Springtime is a magical time of year.  The bees are buzzing, the flowers are blooming & America’s past time is in full swing.  It’s baseball season.  For you folks who follow cricket more closely, try to stay with me.  If you can enjoy 4 days of watching people run between 2 sticks for hours on end, you can certainly appreciate this baseball analogy.

OK, maybe baseball is a bit boring.  I must admit I struggle getting through a 3-hour game myself, but the game is beautiful and it’s full of unspoken rules & nuances that really make me appreciate it.  One of these rules is calling for a fly ball.  This looks really simple when it happens on a Major League ballfield, but go to a little league game and you’ll see parents hold their breath, clench their teeth & squeeze their spouse’s hand the entire time the ball is in the air.  It’s so funny to watch.

Now here’s what I was taught.

1. There is a pecking order on the field.  The Shortstop can call off ANYONE on the field.

2. The Center Fielder can call off anyone in the outfield but MUST get out of the way if the short stop calls for it.

3. If you call the ball, you yell out “I GOT IT, I GOT IT, I GOT IT” 

4. The fielder next to you responds with “TAKE IT, TAKE IT, TAKE IT” and they get out of the way.

So what does this have to do with managing work in your ERP?  The similarities are pretty shocking.  I talk to people every day that just don’t have a system in place to manage work.  To use the analogy above, no one is calling for the ball & people are running all over the place pointing fingers at each other when the ball is dropped.  It’s pretty frustrating to watch, but much to many user’s surprise, SAP has a built-in solution to handle this.

Here’s my opinion on how we should manage work & what it does for our supply chain teams who desperately want to support us.

1. Don’t carry work in your Notification back log.  You’re either going to do the work or not.  If you are, move it to a Work Order and manage the backlog there.  If you’re not, cancel the notification and move on.  

2. Develop your Work Management Flow.  If you’re an ECC user this means numbered user statuses on your work order.  If you’re a S/4 user, you can use phase-based maintenance or numbered user statuses.  For simplicity, we will keep this article to the Numbered User Status option.

3. Define your Numbered User Statuses

This is the SAP version of “I GOT IT, IT GOT IT, I GOT IT” & “TAKE IT, TAKE IT, TAKE IT”.  Get this right and the dropped infield pop ups are virtually eliminated.  This drives accountability and empowers Supply Chain to prioritize what the O&M guys need.  

That’s it!  Really.  Keep it simple and, for goodness sake, start communicating out there!  I promise you, this will drastically reduce the stress and lack of communication between your teams, and for many of you, actually empower your Supply Chain to help!   

Now get out there, breathe & trust the process. 

Your spouse’s hand will certainly appreciate it!