Power EAM | Warby Consulting

IBM Maximo – Optimized for Smaller Industrial Facilities

Optimized Specifically for Efficiency at Facilities with Less than 150 Users
Custom Components: Enhanced Applications, Custom Forms and Reports, Start Centers, and more
Reconfigured UI for a More Efficient and Intuitive User Experience

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“Jesse’s expertise, organization, and concern for our needs was evident through all phases of our transition [from MP2] to Maximo. His familiarity with MP2 was enormously helpful as he was able to explain concepts and answer questions from our perspective. Jesse is a personable, hardworking individual who displays a high level of integrity. He works diligently to meet or exceed target dates and provides better than expected results. An excellent product at an excellent value, I would highly recommend Warby CMMS Consulting.”

-Maintenance Manager

Combined Cycle Power Plant

Maximo Asset Management is IBM’s workhorse CMMS that sets the industry standard in maintenance management software. Mobile applications, email tie-in, automated workflow, an integration engine, screen customizations… there are virtually no limits on what you can do to make Maximo work for you. But it’s not just powerful, it’s also easily scaled down. Unlike some elephant-sized solutions, Maximo can be configured very well for use at smaller facilities.

Having implemented EAM at many such facilities with fewer than 150 employees, I've learned the nuances, patterns, and commonalities of these. Based on that extensive experience, interviews with plant staff and management, and industry best practices, I've developed Crystal EAM by Warby Consulting as a rapid-deployment solution to get you up and running in Maximo in less time and with a lower cost than would otherwise be possible, and with an improved user experience.

This isn’t a shoddy, pre-packaged, one-size-fits-all solution. Together, we’ll put together a plan tailored to your specific needs, making adjustments to user interfaces, reports, forms, start centers, and everything else involved in designing an efficient EAM system. As my clients will testify, you’ll have my full attention before, during, and after the transition.

Interested? Read on for details, examples, and screenshots. Then reach out to me for a no-obligation preview and to discuss how the next phase of Asset Management can be so much more exciting and pain-free than you ever imagined!

Applications Tailored for Simplified Workflows

I’ve made major changes to the most commonly used applications (‘Service Requests’, ‘Work Requests’, and ‘Work Order Tracking’), with an eye on three priorities.

Simplify and consolidate the user interface. One common complaint about Maximo – in fact, something that competitors often use against it – is that the screens are cluttered, cumbersome, and overpacked with unused fields. I’ve streamlined these applications to make them more practical. For example, the Work Order Tracking application has over 500 fields spread across 11 tabs. To enter time, comments, failure codes, and required specification information, a technician would have to visit four different tabs. I’ve gotten rid of about 150 fields and 6 tabs and made others only visible when relevant. Now, all reporting of actuals can be done in single tab.
Add additional functionality. In one example, I’ve created a whole new tab to display nearby work orders, service requests, and approaching PMs, even allowing users to dynamically change the parameters to determine how high up/down the hierarchy to look and how far into the future to project PMs. This allows a planner to quickly identify potential chokepoints or synergies and also to view other work orders that have been performed at the same location or in the same area.
Preserve the Intent and Spirit of IBM Maximo. This means that with every change and enhancement, I am careful to comply with the intent of how Maximo was designed to work, and to keep the general feel and flow familiar to previous Maximo users. My goal is to build on IBM's industry-leading software and to make it work more efficiently at smaller facilities - not to change it into something unrecognizable.

In the image below, check out a few of the things I’ve done to the ‘Work Order Tracking’ application.

Here are a few other examples of the many smaller application enhancements that I've made.

An optional, simplified invoice process which meets the basic need to record invoices against receipts while avoiding the longer process of full invoice control.
Additional tabs on existing applications to show things like PMs associated with job plans, work orders associated with locations, etc.
Fields to quickly link related records. For example, a user can open a service request and see if a work order has been generated. If it has, they can open the work order directly from within the service request.
Support for tagging vendors and other records by key words for quicker search capabilities.
Expanded support for spare-parts.

Simplified User Experience via Intuitive, Dynamic Start Centers

In Maximo, efficiency means getting in, doing your work (well), and getting out. It’s all about minimizing the time you spend clicking, scrolling, and looking for stuff. That’s why I’ve built start centers that allow users to quickly see the things that concern them (like work orders assigned to them or requisitions requiring their approval) and jump right to those records with a single click. Managers have common reports and visual KPIs right on their start centers. You can do stuff like line up KPIs for comparison and set them to launch reports to get the supporting details.

I’ve built several start center templates into my solution (like the two below), but of course we’re going to spend ample time tailoring them to your exact needs.

Improved Security Management

Managing security can be a nightmare, and very few people, including many consultants, know how to design it correctly from the beginning to make administration easier down the road. My carefully-planned framework provides for the most flexibility while at the same time keeping administrative burden to a minimum.

Custom Reports

Maximo has a whole suite of built-in reports, and I’ve filled in some of the gaps with my own series of 12 custom ones. Here are a few highlights.

Customized PO and Work Order Forms – presented and laid out much cleaner and more efficiently than the out-of-the-box versions. There’s also a space for your own T&Cs and company logo.
Un-invoiced Receipts – Receipts that have not yet been invoiced. There are two versions of this report: one for full usage of the ‘Invoices’ application and another to support the optional, simplified invoice process which I’ve created.
PO Commitment – Approved, unreceived purchase orders, grouped by either PO line or by GL account.
Monthly Work Order Metrics – various important metrics, such as number of work orders released, number and percentage of PM work orders, number and percentage of backlogged work orders, and more, sandwiched between the beginning and ending counts for the past 12 months.
PM Summary – a high-level summary of all PMs. Most importantly, this report includes a field indicating if whether or not the PM was completed according to its most recent cycle.