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Is there a way to connect a FUNCTIONAL OBJECT and tool/equipment without it being a serialized part? Business case - customer has company-owned thermal chambers (in functional object structure) that are used for testing of customer-owned part assemblies. when work order is raised against the assembly, they want to "check out" the tool for use on the task, and track when/what chamber was used for. They also need to perform PMs against the chamber itself to make sure it is calibrated, functioning as expected. Seems like the only way to connect the two is if it is a serialized object. 

For major tools like the thermal chambers, we wish to have them in the equipment structure (Equipment Object Navigator) but do not want to go through the additional steps of having to set them up as Master Parts

Per IFS Documentation, "It may be assets defined with a part number and or lot/serial numbers. It may also be assets defined directly in the asset register without a part number. In those cases the Asset ID would be the only identifier for the asset". I've not found how you do that...Any help?

From my testing it looks like you can create a tool without attaching a part or serial to it. You do not have to connect it to a Functional or Serial Object to open work tasks and PMs against it.

If you want to connect it to a functional object then I suggest a custom field or event maybe?

Create the tool/equipment, attach it to a Tool/Equipment Resource group.


Hi @lamaus 

As Cindy pointed out Tool equipment is a maintenance aware object in our system so you can run your normal maintenance activities(PMs, WOs etc) through the Tool equipment itself. But if you want to add a sub assembly for the tool equipment you can connect it to an serial object and create the sub assembly as childs for the serial object. But this connection can only be made at the serial level. Is it a possibility for you to make this tool equipment connection at a lower level in the equipment structure.

Regards,
Asitha


I too can agree with both @CindyH  & @Asitha Rajapaksha. There is no restriction create “company-owned thermal chambers” as separate tools (without the connection) in the system and get them allocated/assigned to Work Tasks.

The point to note here is, once the connection is made, work order cost and revenue for the Tool/Equipment is accumulated to the connected Serial Object. Cost from there propagated upwards to top functional parent. Do you have a such requirement? 

 


to chip in on the discussion, since you want to perform calibrations on the thermal chamber, the normal process would be that the chamber should be serialized, since it is a uniqe occurrence

You could use a custom field to make the connection between a functional object and the T/E from a visibility POV, but you would loose the benefit of being able to take the calibration periods into account in scheduling that you would get if the chamber was defined as a serialized object.

 


Thank you everyone for your feedback. I understand the ability to generate WOs, PMs against the tool, with or without it being associated to a serial part. It seems the answer is NO - you cannot connect a functional object and tool without it being an Object with a Part No in Master Part. It seems the documentation is incorrect in stating that “It may also be assets defined directly in the asset register without a part number”, as there has been no feedback showing that capability. 


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