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5 Ways to Get Started with Total Productive Maintenance

Posted on October 20, 2022 by Matt Sickler

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) was developed in Japan more than 50 years ago as a method of physical asset management focused on maintaining and improving equipment used in manufacturing processes to reduce operating costs. TPM was subsequently expanded to incorporate lean manufacturing techniques.

Today, more and more plants are turning to TPM to complement innovative maintenance technologies and provide a means of structuring and improving proactive maintenance strategies. In this article, we will consider some of the benefits of TPM and explore 5 ways that your plant can get started with Total Productive Maintenance.

Continue reading “5 Ways to Get Started with Total Productive Maintenance”

Today’s Build vs Buy Software Decision Factors

Posted on October 4, 2022 by Matt Sickler

Digital transformation is becoming an imperative in today’s world. We can no longer sit back and allow large portions of our organizations to work like they have for the last 20+ years. The tight labor market, inflation, and supply chain shortages all point to the need to be as efficient and as adaptive as possible in every aspect of our business.

The right software approach is a key consideration in accelerating digital transformations. For modernizing all business processes, the build vs buy software decision needs to be re-evaluated in light of today’s technology and resource challenges. This article explores these considerations.

New Factors in Build vs. Buy Software Decisions

Successful digital transformations certainly involve far more than the choice of technologies. Changing processes and driving adoption of new digital workflows has proven to be some of the major obstacles to achieving results. The choice of software and software approaches can impact these factors. And in consideration of the change management process, Enterprise organizations have tended to pursue custom development to fit the specific needs of the organization. This situation is changing, and the choices today are not so black and white.

Generalizing, here’s some of the historical comparison points:

Traditional Factors in Build vs Buy Software Decisions

Consideration	Custom App Development	Read-made Software
Cost – upfront and on-going	In-house or outsourced developer’s	Software license fees plus customization costs to modify for unique processes
Time to deploy	Months to develop	“Off-the-shelf”, ready to implement
Integrations	Add your own choice of APIs	Select APIs
Security & bug fixes	Your resources	Vendor develops, you update
Flexibility to change	Yes	Limited customizations
Functionality	Generally, has fewer features and less specificity to the functional area	Generally, more fully featured, designed and vetted by 1,000’s of users from the functional area
Intuitive for users	Often less intuitive	Generally, more intuitive given history of use & feedback
User adoption	Falls to you to ensure the organization follows through with training and support to drive adoption	Vendor implementation services and training materials
Summary	IT resource intensive, long development cycle, custom software	Less IT resource intensive, shorter development cycle, less flexible to custom needs

This is certainly a generalization as many other factors come into play such as complexity of workflows, skills of in-house developers, types of integrations needed, on prem vs. cloud, etc. And these variables have a significant impact to identifying the overall cost comparison. And history tells us that it is best to not be too optimistic in development time and cost estimations. Project Management Institute (PMI) found that 43% of IT projects exceed their initial budgets, 49% are late, and 14% fail altogether.

Today’s Considerations

There are many factors playing into this decision today. A significant consideration is the lack of availability of skilled developers. IDC quantified that the shortage of full-time developers is currently 1.4 million people (2021) and that will rise to 4 million people in just 4 years. With limited IT staffing in-house and limited supply of IT development contractors, the build vs buy software decision may no longer be a choice. But there’s many additional factors at play:

1) Low-code/No-code Tools

The labor shortage and endless need for software to accelerate digital transformations across the enterprise is fueling the growth of low-code and no-code tools to facilitate development.

Low-Code Application Development Platform Market – The global low code application development platform market size is expected to reach USD 86.92 billion by 2027, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc (July 2022). The market is projected to register a CAGR of 22.7% during the forecast period.

These development tool sets can accelerate app development between 40 and 60% faster than traditional development.

2) Growing Requirement for Application Adaptability

Development can no longer be considered primarily “done” once initially completed. Beyond the normal software updates, security and bug fixes, software needs to support a new level of flexibility that businesses require. The pandemic and ensuing supply chain shortages and inflation all illustrate the need to be able to rapidly adapt to change.

According to Gartner’s CIO Agenda, The leadership, organizational, and technology priorities CIOs must address in 2022, “Use technology in ways that support key pieces of composable business. Composability is the ability to assemble app components in various combinations to satisfy specific requirements. It makes it possible for organizations to increase production and accelerate timelines for innovation in a highly customizable way.

To support composability, “Composable Technologies are systems and data that integrate quickly and easily. Highly composable organizations recognize that iterative delivery processes, collaborative workstyles, and integrated systems drive better results.”

3) New Level of Collaboration Within the Business

This level of adaptability requires a new way of working with the business on software projects to accelerate development and adoption of new digital work processes. Creating project teams where the functional staff can take a greater role in the “development” of their software addresses the IT resource challenges and enables greater ownership and adoption of the resulting software.

“Who knew that one day, ordinary citizens, who lack deep knowledge of technology and programming, would be able to create really efficient solutions for their daily processes in an objective and clear way – and better: without relying on IT specialists? That’s what Low-Code provides: simplified access to technology.”

Mario Trentim, Low-Code Tools: Simplifying Technology as the Secret to Digital Transformation, June 2022

4) Hybrid – Application + Low-code Platform

The build vs buy software decision is also getting blurred with today’s software development technologies. Today, you can find ready-made software applications with their own low-code or no-code platform to enable the composability needed in today’s environment.

“Over the past year, we have seen existing solutions start to really mature and continue to show traction. Vertically focused, no-code/low-code products have especially found great fit in the market.”

Karan Bhasin, 10 investors discuss the no-code and low-code landscape in Q1 2022, March 2022

When these investors were asked which no-code/low-code developed apps excited them the most, they responded with:

“We see big opportunities in internal tools that usually require a lot of third-party integrations.
Here, low-code platforms replace a lot of the mundane work of creating internal tools and applications.

Modern low-code tools may provide about 90% of the out-of-the-box functionally required for these
operations and about10% wiggle room for customization required by the specific use case.”

So, given this new combination, how do the trade-offs change between custom app development and ready-made software?

Today’s Factors in Build vs Buy Software Decisions

Consideration	Custom Development with Low-code Tools	SaaS Ready-made Software with Low-code Editor
Cost – upfront and on-going	In-house or outsourced developer’s – time savings with low-code tools	Software license fees (“customization” managed in-house – no developer/no customization costs)
Time to deploy	Months to develop (40-60% faster)	“Off-the-shelf”, ready to implement (any modifications are 40-60% faster)
Integrations	Add your own choice of APIs	Select APIs
Security & bug fixes	Your resources	Vendor develops and updates
Flexibility to change	Yes	Yes
Functionality	Generally, has fewer features and less specificity to the functional area	Generally, more fully featured, designed, and vetted specifically for the functional area
Intuitive for users	Often less intuitive	Generally, more intuitive given history of use & feedback
User adoption	Falls to you to ensure the organization follows through with training and support to drive adoption	Vendor implementation services and training materials
Summary	IT resource intensive, moderate development cycle, custom software	Less IT resource intensive, can be quickly modified and as flexible as a custom developed app

As highlighted in the table, both approaches become faster in implementation with no trade-off between the two approaches to meet adaptability requirements. In summary:

Today`s Build vs Buy Factors

Additional Considerations Today

“The average company has 254 SaaS applications but, on average, only 45% of a company’s SaaS apps are being used on a regular basis. Moreover, 56% of all these apps are shadow IT, or owned and managed outside of IT. And the crazy part is to think that goes on top of all the software packages and systems of records they already have to run the core of their business.”

The State of SaaS Sprawl in 2021

It is unsustainable to continue to have “SaaS Sprawl” in today’s world. For decision-making and efficiency, it is critical that applications are in active use and are well integrated with legacy and core systems, like SAP. Low-code development platforms whether standalone or within an application need to include the APIs and capabilities to be easily integrated into core systems.

The Best of Both Approaches for EAM Applications

Here at Sigga, we have fully embraced the need for applications to be flexible to be modified at any time. Our ready-made, mobile EAM software comes on a fully featured no-code platform. This robust, native mobile application is a result of continued development across 15 years of deployments with 70,000 users.

We are specialized in maintenance mobile apps and software for SAP EAM. As such, we have the only no-code platform with over 200 pre-built SAP PM services. This means, you can completely avoid the costs and delays of development with SAP integration specialists. In addition, our SAP integration technology is specially designed to deliver high performance with a high volume of data and mobile users.

We are an SAP-certified global software company with 20 years of experience in helping large global companies optimize SAP with our innovative solutions and attentive support. We invest hundreds of thousands of hours annually in research & development to ensure the highest quality user experiences, ease of implementation, and security of our EAM software. As a result, some of the world’s largest companies across over 14 industries trust Sigga to improve the efficiency of their SAP-based operations.

See how Sigga EAM Empower can deliver on your digital transformation goals in operations.

AI Applications for Condition-based Monitoring for EAM

Posted on September 14, 2022 by Matt Sickler

You may have heard about the automation capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and about the considerable benefits of condition-based monitoring (CBM). Bringing these concepts together holds the promise of further automation in manufacturing and maintenance. Today, we’ll touch on the basics of CBM and AI then speak to the critical steps you can take to be ready for the future of enterprise asset management.

Condition-based Monitoring and AI Applications

Unpredictable equipment and asset failure make up 75% of the causation factors that lead to downtime and considerable financial losses. To mitigate the effects of equipment-related downtime, CBM frameworks – an Industry 4.0 business model – were developed. CBM frameworks involve the use of IIoT sensors, edge devices, and smart machines to monitor the real-time performance of production equipment to detect and automatically trigger an alert if a measure is out of normal range. Of course, the goal is to avert a breakdown event through a maintenance intervention.

AI applications such as machine learning (ML) bring greater efficiency to the analysis of the condition measurements in order to provide further advanced warning of an impending issue. Successful implementation of CBM strategies requires the deployment of both data collection and analytical tools to gain insight into equipment performance.

Types of Asset Condition Monitoring

Condition monitoring can be as simple as conducting inspection rounds to take and record measurement readings from pressure sensors, oil levels, temperature gauges, and more. CBM utilizes IIoT devices to take this a step further by replacing the human actions to inspect, capture and evaluate measures against pre-set parameters and trigger the alert. Here’s some common types and uses of asset condition monitoring:

Measurement	Issues Detected	Typical Assets
Vibration	Detect mechanical faults such as imbalance, misalignment, looseness, and bearing failure	Assets with rotating parts such as centrifugal pumps, motors, compressors
Temperature	From simple temperature readings to infrared thermography to catch temperature irregularities which can be caused by a part misalignment or belt issue	>Motors, bearings, gear boxes
Oil level & condition	Testing lubricants & other fluids for level, chemical properties, contamination, viscosity, and foreign particles indicating degradation of the machine surface (ie. iron, silicon, aluminum silicate)	Compressors, gear boxes, transportation vehicles
Sound	Ultrasound testing for a change in the normal operating parameters as the source of the issue can vary widely. It could be anything from leaking gases, under/over lubrication, to improperly seated parts	A wide range of equipment including equipment that has high-pressure fluids
Electrical	Evaluating changes in the electrical parameters including induction, pulse and frequency response, capacitance and resistance.	Motors & other electrical systems

Other asset condition monitoring techniques include electromagnetic, radiation, laser interferometry, motor circuit analysis and more. What’s key in asset condition monitoring is to be deliberate in your choice of assets, what is most important to measure, and how to measure for cost effective results.

Advantages of Condition Monitoring

CBM coordinates maintenance activities based on the asset condition as compared to regularly scheduled preventive maintenance tasks. It also reduces the potential of sudden breakdown. Both of these impacts result in greater efficiency and more cost-effective maintenance practices. In addition:

Improves asset reliability and availability for improved production efficiency
Increases asset performance and longevity
Reduces unplanned downtime

The degree of benefit is driven by the degree of planning, training, and use of technology to assist in the data collection and analysis.

AI in Condition-based Monitoring and Maintenance

Industry 4.0 and 5.0 technologies and data analysis capabilities make CBM truly predictive. That is, you can gain 60 or 90 days advanced warning of a condition changing and even identification of the underlying malfunction. This type of analysis requires a lot of data from a number of measurement systems to be fed to a central database where artificial intelligence is used to analyze the trends. The database structure in SAP S/4HANA has been specifically designed for this purpose.

“S/4HANA provides tools to help companies move from scheduled to predictive maintenance
for more efficient equipment uptime and lower service costs.”

Jim O’Donnell, TechTarget, SAP wants to own intelligent enterprise, but firms have options, >June, 2021

The application of ML brings another level of efficiency. Instead of determining and setting the parameters for each measurement manually, now the models can be generated automatically providing significant time savings for your engineers and technicians.

Additional impacts include:

“The incidence rate of both false alarms (false positives) and missing alarms (false negatives) have been found to be reduced by over 90%. This reduces human engineering efforts in diagnosing machine faults by over 60%, reduces maintenance budgets and improves machine availability by about 10%.”

Dr. Patrick Bangert, algorithmica technologies GmbH, Smart Condition Monitoring Using Machine Learning

Although there are great efficiency advantages of AI and ML for CBM, it can take time to collect the data needed for analysis. Get started with the right foundation.

Getting Started with Condition-based Monitoring Strategies

>1) Structure and Centralize Data Collection

AI, when used correctly to make good decisions quickly, requires that the data is available and accurate. If you have messy master data due to inefficient business processes, then you can’t utilize the data to drive process improvements.

Eliminating any paper based processes by deploying a modern software interface to SAP should be a first step. These systems can help streamline your core maintenance process steps and remove unnecessary work, like manually entering data into SAP, while structuring the data inputs into SAP. As we noted earlier, if you use or will be transitioning to SAP S4/HANA, it is specifically designed to deploy AI and ML for maintenance operations.

2) Capture Current Sensor Data

Your modern-day equipment likely includes a wide range of sensors that can be programmed to feed the central database. Even before you invest in additional IIoT devices, you can already be using the data available to analyze to set triggers for alerts or to determine where you need to invest in additional monitoring capability.

3) Determine Asset Criticality

Prioritize where to invest by reviewing your maintenance history to uncover:

Which critical assets are your “bad actors”? For high ROI, start with your biggest offenders.
Which assets have features that can be monitored? Not all failures are measurable.
Which assets will benefit most from condition-based monitoring techniques? The failure types have measurable degradation that can be recognized early enough to do something to avoid the complete failure event.

4) Practice Reliability Centered Maintenance

Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) takes the approach of identifying the conditions that could potentially result in downtime and then prioritizing failure modalities from a maintenance cost standpoint. With this data, operations can decide what specific actions provide the best return on maintenance spend to prevent those failure modalities from manifesting themselves. As a result of RCM analysis, you will find that certain assets are critical for investment in measuring technologies and using AI, while others should be managed as “run-to-failure” due to the low cost to replace as compared to the cost of applying predictive measures.

5) End-to-end Digital Processes

Responding to CBM alerts requires real-time communication and coordination of the workforce. For maintenance operations, this means replacing paper work orders and notification processes with a mobile device with an interface to SAP. Initially condition monitoring activities will result in a little advanced notice of an impending issue. In these cases, real-time notification is critical to avoid the downtime event. Overtime, with AI and ML results, you can apply true predictive maintenance strategies and see greater forewarning of an issue starting to occur.

Let Us Help You Get Started

Here at Sigga, we have been helping asset-intensive industries with SAP Plant Maintenance drive digital transformation and mobile initiatives in industrial maintenance for 20 years. Our SAP Certified EAM software solutions can help you improve the capture, structure, and quality of the data needed to build condition-based monitoring strategies.

Our EAM Empower mobile EAM application digitizes the entire maintenance process connecting users across your business real-time. It helps your technicians accurately capture and structure the data you’ll need in SAP to determine asset criticality for condition-based monitoring investments.

Sigga Planning & Scheduling provides the management tools for the effective deployment of preventive and predictive maintenance strategies. Together these solutions form an effective foundation for real-time coordination of maintenance activities as a result of your condition-based monitoring investments.

Learn how you can take your preventive maintenance program to the next level!

CIO Priorities for Enterprise Asset Management in 2022

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Matt Sickler

These are unprecedented times with runaway inflation, supply chain issues, labor shortage, and continued impacts from the global pandemic. As a business leader, you need to accelerate the changes that are going to make your company more competitive and resilient in a world of constant change. You have been on the path to digitize your business as one clear strategy to help meet these needs. Yet progress has likely been slow-to-date – especially for internal teams like your maintenance operations. It’s time to take a new approach.

In today’s article, we are going to highlight how to drive the digital transformation in SAP-based operations to support a more lean and agile organization while minimizing the resource impact to your IT department.

Digitization in Enterprise Asset Management

“The “new normal” is disruption. Organizations that lean into this reality and leverage their innovation capacity, technology and reach will not only survive, but grow as a result.”

Monika Sinha, VP Analyst, Gartner

In every facet of your business, you are having to constantly adjust to change driven by the pandemic, supply chain shortages, labor shortage and now unprecedented growing inflation. Technology is a key enabler of dealing with change, but with tight IT resources it is harder than ever to both accelerate and scale technology adoption across your business.

According to McKinsey in the report: Navigating inflation: A new playbook for CEOs, a key concern for CEO’s is “What is the fastest way to stabilize, and redesign stretched and, in some cases, broken supply chains? What capabilities will I need to increase my company’s resilience and control costs?… The good news is that digitalization will likely play an important role in answering these questions, and digital efforts often pay back their costs in 12 months.”

In other words, digital readiness is key for every facet of the organization including your operations teams.

The Imperatives for CIOs

Times are different, but the story is the same, digitization across your business will increase collaboration, efficiency, and capture the real-time data needed to increase resilience and control costs. According to Gartner’s CIO Agenda, The leadership, organizational, and technology priorities CIOs must address in 2022, “Use technology in ways that support key pieces of composable business. Composable Technologies are systems and data that integrate quickly and easily. Highly composable organizations recognize that iterative delivery processes, collaborative workstyles, and integrated systems drive better results.”

The CIO challenge is to put in place the technology infrastructure to enable this rapid composing of new products, new production methods, and new ways of collaboration to execute changes quickly and efficiently to stay competitive. This means that IT needs to accelerate digital initiatives, overcome historical roadblocks to progress, and do so with fewer IT resources.

How? Here’s a few strategies that are proving successful in today’s environment:

1) Democratize IT

The concept is simple, share the workload. How? Low-code and no-code tools are increasing efficiency for IT and the organization as a whole. Anyone in the business can collaborate with IT to digitize processes and collaborate to create better results.

Mario Trentim, Low-Code Tools: Simplifying Technology as the Secret to Digital Transformation>, June 2022

These low-code and no-code tools are becoming increasingly available as standalone development platforms and as part of ready-made solutions. There’s many ways to start incorporating these tools sets into your development processes.

2) Start Small and Iterate

Tackle projects in an iterative approach. Agile software development methodologies have been around for a while. Now, with low-code and no-code platforms, this approach can overcome the roadblocks of past digital transformation initiatives.

“An agile transformation calls for small, specialized teams that rapidly develop experimental product iterations. Leaders establish a culture that trusts workers to experiment with creative solutions, giving them the freedom to “fail fast” and recalibrate by learning the lessons of these failures. …The value of this agile approach includes boosted workforce engagement, focused training and skill development, creative problem solving, and the ability to scale up quickly.”

McKinsey, Lighthouses reveal a playbook for responsible industry transformation>, March 2022

Besides enabling an iterative approach to each initiative, the agile approach set-ups the organization as a whole to be responsive to changes at any time.

3) Ensure Digital Readiness Across the Organization

Since digitization, collaboration, and real-time data are important for creating an organization that is adaptable and resilient to change, it is important that every group within your organization has at least achieved a baseline of replacing paper-based processes with a digital solution.

McKinsey found that the leading manufacturers were realizing significant value from Industry 4.0 technologies, but many were stuck in pilot purgatory. In their article, Capturing the True Value of Industry 4.0, April 2022, McKinsey identified several bundles of use cases that were key to success. Digital and mobile platforms for the front line workers was one bundle that was identified as a key enabler of the Industry 4.0 roadmap for business impact.

And as you know, digital transformation is more than deploying technologies, it is changing how people work, standardizing processes, and building employee skills and comfort with the use of technology. This is why digital readiness is key for every employee in the organization from the production manager to the maintenance technician.

4) Balance Investments Across Digital Initiatives

Investments in technology can get ahead of where your organization is ready to embrace. New Industry 4.0 and 5.0 technologies seem to come into play almost every week. To take advantage of this technology revolution, it is important to balance and pace the investments for better return on your investment. Many Industry 4.0 technologies hold the promise of incredible savings, but only if they can be utilized.

“Formalize the value at stake. In each assessed site, describe the actual value at stake by linking the most applicable Industry 4.0 solutions or use cases with current digital readiness, data availability, and IT/OT architecture.

McKinsey, Industry 4.0: Digital transformation in manufacturing, April 2022

If a pressure sensor indicates an impending issue, how long does it take your organization to recognize the issue, create a notification, approve, and turn it into a work order, and then dispatch it to a technician for repair? Hours? Days? Weeks? How many people had to be involved? What’s the value of Industry 4.0 technologies, like sensors with real-time information, if your processes are not digitized end-to-end to be able to act in real-time?

Industry 4.0 Opportunities with the Transition to SAP S/4HANA

With the move to SAP S/4HANA, many Industry 4.0 and 5.0 use cases will become enabled using the platform’s analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning capabilities, and databases.

“For productivity, S/4HANA includes robotic process automation tech so rote tasks can be automated, providing employees more time for higher value work for asset utilization, S/4HANA provides tools to help companies move from scheduled to predictive maintenance for more efficient equipment uptime and lower service costs for strategy, the modern ERP system includes real-time analytics features to enable data-driven decision-making.”

Jim O’Donnell, TechTarget, June, 2021

If your technicians are working with paper-based work orders which then require data entry of work status back into SAP, you won’t be able to take advantage of the power of the real-time information that SAP S/4HANA offers. This is just one of many examples for preparing maintenance operations for migrating SAP ECC to S/4HANA.

Digital Readiness for Maintenance Operations Made Easy

Here at Sigga, we have been helping asset-intensive industries mobilize maintenance operations for 20 years with a focus on SAP Enterprise Asset Management. Our software and mobile apps have been proven in use by over 70,000 technicians and are fully SAP-certified.

We understand what it takes to drive technology adoption in operations and preserve IT resources and budgets in the process. For example, our mobile EAM cloud SaaS solution comes on a no-code platform with no-code SAP integration. And, with our expertise in maintenance, we can actively drive a collaborative agile implementation and support adoption and scale across global sites.

Our Sigga EAM Empower mobile EAM application eliminates paper-based processes and digitizes the entire maintenance process connecting front-end technicians to SAP in real-time. As an outcome of implementation, the solution improves the capture, structure, and quality of your data as a baseline for taking advantage of many Industry 4.0 and SAP S4/HANA technologies.

Our integrated Planning & Scheduling desktop software provides an intuitive SAP UI5 Interface to SAP PM. This solution provides automation to drive annual budgeting, planning and regular scheduling of work orders. With the mass update feature, the solution improves data capture, structure, and data quality in SAP.

With our EAM products for SAP, your company can easily establish digital readiness within the maintenance organization. Let us help you make sure your data and processes are optimized so your maintenance operations are fully ready to take advantage of the speed, data analysis, and real-time information with current and future Industry 4.0 technologies.

Read More About Sigga and our EAM Solutions for Maintenance Operations

Cloud SaaS – The Agile Edge to SAP EAM

Posted on May 24, 2022 by Matt Sickler

The transition from SAP’s conventional ERP solution to S/4 HANA brings diverse positive changes to the table including improved performance, better security, and embraces third-party cloud-based SaaS applications. SAP fully recognizes the value of third-party solutions to deliver a superior user experience. When these solutions come on a cloud SaaS platform, the result is improved agility and tailored experiences replacing the customizations that in the past hampered the evolution of the SAP core.

This article will discuss these opportunities and more with utilizing cloud-based SaaS applications to simplify use and extend the capabilities of SAP EAM.

The New Relationship of SAP with Cloud SaaS Applications

SAP S/4 HANA leverages SAP’s in-memory computing technology, SAP HANA, to empower organizations with more powerful tools to manage data and to drive data analytics. This focussed role for SAP S4/HANA can be traced to a few crucial causation factors – the widespread implementation of digital transformation initiatives, the move to industry 4.0, and the growing need to increase agility and adapt to rapidly changing conditions. And what roles do these factors play?

Although 70% of enterprises may have adopted digitized data-capturing and aggregation processes such as an ERP like SAP, true digital transformation strategies are designed to achieve much more. The goal of the transformation process involves streamlining the ability to gain data-driven insights, automate repetitive tasks, enable front end-users with mobile devices, and to simplify decision-making. This leads to the next crucial factor in the equation.

The fourth industrial revolution is expected to leverage data-driven analytics to automate front-end operational processes and facilitate the application of organizational strategies such as predictive maintenance. Although SAP simplifies the collection of data, prior to SAP S4/HANA the ERP did not provide a user-friendly interface nor seamless support for third-party applications.

Keeping data in silos defeats the analytics capabilities of an enterprise-wide information system. So, SAP’s strategy is to provide seamless support for cloud-based third-party applications allowing your organization to implement industry 4.0 business models and robust end-to-end digital transformation strategies supported by the power of the SAP backend.

Lastly, due to the growth in cloud SaaS applications, SAP saw the opportunity to solve issues they had with customizations. That is, they could push any customizations customers desired to the application layer of the technology stack freeing the core SAP system to operate faster, manage more data, and provide real-time, cross-business insights.

The Evolution of SAP and Third-Party solutions

SAP’s older ERPs such as ECC provided multiple challenging scenarios for organizations using these solutions to capture data and manage operational workflows. Conducting ECC version upgrades, software integrations, and customizing the ERP required extensive technical know-how. Every upgrade and customization project needed extensive recalibration to ensure legacy codes and existing functionalities functioned as expected within the system. Hence, customization projects required professionals with extensive expertise in the interdependencies within the ERP.

As a result, utilizing third-party applications within traditional SAP ecosystems was a difficult proposition. The integration process required an extensive impact assessment before deploying. The assessment process generally involved evaluating the possibility of interface compatibility issues and data fidelity making the integration of third-party applications a complex, time-consuming, and expensive activity.

According to SAP, “SAP recognizes the need to complement its applications with best-in-class cloud SaaS solutions for the most critical lines of business”. Hence, with S/4 HANA, SAP provided opportunities for third-party cloud SaaS providers to develop intelligent and intuitive applications to deliver real-time connected end-user experiences including the use of mobile devices. As a consequence, SAP vastly improved the integration process.

With S/4 HANA, SAP turned their focus to their core business functions while embracing the agility Cloud SaaS solutions could provide. This arrangement ensures S/4 HANA continues to serve as a powerful in-memory computing resource for large data sets leaving Cloud SaaS applications to drive its front-end user experiences for the management of diverse workflows.

Agility Through Cloud SaaS Applications

In addition to recognizing the value of enabling a wide network of cloud SaaS solutions for a breadth of user experiences, SAP is taking advantage of the agility of cloud SaaS solutions. That is, the ability for these solutions to handle the customizations that were once done in the past within the core ERP system itself.

“A modern approach to customization is one that offers a high degree of flexibility while maintaining the integrity of the core. Developing customizations on a development platform that is tightly linked to the core application capabilities yields the same benefits as customizations yet does not disturb the integrity of the core so necessary to ensure continuous innovations get delivered at the pace of business. All new modern SaaS based applications follow this approach. This extensions and platform-based approach to customization enables companies to provide an “agile edge” without disrupting the core. Companies can continue to add new capabilities that reflect their uniqueness in the marketplace without having to customize their core ERP code and lower ensuing risks and costs. A win-win in all regards!” SAP Blog

For companies who have migrated to SAP S/4HANA, you probably already have realized the limitations of the SAP system to encompass your customizations from the prior version. As such, you are likely dealing with the vanilla workflows. If you are in this situation, or migrating to SAP S4/Hana, it is important to consider third-party cloud SaaS applications now that can address your unique needs.

Leveraging Cloud SaaS Solutions to Optimize SAP EAM

Enterprises utilizing SAP S/4 HANA to optimize business processes and cross ERP data insights can take advantage of Cloud SaaS EAM solutions to collect the data to fuel the built-in intelligent technologies such as AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics.

Although SAP now offers an S/4 HANA Manufacturing suite, its solution focuses on capturing IoT data and facilitating collaboration leaving many opportunities for further digitization of workflows and providing better front end-user experiences within operations. For example, a Cloud SaaS application built for user experiences to conduct asset maintenance or developing optimized schedules can utilize and update the SAP core database while delivering superior end-user experiences with real-time access to the SAP data.

The real-time visibility Cloud SaaS solutions provide means workers are more efficient with their available work hours. Workers have crucial information at their fingertips and decision-makers can track operational KPIs in real-time. Other important benefits of utilizing third-party cloud SaaS applications include:

Leveraging the expertise of SaaS solution companies providing solutions for your functional area
Taking advantage of the specialization required for delivering intuitive mobile user experiences
Leveraging the fact that Cloud SaaS vendors handle security upgrades and continuous app improvements

Choosing a Cloud SaaS Application for EAM

Third-party solutions empower enterprises to take advantage of the opportunities SAP S/4 HANA brings to the table and this starts with choosing the right vendors. Here’s a few questions to ask when choosing a vendor:

Does the solutions provider have industry-specific expertise that relates to your use cases?
What is the vendor’s application track record within your industry?
Are the vendor’s solutions SAP-certified for SAP S/4HANA?
Are the mobile solutions intuitive native apps and provide full online and offline use?
How easy is it to customize the application to your work processes?

Sigga Cloud SaaS Solutions for SAP

At Sigga, we have been working with SAP for the last 20 years. We were one of the first SAP partners to have a product running on the Sybase Unwired Platform, the first partner to perform an SAP Customer Qualification Process, and we become a benchmark SAP ICC partner when it comes to integrating solutions to SAP.

Even today, we continue to be tuned on SAP’s strategies, products, and roadmap, which helps us to certify to each new platform, like SAP S4/HANA, and assist customers in taking advantage of the capabilities of each generation of SAP.

Our latest innovation for SAP is our Sigga EAM Empower mobile app, which is a cloud-based SaaS application. The solution comes on a no-code platform to simplify the process of modifying the app to your unique maintenance requirements without the need for customizations. No need for high-cost professional developers to create your workflows. In addition, we have a no-code SAP integration solution furthering the time and cost benefits. With the technical barriers resolved, you can quickly put our mobile solution in the hands of your technicians and see the power of real-time access and improved data quality in SAP.

See the agility of a cloud SaaS mobile EAM!

8 Tips for Effective Preventive Maintenance Checklists

Posted on April 5, 2022 by Matt Sickler

A checklist can help ensure any task, no matter how simple or complicated, is completed properly. From shopping lists to preventive maintenance procedures, checklists document the items needed to be completed and serve as a guide for the person completing the task.

This article will explain the benefits of creating preventive maintenance checklists and provide eight tips to make sure they are effective.

Why are Preventive Maintenance Checklists Important?

Without a preventive maintenance checklist, technicians must rely on equipment manuals which can be bulky, hard to read and even hard to find. Preventive maintenance checklists standardize the process, so the same steps are taken no matter who is completing the task. Preventive maintenance checklists also increase productivity and safety, while allowing for faster troubleshooting and better planning.

Preventive maintenance checklists can also help companies meet safety and compliance requirements. In industries that are evaluated by regulators, like food production, maintenance checklists can be used to provide a record of completed inspections to auditors.

Most importantly, preventive maintenance checklists help avoid unplanned industrial maintenance. Unplanned maintenance requires technicians to spend more time on the repair due to the need to diagnose the problem, as well as obtain parts and repair instructions. It can also lead to more overtime costs. Indirect impacts include unplanned production downtime, late orders, and customer satisfaction issues.

Tip 1: Organize Resource Materials

Before getting started actually creating preventive maintenance checklists, it’s key to get organized. The first step is to determine which assets actually need checklists. If you have a small number of assets this might not be necessary but can be very useful if dealing with a large number of assets.

Next, collect the operating manuals and equipment documentation for the selected assets. Make sure you also have the latest safety and compliance requirements handy. Lastly, be sure to check past asset performance. Being aware of equipment that fails often can help you outline additional maintenance that may be needed in addition to what the equipment manufacturer recommends.

Tip 2: Choose the Proper Type of Checklist for Each Asset

Once you are organized, you’ll need to decide what type of checklist to create for each asset. Two common types of preventive maintenance checklists are pass/fail and step-by-step. Let’s look at the uses for and examples of each.

Pass/fail Checklists

Simple pass/fail checklists are often used for equipment inspections where technicians are looking for early signs of trouble. Pass/fail checklists can be used to monitor ideal equipment conditions, such as temperature, water pressure, or oil level on a regular basis. For example, a pass/fail checklist could direct technicians to check the oil to ensure it is at an acceptable level. If the oil level is satisfactory, the equipment passes. If not, it fails. In this case, a condition fail could trigger a notification to add more oil to the machine. In other cases, a condition fails, like increased temperature, could be indicative of an impending failure.

Example Pass/Fail Checklist:

Component	Yes	No	N/A	Defect
Electric Lift
Does it turn on/off?
Is there abnormal noise?
Does it go up and down?
Emergency release: Does it work?
Hand control: Do all the buttons work? Are the electrical wires frayed?
Bolts on lift. Are they fastened tightly?
Weld sites. Are there any cracks?

Step-by-Step

On the other hand, step-by-step checklists are often used for tasks that are more involved than just monitoring equipment conditions. Step-by-step checklists should be used for more complex preventive maintenance procedures like changing belts, motors, or other parts of the equipment. The step-by-step checklist details the instructions for completing each step of the task from start to finish. Step-by-step checklists ensure that the same process is followed by each technician and all important steps are completed.

Example Step by Step Checklist:

	Component	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Evaporative Condenser
1	Check condition of drive B-belts. Replace if necessary.
2	Check operation of low water float.
3	Check operation of condenser pan water heater and thermostat.
4	Check ball valve for correct operation, lubricate arm and set for correct water level.
5	Check and lubricate fan shaft bearings and locking collars.
6	Check operation of fan motor. Grease adjusting screw.
7	Check/adjust condenser drives if necessary.

Tip 3: Select the Recommended Frequency for Each Checklist

Not all checklists will need to be completed with the same frequency, so you should decide how often each checklist should be utilized.

Daily preventive maintenance checklists are often used for inspections like checking the temperature on a machine or conducting safety checks between shifts.
Weekly checklists are often used for inspections that don’t need to be completed as frequently as a daily inspection. They may also include a task related to a daily checklist. For example, a daily task may be to check the water level in a machine, the weekly task might be to add water.
Monthly preventive maintenance checklists likely include even more tasks related to the weekly and daily checklists, like emptying and replacing the water in a machine.
Quarterly checklists are often related to inspections by third parties to make sure equipment is meeting safety or industry standards.
Seasonal preventive maintenance checklists are often related to changes needed for different weather conditions, like winterizing equipment or switching the HVAC systems from cooling to heating.
Annual checklists are usually comprised of more complex tasks such as disassembling a machine to make sure all internal components are functioning properly.

Tip 4: Ensure Checklists are Clear and Succinct

Preventive maintenance checklists need to be carefully crafted to provide clear instructions that even a new technician can follow. Assuming the technician knows what do to and providing too little information can prevent the task from being completed properly. On the flip side, too much information may be overwhelming, cause confusion, and slow down the maintenance process.

Preventive maintenance checklists should include all the essential details needed to complete the task but be written as succinctly as possible. Break down long descriptions or processes into multiple, shorter steps. Make sure each step describes an actionable item or remove it from the checklist. After drafting the checklist, review it to ensure all steps are in the proper order.

Tip 5: Ensure Checklists Include All Needed Information

Not only should checklists be written clearly in steps that are easy to understand, but they also need to include all the information a technician will need to complete the job. Preventivemaintenance should include a comprehensive list of tools and parts needed to complete the work.

Remember to include any important safety information such as personal protective equipment (PPE) required and lockout, tag out (LOTO) instructions to ensure the machine cannot be started while maintenance is in process.

Preventive maintenance checklists should also contain the approximate time each task will take, as well as the total time for completing the work. Be sure to include visual aids like photos, videos, and diagrams if appropriate.

Tip 6: Get Input from Several Perspectives

Once you have completed your preventive maintenance checklists, you should seek input from other parties to ensure the lists are understandable and include all necessary steps. Checklists should be reviewed by maintenance planners, maintenance operations, and senior technicians to identify any gaps. Be sure to also consult with production operations, as in many cases, they are the people actually doing the inspections or maintenance procedures from the checklists.

Tip 7: Review Checklists Regularly

After checklists have been finalized, it’s important to review them regularly to make sure they are achieving the goal of detecting problems. Make sure checklists aren’t missing any key steps that could potentially identify an issue. Likewise, ensure that checklists don’t include directions to perform activities that have no impact on identifying or preventing problems. If an asset breaks down immediately after being serviced, the checklist should be reviewed to ensure all necessary maintenance steps were included and that nothing else could have been done to prevent the failure.

Tip 8: Use Software Tools to Make the Job Easier

Utilizing software tools to create preventive maintenance checklists makes the job easier and more efficient. These tools, which can integrate with your SAP Plant Maintenance system can further automate preventive maintenance routines.

Providing a mobile application for technicians and inspectors can improve the access and use of the checklists, plus record results which is especially important to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations. Mobile preventive maintenance checklists can be created and require confirmation of the completion of each step before confirming the completion of the checklist. The details are then stored in SAP for compliance reporting.

Lastly, mobile maintenance apps support the collection and analysis of data on failures to support the continued improvement of preventive maintenance checklists.

Inspection Compliance at a Global Food & Beverage CompanyA Sigga customer required inspections that could include over 100 operations per each piece of equipment. When we first met with the company, they were managing the process on paper with hours spent every week to update each operation individually in SAP with an “ok” or “not ok”. The data entry process often took longer than the inspection itself!

We helped the company implement a mobile maintenance solution and create checklists that could be completed by the inspector and updated in mass to SAP completely cutting out the manual data entry process. For “not ok” operations, a new notification was automatically created in SAP copying the inspection order and text entered by the technician detailing the problem. This process was a quick “customization” to Sigga’s EAM Empower app utilizing our unique no-code software platform.

As you might imagine, the time savings for the organization are significant. In addition, they were able to improve their compliance reporting.

Benefits of Effective Preventive Maintenance Checklists

Effective preventive maintenance checklists allow you to utilize data to turn your maintenance processes from slow and error-prone to efficient and proactive. Checklists can help you fine-tune and improve maintenance schedules, as well as help you make changes quickly if an emergency occurs.

Preventive maintenance checklists can also help you improve maintenance effectiveness ratios and the bottom line. In a presentation entitled “The New Approach to Plant Maintenance,” ABB Reliability Services suggested that one hour of properly performed planned maintenance avoids three hours of repair work. Other industry experts estimate that unplanned maintenance can cost 3X to 9X more than planned maintenance.

Let Us Improve Your Preventive Maintenance Checklist Processes

Our EAM-Empower mobile EAM application digitizes the entire maintenance process connecting users across your business in real-time. It helps your technicians accurately capture the data you’ll need to create effective preventive maintenance checklists.

Using the mobile interface to SAP, technicians can capture inspection results in real-time. In workplaces without connectivity, technicians and inspectors have full access to all the information they need to complete a checklist while offline. The app then automatically syncs when they are back online without user disruption.

Plus, with our no-code platform, you can easily modify the app to meet your unique maintenance and inspection requirements.

Preparing Maintenance Operations for Migrating SAP ECC to S/4HANA

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Matt Sickler

With a 2027 deadline looming, companies are making plans to migrate SAP ECC to S/4HANA – the biggest update to SAP’s ERP platform in over two decades. SAP S/4HANA removes the separation between operational and analytical systems and allows business users to access operational data in real-time. In addition, SAP S/4HANA offers simplified functionality which results in lower IT and maintenance costs, a higher reaction speed and user efficiency.

So, should you sit back and wait for IT to finish the migration, right? Then, you can update and optimize your maintenance operations processes to take advantage of the power of SAP S/HANA?

Wrong. Migrating to SAP S/4 HANA is not just an IT migration challenge. It’s a whole business challenge. And you can help by preparing your EAM processes for the transition now. Read on to understand the benefits to you and your IT team.

Continue reading “Preparing Maintenance Operations for Migrating SAP ECC to S/4HANA”

A Mobile App for SAP Plant Maintenance That Adapts to You

Posted on February 28, 2022 by Matt Sickler

Industrial maintenance teams work in increasingly complex and dynamic environments. Moreover, budget pressures mean continually working to do more with less. Investing in the right mobile maintenance technologies can help overcome these challenges by improving productivity and communication for greater responsiveness and cost savings.

But deploying a mobile app for SAP plant maintenance is not enough, you need the flexibility to continually automate more of your routines and adapt quickly to changing requirements over time.

In today’s article, we speak to the benefits of deploying a mobile maintenance app on a no-code platform to gain the flexibility to own your workflows and modify the app at any time. Let us show you how you can improve productivity today, and future-proof your operations for whatever comes next.

Continue reading “A Mobile App for SAP Plant Maintenance That Adapts to You”

New Tech Brings New Flexibility in Mobile Maintenance Apps

Posted on February 15, 2022 by Matt Sickler

Are you stuck in a queue with IT delaying the start of your digitization projects?

Do you ever wish you could tweak your apps yourself to fit your needs?

Do you want to avoid customization time and costs?

Are you afraid to commit to a software app that might be obsolete in three years?

If you said YES to any of these, continue reading to learn why technology advancements in software platforms should be part of your considerations when evaluating a mobile maintenance app for SAP PM. Continue reading “New Tech Brings New Flexibility in Mobile Maintenance Apps”

New Digitization Approaches for Strategic Maintenance Management

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Matt Sickler

The efficiency driven by end-to-end digital workflows is imperative for success in today’s tight labor market. The technology is mature and the methods to implement have evolved to overcome the historical challenges to embark on the change, such as

Limited budget and staffing – both in operations and IT
Poor quality master data
Disparate, critical, legacy systems (ie SAP EAM)
Employee resistance to change

The business opportunity is clearly significant, as McKinsey research found, “technology has helped some companies to boost maintenance-labor productivity by 15 to 30 percent.”

This article will discuss new process opportunities in software execution to digitize your paper-based workflows. It is easier today to overcome these implementation challenges, in order to improve productivity faster, reduce costs plus become “future-proof” with the flexibility to address future needs.

Continue reading “New Digitization Approaches for Strategic Maintenance Management”