This lesson may be obvious to many of you reading this, but it is so integral to many of the other lessons, that I needed to make sure you were aware of the process.  Service planning is rather a simple concept that can be quite complicated to execute efficiently.

Before we go any further, we need to make sure you we understand exactly what service planning is.  The planning process is all of the steps you intend to perform on the service.  This may include the materials you expect to replace, and the steps you need to perform.  Now, this may be simple, or it could be very complicated.  It may depend on the product being repaired or the service being rendered.  In the best run service organizations, each service order includes a list of components and operations with times.

Now, planning is no simple exercise, especially if your organization doesn’t currently do any service planning.  This being said, let me explain why it’s worth the effort to plan your service orders.  The following are all benefits you receive when you “properly” plan your service order.

• Allow for accurate scheduling through MRP.
• Allow for capacity planning
• Allow review of planned vs. actual cost in the service order
  • This will provide the ability to constantly refine the “plan”
  • This will quickly show where any consistent variances occur that need further process investigation.
• Allow for service part planning and forecasting, especially if you use maintenance plans or other repetitive service processing.
• Simplify the confirmation process (since the values will be defaulted).

Now, planning the service order has a range of options which I’ll cover next.  We start with the easiest method, and that is manual planning for each order.  For each service order, typically before release, the service planner can enter the operations and times, along with the materials used.  While this process is the easiest to get up and running, it is the most time consuming.  Every order will need to be individually planned before release.  If every order is different, this isn’t a big deal.  But if you do repetitive service (say a calibration of a standard part), then you will quickly need to look into one of the next methods.

The next best method is using the General Task List (TXN: IA05).  The General Task List works like a routing, that you can assign your operations and components to once, and then you can attach it to any service order.  This gives you the opportunity to simply add the task list to your service order.  In addition, if you make any updates to the task list, it will be available with each new service order (it will not update any previously planned order).

Now you can take the general task to the next level using the Generate PM Order from SD (TXN: OISD).  If you perform in-house repairs, you already need to enter configuration within this transaction.  Now, you can select a single general task list for each service material/plant combination you assign in this transaction.  This will plan your service order upon create with the chosen general task list.

Now, the biggest issue many companies experience is that they need more flexibility.  The common request is to have a general task list selected by the serviceable material, rather than the service material.  Well, happily SAP provides user exits to quickly open the possibilities.  Simply use the following user exit with whatever logic you need, and instantly you can control the task list that gets assigned to each order.
IWO10020 Maintenance order: Automatically include task list

Now I understand that much of this might be old news, but I still consult for companies that don’t use this functionality.  So, my advice is if you already use this, continue monitoring your data for improvement, so keep improving your plan.  Also, the data might be pointing to process issues that you weren’t aware existed.  And if you don’t currently plan your service orders, it might be worth the effort to review why they are currently not planned, and determine what you could gain by planning in the future.

Thanks for reading…  Next time we will build on the service planning and talk about service availability of components.

If you have any questions on this, feel free to email me directly:

mpiehl@goJaveLLin.com