Before discussing on the SAP PM (Plant Maintenance) module let’s read SAP PM overview and understand what Plant Maintenance is. If we take any manufacturing industry or assembling plant, many machines and equipment are installed in the plant. These machines continue to function as long as they are in good condition and would stop working if something went wrong (nothing but breakdown of machine). So to avoid this breakdown, the team involved in up keeping of machines are called maintenance personnel/team. The prevention work they do is usually known as preventive maintenance and the repair work they do when a machine broke down is breakdown maintenance. This classification is in very broad way and we will discuss in detail as process further in SAP PM course. Maintenance function is called in different names as per their convenient or geographical region wise namely – Maintenance, Plant Maintenance, Plant Engineering services, Facility management, and so on.

As we have seen in the paragraph above, for smooth running of a plant and machineries, the plant maintenance function plays a very important role. In SAP ERP, maintenance function will be covered with SAP PM module. This will be implemented for smooth and systematic running of plant maintenance function and to capture different reports. These reports are generated by automated capturing of equipment history, maintenance works, labour cost, material consumption, and so on. Ideally these reports will be useful in tracking consumption of material, manpower, and costs. Having this data we can monitor and reduce the maintenance cost or material consumption wherever possible and in turn increase the company profits. Let’s see this in detail how this work