Closed Loop Maintenance with SAP APM and SAP EAM

Companies often face the challenge of balancing asset performance with minimizing maintenance costs. This article explores how Reliability Engineering and SAP Asset Performance Management (SAP APM) can help resolve this conflict. 

The key is to optimize maintenance strategies so that machines, systems, vehicles, and tools remain operational and available for as long as possible. Safety and environmental protection are also crucial considerations. At the same time, maintenance costs – particularly for personnel and materials – must be kept in check. 

A common dilemma is the perceived trade-off between input and output: More maintenance can enhance asset performance and extend its lifecycle, but it also drives up costs and impacts profitability.

Increasing efficiency as a goal in maintenance 

For many companies, the solution seems clear: To ensure high asset performance at all times, maintenance efficiency must be improved. This objective is often a key driver behind the implementation of new IT solutions. 

While striving for efficiency is logical, the relationship between input and output is often more complex than it appears. Two critical questions are frequently neglected: 

• How effective is a specific maintenance measure in the given operational context? 
• Is an effective measure actually necessary?

Reliability engineering for greater reliability 

In the past, many companies rarely questioned the frequency or effectiveness of their maintenance measures. This was often due to: 

• manufacturer recommendations that dictated strict maintenance schedules, with safety taking priority in cases of uncertainty. 
• fragmented data spread across multiple systems. 

However, this mindset is shifting. Reliability engineering is gaining importance as companies seek to develop optimized maintenance strategies tailored to specific assets or asset groups operating under similar conditions. The goal is to achieve the ideal balance between reliability, availability, safety, and cost efficiency. 

With this goal in mind, dedicated methods are used:

• Risk analysis: Helps to identify critical assets. 
• Reliability Centered Maintenance Assessment (RCM): Optimizes the maintenance strategy. 
• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA): Increases the reliability of assets identified as critical. 

SAP facilitates this approach with SAP Asset Performance Management (SAP APM), a cloud-based solution. SAP APM is divided into two key areas: Strategy and Health. 

Closed Loop Maintenance with SAP APM and SAP EAM 

The Strategy functions in SAP APM empower companies to design tailored maintenance strategies for individual assets or asset groups. Insights from assessments then help generate specific recommendations for reliability engineering, such as adjusting work plans or maintenance schedules in Maintenance Management. For condition-based maintenance, this may involve creating or refining rules for monitoring condition data in SAP APM. 

SAP APM’s Health functions enable real-time monitoring of defined assets and asset groups, ensuring alignment with maintenance strategies. This is achieved by leveraging measurement documents from Maintenance Management and direct sensor data from machines and systems. 

Triggered by real-time asset conditions, predefined rules can automatically initiate actions – ranging from simple notifications to generating maintenance messages for execution. These rules act as an extension of the maintenance plans stored in Maintenance Management. 

Important: SAP APM is used exclusively for strategic planning and condition monitoring, while operational maintenance processes – such as maintenance plan creation, work order management, and result documentation – are handled within Maintenance Management in SAP S/4HANA. 

SAP APM and SAP EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) work seamlessly together to establish a closed-loop maintenance process. This continuous feedback cycle is essential for companies to optimize both input and output effectively. 

SAP APM is initially used to develop maintenance strategies, which are then turned into concrete maintenance plans within Maintenance Management. These plans serve as the basis for continuous monitoring, where both solutions work hand in hand. 

Maintenance Management handles operational planning, execution, and documentation of maintenance activities, and it does so based on insights gained through monitoring. The data collected during execution is then analyzed using both SAP APM and Maintenance Management, enabling ongoing optimization of maintenance strategies for specific assets or asset groups. 

This closed-loop approach not only drives continuous improvements in asset performance but also helps resolve the inherent tension between maximizing performance and maintaining cost efficiency.