the end he/she will receive the generated priority. Again – all these things are delivered with Best Practices, if you need some customization – now you know where to do it.
Then, we go to the ‘Define Consequence Category Group’. It’s just about creation of a group. In my case, I have created a one called ZEAM01. As you can imagine, you can have more groups in the future.
And now we jump to ‘Assign Consequence Category to group’. As you see, I’ve only assigned 3 out of 4 categories, which I determined in my first step. It means, the ‘Reputation’ category is not relevant for this group, and won’t be considered in event prioritization. By the way – this prioritization thing is available during Notification creation – if you do not know this functionality, check out my other article with the full business process for Phase maintenance model.
4. Detection Methods (optional)
In the Fiori Application ‘Create Maintenance Request’ your users can also select the Detection Method of the malfunction/request they want to report. To have a drop-down list available there, you go to the below configuration path and do your magic stuff.
It’s time to define detection method group and assigned the detection methods from the previous step to it. When it comes to BP, the detection group is called Y0000001.
We end this step with a creation of a Detection Method Profile. We assign the detection group afterwards.
5. Configure Order Type
Finally, we have some classic step, which is part of Plant Maintenance Configuration for many many years. Phase Maintenance model does not work for each order type by default. Below you have the screenshot from my system – as you see starting from S/4HANA 2021 – there is a checkbox, which you have to activate.
Configuration for Order Types is pretty extensive, there are at least 10 Configuration points, which have to be set-up. Otherwise, the system will throw errors to the end-users during processing. The most vital one was mentioned above, the rest does not have Phase model-specific checkboxes etc., that’s why I do not display their details.
6. Set up Template for the Material Availability Check (optional)
Phase Maintenance Model is supported by amazing standard Fiori Apps. One of them is Maintenance Backlog Overview. You can monitor a lot of things there, one of them is visual status of Components Availability. To have it it set up, you got to visit the below configuration path:
7. Activate Event Type linkage for Procurement Milestones (optional)
Alright, so this step is totally optional for this whole Phase Maintenance Model. However, I would recommend to align with Materials Management Team and set it up. Why with MM? Here we have a touchpoint with them – I’ve already mentioned the Maintenance Backlog Overview Fiori App – you can also monitor status of external services there. Let’s say the MM team created a Purchase Order for the Services, which you requested – you will see the respective milestone there. Going further – the service has been provided, this is also something, you will see as a next milestone straight in the app, without jumping thru different transactions.
8. Define Assignment Rules for Procurement Milestones (optional)
We continue the optional touchpoint with Materials Management. It’s time to define assignment rules for Procurement Milestones.
8. Configure Overall Status Profile
Here comes the most important part of Phase Maintenance Model. As you know from my previous article, we have 9 Phases like Initiation, Screening and others. To have them available and working smoothly – we follow the below configuration path and do what’s to be done!
PMSP1 is the standard Profile for the Best Practice 4HH Reactive Maintenance. As you see, I have also MAINTJOB status, it is not for Phase maintenance model. It was configured for Report and Repair Malfunction Fiori App, but it was deactivated.
You can have as many profiles as you want.
Once the profile is created, we go into its details and add all the statuses. Some of them are relevant for Notification, others for a Work Order. Moreover, you can set that some status can be skipped or not logged.
Now we have to select every single status and set up conditions for it. For instance, status Accepted of a Notification is set once the Notification is in process and the approval has been issued. Because of amount of the conditions, I put only one example below.
9. Assign overall status profile to Order Type
It’s time for the link between the Overall Status Profile and Order Type, which we created in the previous step.
10. Define Process Subphases
It’s almost the end, so no worries. We will now define Subphases, which we will then link with 9 Process Phases.
Time for the mapping:
And again, another mapping, but this time we map overall statuses with process subphases:
Once the profile is created, we go into its details and add all the statuses. Some of them are relevant for Notification, others for a Work Order. Moreover, you can set that some status can be skipped or not logged.
Now we have to select every single status and set up conditions for it. For instance, status Accepted of a Notification is set once the Notification is in process and the approval has been issued. Because of amount of the conditions, I put only one example below.
Summary
That was it! Trust me, it couldn’t be shorter – Phase based maintenance requires a lot of configuration steps, and I hope this article put some light on the different steps in SPRO. Remember about the Order Type configuration – it’s not only about creating a Z* type. They are many small steps, like for example Time Confirmation configuration – without this one you won’t be able to register your confirmations in the app ‘Perform Maintenance Jobs’ and so on. If you like this article, consider sharing with others. If you do not know yet what the Phase Maintenance Model is, check out this article and the below video, which I uploaded on YouTube some time ago.
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