If you are using MPS for Maintenance Planning is SAP can you comment on its use?

Terry O

Hi Terry,
During SAP implementation days, for me this was like a quicksand. I thanked my stars that i had very less items to handle so for me MRP was fine. In case you have more items (say>3000) and very high valued critical items required for production schedules then you might feel the GOOD need to have (run) MPS in place before MRP (as it always is).

I had searched a lot in SDN and SAPhelp whose links are below. Read at your leisure since the material is a lot.

https://forums.sdn.sap.com/mes...pa?messageID=7095742

http://forums.sdn.sap.com/thre...pa?messageID=6376066

https://forums.sdn.sap.com/thr...geID=6368248#6368248

Hope this helps,
Vinay Maithani
CMRP

Does MPS stand for Maintenance Planning and Scheduling? If yes, I think in SAP, it's called only Planning Board.

I'm further confused by Vinman's response mentioning MRP which stands for Materials Requirements Planning which is in Materals Management module while Planning Board is in Plant Maintenance module.

Are you two talking about the same thing?

Apologies Josh and Terry for the confusion if there is any
However for the record, MPS is Master production scheduling (MPS) which is a form of MRP that concentrates planning on the parts or products that have the great influence on company profits or which dominate the entire production process by taking critical resources. These items are marked as ‘A’ parts (MPS items) and are planned with extra attention. These items are selected for a separate MPS run that takes place before the MRP run. The MPS run is conducted without a BOM explosion so that the MRP controller can ensure that the Master schedule items (MSI) are correctly planned before the detailed MRP run takes place.

Josh, the MPS you are refering to is different in this context. What you are refering to is right planning board where you schedule the work (work orders) to work centers based on their availability and criticality handling power of them. Workcenters here can refer to the group of technicians/craftsmen in that case.
Please do not confuse MPS with MRP in this case.

To admit it honestly, just like you, i was equally confused during those times as well

Hope this helps and if you still need i can get you in touch with the GURUS of SAP-PM from India (outsourcing model works )

Regards
Vinay Maithani, CMRP

I am interested in the Gurus of SAP Pm in India. Please contact me at tohanlon at reliabilityweb.com

My understanding is the SAP 6.0 offers MPS and is now being used for Maintenance Planning. MPS is part of SAP 6.0

Terry O

So MPS stands for Master Production Scheduling. It's not Maint Planning & Scheduling.

So I guess Master Production Scheduling is in Production Module of SAP.

So again Terry, what does your MPS stands for?

I do not understand why there is this confusion. However for the sake i will go back again to the help.sap.com and investigate if there any versons of MPS. It might be possible that there is some mistake my communication to the post which is creating ambiguity.
Let me see and come back...It will take time...see you in Next week.

Thanks
Vinay

Terrance,

Is your question correct or do you mean to ask about MRS Multi-Resource Scheduling. This is a non-core add-in available to enhance SAP scheduling capacity.

SAP also has available the MEB, Maintenance Event Builder, used to manage work to Revisions.

Note: I do not have any experience using either of the above.

I am afraid Terry there is nothing i could find or seek help for the MPS query of yours.
On deeper dive i found and am convinced it must be MRS that you must be referring to.(as David from down under rightly pointed out)

I also do not have clue on the functionalities of the MRS but you can find something here

I learned about MPS in this SAP Plant Maintenance webinar by Kahn Ellis

Getting the most out of SAP for EAM A 51 Minute recorded webinar by Kahn Ellis, CMRP, Vesta Partners, http://uptime4.me/aGhYZQ

The discussion about MPS came up during the Question and Answer session (after the 35 minute point if you want to fast forward)

Terry O

Vinman and David

I need to get my ears cleaned - I just went back and re-listened and discovered that you are right.

The discussion compared MRS to the GWOS by Prometheus and was centered os maintenance planning.


Sorry for the confusion.

Terry O

Can add as many functions as possible as long as it's being used. Just remember the Pareto law ie only 20% functions will be used by users in reality without a lot of intervention.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Josh,

MRP, If I'm not mistaken stands for "manpower resources planning" which mentioned under the Enterprise Assets Management.

I'm also getting confuse.

I was busy with some work here in India so could not respond.
Its ok Terry, But it is great that now the confusion is cleared.

PS :Nas_Sbn...Please refer to all the links mentioned in the thread above and i hope all confusion will clear. Thats the problem now a days with all abbreviations.

Cheers,
Vinay

The presentation mentioned was definately MRS vs. Prometheus GWOS (now grouped into an enterprise solution called Prometheus Unity). I'm actually glad I came across this thread. Terrence I'd appreciate the opportunity to present the solution (GWOS) to you personally. I'm the CEO of Prometheus Group and we engage in this conversation frequently and find that SAP customer prefer our solution because it is 1) focused on the particular needs of the maintenance community 2) developed via direct feedback from existing customers/prospects 3) can be up and running within just a couple of weeks with minimal services effort as opposed to what is typically reported by others of much longer implementation projects of the alternative solution. I'd be happy to put you on the phone with two of our recent customers which made head to head decisions and a third who migrated from the other solution to ours.

Robert Hancock
rhancock@ prometheusgroup.us