Task lists: the standard work

Preventive maintenance is corrective maintenance's opposite: the work is known in advance, so it can be written down once and reused. SAP's training describes the preventive process in five steps: a task list defines the work, a maintenance plan says when it is due, scheduling calls the work at the right time, the resulting maintenance order is processed like any other, and technical completion closes the call and feeds the next due date.

Three task list types

The first two are object-dependent: each belongs to one technical object. The general maintenance task list is object-independent and can serve many objects of the same kind, which is why it is the workhorse in plants with standard equipment. In the standard system, the three types are identified by type letters (E for equipment, T for functional location, A for general task lists). Task lists are organized in groups, and one group can hold several task lists, each with a group counter.

What goes in a task list

The header holds the maintenance planning plant, the planner group and, for strategy-based work, the maintenance strategy. Each operation holds a work center, the planned work, the spare parts (components) and any tools (production resources and tools). When a maintenance plan uses the task list, its operations and components are copied into every order the plan creates, so a mistake in the task list repeats in every order.

In a strategy-based task list, each operation is assigned one or more maintenance packages from the strategy, such as 1M, 3M or 12M. That is how one task list can carry work with different intervals. Only task lists with the same strategy as the maintenance plan can be assigned to it.

Task lists save planners time in corrective work too. When Rosa creates a repair order for a compressor, she can reference a task list instead of typing operations, and SAP copies the operations and components into the order. SAP's training highlights exactly this: orders and plans can reference a task list so operations do not have to be entered one by one. In Contoso's ECC system, many task lists were created years ago and never reviewed; the conversion carries them over unchanged, so Rosa's team reviews the ones attached to active plans before the first test cycle.

Walkthrough: a general task list for the line 1 compressors

1. Create the general maintenance task list with IA05 (group CMP-QTR, plant 1710, planner group D01, strategy for time-based packages).
2. Operation 0010 inspect and drain: work center MECH1710, 1.5 h, package 3M. Operation 0020 replace intake filter: 0.5 h, package 12M, component filter kit from 171S.
3. Check the operations in IA07 (list display) or the task list Fiori app, including package assignment.
4. Assign the task list to the maintenance item of each compressor plan; one change to the list now updates future calls for every compressor.
5. Test: schedule a plan and check that the first 3M call contains only operation 0010 and the 12M call contains both.