Investment options are either refurbishments or replacement and are defined on the Investment Options tab of the Equipment Class Definitions screen. This tab has the following important fields:
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Organization - Enter the organization for which this option is relevant. This must be a specific organization and if the equipment class definition header record is specific this must be the same specific organization. For a common header you can pick any specific organization on this tab if you have security access.
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Type - Types can be defined on the System Codes screen using Entity RCTP (Refurbishment Investment/Cost Types). The investment planning process only uses the refurbishments and replacements types from this tab.
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Estimated Costs - The cost of the option. If you leave this field blank the investment planning process will assume the option is free of charge.
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At Age (years) - The age of the equipment when this option is usually applied. For example, the engine of the bus is overhauled when the bus is 10 years old.
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Maximum Recurrence - The number of times the option can be applied. If you expect the bus to be used for 30 years, then it makes sense to do a second engine overhaul at 20 years. So rather than create a separate type for the second engine overhaul you can instead enter 2 in this field. The investment planning process will then automatically make the option available at 10 and 20 years.
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Invest Early (years) - The number of years the option may be planned early. The investment planning process will only plan an option early if the budget allows. So, use this option if you want to make sure you fill up your budgets per planning period as much as possible. For example, you may be willing to do the engine overhaul at 9 years if budget is available. If that is the case enter 1 here.
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Adjust Interval - If selected the investment planning will adjust the execution of the next recurrence of the option based on the planning of the previous. So, if the engine overhaul does get planned early at 9 years, the process will attempt to schedule the next overhaul at 19 years, instead of the original 20 years. Obviously, this checkbox only plays a role if you allowed early investment on the investment plan (see later in this brief).
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Weight - The weight of the option. If two options are available for the same planning period, the option with the highest weight will be selected first. Depending on the budget allocation the second option may still be planned in the same planning period or may be moved to a later period.
Note that investment options can only be defined for a class or category of equipment. That means it is not currently possible to define investment options for equipment that has no class associated.
Also note that in earlier release of the EAM software this tab was called Cost Types.