Before a manufacturer can maintain its equipment, it has to have a proper record of what equipment it has. Equipment management is that record. This piece explains equipment management in Odoo.
What equipment management is
Equipment management is the keeping of records of a plant's equipment, its machines and significant assets, so that each piece of equipment is a known, recorded thing in the system. An equipment record holds the information about a machine: what it is, where it is, and the details a manufacturer needs to know and track about it. Equipment management is, at its simplest, having an accurate, organised record of the equipment a manufacturer runs.
Why equipment management is the foundation
Equipment management matters because it is the foundation that maintenance, and equipment performance tracking, stand on. Maintenance, whether preventive servicing or corrective repair, is maintenance of equipment, and it needs equipment records to be carried out against. Equipment performance, how reliable a machine is, how much downtime it has, is performance of equipment, and it needs equipment records to be measured against. So a manufacturer cannot meaningfully manage its maintenance or track its equipment performance without first having the equipment recorded. Equipment management is the base; maintenance and performance tracking build on it.
Equipment management in Odoo
Odoo's Maintenance application, available in Odoo Community, includes equipment management: the recording and managing of a plant's equipment. A manufacturer records its equipment in the application, and each piece of equipment becomes a record. Those equipment records are then what maintenance is managed against, and what the equipment's maintenance history and performance accumulate against.
What to record about equipment
Setting up equipment management means recording the plant's equipment with the information that is genuinely useful to know about each piece. That includes the basics, what the equipment is and where it is, and the details a manufacturer wants to track. As maintenance is carried out on a piece of equipment, the record builds a history: what servicing and repairs the equipment has had. Over time, an equipment record is not just a static description but the accumulated story of that machine, which is valuable for understanding the equipment and deciding how to maintain it.
Equipment and work centers
For a manufacturer, equipment connects naturally to the work centers where production happens, because the equipment is, often, what the work centers are. The maintenance of a piece of equipment and the production capacity of a work center are related: when equipment is down for maintenance or breakdown, the work center's capacity is affected. So equipment management, though it lives in the Maintenance side, is connected to the manufacturing side, and a manufacturer benefits from seeing the two together: the equipment, its maintenance, and the production it supports.
Keep the equipment record accurate
As with all records in a connected system, the value of equipment management depends on the records being accurate and kept up to date. The equipment recorded should be the equipment the plant actually has; the maintenance carried out should be recorded against it; the history should be genuine. An equipment record that is accurate and current is a sound foundation for maintenance and performance tracking. One that is out of date or incomplete undermines everything built on it.
The takeaway
Equipment management in Odoo, part of the Community Maintenance application, is the keeping of accurate records of a plant's machines and assets. It is the foundation that maintenance and equipment performance tracking build on, because both are managed and measured against equipment records. Record the plant's equipment with the information worth knowing, let each record build a maintenance history, and keep the records accurate. Equipment connects naturally to the work centers it supports. For how we approach Odoo for manufacturers, see our manufacturing work.