Maximo Open Forum

 View Only

 Location Hierarchies

  • Administration
  • Reporting
Brett Hawkins's profile image
Brett Hawkins posted 01-29-2024 15:52

I have been asked to give cost/work order roll ups for locations around our facility. For example, what part of the facility had the most work orders during a time frame etc. 

There is one large problem, when the location hierarchy that is currently in place in maximo was originally created they did not build locations to allow this. I say this because instead of grouping things by areas they grouped them by use. For example, all restrooms are under one "restrooms" parent location, instead of being under parent locations that pertain to WHERE they are in the facility. This makes it so I can't easily pull reports containing information about how many work orders or costs of work orders for specific areas of the facility. Some of our locations were also built with no parent locations listed, but that's a different problem

I am in the process of cleaning this up for the locations without parent locations, BUT for the locations which already have parent locations I am concerned there may be data integrity issues that arise from moving them to new parent locations etc. Could anyone provide insight on if trying to reorganize our locations into a hierarchy that is more functional for us would create unforeseen data problems? Was planning on doing this manually using the "view/modify parents" UI, but if there is an easier was I'm willing to hear about that as well.

Thanks in advance!

Travis Herron's profile image
Travis Herron

My understanding of it is that the Primary Location system ought to be a completely physical arrangement, like you've said you're trying to get to.  The way yours currently is, by function, is better handled as Classifications.  But if your company has been with Maximo for a decent amount of time, Classifications didn't "always" exist, from what I recall from nearly 20 years ago in the good old days of Maximo 4.1.1 and 5.x.; so maybe that's why they did what they did.

As long as you move these via the UI, I don't think you'd have any problems.  Trying to do it through other (likely easier) means sounds like a recipe for trouble.  When you move it via the UI, it also handles making the proper entries in LOCHIERARCHY and LOCANCESTOR tables.  IMO, it's not worth risking a data error in these tables by trying to move the Locations by some other means.

I'd recommend that, if you can, make a Classifications Hierarchy and use it while you're converting these.  This way you still retain a simple way to, borrowing from your example, find all the restrooms.  However, if you think you'd ever need to do this same kind of cost rollup by function, maybe you should make a 2nd Locations System.

Another thing that I found as really useful for us: my Location system can feel complicated and overwhelming for some users.  For our college campus, I've got it broken down as CAMPUS | AREA | COMPLEX | BUILDING | FLOOR | WING | HALLWAY | ROOM | SUB-ROOM.  Not every Location breaks down that way, and some are even more complicated than that (the most levels down I have is 13!).  So, to keep it easy for end users, on the LOCATIONS table, I created two custom fields, Building and Floor, and created a custom Domain for each.  Then I added these two fields to the Locations "Select Value" lookup. (And now that I think of it, maybe trying to add the Classification Description wouldn't be a bad idea either. . .)

Alex Walter's profile image
Alex Walter

Brett,

You should be able to create a second Location System (e.g. a Geographical system) and create a second hierarchy. The idea is that you can reuse the lower level locations like the Restrooms, but place them in a second context. This would likely require creating some area, floor, room, etc. locations and then organizing them in the new Geographical system with the lowest level locations being ones that work orders are written to every day.

If you do this, you should be able to get reports out of the system immediately that can rollup costs at those levels that you're looking for.

Below is a crude diagram of what I'm talking about:

Hope this helps,

Alex

Christopher Winston's profile image
Christopher Winston

There is a video to help explain the basic benefits of the functional location hierarchy, if that is helpful.