Thanks to amazing partnerships with our customers, a passionate team, we are proud to be delivering on capabilities that delivers on a future where Asset Owners, External Contractors and Original Equipment Manufacturers can efficiently collaborate on Maintenance. Asset ecosystem partners gain consistent visibility, transparency, and resiliency through a shared platform from planning to execution. A vision where we break down the silos between and within organisations and enable businesses to partner together on an integrated and secure work order collaboration environment across the entire service chain.

Market Dynamics ​

External Pressures – Due to the turbulent geopolitics and economy (e.g., Trade Wars, the shift toward passive investing), external pressures are growing. ​

Outsourcing Risk – There are risks associated with contracting services to a third party and the transfer of data necessary for them to perform those services​.

Health & Safety Issue – Companies in asset-intensive industries are under increasing pressure to maintain exemplary health and safety standards​.

Rising Costs – Cost takeout is likely to remain a high priority item. Firms are hyper-focused on  

Regulations – Regulators are increasing their supervisory and monitoring resources, both generally and specifically in relation to asset management 

Today’s Challenges

• Lack of common maintenance processes between asset stakeholders leads to process inefficiency.
• Absence of a single platform for collaboration hinders resource optimization and utilization.
• No single source-of-truth for stakeholders creates silos and ultimately increases maintenance costs.

Also, to point out some other challenges highlighted by our customers.

• Fully utilizing resources/ tools.
• Delay in paper submissions.
• Conflict among plants for resources.
• Actual hours/ costs hidden in framework agreements.
• Complexity of managing multiple contractors/ subcontractors.
• Inefficiency in job assignment(particularly as volume increases).
• Information missing to execute work safely or efficiently.
• External contractor expertise missed in work planning process.

Next Generation Maintenance

• Seamless process and system integration
  Multi-tier connectivity with your partners across the supply chain simplified with multi ERP support and API extensibility.
• Shared platform for work orders
  Centralized access to all maintenance information with continuous collaboration among asset ecosystem partners.
• Improved performance and safety
  Through more efficient, reliable, and safe task completion with field access to latest work instructions.

Maintenance Process & Engagement Model

Today

Tomorrow

The visibility, planning and logistics required to deliver to your service management needs requires collaboration and coordination of a complex network.

Current Capabilities of Collaborative Maintenance

Let’s take a look at the process of Collaborative Maintenance in detail.

Here are some highlights of each capability

Work Order Collaboration 

• • Sharing of Work Order has never been simpler

You have complete ownership and control on what you share, at what granularity and with whom.

• • Active Collaboration 

• • • With visibility on the the current status of work.
    • Feed Feature to have real time conversations with your partners about work details, proposals and queries.
    • Notification on the launchpad to inform you about any changes on the shared work.

• • Work order Collaboration Statuses – Rules

Rules have been introduced for collaboration statuses.

Confirmation Collaboration

• • Separate application to view confirmation across Work Order operation.
  • New Technical Confirmations can be created with all of the following details
    • Description
    • Status
    • Actuals with respect to time.
    • Documents
    • Pictures.

Follow- on Maintenance Demand

• • When creating a new notification from a Work Order, the count of number of existing notifications on the respective asset is displayed in the Existing Notifications field of the New Notification page. On clicking the number, the notification list is displayed.

Here is video showcasing Maintenance Collaboration with SAP Business Network

Imagine the power that businesses could achieve by securely leveraging data together with their partners. They can reduce the cost of asset maintenance by continuously monitoring and collaborating on the maintenance performance, improvements, and optimisation requests across the asset life cycle. Improve overall equipment effectiveness by ensuring that equipment maintenance tasks are executed on time and in the desired manner with better collaboration between asset owner and external contractors.

FAQ’s

• How do I decide whether this is a solution for me?

If you are looking for

• • A centralized access to all maintenance information with continuous collaboration among asset ecosystem partners (operators / OEMs/ Parts Suppliers/ External Contractors/ Sub-Contractors) without giving access to your ERP. It’s as simple as just sending a connection request to get the ball rolling.
  • Multi-tier connectivity with your partners across the supply chain simplified with multi ERP support and API extensibility.

This is the solution for you.

• How can I ensure the security of my data on the Network?

You have complete ownership and control of what you share, at what granularity and with whom. Every member on the network has complete transparency and visibility of their data.

• Could I use this capability even if I have not yet started my S4 transformation?

Yes, we support both ECC & S/4Hana. Here are the details about the supported versions.

• Do you support offline mobile capabilities?

No, based on current advancement in mobile technology and increased coverage we see the trend of connectivity just becoming better and better. Hence, we will only focus on online capabilities.

• What if I use 3rd Party solutions? Could I still connect to SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration?

Yes, you can connect using our extensive coverage of REST APIs. Here are the details.

• Where can I find out more details about SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration?

Here you will find all the relevant details.

• How can I get started?

Talk to SAP about SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration.

We hope you enjoy this new capability. Thanks for reading the blog post and Stay tuned!

For further questions and feedback related to the blog, please check the Q&A area and feel free to post your questions in the link with the tag SAP Business Network Asset Collaboration.

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