Maximo Open Forum

Kevin Egolf posted 11-19-2021 09:35

We created an escalation to change the status on the old work order to CLOSENP, our status to indicate the work was not performed when the new work order target start date is reached and the work order status in not = complete. The escalation looks for work orders with the same PM number and when the system date = the target start date + 1 on the new work order the old work order is closed. 

This has worked very well for us. We had to make some allowances for weekly work orders to allow time to update all required information.

Travis Herron posted 11-19-2021 09:39

For us, the first question was to evaluate whether to use the last work order's Target Start or Actual Finish.  In as many cases as possible, we use Actual Finish.  It helps avoid the situation you have brought up.  The only ones we kept for Target Start were things that were "regulatory" (OSHA, NFPA, etc.) where the chance of not doing them is very low; or they have Active Seasons tied to some campus event, e.g. do this before the semester starts.  Regardless of when someone remembered to change the status to Complete, the WO for next year needs to generate at the right time.

Next, for the few that do make it to the situation you have presented --- we have a synonym status called NOTDONE that we use for that exact situation.  The way I think of it, if a PM is Cancelled it's either that we removed/retired that Asset; or something changed (e.g. regulatory requirements, such as "it used to require a monthly inspection but now it's only a quarterly inspection"); or the PM only existed because someone thought it would be a good idea to do the job on a scheduled recurring cadence but then changed their mind to do it on demand (e.g., paint the employee parking lot stripes every 6 months. . .nah, never mind, we'll just do it when we need it).  All that said, we don't cancel them; we go with NOTDONE.

But if you can't change your process and have to deal with this as-is:  It depends on what was done to the newer WO.  Was there parts or labor recorded to the newer WO?  If so, you'd have to reverse those entries and then charge them to the older WO.  Did the newer WO get changed to COMP status?  You can't undo the COMP status; you won't be able to cancel that WO.

But generally speaking, when dealing with PM WO's, if you are willing and able to Cancel, Maximo is going to want you to start with the newest WO and work backwards.  If you try to Cancel the newest WO from that PM, you'll get a different question: Do you want to reinstate the PM?  If you choose Yes (reinstate the PM), then it subtracts 1 from the PM counter and sets it so that it thinks the next PM is due to generate today -- so the next time you generate WO's from PM's, it should generate a WO.  If you choose No (don't reinstate the PM), then the PM counter remains as it is and the next WO will generate according to its regular schedule.

Where you are there with the "the preventive maintenance record is not reinstated" question -- that means you're trying to cancel a WO that's NOT the newest one.  In that case, Maximo CANNOT reinstate the Work Order, so it doesn't ask you if you want to reinstate.  It's just telling you it won't -- because it can't.  At that point your choices are 1) choose Yes to accept that it can't/won't be reinstated and proceed to Cancel it, or 2) choose the Cancel option in the box there to go back to the record as-is, and then figure out something else to do to it (e.g., change the status to something else).

Whatever you choose to do, be mindful of what your decision does to the PM counter, which in turn affects which Job Plan gets used on the next generated WO if the PM has sequenced Job Plans.

April Rudge posted 11-19-2021 12:02

@Travis Herron - thank you! This background is very helpful to give us a picture of the coniderations.  We likely should just change how they are auto-generated. (Our implementation is fairly new). Most of these fall into a category like the "we thought this was a good idea to schedule semi-annually, but looks like annual is more realistic."  That said, I'll need to clean up the ones in limbo & you all helped me understand some options of how to do that. 

Can you help me better understand what you mentioned here: 

"Where you are there with the "the preventive maintenance record is not reinstated" question -- that means you're trying to cancel a WO that's NOT the newest one.  In that case, Maximo CANNOT reinstate the Work Order, so it doesn't ask you if you want to reinstate.  It's just telling you it won't -- because it can't.  At that point your choices are 1) choose Yes to accept that it can't/won't be reinstated and proceed to Cancel it, or 2) choose the Cancel option in the box there to go back to the record as-is, and then figure out something else to do to it (e.g., change the status to something else"

If we choose "Yes" accepting that it won't be reinstated, can you clarify what that means for the PM - is it inactive/without a date? OR after I make that choice, is it possible to manually go to the PM to adjust the way it is generated & set the next due date? 

Thanks so much for sharing your approach!

Travis Herron posted 11-19-2021 12:53

If you choose Yes in the box in your screenshot:

--The Work Order that you're trying to change to the Cancel status, should change to the Cancel status.  (I don't recall if it does the other validations first, like checking to see if there are committed costs -- parts and/or labor -- that would prevent it from going to Cancel status.)

-- It does not affect the PM record at all.  It does not change the status of the PM, it does not change the Counter, it does not change the forecast, it does not change the next due date. . .


You can, at any time, go over to the PM record and change things (like the Extended Date or the Forecast's New Date to get it to generate a WO at a time different than what it calculated).  It's just that if you change the PM before changing things on the Work Order(s) that came from the PM, what you do to the WOs might affect some of the settings on the PM, especially if you change the most-recently-generated ("Last") WO from that PM and choose to reinstate.

For example, we have the PMWOGen cron task running once every morning.  With that setup, if I cancel a "Last" PM WO and tell it to reinstate the PM, I know it's going to reset the PM to, essentially, be just as if the WO I'm cancelling never happened.  So let's say I had a PM to generate on the first of the month every month.  If I cancel the one that generated November 1st and reinstate the PM, it's kinda like when PMWOGen runs tomorrow morning it'll see this PM and think, "Oh no! This PM was supposed to generate back on November 1st, and here it is the 20th!!!! I better make a Work Order!"  So therefore I know that because I cancelled that PM Work Order today, I'm going to get a new one tomorrow.  Is that what I want?  If yes, fine, do nothing more.  But usually it isn't.  Maybe we're just not going to do that PM in November.  So after cancelling the November WO, I need to (manually) go to the PM record and change either the Forecast (if it exists) or the Extended Date so that it doesn't generate again until December 1.

Cancelling PM's can definitely be hairy!  Maximo has made great strides over the years to really encourage you to do your PM's.  I'd definitely recommend to you that as you work through these, hop over to the source PM before and after you change the Work Orders; and/or get on either a test/dev environment that you have or IBM's Maximo preview site and set up some examples there that you can play with.  Look to see what changes and how it changes in different situations, until you get comfortable with it.  And, further, see what you can do within your work processes to make it so you don't have to Cancel them at all.  Synonym statuses, Conditional Expressions to control who and/or from what statuses PM WO's can be cancelled, looking at historical records to compare when it generated vs when it got done and therefore changing the Frequency (like your example of changing from semi-annual to annual), and, what I find to be most effective, is simply setting it to generate based on Last WO's Actual Finish.  Like with your semi-annual example -- even if you kept it as semi-annual -- suppose it was set to be due June 1st, and the WO still isn't done, and it's not done on December 1st (6 months later).  Unless I have a really compelling business reason, I don't want another WO to generate on Dec. 1.  To me, that's just clutter.  I instead want to focus on whatever bad management, supply chain problem, labor shortage, asset/location downtime & availability conflict, etc. has caused us to go so long past when it was supposed to be done, and get that existing WO done.  And sure, if possible, evaluate if I really did need that PM every 6 months.

April Rudge posted 11-22-2021 23:32

@Travis Herron - That helps a lot.  Thank you.  ​