Nested PMs setup example

This article includes the following steps:

• Assess your SMs
• Create the task groups
• Configure settings to view nested PM iteration on work orders
• Create the trigger
• Create the nested PMs
• Add the task groups and assign them to nested PMs
• Activate the SM

Assess your SMs

You must first identify your asset’s SMs and their intervals to determine whether it is a good candidate for using nested PMs. 

For example, take an asset that is currently associated with 5 SMs. One SM has a task group that needs to be performed every week, another has a task group performed every 4 weeks, and so on for 8, 16, and 32 weeks.

The task groups are set up in the following way:

• The weekly task group has 2 tasks (tasks 1 and 2).
• The task group performed every 4 weeks includes those tasks, as well as 3 additional ones (tasks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).
• The task group performed every 8 weeks includes all those previous tasks, as well as 4 more of its own.
• This applies to the 16-week and 32-week task groups as well: in short, each group includes the tasks of the previous, lower-interval group.

If nested PMs are not used, a maximum of 5 work orders is generated at a time (every 32 weeks).  In this situation, on top of the work order for the 32-week SM, an administrator must sign off 4 redundant work orders from the other SMs.

This is a strong case for using nested PMs, due to the following reasons:

• The task groups can be “nested”: each higher-interval group includes tasks from the previous lower-interval group.
• The asset had multiple SMs (in this case, 5), resulting in redundant work orders.
• The larger time intervals are multiples of the smaller ones (1, 4, 8, 16, 32).

The above example is used for the rest of the article.

Create the task groups

You can also use nested PMs with individual tasks. However, this example will use task groups.

We will have 5 task groups, one for each interval. Task groups are created in Maintenance > Task Groups. We recommend indicating the frequency of each task group in its name and working in the same units across all groups:

When creating task groups, create the group with the smallest interval first. This will be the parent task group, assigned to your N1 nested PM. Aside from the parent task group (in this case, weekly) each task group should contain the tasks that are unique to its interval. Eventually, these will be combined to form the appropriate list of tasks for each work order. 

The sample task groups and their tasks are displayed below:

Configure settings to view nested PM iteration on work orders

This step must be done by an administrator. Activating this setting causes generated work orders to display the text in the Summary of PM field for the relevant nested PM in the work order summary.

For example, if your nested PM’s summary is “Monthly,” this text would display at the top of the work order summary for any monthly work orders. This setting helps you keep track of which nested PM iteration corresponds with the generated work order.

To do this:

1. Navigate to Settings > CMMS Settings > Maintenance And Work Order.
2. Select the checkbox for Add iteration to nested SM WO description:
   
3. Click Save in the top menu bar.

Create the SM

1. In Maintenance > Scheduled Maintenance, click New to create a new record.

2. Populate the overview information and General tab: 
   

   Note

   • The priority and estimated completion will be used for all work orders this SM generates, so it's recommended to set these fields based on the tasks with the highest frequency (i.e. the N1 nesting level).
   • It is also recommended to clearly identify the work order as generated by a nested PM using the summary of issue, SM code, etc. as shown above. 
   •  The work instructions will be automatically populated with task descriptions once the task groups are added.
3. When you are done, click Save in the top menu bar.

Create the trigger

1. In the SM, navigate to the Scheduling tab and click the Add button in the bottom left of the list:
   
   This trigger will determine the time interval of your highest-frequency task group. In this example, your highest-frequency task group needs to be performed weekly:
   

2. Click OK and then Save after you are done.

   Note

   This example is a time-based trigger, but nested PMs are also compatible with meter reading triggers (e.g. maintenance every 500 km, every 1000 km, and so on).

Create the nested PMs

You can now build your nested PMs. 

1. Navigate to the Nested PMs tab and click the Add button in the bottom left of the list:
   
2. Configure all the nested PMs as needed. For our example, we need 5 nested PMs, one for each task group. We used N1 as the parent for all the other nested PMs:   
   
   To determine which multiplier to use, you can divide the child PM’s interval by the parent’s interval. Since this example’s N1 interval is 1 week, the multiplier is quite simple to calculate: 4 weeks ÷ 1 week = 4, 8 weeks ÷ 1 week = 8, and so on.
3. (Optional) By clicking Change, you can change the current iteration and view future iterations as well:
   
4. Click Save after you are done.

Add the task groups and assign them to nested PMs

You can now add the task groups you created earlier to the SM. 

To do this:

1. Navigate to Labor Tasks and click the Add task group button:
   

2. When adding the task group, assign it a nested PM:
   
   This example has the following assignments:

   Task group	Nested PM
   Weekly	N1
   4 Weekly	N2
   8 Weekly	N3
   16 Weekly	N4
   32 Weekly	N5

    

3. Click Save after you’ve added all your task groups. 
   The assigned task groups are displayed below:
   

Activate the SM

Everything has now been set up for our nested PMs, and you can now activate the SM. Click the activation toggle so it displays Running instead of Paused:

Your SM will now begin generating work orders.