Oracle - EAM - Basics First !

Maintenance, in all its essence, is an absolutely indispensable activity for all organizations today.

Downtimes or any damage due to malfunctioning of an equipment are most expensive and thus an immense squeeze in the profits. Almost each and every organization across industries have woken up to this fact and employ some or the other maintenance system

Furthermore to just having a system in place to take care of the maintenance activities, organizations today are moving towards most intelligent and sophisticated methods of maintenance viz. Predictive Maintenance and Reliability Centered Maintenance.

The goal of Predictive Maintenance is to perform maintenance exactly when the equipment needs it – neither earlier nor later than necessary. This essentially means tracking key indicators over time to predict when the equipment needs repair. Predictive maintenance programs measure equipment on a regular basis, track these measurements over time, and take preventive action whenever the measurements are about to go outside the operating limits. Repairing equipment as-needed requires fewer man-hours and parts than corrective maintenance.

In a similar fashion, Reliability Centered Maintenance focuses on prioritizing maintenance efforts based on equipment’s importance to operations, its downtime cost in revenue and customer loss, its cost of repair, and its impact on safety. It offers extensive analytical data to ensure that the critical equipments are identified and maintained on a priority. Reliability maintenance depends on the same measurements used in predictive maintenance, but saves additional maintenance cost by spending less effort on lesser important equipments

The EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) module in the Oracle E-Business Suite family offers these refined maintenance techniques of Predictive Maintenance as well as Reliability Centered Maintenance
But as they say, just implementing something does not ensure a job been done. It is equally important for people working with these methods to understand them thoroughly and learn how to identify potential problem areas. If an intelligent solution is implemented and work practices change accordingly, phenomenal results become apparent pretty soon.

Oracle EAM - Linear Asset Management - Overview

Most challenges in Linear Asset Management

Maintenance of linear assets (A kind of networks) is completely different from maintaining non linear assets like a fleet, machine. They through lot more challenges in modelling and executing the maintenance work compared to non linear assets. The ability to model and execute the maintenance these assets is what can tap the huge market potential in this segment.

Maintenance Assets can be broadly divided into two categories namely
a. Liner and
b. Non linear.

If we underrated non linear assets, it is easy to understand linear assets.

Non linear assets are like Plant, equipment, Machine, fleet etc., they are confined to a size and specific location etc., Maintenance of them is relatively easy.

Linear assets are not specific to single location. Linear assets can be like roads, runways, gas pipe lines, electrical transmissions, rail tracks, telecom lines etc., where they are not specific one single location. They more or less represent a network.

Many linear asset networks cross over with other networks and can also be a place holder of many non linear assets. For e:g one railway track can connect to other railway track and also holds many non linear assets like traffic control systems, stations, power generating equipment and more importantly other parallel linear asset like power cables etc., Maintaining these assets requires much more capability than maintaining non linear assets

There are many challenges that will surface in maintaining these assets. All these challenges need to be addresses adequately by any ERP to realize the benefits. Again the challenges will be different for different industries and this blog lists these challenges a generic manner.


1. Modelling of the linear assets:
As the linear assets are not confined to a single location but widely spread across some geographies, modelling of these assets is the first most challenge for any ERP. This modelling can be either engineering or visual in nature. For e.g. a metro rail network is spread across a city. Typical asset hierarchy may not work here.

2. Assigning the non linear assets to the linear assets:
Every linear asset can be a place holder for many non linear assets. For e.g. a national highway contains traffic signals, light posts at definite locations also requires maintenance.

3. Parallel networks:
There are some networks that work in parallel. A metro rail network requires a parallel power lines. Failure of any of them can result in stoppage of the services. Modelling of such networks is a challenge.

4. Intersecting networks:
Networks that cross over. Typically can operate independently but the shutting down of one network can result in shutting down of other network. A metro rail network and a road network can operate independently but the shutting down of one network can result in shutting down of other network due to cross over at some places. This requires additional tag out processes.

5. Planned downime of the network:
The linear assets or networks does not offer too much of a time for planned down time. They need to be scheduled typically on a weekend or public holidays by virtue of their connection to the public life. At times they need to be scheduled in summer only. This leaves additional challenge for the ERP systems.

6. Increased load on other networks:
At times when one network is down, the traffic is to be diverted to the other network. This mean, some networks can’t be planned for maintenance in parallel. Higher load on other networks means more usage that could result in breakdown as well.

7. Skilled personnel in performing the maintenance:
Maintaining the linear assets needs a crew (group of technicians) from different departments to work at the same time. e.g. technicians from civil and electrical departments.

8. Special equipment in performing the maintenance:
Maintaining these assets needs at times needs special crew. For e.g. a crane or excavator and their operators would be special equipment in executing the maintenance of these assets. Also arranging the required consumables to complete the maintenance work location requires initial assessment and planning.

9. Work orders planning and execution:
Work order planning and execution requires much more co-ordinated process than non linear assets. For e.g. arranging the crew from different departments, approvals from other departments even though the other department is not involved in the maintenance work. At times the maintenance of all networks is to be combined due to geographical constraints and same crew members. This also requires additional tag out processes.

10. Maintenance analytics:
Apart from planning and executing the work, the ERP should generate the required analytics like down time trend, cost of maintaining the network, allocation of the costs to different networks etc., requires additional features

Any ERP that can beat these challenges is sure to tap the huge market and we will see how Oracle EAM is offering various solutions to address these challenges

Oracle EAM and GIS Integration Setup and Overview

 

Geographic Information System (GIS) is an information system for storing, analyzing, managing and presenting digital data such as geographic features present on the Earth’s surface using spatial references.

 

Some of the GIS solutions available in the market are ESRI, Google Maps, Oracle Spatial, etc.

 

A Geocode (Geospatial Entity Object code) is a representation format of a geospatial coordinate measurement used to provide a standard representation of an exact geospatial point location on the earth. For example, the format (41°54’12″N, 87°37’35″W) indicates latitude, longitude of a unique location on earth.

Latitude gives the location of a place on earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps. Latitude is given as an angular measurement ranging from 0° at Equator to +90° at North Pole and -90° at South Pole.
An example of a latitude in DMS (Degrees Minutes Seconds) format is 41°54’12″N

Longitude is the east-west geographic coordinate measurement. Longitude is given as an angular measurement ranging from 0° at the prime meridian to +180° eastward and −180° westward.
An example of a longitude in DMS (Degrees Minutes Seconds) format is 87°37’35″W

Release 12.1.1 enables GIS Integration using web based source map viewer of Google maps and provision is given to allow assets/ instances to be geocoded so that they can be spatially located on the map viewer. All item instances, i.e. EAM Assets and OAT instances are eligible to be geocoded and viewed in the Asset map viewer

Release 12.1.1 provides ability so that item instances can have a provision to capture their geocodes i.e. Latitude and Longitude. This can be done either manually through a mass data entry page or automatically through an API. 
In Enterprise Assets Maintenance, users can search for any EAM assets using simple/ advanced search, enter geocodes for the assets using the ‘Mass Geocode Entry’ form, then locate the resulting asset on the map viewer by invoking the ‘Map All’ button. Alternatively, users can navigate to the Asset details page and locate the particular asset on the map viewer.

When a user selects any asset icon on the map viewer, details such as Asset Number, Description, Asset Group, Owning Department, Asset Location and Geocodes are displayed in a pop up. Also, hyperlinks are displayed for performing the following actions:

1. View asset details page
2. Create work request
3. Create work order
4. View open work requests
5. View open work orders
6. View Graphical Asset hierarchy.

 

 

When user selects any of the above actions, the page control is transferred to the appropriate tab in EAM responsibility with the context of the asset number selected. All other details corresponding to the selected asset number are defaulted when the page is rendered

SETUP STEPS

To enable the GIS Integration using Google Map feature, follow these instructions:
1. Set the following profile options:

• (R) System Administrator
• (N) Profile > Systems
  • ‘CSI: Mapviewer Name’ = Google

Profile value can be set at any level.

• ‘CSI: Google Registration key’

This profile hold the complete registration key (license key) for the Google Maps and can be set at any level

• ‘CSI: Google Map Client ID’

This profile hold the client ID for the licensed copy of

Google Maps and can be set at any level,

Contact Google to obtain Map Registration Key and Map Client ID

 

In R12.1.1, ‘Google’ and ‘Custom’ are the seeded values for ‘CSI: Mapviewer Name’ profile option. However, more look up values might be added in future releases based on other supported map viewers. If no value is set for this profile, then it is assumed that GIS integration is not intended. If it is set to ‘Google’, then GIS Integration with Google map is activated. If it is set to ‘Custom’, then GIS Integration with custom map viewer is activated. Custom source maps usually show details to a greater extent compared to the default images provided. Custom source maps can be either made by a tool if geocodes are available or a satellite imagery can be taken. Each source map viewer supports few specific formats of the custom source maps like Oracle Spatial supports 1 or 2 ESRI formats. Custom source maps in case of Utility industry can be entire stretch of utilities with associated information

2. Associate the function ‘Map All’ to the responsibility meant for accessing Maintenance user’s menu.

• (R) System Administrator
• (N) Application > Menu
  • Query for “EAM_MAINTENANCE_UNIT_SEARCH” menu.
  • Add the function ‘Map All’

Associating the ‘Map All’ function to the responsibility will enable ‘Map All’ button and ‘Map’ button to EAM/ OAT responsibilities.
3. Enter geocodes for assets/instances manually using the ‘Mass Geocode Entry’ form:

• (R) Maintenance Super User responsibility
• (N) Assets > Mass Geocode Entry
  • Query for an Asset Number
  • Enter geaocodes for the Asset
  • Save

Note: Geocode information capture can be allowed of all item instances, both customer and enterprise owned. except for Non-serial Rebuildables, Asset Routes and Systems

Geocode API: Geocodes can be entered for assets/instances using CSI_GIS_INSTANCE_LOC_PUB. IMPORT_INSTANCE_GEO_LOCATION Import API. This will enable mass entries for goecodes and save time. This Import API has been included in csipgilb.pls & csipgils.pls and meant to populate the CSI_II_GEOLOC_INTERFACE interface table

 

 

4. View the EAM Assets on Google Map:

•   (R) Maintenance Super User
•   (N) Assets > Capital
  • Query for an Asset Number
  • Click ‘Map All’ button to locate the asset in the Google Map Viewer

Note: Function ‘Map All’ need to be associated to the responsibility meant for accessing Maintenance user’s menu. By default, this function is not associated to any Maintenance responsibility