Building Operations / Preventive Maintenance / Maintenance Manager

Understanding the PM Work Order Generation Routine

Whether a work order is automatically generated according to work order rules or is manually generated with the Generate PM Work Orders task, the system does the following:

For each due equipment or location PM schedule that meets the specified criteria, the system generates a work request for each step of the PM procedure assigned to that schedule. (Recall, when defining your procedures you can choose to group all of the required tasks into one step which will generate one work request, or define a new step for each part of the procedure, which will generate multiple work requests.)
Uses the scheduling routine to determine when the work is next due and completes the Date to Perform field with this date. The system completes the Date to Perform field with the value of the Date of Next PM field of the PM schedule for which the work request was generated.
Copies much of the procedure and step data to the generated work request. For example, the procedure's account code and primary trade are copied to corresponding fields of the work request, and the step's instructions are written to the work request's Work Description field.
Determines the resources (trades, tool types, and parts) associated with each step of each PM procedure, and assigns these resources to the generated work requests.
Reserves parts required for the work request by decreasing the Quantity on Hand field of the Parts Inventory table and incrementing the Quantity on Reserve field.
Matches the work request to the appropriate SLA, which dictates the time to complete, time to respond, craftsperson assignment, and whether the parent work order should be auto-issued. Copies relevant data from the SLA to the work request.
Now that work requests are generated, the system generates work orders for handling the work requests, and assigns the generated work requests to the work orders. You control how the system groups the generated work requests onto work orders by setting the "Group PM Schedules By" option.
Presents the generated work orders and their assigned work requests in the View Generated Work Orders tab of the Generate PM Work Orders task.
Notifications. If indicated on the PM SLA by the Notify Supervisor and Notify Craftsperson check boxes, the system sends e-mails to the supervisor and craftsperson upon PM work request generation, and upon work request status changes thereafter.
- For auto-issued SLAs, the notification is sent to the supervisor and craftsperson upon work request generation
- For Non-auto-issued SLAs that do not have the Notify Craftsperson check box selected, the system sends an e-mail notification to the supervisor upon work request generation. When the supervisor schedules a craftsperson and then issues the request, the system sends a notification to the craftsperson.

Notes

If an open work order with a work request for executing a particular PM job on a specific date already exists, the system does not generate a new work order and work request for this work.
If a PM schedule is due on multiple dates within the specified date range, the program generates a work order for each date that the schedule is due, unless an open work order with a request for executing this same PM schedule on a particular date already exists.
When a generated work order includes more than one work request, the system copies information from the first work request to the work order.
SLAs are matched to work requests, but the system applies and enforces SLA escalation rules to the Work Order level. Therefore, if multiple work requests with various times to respond and complete are grouped into one work order, the system will apply escalation rules for the first Work Request in the group. It is recommended that all Work Requests that will be grouped onto one work order have the same service windows and times to respond and complete.
The system matches the work request to an SLA based on the SLA request parameters, such as procedure, equipment, or equipment standard. When it finds a match, it applies the response parameters defined for that SLA, such as craftsperson and time to complete, to the work request. It is possible that the work request's component procedures define a trade that differs from the trade of the craftsperson assigned to the work through the application of the SLA. Because the trade and craftsperson come from two different sources (the procedure and the SLA respectively), the trade requirement for the work request will not match the trade of the craftsperson actually assigned to do the work.
Note the following about craftsperson assignment for work requests derived from procedures with multiple steps. Suppose a procedure contains five steps, so that the system generates five work requests (one for each step). When the system matches a work request to an SLA, and the SLA contains a craftsperson assignment, the system assigns the craftsperson to only the first of these requests. The system generates a Work Request Labor Assignment record for this first request.

Performance

PM work order generation performance depends on a number of factors, including but not limited to the following:

the number of records, associations among records in tables: PM Schedules, PM Procedures, PM Procedures' Steps, PM Procedures' Parts, PM Procedures' Trades, PM Procedures' Tool Types
the date range for which generation is to occur
the grouping and filtering criteria applied, such as filtering by Site and grouping by Equipment Standard
the number and complexity of PM-related SLAs to which the work requests will attach
the computer hardware on which your application server(s) and database server(s) are running
CPU(s), RAM, network performance
other Web Central processes that are running concurrently
other users that are using the Web Server

Because of the flexibility that ARCHIBUS provides in defining, filtering, and grouping PM work, the resulting combination of variables that go into the PM work order generation process make it very difficult to predict the time it will take for the PM generation process to complete. Accuracy of the results is paramount. If there are issues with completion time, consider simplifying the process by:

reducing the data set going in: pick a smaller date range, reduce or consolidate procedure steps, and so on.
modifying the grouping and filtering options
running at a time when few other processes or network events occur