Implementation Strategy for Plant Maintenance in SAP S/4HANA

Most enterprises implement plant maintenance in a series of stages rather than in a single step (i.e., implementing the full range of functions in all plants all at once).

Therefore, during project planning, you need to make a fundamental decision about the stages in which you’ll implement plant maintenance, whether using SAP PM or another solution. There are two aspects of the implementation to consider:

• Functional stages
• Spatial stages

The functional stages of your plant maintenance project can be as follows:

• Stage 1: Implement the structuring of technical systems. (You can omit this first stage if you can carry over asset structures from a legacy system.)
• Stage 2: Implement work order processing.
• Stage 3: Implement preventive maintenance.
• Stage 4: Expand the system by adding potential enhancements (e.g., testing equipment processing, checking list processing, refurbishment processing, subcontracting, pool asset management, mobile solution or plant maintenance projects processing).

The spatial stages, for their part, can be as follows:

• Stage 1: Implement plant maintenance in a pilot system.
• Stage 2: Implement plant maintenance in one plant only.
• Stage 3: Roll out plant maintenance to other plants.

This is the basis on which you can create a plan that specifies which functions are to be implemented in which operation or plant at which point in time. Once you have implemented these stages, you need to make a fundamental decision about which of the following strategies you deem the most useful for your project:

• Horizontal strategy: Order processing implementation in all plants simultaneously
• Vertical strategy: Full implementation in one plant, followed by a rollout to other plants
• Combined strategy: Implementation of the full range of functions in one plant, followed by a rollout of order processing to all plants

This figure shows a summary of the functional and spatial stages.

Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Configuring Plant Maintenance in SAP S/4HANA by Karl Liebstückel.