In SAP Plant Maintenance (PM), notifications and work orders serve crucial roles in managing maintenance activities efficiently. Here's a breakdown of their purposes:

1. Notifications:
- Notifications are used to report any issues, faults, or abnormalities in equipment or assets. These issues can be identified through regular inspections, breakdowns, or observations by maintenance personnel or operators.
- Notifications serve as the initial step in the maintenance process, triggering the evaluation and planning of necessary maintenance activities.
- They contain essential information such as the equipment affected, the type of issue encountered, priority level, and other relevant details to initiate the maintenance process.
- Notifications can be created manually by users or automatically generated by the system based on predefined criteria, such as predefined threshold values for equipment condition monitoring.

2. Work Orders:
- Work orders are the actionable items derived from notifications. They represent planned maintenance tasks or repair activities needed to address the reported issues.
- Work orders contain detailed information about the tasks to be performed, including the required resources, materials, labor, and estimated time for completion.
- They serve as a central point for coordinating and executing maintenance activities. Work orders provide clear instructions to maintenance technicians on what needs to be done and how to do it.
- Work orders can be generated manually based on notifications or automatically generated by the system as part of preventive maintenance plans or triggered by specific events.
- Work orders also facilitate tracking the progress of maintenance tasks, recording actual work performed, and documenting any additional issues or observations encountered during the execution.

Overall, notifications and work orders play complementary roles in the SAP PM module, enabling organizations to efficiently manage maintenance processes, address equipment failures promptly, and ensure the reliability and availability of critical assets.