ISO 14224 Standard and CMMS Tree Structure: Organizing Your Assets While Avoiding Errors
A poorly structured tree isn’t apparent on deployment day. It becomes evident later, when maintenance operations mature, when you’re looking up the failure rate of your centrifugal pumps and find that the historical data is scattered across 40 different equipment codes.
ISO 14224 prevents this kind of situation with a 9-level classification system, the logic of which can be summed up in a single dividing line. To use SAP terminology as an example:
Levels 1 through 5: Where the asset is located → your technical positions (functions, stable over time)
Levels 6 through 9: What the asset is → your equipment and its bill of materials (movable, replaceable
A concrete example:
Level | Element | Example |
1 | Industry | Pulp and Paper |
2 | Catégorie d'affaires | Business Category |
3 | Installation | Trois-Rivières factory |
4 | Unity | Production Line 2 |
5 | System | Process water |
6 | Equipment Class | Centrifugal pump |
7 | Subunit | Training |
8 | Maintainable item | Bearing on the coupling side |
9 | Piece | 6312-C3 Bearing |
The Three Most Costly Mistakes
Confusing the technical position with the equipment. When you replace the pump, the function remains the same, and the equipment number follows the pump. If the two are merged, your reliability history is lost when the pump is removed.
Don't go too low too fast. A level 9 across the board is a hierarchy that no one can maintain. Stop at the level where you actually receive failure notifications.
Organize according to the organizational chart rather than the process. Departments change, but systems do not.
Are you starting a CMMS implementation or overhauling your SAP PM structure? Novectra Conseil supports industrial maintenance teams in organizing their assets, from taxonomy to maintenance procedures.
