Equipment
Equipment and their related information form a core part of M3 Maintenance. They provide a central focus for costs, statistics, and maintenance information. In most organizations, it is the equipment details that engineers and operation personnel relate to. Equipment information can include component explosions, technical datasheets, documentation links, diagnostics, permits, and any amount of textual information. Equipment can be linked to service definitions, work requests, work orders, and history.
Structure
Within an organization, the term equipment normally describes the physical pieces of equipment. Any number of equipment levels may exist. A large assembly, such as a reactor, can form the main equipment. Beneath this, there can be sub-equipment such as the vessel, agitator, pipework valves, and so on. This structure can go on to define the individual pieces of equipment like a motor or a gearbox underneath the agitator. Although any number of equipment levels can exist, it is impractical if more than three or four levels are regularly defined.
In M3 Plant Maintenance, the equipment structure is displayed in the 'Model/Site. Browse' (MOS446). The full equipment structure can be exploded from this M3 component.
Costs and statistics are summarized for equipment records by the system. Therefore, each equipment level will provide a summary of all the sub-equipment below it.
Equipment records utilize a combination of the item and serial number components within M3 (although the normal user is not aware of this). This technique however, ensures that Plant Maintenance fully integrates into other M3 components.