Use These Steps to Refurbish Assets

SAP’s Refurbishment function can help you automate and track repair jobs.

By Kristina Gordon, Illumiti

The Refurbishment function is used when you need to restore a used item to serviceable condition and return it to inventory. To refurbish stock parts in house, SAP offers specially designated maintenance order IW81. The material to be refurbished is defined in the work order and all refurbishment costs are charged back to the material through settlement. The following steps show the process that triggers a refurbishment requirement.

Step 1:  Refurbishment requirement

• Planner is informed of the requirement to refurbish a stock part.

• Planner reviews stock parts currently in inventory (based on the request) and selects a part that is currently identified as repairable. Stock parts will use split valuation with the Repairable identifier.

• If the part is to be refurbished in house, go to step 3. If repair will be external, go to step 2.

Step 2: Stock part refurbished externally

• Use MM module to initiate subcontractor process.

• This process is handled completely within the MM module.

• When required, warehouse/stores will create a purchase requisition for subcontractor PO.

Step 3: Stock part refurbished in house

• Create stock-part-refurbishment work order.

• Planner creates a work order of type PM04 using transaction IW81.

• The part is identified in the order header screen by specifying its material number.

• As split valuation is used, the valuation type “Damaged” will be specified as the part to be issued and valuation type “Repaired” for the part to be returned to inventory.

Step 4:  To plan the refurbishment work order, enter the following:

• operations representing work to be performed
• crew (work center) per operation (internal or external)
• work duration per operation
• number of people required per operation
• tools required per operation
• documents required
• materials and quantity required per operation (reservations for these materials will be generated in the system for the particular order)
• data needed to create purchase requisitions for non-stock materials.

Other factors to note:

• In the list of the components needed for refurbishment, the stock part that is to be refurbished will be automatically included with a quantity of 1.

• If a particular step of the refurbishing process requires external help, the external service can be identified in a separate operation.

• During the planning meeting, the planner will be given instructions on the work and safety permits required for the job.

• Planner will assign permits to work order from a list of previously defined permits.

Step 5: Release work order

• When the planner releases the work order, the settlement rule will also be generated. In the Refurbishment Maintenance Process, costs are settled to the work-order refurbished material.

• In general, purchase requisitions for non-stock materials and external services will be created automatically as the order is released. If there is a requirement to release Purchase Requisitions prior to the work- order release, as in the case of long-lead-time materials, individual requisitions can be released in advance of the work order by updating the release field on the operation.   

• Preliminary scheduling is also possible by assigning the work order to the appropriate week. The date when materials are expected will also help determine the appropriate week for work-order issuance. That is done by assigning a revision code to the order. EP

Kristina Gordon is SAP Principal Consultant at Illumiti, Thornhill, Ontario (illumiti.com). If you have SAP questions, send them to editors@efficientplantmag.com and we’ll forward them to Kristina.