Dynamics 365 – Exploring Asset Management: Reactive Maintenance
Maintenance management is a topic that is often overlooked when planning for an ERP implementation within organizations. Legacy maintenance management solutions can be clunky, hard to use, and inefficient for the workers on the floor, leading to low levels of user adoption, and mistrust of data. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management offers a maintenance management solution called Asset management right out of the box that is intuitive, offers a mobile platform, and provides real-time data and insights to effectively manage a maintenance department. If you’re looking for more on Asset Management you’re in luck! It’s the theme of this week’s Dynamics Digital Academy track and you can register here to attend.
The example we are using today is a manufacturing company producing plastic products for the automotive industry. The company has invested in its maintenance department by providing mobile devices for its mechanics to use while out on the floor. The mobile device allows the mechanics to start work orders as needed when a machine is reported as down or not functioning properly. These types of repairs, prompted by a request, complaint, or unexpected malfunctioning equipment, are known as reactive maintenance.
“Sally,” a worker on the production line, is experiencing trouble with the extruder, which is a standard piece of equipment in the plastics process. She calls “Josh,” the maintenance mechanic assigned to her area, over to assess the situation. He discovers that a motor needs to be replaced. Josh opens his app to start the Work order, then performs the needed maintenance to get production up and running. When done, he changes the status of the Work order so all of his time is captured appropriately.
Using the scenario above, we will go through the process of how a maintenance mechanic can create a work order to report his time and work performed. You will also see how simple it is to use the mobile app to create a work order.
Alternatively, Sally could have submitted a maintenance request (using the mobile app) that a maintenance supervisor would pick up, approve, and then assign to a maintenance worker. Using the mobile app to create a maintenance request or a work order requires similar steps to complete. Creating a maintenance request will be covered in a future blog topic.
Create a work order on the mobile app
1. On his mobile device, Josh opens the Finance and operations app (available on both Apple and Android devices) which contains the Asset management workspace in his App dashboard.
2. Once opened, Josh selects All maintenance work orders. This opens a list view of all Work orders.
3. Next, he selects Actions at the bottom of the screen.
4. From there, Josh selects Create new work order.
NOTE: If the number sequence is set to automatic for maintenance requests in Asset management, the Maintenance work order field is hidden because it is automatically populated. If the Maintenance work order field is visible, enter a maintenance request ID.
5. Josh enters data into the following fields to begin documenting the work that he will perform:
a. Work order type
b. Description
c. Asset
d. Maintenance job type
e. Maintenance job type variant (if needed)
f. Trade (if needed)
g. Service level (required)
6. When finished, Josh selects Done.
7. After an app refresh, the new work order is displayed at the top of the list.
a. To refresh the app, pull down on the work order list and release.
8. To view the work order details, Josh selects the work order.
9. When viewing the work order details, Josh can view the following fields:
a. Description
b. Service level
c. Criticality
d. Lines
e. Work order pools
f. Maintenance downtime activities
g. Expected start & end
h. Scheduled start & end
i. Actual start & end
j. All maintenance jobs scheduled to
10. Next, Josh can choose Add line or Update state.
a. Add line – allows you to create another job on the work order for an asset.
b. Update state – allows you to change the lifecycle state of the work order job (for example, Released, Pending, or InProgress).
11. Josh selects Update state to change the Lifecycle state of the work order.
12. Josh changes the state to “InProgress” and then selects Done. The Actual start field populates with the current date & time.
13. Once the work is complete, Josh selects Update status again to update the work order. This time, the option to select Complete is available to him. He selects Complete, and the work order’s Actual end time is updated to the current time. The mobile app will sync with the system, and the work order fields will update.
14. Josh can then return to the All maintenance work orders list, the App dashboard, or close the mobile app.
Using the mobile workspace for Asset management tasks is easy and intuitive. It allows maintenance departments to capture real-time work being performed and gives maintenance technicians the power and flexibility to quickly and accurately record the work that they’ve done. If you are interested in setting up Asset management, the Ellipse Solutions team can help. Shoot us an email at solutions@ellipsesolutions.com to begin your Asset management journey.
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to register for the Asset Management track of Dynamics Digital Academy, running 11/17 – 11/19!