Gamification or Simplification: which path you will choose?

Why bother with either?

Why bother with either? Good question. Reason companies need to update user interface (UI) could be because internet/apps revolution in past years changed user expectation from ERP system. New users who are looking at SAP for first time are asking why is the user interface so difficult to navigate? SAP did a great job when they introduced ‘Enjoy’ transactions for MIGO, ME21N etc, but it’s been a while since anything changed for core SAP GUI functionality.

Again same question: Why bother? What’s point for upgrading UI? Reason is simple: “To increase users’ productivity”. Transactions performed per user have been increased in the past decade. Users execute same business process from different UIs like web browser, mobile apps, tablet etc.

These changes will fuel next round of productivity increase.

This is right time to move to the next level of UI, because users are performing business transactions from multiple devices/user interfaces like desktop, mobile, tablets, etc.

Gamification and Simplification

Here is my perspective of term gamification and simplification.
Gamification: using game like elements for non-game environment
•       It’s about entertaining and engaging user with playful and interactive design
•       It is level based or displays progress bar
•       It provides incentive based motivation like points / badges
•       It also provides ‘leader boards’ or ‘social status’ of gamer/user

Simplification: an explanation that omits superfluous details and reduces complexity
•       It’s about simplifying/streamlining processes
•       It’s about ergonomically designed consistent user interface
•       It breaks business complexity into logical user process steps
•       It includes Dashboards/cockpits

Common features of both approaches

§  Intuitive interface

§  Color coding that provides meaningful information

§  Logical and consistent screen flow

Depending on business requirement, either one or both approaches can be applied.

Examples:

Let’s take two business requirements and see which approach will be suitable.

Requirement 1: Update purchasing screen for buyer purchasing components for manufacturing end product

Buyers/Purchasing managers require information from many sources to show up on one screen. Simplification is better approach to satisfy this requirement. Buyer needs information for purchase requisitions in various approval stages with different priority. Buyer may have various contract negotiations with various vendors. Screen is designed as ‘buyer cockpit’ will help increasing productivity of buyers. Buyers also need tools for collaborating with vendors and employees inside organization. Design should allow user to setup various filters and trigger workflow. Buyer should be able to get information like stock, vendor’s purchasing history without leaving the screen.

Gamification is not correct approach because buyer needs information from many sources and information requirement on screen is different for every situation.

Requirement 2:  Create tablet screen for warehouse equipment operator responsible for goods stocking and removal.

As a warehouse equipment operator’s information requirement is fairly simple like location, quantity, material number, and action (pick or stock). Gamification of screen will work better. For example: Location can be color coded with aisle number. Number of transfer orders on screen may be optimally designed for ease of readability. Different color coding or prompt schemas give visual clues to operator without the necessity to read precise details. Progress bar for remaining transfer orders can provide a great visual indication of workload to operators.

Conclusion

In essence, deep understanding of business and technical infrastructure is required for making either approach successful. Screen must be designed with right balance among different elements on screen to suite different users. Inapt design will reduce productivity and increase errors. After all, users will be spending most of their working day in front of these screens.

Happy enhancing!!

That’s it for now. Please share your thoughts and experience on gamification and simplification.

PS: Alas there is no road less travelled to take J

SAP tip - Using 'Hot key' to search equipment

SAP Plant maintenance users often have hard time finding equipment number.

Here is quick tip to search for equipment.

This tip can be used in IE03, IE02, IW21, IW31.. etc.. Basically where ever equipment field is available.

Hot keys for equipment search
Search by description : =T.*description*
Search by tech id : =F.*tech id*

Here is short demo video for using hotkey in IE03 and IW21

Here are few other hot keys for equipment search.

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Championing SAP Plant maintenance at your organization

Do you feel that in your organization SAP Plant maintenance is not being used at its full potential? Do you think you can integrate maintenance activities with other departments? SAP plant maintenance module can’t work on it’s own. It needs to be integrated with other modules in order to get maximum benefits.

Here is two phase approach:

a) Optimizing use of SAP PM in department

b) Increase integration with other module

Optimize use of SAP PM in your business

1. Keep SAP plant maintenance data clean:

This is most deficult to maintain in day to day basis. Once data (master data and transaction data) is in control, other pieces will fall into a place.

No one likes to work in system when they can’t trust information provided by system. So keep maintenance data clean. Here are few tips

a. Keep workorder and notification list always current (IW38/IW28)
b. Make it easy to find equipment/functional location. Standardized naming conventions, field usages and, variants setup in IH08/IH06 etc goes long way to increase usability.
c. Keep master data accurate

d. Review preventive maintenance program. Don’t let system overload you with unnecessary repetitive preventive work order. For example: Review maintenance frequency. Easy way to increase frequency is to increase ‘cycle modification factor’ on maintenance plan’s scheduling parameter tab (IP02).

2.      Increase depth of SAP Plant maintance functionality:  

If there is business justification for use detailed plant maintenance functionality. For example Boiler, compressor, earth movers, production line etc’s maintenance is dependent on it’s usage. Implement performance based maintenance
program with counters (IK01/IK02). Make sure you enter correct annual estimates and select right scheduling parameters in maintenance plans (IP01/IP02). Another example is to build ‘bill of materials’ for critical equipment (CS01/CS02).  If you are using SAP PM for a while you can run simple report of material where used list (IW13) and get quick information for BOMs. Once you update equipment with BOM information, technician can quickly look for parts required for repair.  Another area to explore is warranty management.

3.      Increase breadth of SAP plant maintenance business processes:

Find business processes that be folded into SAP PM umbrella.  Here are few examples from my past experience.  SAP Maintenance module can be used for maintaining equipment assets as well as buildings/facilities. If your building maintenance crew and contracts are not already under SAP PM umbrella, bring it in. Building/Facility manager can track crew much more easily. For example: Your company is giving yearly contract for HVAC maintenance. Whenever call is made to contractors for repair/maintenance create workorder with service. Refer this to contract PO. Perform service entry sheets and track services performed by contractors. This will give manager better idea when they are planning for next year’s contracts.  If building and facility maintenance crew is involved in moves, repair of building track their utilization via  workorder.  Make prepared check list or task list (IA05/IA06) for repetitive work. For example: a) my office is too hot/too cold b) office move check list etc. This will streamline processes and increase productivity of crew.

4. Integrate with inventory management:

Inventory management is not primary function of maintenance and often maintenance department doesn’t have expertise to optimize inventory performance. Technician likes to keep spare of everything.  This will increase inventory cost of maintenance department.  Often inventory is inaccurate and not stored properly. This results in ordering parts again.

Integrated inventory management with plant maintenance by setting up material masters for inventoried items (MM01/MM02).  Populated correct ‘min / max data’. Run material  requirement planning (MRP) and let purchasing perform inventory replenishment.  Perform regular inventory counting. Again emphasis here is on accuracy of information. Make sure stores man/technician is performing goods movement (MIGO) for part   consumed and part returned. For parts required for repetitive maintenance you can add components to maintenance task list (IA05/IA06). This will make sure parts are available when needed. You can also use back flushing indicator to reduce transactions for goods movement. If your organization can’t delegate spares management to Inventory department, ask for expertise.

5. Integrate with Purchasing

Tricky part of purchasing non-stocked spare part is it’s not repetitive like manufacturing. It gets more complex if you have old assets or very unique assets like PCL controllers from 1970s. So real question is how to make purchasing more it effective when you let buyer buy spare with best terms with given specification? To smooth out process create non-stock purchase requisition from maintenance workorder. Describe part via proper material group, description and vendor number etc (IW32). Techncian can not track purchase requistion’s progress from workorder including visibility of purchase order. This process provides great visibility of maintenance order in tracking parts through order to consumer cycle.

Same process applies for purchasing services for maintenance work. Using service entry sheets (ML81N) will make sure technicians are satisfied by vendor’s work before invoice is paid.

Implement purchase requisition approval strategy to track accountability for approvals.

6. Integrated with production planning

For production facities often maintenance works gets lower priority until equipment breakdown occurs. Production planner can integrate their planning with maintenance preventive maintenance planning with use of workcenters in equipment master record. In workorder/task list specify system condition = 0. Planner can use CM50/CM21 to plan capacity.

Another option is to provide simplified screen to create breakdown notification (IW21) from production line. Workflow can setup to send SMS/email to technican’s pagers/mobile for prompt response. This ensure all breakdowns are recorded for reliability and downtown analysis.

7. Integrate with Finance/controlling

Organization should perform cost controlled activities for maintenance personnel time and material via maintenance work orders. Technicians should enter actual hours for workroders (IW41) and record all part/service consumption on order. Finance department should perform regular cost settlement for orders. If maintenance is keeping data accurate this can be fairly smooth transition that provides great visibility for KPI at management level.

Note: all transaction codes are in italics example: (IW21 – Create notification)

SAP Basics - Working with favorites

Check out video for working with SAP Favorites

How to get the most out of your SAP Plant maintenance implementation

How to get the most out of your SAP Plant maintenance implementation

Once SAP Plant maintenance implemented, project is over and focus lights are off it’s hard to keep up momentum for getting best from implementation. Here are few tips that may help business users to get best out of SAP Plant maintenance implementation. Assuming CMMS is implemented right, adopting system will increase productivity. Further using system will leverage department’s position for future system improvements project (e.g. getting SAP Plant maintenance on mobile)

There are four main groups of users who that can maximize benefits of SAP PM implementation. Common to each of these groups is an understanding of their culture and the environment in which the system will be used.

1 Maintenance and operation managers: Managers should view the SAP PM as a means of obtaining metrics regarding maintenance deployment and equipment performance. Manager can run PMIS report like MCI5, MCI7; list edit reports like IW28 or BI reports. Through reporting on work performed, planned and in process, management can improve its decision-making process. Management can use various reports to measure and improve resource utilization. Reports can be run for checking utilization of personnel manager can use IW47, CADO, MCI8 or BI report. Having updated information on equipment maintenance history and relative maintenance cost enables management to schedule equipment replacement budgeting. These reports can be used as KPI matrix.

2 Production line / Equipment users: Production and engineering personnel must see the value SAP PM delivers for prompt and effective maintenance. These are the resources responsible for producing product and generating output; therefore, their lines must operate at their highest levels as much as possible. Preventive maintenance must be coordinated with production and unplanned maintenance must be performed quickly so as not to impact production. Production planner can integrate their planning with maintenance preventive maintenance planning with use of workcenters in equipment master record. In workorder/task list specify system condition = 0. Planner can use CM50/CM21 to plan capacity.

3 Maintenance personnel / Technicians: Technicians must see the SAP PM as a tool that will help them do a better job, be more efficient and improve work processes. It can't be viewed as a system management is using to micro manage maintenance personnel. Maintenance technician should be able perform their daily job with only two-three transaction. User can setup list variants for IW38/IW28 etc to minimize switching between screens and use screen as their running work list. Personal defaults and personalized list in all fields for data entry will reduce data entry effort.

Technician should be able to review historical information easily. Example report: IW28. Technical should be able to find part required/consumed from system e.g. IH01, IW13 etc. Attaching drawing of equipment and parts to master data via document info record will help technical to retrieve information they need without leaving SAP screen. SAP PM will become an integral tool that they learn to rely on and trust in for helping them do their jobs to their best abilities as maintenance professionals every day.

Personnel at the production line/plant level will be able to recognize the value of a SAP PM and understand that proactive maintenance on critical equipment is essential.

4 Purchasing and spare stores: This group is tightly integrated to maintenance group. Purchasing non-stock parts and services require integration with buyer. Here workflow implementation can make big impact of smooth information flow. Seamless integration between these group is key for smooth operation of maintenance. Using MRP for part replenishing is significant for stock management. E.g. MD01, MD04, IWBK, ATP check from order etc.

One group not listed here is maintenance planner/master data maintainers. This group is backbone of SAP PM.

Conclusion

Bringing these groups together during post implementation will set the tone for ongoing success. These components will influence how an organization will achieve the desired results from a successful SAP PM implementation. Implementing above suggestions require very less effort and provide great benefits for system adoption.

SAP implementation alone can not improve how an organization handles maintenance. System users must understand how SAP works and how it can be used as a tool to improve efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance.

I welcome your comments and experience

SAP Solution manager (SolMan) in nutshell

SAP Solution manager (SolMan) in nutshell

Many time end users, consultants, analysts and project members wonder what SAP solution manager is all about. Here I have tired to provide my understanding of solution manger in nutshell without any acronyms or buzzwords.

Why we use solution manager?
It’s mandatory requirement from SAP for Business suite 2005 and beyond customer. It also provides other functionality for managing SAP environments

What functionality solution manager provides?
Solution manager provides functionalities in main three levels. 1) Technical services linking with SAP 2) Change management control 3) Knowledge repository

Using solution manager is mandatory because it provides administration tools to monitor system performance and early warning system. It’s only way to implement support packs and install upgrade to existing systems. SolMan links to multi system landscapes including BI, Portal, ECC etc.

Apart from mandatory task as listed above, SolMan provide other functionalities. Various organizations use SolMan in various degrees for change management and as knowledge repository.

Change management controls all software and configuration changes of the ERP solution. This includes the request tracking, approval process, release management and finally deployment of changes. This increases transparency of changes and hence quality of the solution and enables traceability of all changes. Change manamgment managed transport request and it integrates well with standard system landscape of development, quality assurance and production. Workflow enabled change management control can also be implemented. Change management control can streamline change management process. Implementing change management control require system configuration. Support staff personnel needs to be trained in change management system. Solman’s change request management tool can be used as issue management system that is tightly integrated with SAP landscape.

Project teams often use SolMan as knowledge repository. This is basically like shared folder in SAP with many more SAP functionality and authorization controls. This knowledge repository is often used to store documents of project preparation, blue printing, implementation, configuration, training and testing documents. These documents can be used for knowledge transfer, project audit etc. Challenge is to keep these documents current and maintaining quality of repository during project. This may be become less relevant when project is moved to support mode and repository is not maintained.

In conclusion, SolMan is great tool for functional analysts and business process owners. It can be implemented with comparatively less effort and provides great benefit.

I welcome your comments.