Service Order Control (SOC)

Various types of orders exist:

• Internal and external orders
• Scheduled and non-scheduled orders
• Inspections and customer visits
• Preventive and corrective work

These procedures are available to handle these orders in the service environment:

• External maintenance

  Preventive orders

• External calls

  Corrective orders

• Internal maintenance

  Preventive orders but no invoicing

• Internal calls

  Corrective orders but no invoicing

• Helpdesk

  Orders for telephone support by an expert

• Return material authorization (RMA)

  RMA procedure to ship items back to the warehouse

• Tool maintenance

  Preventive maintenance concerning tools

• Field change order (FCO)

  Orders to change a component in the installed base

• Other procedures

  Procedures, such as orders for training, and installing equipment

Based on these procedures, you can create user-definable service types. Their names can be tailored to the environment of the service and maintenance organization. Activities can belong to one of these service types. If planning constraints are met, activities can be grouped together in one service. Preventive Maintenance (PM) activities, (breakdown) calls, contractual visits, field change orders, and manually created orders with or without a quotation can be handled in this module.

The service engineers must carry out the service orders taking into account various types of constraints, such as the working hours of engineers, holidays, the availability of the item to serve, and so on. The required materials have to be planned, allocated, purchased, or manufactured. Warehousing handles the spare parts, which can be transferred into the engineer’s van. The service order must be controlled. As a result, several statuses can be distinguished (from Free to History). The costs spent, such as labor, material, travel costs, and so on, can be booked.

The invoice is made, depending on the contract and warranty terms valid for the maintained item. If an order is made from a quotation, invoicing can be based on the terms of the quotation.

The analysis data related to the item (for problem management) can be stored as a reported problem, an established problem, a proposed solution, or a solution. The proposed solution may result in an activity.

Based on the failure analysis, a component that fails too often can be recalled from the field. This process is supported by Field Change Order functionality. A selection can be made of all outstanding components using the item code. An order is made to control the FCO, the costs can be charged to the production or sales department by using separate ledger accounts.

The Graphical Planning Board is an external application for viewing the service order details and for planning of the service orders. A service engineer after completing a service order can update the status in Mobile Service, which will update the LN data. The data, such as purchases made to run the order, hours spent by the service engineer, materials used, and so on, can be entered in the by the engineer and the same will be updated in the LN database.