Returning from the Maximo UK & Ireland User Group (MUG) in London at IBM’s Innovation Centre, Managing Director Donna McWilliams shares her summary from the event.
Last week I attended the Maximo UK & Ireland User Group (MUG) in London at IBM’s Innovation Centre. The Innovation Centre is an incredible experience in its own right, but that’s for another day.
The big topics of the day were Mobile, Maximo Application Suite (MAS8) and as always user adoption/change management.
The MUGs always start out with a networking meet the evening before, this time it was hosted by the sponsors at Auberge in London’s Waterloo. It was a great turnout post COVID and everyone was pleased to be socialising again.
The day itself starts off with twenty minute user presentations, where the presenters are always surprisingly open about their challenges and lessons learnt, allowing everyone in the room to take away some learnings for their own organisation. In the afternoon, we are split into groups for another twenty minutes slot with each presenter to ask questions about their Maximo experience before coming back to the group for a further sharing session.
If you have not experienced a MUG before or you are not sure if it’s for you, drop me an email at donna@electralearning.com. Details of the next event can be found below.
Irish Water’s Maximo Journey
First up was Susan Cleary who shared the inspirational story of Irish Water. Susan’s candid view of the barriers and challenges they have faced as an industry, some quite extreme, showed great resilience as a company. When it came to deciding what Asset Management system to use, to quote Susan “Maximo likes users and the users like Maximo”.
Aside from the problems arising from environmental / political situations , one of the biggest challenges they faced in implementing Maximo was change management. Susan made a key point that it is essential to let the business run the project rather than IT and by doing that, they managed to engage the end users and understand what the roles required from the system.
System successes included:
- Better transparency and control
- The business had the right information to make better decisions
- Improved reporting
- Tracking repetitive work in Maximo instead of using spreadsheets
Summing up, Susan recognises that they are on a journey which is constantly evolving, and it seems to me that any future challenges will be met with the enthusiasm and resilience that has got them to where they are today.
There’s a great documentary about Irish Water online if you want to hear more of the story – https://youtu.be/CqW44KVDplM
MAS8 implementation experience
Next up was a presentation on a recent MAS8 implementation (where the company name cannot be shared) and Karen, the presenter, shared some key highlights:
Useful Applications in MAS
- Planned maintenance procedure – comes via the client communication centre
- Application suite administration suite (where you can view consumption and trends of licence usage etc)
Why choose MAS8
- Supports business growth
- Only pay for what you use (concurrent users – particularly useful for companies working in different time zones)
Maximo in a highly regulated industry – Cargologic AG
Fabian Himmelsbach from Cargologic shared with us their six month journey to implement Maximo. Cargologic maintain the containers that transport our luggage when we travel, and it is a highly regulated and audited industry.
One of the main challenges with the tight compliance with federal regulations was that every item needed to be certified in such a tight timescale!
The key successes were around staff records and licences / certification being available and aiming for a paperless environment.
Transport for London’s Maximo Implementation
Alan Scott and Richard Thomas took the stage to talk about their implementation journey. TfL took two years setting up requirements before deciding on Maximo – for TfL its Metro Maximo. The scale of the project is colossal so getting the requirements right and planning was essential.
The result of this is a strong vision to have one asset management system and mobile solution with one set of business processes across all assets – assets which include the whole of London’s Transport network, not just the underground but the overground trains, the roads, traffic lights, street lights, coaches, rivers, the Air Line, buses, bus shelters and stops, cycles, trams ….. phew!
It’s a phased implementation (no surprise with that volume).
Alan also emphasised the importance of the project being business led, not IT led. One of the key ways TfL plan to achieve their vision is by working with the business and asset areas to understand their needs.
Lessons learned so far are:
- Have accountable and active business leadership
- Strong Project Management is essential
- Engage and support people from the business with the rich skills required to support the roll out
- PLAN AHEAD
The Road Ahead with Maximo Application Suite (MAS)
Tristan O’Gorman presented the IBM Roadmap and what’s coming up in the year ahead for MAS8. The big focus is on sustainability looking forward, quote “to optimise the lifespan of critical assets, reliability and sustainability to drive 100% carbon avoidance”.
Focus areas for 2023 include:
- Reduce cost of inspections
- Improve maintenance productivity and first time fix rates
- Reliability by extending asset life and reducing downtime
The MAS questions were
1. How easy is it to move to MAS from older Maximo version and what version should I upgrade to?
Easier with less configuration in your existing system
Top tip was to rationalise your security groups in the system now before upgrading
User Interface is different so takes some getting used to, but there was a preference towards MAS interface
If you go to MAS8.10 you have 3 years support
2. How do the App points work?
Lots of tips shared on how you could save money on app points
Minimum module access for each user
IBM has a Cost v ROI document for MAS which if I get my hands on it I will be sure to share.
There are MAS certifications and learning collections on MAS which you can access here – https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6887026115961999361/
The next UK & Ireland Maximo User Group is at The British Antarctic Survey offices in Cambridge https://www.bas.ac.uk/ on the 24th and 25th May 2023.
We always share upcoming Maximo User Group dates so sign up to our Electra newsletter https://www.electralearning.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/2032139
To access all the presentations from December’s User Group, go to the IBM Community pages (click here). If you don’t already have an IBMId, you will need to take a couple of minutes to sign up but I’d highly recommend it as there is loads of valuable Maximo information here.
The MUG events are run by a committee of Maximo users from different industries who volunteer to keep these events going. Without their dedication and organisation these groups wouldn’t happen so a special thanks to the MUG committee.