With brand new motorway infrastructure to maintain, this civil engineering firm had to implement IBM Maximo to satisfy their contractual obligations. With project deadlines looming, the implementation was running over budget and failing to meet the team’s requirements.
Clarita Solutions was engaged and quickly established a sound Maximo platform. Clarita also introduced the opportunity to streamline operations and improve data quality using EZMaxMobile for mobile asset management and maintenance.
About
Clarita’s client is a multi-national civil engineering and construction firm, involved in the areas of infrastructure and transport systems, planning, water and environment. The firm secured a 10-year contract to maintain new road infrastructure in Queensland scheduled to commence in mid-2015. With a team of 52 people, including crews operating ten TMA response vehicles, and ten technicians, the firm is responsible for all corrective and preventative maintenance works on a motorway grade road that carries an estimated 34,000 cars per day.
The Challenge
As a brand new project, the firm had to establish the asset management and maintenance systems to support the infrastructure in time for its scheduled public opening. Their contract stipulated that IBM Maximo was to be implemented, but working with independent consultants, the project was running well over budget with little assurance of reaching a working solution.
With the infrastructure covering such a large geographic area, the Operations team were also keen to leverage the efficiencies possible through mobile technologies, but had been disappointed by the apparent lack of stability and functionality in the standard mobile solutions available for the Maximo platform shown in demonstrations. Without mobile Maximo work order capabilities, each work order would be printed and completed manually, leading to cost overheads in production, storage, double-handling of data and less efficient scheduling of response crews.
The Solution
On the recommendation of industry colleagues, the firm engaged Clarita Solutions, an Advanced IBM Business Partner specialising purely in asset management and GIS solutions. Clarita ticked all the boxes for price, performance and ability and were engaged to complete the base Maximo implementation, including reinstall Maximo in a new environment and migrating data into the new instance. Clarita established a fully operational Maximo system in two weeks.
Clarita also introduced EZMaxMobile for seamless mobile functionality on the Maximo platform. EZMaxMobile is device independent and, because it does not require dedicated infrastructure or reconfiguration of Maximo, it is quick to implement.
As the project made the transition from construction to operation, the firm’s maintenance manager found that both technicians and response crews needed to log work orders from the field. EZMaxMobile’s ease of use proved to be one of the key factors in the decision to roll-out mobile asset management for the entire team.
The Outcome
By eliminating paper-based work orders in maintenance procedures, the firm has saved the hard-copy production and storage costs associated with approximately 60 works orders every day. They have also avoided the need to expand the team headcount to allow for manual entry of site inspection reports and work orders.
While acknowledging that reducing paper has been a big contributor to the firm’s commitment to an environmentally friendly operation, operational staff report that the biggest benefit is in being able to supplement written information with photographs direct from the site.
Having completed the Maximo implementation at a fraction of the cost previously anticipated, Clarita has gone on to establish a strong working relationship in support of the asset management platform, building a reputation for prompt and thorough response to issues and service requests.