“Busted” - The SAP EAM/PM Maintenance Myth

There are those that believe that SAP EAM/PM is a software application that does not provide satisfactory support for the maintenance and reliability work processes that exist within the plant environment. The recent survey of over 700 maintenance managers and reliability professionals conducted by Reliabilityweb.com dispels this belief entirely! In fact 66% of the respondents actually rated SAP EAM/PM as a good to excellent tool for the execution of maintenance activities.

The survey was conducted in a manner that permitted cross-linking of the satisfaction level with the software tool to specific components of the maintenance work process. What was learned was that software unto itself cannot deliver value. It needs to be coupled with maintenance work and support that process. To this end it was recognized that the companies that have successfully utilized SAP EAM/PM in the maintenance arena have included the following in their business strategy:

Alignment of the software with the internal work processes. In many cases this required customization which was achieved with the use of outside consultants in order to utilize their extensive experience.
All work orders and spare parts information were included in the system along with elimination of legacy tools that previously supported these processes.
Extensive training both during implementation and after deployment to enhance understanding and gain acceptance.
Increased understanding and utilization of reporting from within the SAP software vs. exporting data to third-party tools such as Excel.
Inclusion within the SAP EAM/PM process of other tools and applications that support the overall maintenance effort but provide deeper and more robust functionality in key business areas.