The Asset Management and the direct consumers

In today’s world, direct consumers are also getting benefited from the asset management tool, that is been implemented by the enterprises. Just recently I was awestruck by seeing the working of asset management tool to such a grass root level.  This made me realize, how we can take ample advantage every time when we are using utilities like water, gas and electricity at home.

 At my home, when the water filter’s bulb’s warranty limit got over and we had to get that replaced from that company, the simplest thing that we had to do is to only give a single call to the customer care number that was printed on the filter itself. We called that number and our change request was noted down by the customer care agent and was input by him in the system.

I can now realize how they would have taken this further from here. Let’s analyze with the steps.

1. The work order is raised in the work order system, where the Work Order Number along with all the details is automatically sent to the manager of the technician who will work on this.
2. Manager give the details to a technician with the details of my house address, phone number, the tools required to complete the work and other necessary information.
3. The call came to me in which the technician told that I should provide him with any two time slots when he can come to change the bulb.
4. The time was fixed and the technician came, changed the bulb, took the required amount and closed that ticket over the mobile.
5. During this time, the ticket was updated by the technician with all desired details and the work order number was updated, closed with the remark that it was changed.
6. The message then came to my cell phone, informing about the change of the bulb and that the work was over. If I had any complains I can call up the customer care, or send message if you are satisfied with the work.
7. When I sent the message that the work is done, then that same was updated in the system.

This functioning of the work order management system of Maximo gives us the end to end flow of the work order system and its phases. As soon as the updates are done in Work order, other systems get updated, for example, the procurement system, the purchase system, with any things that need to be ordered.

Automation and Robotics in Maximo

As I had previously quoted that

Automation and Robotics = Next Gen Artificial Intelligence.

To take this further in how this is implemented in EAM Maximo tool, we will get inside the Maximo tool. We will see how it integrates with other systems (showcasing Automation) and how it connects with IOT (showcasing Robotics) in this system.

Since the beginning of the world we always got attracted and tended closer to, wherever we saw ‘Intelligence’. We always followed the leaders who created the new path, the new refinement, the new reforms, the new inventions and the discoveries, in any field, that made all of us proud to praise them and appreciate them.

I remember, a TV that had no remote, and it made us to get up every time when we had to on and off the television set and/or change the channels. When remote control was invented giving the Television the intelligence to do things just by sitting on the couch and to change the channel or on and off the television, that move was heartily welcomed. On the funny but serious side - Though it had many drawbacks of making us the “couch potato”, no one complained for this intelligent machine.

The computer era is no different. The computer itself was the intelligent invention, so how can we stay away from not including any intelligence to it? And yes this is called Artificial Intelligence. Since the beginning computers with its hardware and software, has shown many forms of AI. In fact it won’t be wrong to say that every act of computer displays Artificial Intelligence.  From a simple “login” page to the complex functional implementation it presents various day to day useful examples in every field.

Think about the things that you are manually doing, and suddenly there is a machine who does it for you, and yes that’s called Automation (like manually you start the switch to on the light, and instead of this, there is a light that automatically gets on, when someone enters the room) and just imagine some machine that does the work just like your hands do and that’s called robotics (like an automatic washing machine). That’s what I feel is a difference between the automation and robotics, but both pertain to do only one thing and that is to induce artificial intelligence in the system in their own devised ways.

Now let’s get to the core of Maximo tool and EAM system as a whole. The idea to implement Maximo is not to run that system in a silo, and if it runs in silos then there is no use, since the effectiveness and the efficiency of the system will go on a toss. The EAM system and EAM database has so much of information input which must be intelligently exploited using the external systems, integrating it with them with the powerful middleware tools. The important external systems to make the system automatic, are GIS system (the most powerful and important), which gives the geographical information of the system. The ETL system (Data mining work is done here). The legacy systems connection to Cobol and the Mainframes system. The Mobile System connecting the Maximo EAM system to mobiles. The IOT (Internet Of Things) this is the most powerful tool that makes the EAM system a robot and makes the system Robotics.

What is IOT?

IOT is Internet of Things. The internet is the web that contains the websites and the network in cyber world. Similarly in the real world, where there is an entire network of the things brought together that gets connected to the web, or cyber world, is called Internet of Things.

Diagrammatic representation of Internet of Things

 

As per the above representation, it states that IoT is the vehicles, devices and the people that are connected to the computers by the way of sensors, data and applications through integrated systems, processing each other’s requests.  In this setup sometimes even the people are connected and are a part of IoT. The IoT is the replica of external physical devices with the computers digital device. This concept of replication of the physical with the digital devices is called the “Digital Twin”.  The asset lifecycle management helps EAM system with this IoT to integrate and establish necessary physical assets with the digital replica that can internally use all the data in the EAM system for itself.

The examples of automation in the asset management tool will be focused below, with the GIS and other external devices.  This automation gets strengthened when the IOT gets linked with it. The following are the examples:

1. Connected Vehicles
2. Connected Machines
3. Connected Infrastructure
4. Connected Products
5. Connected Homes
6. Connected Consumers

If we take one simple example of connected machines, when the machines are connected, they can be operated digitally. For example if your machine is located remotely, and you need to do the simply start and stop that machine, you can do it through the digital device conducting the same operation remotely on that physical device. That’s robotics in action.  

GIS:

Geographical Information System gives the information of the exact location of the physical asset. Once we have that, we can do lot many things just sitting on our computer, without going to the remote site of that asset. Imagine that. This can change your life and the way you have been working till date, and suddenly a 180* shift in your work environment and style. That is phenomenal.  

 

There are many more advantages of using GIS, but one more significant one is with its different layers in which the GIS data can be used, right from the base map to the Parcels, separating in two major forms, via vectors and raster’s, the GIS is sliced up to help the customers and the clients at every step to see the real world in to GIS systems.

Mobile Systems:

As soon as the EAM system gets connected with the mobile device and the applications and the data gets fetched through the mobile device, then updating the system occurs in the real –time and same data will get updated across the network instantly. This will immediately decrease the cost, increase the efficiency and along with it, this will give immense power to the entire EAM system.

Conclusion:  The above article shows how we make the Maximo system more powerful by bringing in Automation and Robotics work together within that network. The most beneficial is the asset-intensive industries, where the assets are costly and the constant effort is put in to see, how we can reduce the cost and increase the productivity of each asset. Maximo asset management tool with all its different modules makes the life simpler for managing the assets, and to take this a step further integrating with other powerful systems, this tool becomes more robust and easy in functioning and managing the assets on the enterprise level. Once these systems start working together it’s not possible to miss the tracking of any asset, be it the smallest, biggest, cheapest or the valuable one. So before you start losing on your asset tracking, start using Maximo and get benefited from it.

Why Maximo

IBM Maximo software is an EAM that meets the different business needs ranging from the following:

1. Manufacturing
2. Utilities
3. Energy
4. Hotels
5. Universities
6. Buses, trains, aircraft 
7. Information Technology assets

The software helps in decreasing the costs, by improving the availability and performance, along with managing the safety issues. It also

1. Records requests 
2. Track Work orders
3. Track configurations
4. Inventory optimization
5. Track purchase requisitions from start to finish
6. Safety and risk management

IBM Maximo has outstanding support of different databases, ranging from IBM DB2, Universal database, Oracle, SQL Server. The Maximo database itself contains more than 490 tables and more than 11,000 columns that makes it simple to store and organize the information, like an electronic files. 

The data is classified in to components, fields, records in a relational databases managing the proper hierarchies and the parent-child relationships. Along with this it also has a feature of sharing the data between applications, that is the reason why Maximo is a preferred solution.

Maximo Introduction

IBM Maximo is a comprehensive solution for managing physical assets on a common platform in an asst intensive industry
It has six different modules that manage the software as a service. They are;

• Asset Management
• Work Management
• Service Management
• Contract Management
• Inventory Management
• Procurement Management

Asset Management tracks all the assets and their locations through out the life cycle
Work Management manages the work activities from start to finish
Service Management monitors all the SLA's and service level deliveries
Contract Management helps us tracking the leases, the rentals, software etc
inventory Management keep up all with the details of all the inventory we have; for eg; numbers, usage, etc
Procurement Management helps us to directly purchase and inventory replenishment all that sort.

That is the place where IBM Enterprise asset management, where we can seamlessly perform the tasks of getting the assets manage along with the failure codes that help us in actually doing the setting up the failures if any and manage them.