Maintenance Resource Setup

Introduction

Maintenance resources are resources which have been defined in IFS/Enterprise/Resource/Resource Details to be used in Service and Maintenance (including Forward/Line Maintenance). The resource types include persons, person groups, tool/equipment and tool/equipment groups. When specific criteria are met the resources can be entered on a resource demand line and be assigned to work assignments on a work task.

Prerequisites

Person and Tool/Equipment:

To use a resource in a work task resource demand or work assignment the following is required in Resource Details:

Resource must set as Active.
Resource must belong to at least one parent resource group which is set as Use in Maintenance.
Resource must belong to a Specific Site. Resource belong to a specific site when it fulfills below conditions
- Resource must belong to at least one parent resource group which has the specific site connection in the Connections page.
- Resource must have the specific site connection in the Connections page.

Note: In addition to above:

If IFS/Dynamic Scheduling Engine is used and is to use a resource, it needs to be registered in Scheduling Basic Data.
If IFS/Maintenance Planning Board is used and is to use a resource, it's employee which is set as Primary Scheduling needs to be set as Available for Scheduling in the Site Settings tab in Resource Details/Maintenance page.
If IFS/Mobile Work Order is used and is to use a resource, it's employee which is set as Primary Scheduling needs to be set as Mobile User in the Company Settings tab in Resource Details/Maintenance page.

Resources of type Tool/Equipment's can also be used in Forward/Line Maintenance. The same prerequisites as above is valid, with the difference that you can enter the resource demand without any consideration to sites. To be able to allocate a tool/equipment to a FLM work task, the site connection is needed.

Maint. Org. Independent

Maint. Org. is one of the constrain that consider when it’s come to scheduling resources. To ignore this constrain user can enable the option Maint. Org. Independent for the selected resource group. After enabling this option user can schedule any resource within the site ignoring the Maintenances organization of the resource. This information is valid, if the site is enabled for Work Order scheduling using Maintenance Planning Board.

Person Group and Tool/Equipment Group

To use a resource in a work task resource demand, the following is required in Resource Details:

Resource group must be set as an Active.
Resource group must be set as Use in Maintenance.
Resource group must be connected to a specific site in Connections page.

In general, resource groups cannot be allocated to work assignments. However, if IFS/Maintenance Planning Board is used, resource groups are possible to allocate.

To allocate a resource group in a specific site in MPB, in addition to the prerequisites for persons group and tools/equipment group which are mentioned above, the following is needed in the Connections page in Resource Detail page for the Specific site connection:

Capacity Calculation base set as Group.
Scheduling Capacity set as Finite or Infinite.

Resource groups of type Tool/Equipment's can also be used in Forward/Line Maintenance. The same prerequisites as above is valid, with the difference that you can enter the resource demand without any consideration to sites.

If tool tracking is used in tool/equipment groups, Tool Tracking needs to be set as Track Check Out/In in the Resource Details/Maintenance page for the resource groups of type Tool/Equipment.

Availability of Resources

In general, resource availability is taken from resource Calendar. There are general flows of fetching calendar as below.

Availability of Person

If IFS/Human Resource is used, then the HR schedule of the person's primary scheduling employment is taken to get the availability. This is applicable only in IFS/Enterprise/Resource Allocation and Monitoring Gantt and IFS/Dynamic Scheduling Engine.
If there is no HR Schedule then the Calendar directly connected to the person in IFS/Enterprise/Resource is taken to get the availability. This is applicable only in IFS/Enterprise/Resource Allocation and Monitoring Gantt and IFS/Maintenance Planning Board.
If the person's calendar is not available, then the Maintenance Organizations Calendar connected to its primary scheduling employment is taken. This is applicable only in IFS/Enterprise/Resource Allocation and Monitoring Gantt and IFS/Maintenance Planning Board.
If there is no maintenance organization connected, then the person is considered as not available.

Availability of Tool/Equipment

The Calendar directly connected to the tool/equipment in IFS/Enterprise/Resource is taken to get the availability. This is applicable only in IFS/Resource Allocation and Monitoring Gantt and IFS/Maintenance Planning Board.

Availability of Person/Tool Group

The Calendar connected to site connection in IFS/Enterprise/Resource is taken to get the availability. This is applicable only IFS/Maintenance Planning Board.

Resource Capacity Calculations

To be able to achieve correct results in resource allocation there is a pre-requisite to have the capacity calculated for the resources. Generated capacity calculated for a resource is a pre-requisite for the following allocation functionalities:

Filter by Availability in Allocate Resource Gantt for Work Tasks.
Adjust to Schedule in Allocate Resource Gantt and in Assign Work for Work Tasks.
Visit Handling on Work Tasks to achieve multiple visits for a job based on the resources calendar. This is not required if visit handling is done by IFS/Planning and Scheduling Optimization.

The resource capacity is calculated based on the resource schedule. If the Use HR Schedule option is enabled on resource and employee is connected to the resource has an HR Schedule defined in the Employee File this Schedule is used as the base for the capacity. If the Use HR Schedule option is disabled then the Work Time Calendar defined for the resource is the base for the calculated capacity. The resource capacity is used in the allocation process in Service and Maintenance to define the working and non-working time for the resources.

To calculate the resource capacity for the resources it is needed to run the Calculate Resource Capacity for the resource structure where the resources is connected to. In Application Base Setup/Enterprise/Resource/Resource Details the option is there as a command button option to Calculate Resource Capacity this calculation can be done for a specific resource or for the full resource structure. In the dialog opened from this option there is also an option to setup a background job to continuously calculate the capacity for a certain structure.