Code part information consists of cost centers and objects. The cost center is where the cost of maintenance on a serial is entered. An object is a reference to the financial object in Fixed Assets. This information is defined for serials in IFS/VIM. The purpose of defining code part information is to be able to handle pre-posting on work orders created for the pending tasks of a serial. Therefore, when a work order is created during task distribution from IFS/VIM, the work order inherits the cost center and object values defined on the serial.
This feature enables the automatic transfer of code part information to the work orders. The following example illustrates this in greater detail.
You (the customer) own a fleet of vehicles, for example, a fleet of aircrafts. This fleet has a large amount of serials that will inevitably require maintenance, for instance, due to damage, or wear and tear. This will be handled through the work orders created on the pending tasks of a serial. Depending on how you plan and organize the maintenance activities, the time taken to complete the routine (i.e., to make a decision, perform the work, and actually carry out the work) can be very short. During this period, it is impossible for a mechanic to enter code part information for each and every work order. Therefore, code part information is pre-defined on the serial and will be transferred to the work orders at creation. This eliminates incorrect code part information been used for pre-posting, and assists in better time management of personnel resources.
With the access control feature, you can define code part information for the serials to which you have access. Access control is defined on the part level of the serial structure. For more information, refer to the About Access Control online help file.
You need to have access to the company on which the definition of the code part information is required. One company can have many sites connected to it, and each site can have a number of workshops.
Maintenance can be performed on a serial by several different companies. Each company can have different methods to control maintenance cost on the serial. Therefore, code part information can be defined for multiple companies on each serial.
A pending task created for a serial is distributed to a selected workshop. The workshop is always connected to a site. The work order for the task is created on the site specified for the workshop. When transferring code part information to the work order, the system will locate the valid company from which the code part information is to be selected. To accomplish this, the company is derived by using the site of the workshop.
Serials in IFS/VIM are not connected to either company or site. The reason for this is that the serials in a fleet are frequently on the move, and cannot have a static connection to either company or site. At the most, each serial can have an owning company and a home-site. The home-site will in most probability change quite often due to re-allocation of the serials within the fleet.
The serials in a serial structure can have different code part information as the ownership within a serial structure is not parallel. When a serial is locked for update you cannot define or change the code part information. It is not required to define code part information for all the serials in a structure. However, it is recommended to define code part information on the serials that contain workshops used for distributing tasks.
This feature incorporates one other procedure. That is, the option to extend code part information defined on the selected serial to all serials in the structure. This is useful when a number of serials in the structure require the same cost center and object. However, if code part information has been defined on one or more serials previously, you can choose to overwrite the current values or exclude updating these serials.
For each code part information record, you can indicate the course of action to take when the tasks are distributed. This can be defined by using the code part selection rule to handle the retrieval of code part information. You can choose to transfer code parts from the serial on which maintenance is performed, retrieve code parts from the serials above in the structure, or from the topmost serial.
If a serial is disconnected from a structure, you cannot retrieve the code parts from the parent serial. Therefore, when you choose to disconnect a component to perform maintenance, make sure that the code part information is registered on the component or the serials in the structure. This however depends on how thoroughly you want to follow up on the financial postings of the serials.
Task distribution is used to handle the distribution of pending tasks to either a work order or simplified processing within IFS/VIM. When a pending task is distributed, a work order is created on the site specified for the workshop and the code part information will be retrieved.
Depending on the selected code part selection rule, code parts will be retrieved as follows:
| Code Part Selection Rule | Description |
| Top Serial | The code part information is retrieved from the topmost serial in the structure. |
| Nearest Parent | The code part information is retrieved from the nearest parent serial for which code parts have been defined. |
| Serial | The code part information is always retrieved directly from the serial. |
If code part information has not been defined on a selected serial, an attempt will always be made to find such information higher up in the structure. For example, you need to distribute a task for a serial on which code parts have not been defined. During this process, an attempt will be made to navigate up the structure and retrieve code parts from the nearest parent by evaluating its code part selection rule. Assume that code parts have not been defined on any parent serial. A second attempt will be made to navigate up the structure and retrieve information from the topmost serial. Similarly, if code part information has not been defined on the top serial or on any parent serial in the structure, the information will be retrieved from the serial. If the code parts cannot be retrieved using the rules listed above, code part information will not be transferred to the work order.
A work order can be created from a task by several methods. The task can be generated in IFS/VIM and distributed to a workshop where the work order will be created. A work order can also be created from either a service request or a work order quotation (with a connection type of VIM).
Code part information is transferred to the following: