SAP Certified Application Associate – Enterprise Asset Management (Maintenance & Repair) with SAP ERP 6.0
– Previously known as SAP PM (Plant Maintenance)
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Before you start here are some Key features of the EAM (Maintenance & Repair) Associate Certification Exam
– The exam is Computer based and you have three Hours to answer 80 Questions.
– The Questions are (mostly) multiple choice type and there is NO penalty for an incorrect answer.
– Some of the Questions have more than one correct answers. You must get ALL the options correct for you to be awarded points.
– The Official Pass percentage is 65% (But this can vary). You will be told the exact passing percentage before your begin your test.
Sample Questions
1. With reference to ‘Preventive Maintenance’, which of the following are true?
a. The Preventive Maintenance functionality is integrated with Controlling (CO) for cost allocations.
b. Single Cycle Plans & Multiple counter Plans have their own maintenance strategy defined.
c. The system uses maintenance plan scheduling to generate the corresponding maintenance orders for all maintenance items affected at the due date.
Answer:
a, c
Explanation:
Preventive maintenance is an instrument for avoiding system breakdowns or the breakdown of other objects, which in addition to the repair costs, often create much higher costs through the resultant breakdown in production.
Preventive maintenance is the generic term used for inspections, maintenance and planned repair tasks, in other words, maintenance tasks that are repeated regularly.
The following types of maintenance plan are available:
• Maintenance plan with maintenance strategy
In the individual maintenance packages that are maintained within the strategy, you define the concrete time or performance cycles, within which the maintenance activities should be performed.
• Single cycle plan
No maintenance strategy is defined for single cycle plans. Here, you define exactly one time-based or performance-based maintenance cycle, in which you specify the interval at which the maintenance plan should be performed.
• Multiple counter plan
Multiple counter plans do not have their own maintenance strategy either, but they have cycle sets. They contain a combination of time-based and performance-based cycles.
In the maintenance plan, you enter one or more maintenance items for each planned maintenance task. You can create task lists to describe tasks repeated on objects.
In the task lists, you describe the individual work steps that must be executed for inspections, preventive maintenance and repairs.
For strategy-based plans, you can assign each work step to one or more maintenance packages.
2. Which of the following statements regarding ‘Refurbishment’ in Plant Maintenance are true?
a. High value components are refurbished using a separate order.
b. Refurbishment process is integrated with MM, CP and PS
c. After refurbishment, both the stock value of the repairable material in the warehouse and the charges to the cost center change.
Answer:
a, b, c
Explanation:
High value components are often used at production plants or other technical objects (for example, pumps, motors) and are replaced by a repairable spare in the event of a malfunction and then refurbished using a separate order.
This scenario is of particular interest to companies for which system availability plays a crucial role (for example, process industry, oil extraction and processing, steel manufacturing and so on), and who keep repairable spares in stock to ensure a high system availability.
In the Refurbishment in Plant Maintenance scenario, you use integrated business functions from the following R/3 application components:
R/3 Component Functions
Plant Maintenance (PM) Execution of maintenance tasks on company-internal technical systems
Materials Management (MM) Procurement of non-stock materials, Inventory management and withdrawal of materials in stock,
Order settlement to material
Project System (PS) Order settlement to a project or WBS element
Controlling (CO) Order settlement to a controlling object (for example, a cost center)
Refurbishment orders are created for defective repairable spares. These refer to:
• Individual repairable spares (pieces of equipment)
• Non-individual repairable spares (material)
The refurbishment order can be used to plan and execute the transition of the repairable spare from its initial defective condition to a new target condition. Each of these orders can refer to one or more repairable spares that have to be refurbished from the same initial condition to the same final condition.
You generally plan dates and resources before executing a plannable, non-ad hoc maintenance task. You can evaluate the capacity situation and, if necessary, perform capacity leveling during any phase of order processing.
Goods Movements
The goods movements involved in this scenario are:
• Goods receipts of defective repairable spares that are to be refurbished from production into the repairable spares warehouse
• Goods issues of defective repairable spares that are to be refurbished from the repairable spares warehouse to refurbishment
• Goods issues of spares and materials that are required for refurbishment
• Goods receipts of refurbished repairable spares in the repairable spares warehouse
• Goods issues of refurbished, functional, repairable spares from the repairable spares warehouse to production
After refurbishment, both the stock value of the repairable material in the warehouse and the charges to the cost center change:
• In inventory management, the stock assets will have increased in value after the refurbishment.
• By withdrawing the defective material, a material debit is created; by returning the refurbished material, a credit memo is applied to the order.
The account assignment object (for example, the warehouse as the receiving cost center) receives a credit memo to the amount of the difference minus the resources required (internal service, other spare parts, external services and so on).
3. SAP provides Integration between Plant Maintenance & Funds Management. Which of the following statements are true?
a. The link between the plant maintenance process and FM is established by entering an FM account assignment (commitment item, funds center, and fund) when you create a maintenance order.
b. You must enter the FM account assignment manually always.
c. If the order completion confirmation and order settlement transactions are to be integrated in FM, you must activate these in the Funds Management IMG by choosing Integration ® Integration with Cost and Project Controlling ® Choose business transactions for integration.
Answer;
a, c
Explanation:
Integration between the Plant Maintenance (PM) and Funds Management (FM) components enables you to monitor budget-relevant plant maintenance processes in FM.
The link between the plant maintenance process and FM is established by entering an FM account assignment (commitment item, funds center, and fund) when you create a maintenance order. This means that the system automatically takes this account assignment from the maintenance order during subsequent processes triggered automatically by the maintenance order, such as purchase requisitions.
You must enter the FM account assignment manually. If, however, you have maintained the assignments of FM account assignments to CO account assignments, the system determines the FM account assignment from the cost center which is assigned to the main work center of the maintenance order.
The FM account assignment determined using the FM-CO assignment table appears as the default value.
You can implement an alternative default logic (example: from the cost center assigned to the responsible work center in the plant maintenance order) by means of a user exit (enhancement SAPLFRC4, component EXIT_SAPLFRC4_001, development class FMFS).
When you create the maintenance order, the fields for the FM account assignment (commitment item, funds center, fund) must be ready for input.
You make the necessary settings in the Funds Management IMG by choosing Integration ® Maintain field status for assigning FM account assignments. You must flag the fields there as either optional entries or required entries.
If the order completion confirmation and order settlement transactions are to be integrated in FM, you must activate these in the Funds Management IMG by choosing Integration ® Integration with Cost and Project Controlling ® Choose business transactions for integration.
• RKL Order completion confirmation
• KOAO Order settlement
4. Planning plants should always be used if maintenance planning is carried out centrally in one plant for several plants. If every plant is independent in maintenance terms, then each plant is also a planning plant at the same time.
a. True
b. False
Answer;
a
Explanation:
In Plant Maintenance, a distinction is made between the organizational units “planning plant” and “maintenance plant”.
• Maintenance plant
In a maintenance plant, you can manage technical objects and main work centers.
• Planning plant
In the planning plant, maintenance task lists are defined for the respective maintenance plants, material planning is carried out on the basis of bills of material in task lists and orders, maintenance plans are managed and scheduled, maintenance notifications are created and maintenance orders can be handled.
Technical objects and main work centers can be created in the planning plant just as in the maintenance plant.
Planning plants should always be used if maintenance planning is carried out centrally in one plant for several plants. If every plant is independent in maintenance terms, then each plant is also a planning plant at the same time.
When configuring the system for Plant Maintenance, there are many areas that overlap with the implementation of the modules ‘MM’ (Materials Management) and ‘PP’ (Production Planning).
If you encounter settings which are not relevant to Plant Maintenance, you should only change or delete these after conferring with the appropriate project groups.
5. You need to activate Stock Determination in PM/CS Orders. Which of the following activities are required?
a. In the material master, you have assigned a stock determination group to the MRP2 view and a checking group for the availability check to the material in the MRP3 view.
b. You have assigned a stock determination rule to a PM/CS order in Customizing(order type specific)
c. You have assigned a stock determination rule either in the application (customer-specific/ sales order-specific/WBS element-specific)
Answer;
a, b,c
Explanation:
You can use the Stock Determination function to implement various strategies when withdrawing material for goods issues and stock transfers in PM/CS orders.
You configure these strategies in Customizing. Based on the material requirements entered, the system determines from which storage locations and stock the material should be withdrawn.
When planning your material requirements, it is not always possible for you to define the stocks and storage locations from which the materials are later to be withdrawn.
Automatic stock determination takes care of this decision for you, thus preventing you from defining these parameters too early and restricting your business processes unnecessarily.
You can then perform stock determination again to examine the stock situation between creating the maintenance order and releasing it.
Note: This stock determination can only be used for PM/CS orders.
In order to define Automatic Stock Determination, you must do the following;
In the material master, you have assigned a stock determination group to the MRP2 view and a checking group for the availability check to the material in the MRP3 view.
You have assigned a stock determination rule either in the application (customer-specific/ sales order specific/ WBS element-specific) or in Customizing (order type-specific).
Assign a stock determination rule to specific customer numbers, sales orders, or WBS elements in one of the following ways:
On the SAP Easy Access screen, choose Logistics –> Plant Maintenance –>Maintenance Processing – >Environment –> Stock Determination Rules for Special Stock. Maintain or create the following:
1. For customer stock, enter a customer number (only in DIMP)
2. For sales order stock, enter a sales document number and item
3. For project stock, enter a WBS element
6. With reference to “Maintenance strategy” which of the following are true?
a. Maintenance strategies are optional.
b. A maintenance strategy defines the rules for the sequence of planned maintenance work.
c. A maintenance strategy contains maintenance packages in which you can define the cycle in which the individual work should be performed.
d. Maintenance strategy is required to be defined with a ‘Multiple counter plan’
Answer;
a, b, c
Explanation:
A maintenance strategy defines the rules for the sequence of planned maintenance work. It contains general scheduling information, and can therefore be assigned to as many maintenance task lists (PM task lists) and maintenance plans as required.
A maintenance strategy contains maintenance packages in which the following information is defined:
• The cycle in which the individual work should be performed (for example, every two months, every 3,106.86 miles, every 500 operating hours)
• Other data which affects scheduling
From Release 4.0A, maintenance strategies are optional.
If you want to perform simple preventive maintenance in your company, for which one maintenance cycle is sufficient, then you can work with single cycle plans. In contrast, you use strategy plans to show complex maintenance cycles. You create some maintenance plans with a maintenance strategy.
The following table shows which maintenance plan types require a maintenance strategy.
Maintenance Plan Type Maintenance Strategy
Single cycle plan, time-based No
Single cycle plan, performance-based No
Strategy plan, time-based Yes
Strategy plan, performance-based Yes
Multiple counter plan No
If you want to use time-based or performance-based strategy plans in your company, you must first define:
• Where regular maintenance is required (shown in the system as a maintenance item)
• The frequency of these maintenance tasks in terms of performance or time (shown in the system as maintenance packages)
For this, you must compare the legal requirements, manufacturer recommendations and costs of preventive maintenance with the cost of a breakdown. You should also consider how you can set up the tasks in a maintenance plan, so that scheduling and maintenance activities are combined most effectively.
Once you have determined the optimum cycles for preventive maintenance, you can define a suitable maintenance strategy.
Using the PM application component, you can create strategies which represent the scheduling rules for all the preventive maintenance tasks required within your company. As these strategies contain general scheduling information, they can be assigned to as many different maintenance plans as required.
By using maintenance strategies containing general scheduling information, you can:
• Reduce maintenance plan creation time
You do not need to create the same scheduling information for each maintenance plan.
• Update scheduling information easily
Maintenance packages are referenced. In other words, when you make changes in the maintenance strategy (for example, delete packages, change the preliminary or follow-up buffer), the changes are also valid for the assigned maintenance plans.
However, the scheduling parameters are copied into the respective maintenance plan.
7. Within a maintenance strategy, you can use different scheduling indicators to specify the type of scheduling you require. Which of the following are valid scheduling indicators?
a. Time-based scheduling indicators
b. Time based by key date scheduling indicators
c. Space based scheduling indicators
d. Space based by key date scheduling indicators
Answer;
a, b
Explanation:
Within a maintenance strategy, you can use different scheduling indicators to specify the type of scheduling you require or to define a cycle set:
Time-based (for example, every 30 days)
Time-based by key date (for example, every 30 days on the 30th day of the month)
Time-based by factory calendar (for example, every 30 working days)
Performance-based (for example, every 50 operating hours)
Maintenance activities that must be performed at a particular date or point in time are combined into maintenance packages.
These contain, for example, the cycle duration and unit of measurement.
For example, with reference to the figure below, you can create a maintenance strategy with three packages for maintaining a pressurized tank.
You can assign several packages with different cycle durations to a strategy. All packages must have the same dimensions, for example, ‘time’, ‘weight’, or ‘length’.
The packages or maintenance cycles within a strategy have a common basic unit of conversion. This unit corresponds to a particular dimension, for example, ‘time’, ‘weight’, or ‘length’.
Packages within one strategy may have different cycle units, but they all have the same dimension.
A strategy contains three packages:
o Every two weeks
o Every 4 months
o Annually
Here, the dimension ‘time’ has the cycle units ‘week’, ‘month’, ‘year’.
If you work with hierarchies for packages and several packages are due on the same date, note that one year and twelve months are considered to be of different length in the SAP System.
1 year = 365 days; 12 months = 360 days (12 x 30)
8. A maintenance item describes which preventive maintenance tasks should take place regularly at a technical object or a group of technical objects. With reference to ‘Maintenance Item’, which of the following statements are true?
a. A maintenance plan always automatically contains at least one maintenance item.
b. Maintanance items may have an object assigned.
c. Maintenance items may not have an object assigned.
d. You cannot assign multiple technical objects to a Maintenance item.
Answer;
a, b, c
Explanation:
A maintenance item describes which preventive maintenance tasks should take place regularly at a technical object or a group of technical objects.
A maintenance item could, for example, be “perform safety test”. You then assign exactly the objects (for example, equipment, functional locations or assemblies) at which you want to perform the maintenance task “safety test” to a maintenance item.
For some call objects, (for example, maintenance order or service order), you can describe the activities that are necessary for the maintenance item “Perform safety test” using a maintenance task list, which you assign to the maintenance item.
If, for example, the system generates a service order for a due date, the operations will be copied from the task list to the service order.
Maintenance Plan with Maintenance Items
You can assign one or more maintenance items to a maintenance plan. A maintenance plan always automatically contains at least one maintenance item. Maintenance plans for service procurement and maintenance plans which refer to an outline agreement have only one maintenance item.
You can assign maintenance items to a maintenance plan in the following ways:
• You create a maintenance plan and create a maintenance item directly in the maintenance plan by entering the required data in the tabstrip Item.
• You create additional maintenance items in a maintenance plan.
• You create a maintenance item without assignment and subsequently assign it to a maintenance plan.
The following rules apply if you assign a maintenance item to a maintenance plan:
o A maintenance item can only be assigned to one maintenance plan.
o You must have created the maintenance item you want to assign to a single cycle plan or multiple counter plan without reference to a maintenance strategy.
o The maintenance item you assign to a strategy plan must have the same maintenance strategy as the maintenance plan.
o The maintenance item you assign to a strategy plan must have the same maintenance plan category as the maintenance plan.
The easiest way is to create maintenance items directly in the maintenance plan.
Reference Objects for Maintenance Items
You assign the reference object(s) to a maintenance item at which you want to perform the maintenance task “safety test”.
Maintenance items can also be object-independent, that is, you can create them without a reference object.
Maintenance Items with Reference Object
You can create maintenance items with a reference object, that is, object-specific maintenance items, for example, for the following reference objects:
• Functional locations
• Pieces of equipment
• Assemblies for a piece of equipment
• Materials
• Material and serial numbers
Maintenance Items Without Reference Object
You can also create maintenance items that do not refer to a technical object, that is, object independent maintenance items.
You can maintain both location data and account assignment data individually for such maintenance items.
This allows you to define regular preventive maintenance tasks without having to specify the technical objects for which the tasks are to be performed. This is particularly useful for smaller maintenance tasks, such as “cleaning”, “lubricating” and so on.
9. How would you represent an object?
a. As a material
b. As serialized pieces of equipment
c. As Partners
d. As bills of material
Answer;
a, b, d
Explanation:
Depending on your specific requirements, you can represent the objects as follows:
• As materials
This is advisable if you are working with a large number of similar or identical objects. You can use the material number for inventory management purposes, and to control stock movements.
• As pieces of equipment (serialized or non-serialized)
This is advisable if you want to manage and possibly evaluate individual data, or if you want to perform regular, planned or unplanned maintenance activities and services.
• As functional locations
This is advisable if you want to structure complex customer systems or represent and track pieces of equipment from a functional perspective.
• As bills of material
This is advisable if you want to further categorize individual devices according to assembly and material.
Serviceable Item as a Material
In the R/3 System, you can represent your serviceable items as materials in various ways. Depending on your specific requirements, you can use material master records to represent both object categories, maintenance assemblies, and spare parts.
Often, a large number of similar or identical objects are involved in service contracts. In this case you can use the material number of the object for inventory management purposes, and to control stock movements.
A number of data fields in the equipment master record may be dependent on the equipment category and not specific to an individual piece of equipment. In such a case, the equipment category can be represented using a material master record.
The material master record is the reference for a piece of equipment or functional location. When you create a piece of equipment or a functional location, you can enter a material as a reference for it in the initial screen. The system then automatically enters the relevant material data in the master record of the technical object.
If you are responsible for servicing large numbers of similar objects, it is usually more sensible to use serial numbers for the objects.
Serviceable Item as a Piece of Equipment
If you need to represent and manage your serviceable items in individual master records, for example, in order to monitor costs and keep records for the individual objects, you can use an equipment master record.
You should always create an equipment master record for a serviceable item if you need to:
• Manage individual data for the item
• Perform maintenance and service activities, both regular, planned and unplanned, for the item
• Keep a record of any service activities performed for the item (for example, for warranty or contract purposes)
• Record data about the item for long-term evaluation purposes
You can assign a serial number to your pieces of equipment, which is advisable if you service a large number of similar or identical items.
You can also use the configuration function to configure pieces of equipment.
If you are responsible for servicing equipment belonging to a customer (for example, operational systems, machines), you can represent this in the system using the customer equipment master.
If you also have to structure and manage your own equipment in the Plant Maintenance (PM) component, you need separate equipment master records for this.
If you want to represent more complex systems and structures, you can use equipment hierarchies to do this.
Serviceable Item as a Functional Location
The functional location is a logical object, whereas the piece of equipment, which is installed at a functional location, is a physical object.
This physical object is considered from the perspective of its use at this functional location (for example, whether it is installed or dismantled there). You can use the installation and dismantling functions to dismantle and replace a piece of equipment at a customer’s.
Functional location labels are structured hierarchically. The hierarchy for these labels is defined in each company, according to specific requirements. In this way, the hierarchies can reflect the interrelation of individual operational functions within a system.
You should always use functional locations if you want to
• Structure complex customer systems
• Represent and trace pieces of equipment from a functional perspective
Serviceable Item as a Bill of Material
A bill of material describes the structure of a piece of equipment, material or functional location. It comprises a complete, formally structured list of components making up a technical object or assembly.
The individual components can be stock or non-stock spares or assemblies, which in turn can be described by another bill of material. Each component is listed with its quantity and unit of measure in the bill of material.
Bills of material have two main uses within maintenance and service:
• Structure description
You can use a bill of material to describe the structure of a piece of equipment, functional location or material, as regards its individual components.
• Assignment of spare parts
You can use a maintenance bill of material to specify the spare parts that are required for performing the service.
You can use bills of material when processing calls, specifically in order to:
• Plan materials and spares (for a service order)
• Locate a problem at a technical object (when logging/handling a call)
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