Last Updated on April 18, 2024 by maximosecrets

 

The two primary Asset Management applications are:

• Locations, a place where assets are operated, stored, or repaired.
• Assets, a physical object that is managed, operated, and maintained and which has a value.

There is a lot of functional similarity between locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More and assets and understanding when you have one, or the other, or both will need to be determined as part of an implementation.

Locations and assets reside at the SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More level in Maximo meaning that the locations and assets which belong to the same site are physically separated from the locations and assets of another site. There are only a few business processes in Maximo which will connect assets or locations from different sites and there is nothing which will connect them from an asset or work management perspective.

Before we look at the Locations application it will be worth quickly discussing a few other applications that support Locations and Assets.

Meters

There are three types of meters:

• Continuous – the values increase until they rollover, for example, run hours, utility, distance.
• Gauge – measurements may go up and down over time, for example pressure, light intensity, air flow through a filter.
• Characteristic – the values of a meter can be described in words, for example oil colour.

The Meters application is where you define a meter that will be used on one or multiple assets and locations. It is a simple application with only a few fields. For a continuous meter you need to decide whether meter readings will be an actual or a delta value and for a characteristic meter you will need to provide an ALN domain that provides the set of values which can be used. Continuous and gauge meters would have a unit of measure.

Meter Groups

Meter Groups is another simple application and is used when you have several meters that you wish to apply to a location or asset. In some industries like aviation there can be many meters on an asset. The application provides an identifier and description for the meter group and identifies the meters which belong to it. There is a feature that allows a new meter added to the meter group to also be added to all locations and assets that reference the meter group. 

Often clients start by considering continuous meters and much later start to think of gauge or characteristic meters. If you believe that at some point in the future you will take measurements or make observations about your asset or location, then it might be worth starting with a meter group, because you cannot add one after an asset or location has a meter.

Classifications

Many types of records in Maximo can be classified but the three which are the most often classified are items, locations, and assets. A classification can belong in a classification hierarchy, we often call this a class structure because that is the name of the object and table that supports the data. Think of a classification as a noun that is describing something, for example pump or motor. But there are several types of pumps, centrifugal, rotary, reciprocating, etc, these are also nouns and are also defined as classifications. The classifications can be reused, for example centrifugal can be used with pumps, fans, compressors, motors, etc. When you open the Classifications application it may appear as if there are duplicates, this is because while the application is called Classification you are looking at the Class Structure records, and there could be multiple records with a classification of centrifugal, they would each have a different parent classification. 

A classification hierarchy record is defined to be used with one or more objects, locations, assets, and items is a common grouping. Service requests and work orders is another example, in this case because a classification on a service request is copied when a work order is created from the service request. 

A classification can have multiple attributes that describe the characteristic of the record that is classified, this is known as the specification. The centrifugal pump could have attributes for size, speed, and total head pressure. A feature of classifications allows the description of the object where the classification is applied to be generated based on the descriptions used for the classifications in the hierarchy, and the descriptions of some of the attributes in the classification’s specification. It is possible for an asset’s description to be generated based on the way you classify it and provide values to the attributes in the asset’s specification.

You’ll find later that the descriptions of assets, its classification and specification could be derived from an asset template or an item.

Service Address

A service address can be both a postal address and a geographic address providing the latitude and longitude that can position the service address on a map. Instead of latitude/longitude you can also use the Y/X coordinates, there is an organization level setting for this.

The Service Address application is used particularly when bulk loading service addresses, which is why it is in the Administration application. Service addresses are then applied to a location or asset, but they can also be created in the Locations and Assets applications. 

When applying service addresses to a location then if a location system has been marked as an address system, then all descendent locations and associated assets will have the same service address, unless a different service address has been applied to a location or asset in the hierarchy. 

For geographically dispersed work, knowing the geographic position of the location or asset is critical. You’ll find the location or asset’s service address is copied to a service request or work order when the location or asset is referenced, allowing the service address or work order to be displayed on a map.

Locations

The main type of location is an operating location, a place where assets reside or where work can be performed. Operating locations can exist in a hierarchy and/or a network, a location system. In a hierarchy the location has one parent but, in a network, it can have multiple parents. For example, a transmission or distribution tower, pylon or pole may support two parent circuits (locations), each circuit can be supported by multiple towers. An operating location can belong to many systems. A drilldown action is used to assist navigation.

An operating location can have a service address, an address with latitude and longitude which when used in conjunction with a map tells workers where they need to go. The descendent locations in the address system and their assets will reference the same service address. 

A location can have one or more meters. When applying multiple similar meters to locations or assets a meter group may be created first and the meter group applied to the location or asset, this saves data entry time. There are actions for entering meter readings and resetting or replacing meters.

A location can have safety related information:

• The hazards and the precautions needed to mitigate the hazard.
• Hazardous materials that may be present, for example asbestos.
• The tag out and lock out rules that need to be followed to isolate the location prior to maintenance.
• Reference to other assets and locations that are related from a safety perspective.

Users and custodians can be associated with a location, for example the location owner the person who is financially responsible, the person who is responsible for maintaining the location (custodian) or the set of people who are users of the location, for example those who may need to be informed when work takes place at the location.

Operating LocationsA location with a location type of OPERATING. More can be associated with Inspection Forms that are used by a technician if they were going to perform an ad-hoc inspection. A Work Zone helps to reduce travel time by associating a work zone with a location and labor or crews who may work in the same work zones. Locations can also be associated with a time zone, which is used when a Preventive Maintenance record is generated to ensure the work is scheduled in the time zone of the location. 

One part of the location hierarchy may be repeated in many places, for example a meeting room or a substation. If you link a location to a rotating item created in the Item Master application, then the Item Assembly Structure (IAS) can be applied to the location to create descendent locations. For example, a transmission tower may have component parts that need to be identified in a consistent manner to record defects against them, e.g. cross-arms, insulator strings, foundations. All these components could be created in one action by applying an IAS.

A location can be classified to describe the type of location, the classification existing in a hierarchy of classifications. The classification can contain multiple attributes, the specification. When the classification is applied to a location then its attributes are copied to form the location specification. The purpose of the specification is to describe the characteristics of the location and optionally to generate a description for the location in a consistent structure which can help users to find the records when searching.

There are application actions for creating a service request or work order direct from the location, for viewing work, ticket, and contract details and for associating the location with one or more services and collections.

There are other location typesThere are eight location types of which the most common one is an Operating Location. More. Vendor and Repair are used for locations describing an external or internal repair shop where assets may be moved. Labor and Courier are transit locations for tracking the movement of stock between storerooms. A Storeroom location is used as the place where inventory is stocked, but while it is a location it is created from the Storerooms application. A location can be of a Salvage type used to move assets when they are going to be scrapped. There is another location type, Holding, which is used during the receiving processes either for purchases or storeroom transfers. Each of the locations with these different types is a place where assets can exist.

One special type of operating location is the repair facility. This is used when there are mobile assets, for example trains, trucks, and aeroplanes, which can be repaired in another location which is not part of the same site that owns the asset. The locations in a repair facility may be in a two-level hierarchy which define the tracks, bays, or hangers where the asset can be moved. As part of scheduling processes, the repair facility locations can be assigned for a period, a location assignment, you couldn’t have two trains on the same track being serviced at the same time.

Assets

Assets can only reside in one location at a time, but a location may have many assets. The Assets application has actions for moving one or multiple assets to a new location or swapping one asset with another. These actions can be carried out from the Assets application, or they can be planned as part of a work order.

An asset can be moved to a different site or a site that is in a different organization. When this occurs the asset record is duplicated in the new site and is set to a status of Not Ready, the status of the asset in the originating site is set to Decommissioned.

As part of the Move/Modify Assets action there are also functions to bulk modify:

• Users and Custodians – the people who maintain or use the assets.
• Groups – the teams that have an interest in the asset, teams are defined in a Person Group.
• Attributes – the attributes of the asset specification created when the asset was classified.

Assets have similar functionality to locations:

• A Service Address will normally be inherited from the location where the asset resides, but a Service Address can also be applied directly and there is a Map tab for viewing the location of the asset.
• An asset can have multiple meters or have a meter group applied and there are similar actions for entering meter readings, resetting, or replacing a meter.
• Safety related information can be entered for hazards including the precautions needed to mitigate the hazard. Hazardous materials, tag out and lock out rules and associating the asset with other locations and assets from a safety perspective can also be recorded.
• Users and Custodians can be associated with the asset, but also Person Groups which is a difference with Locations.
• Assets can be associated with Inspection Forms, Work Zones and Time Zones.
• Assets can exist in hierarchies and an Item Assembly Structure (IAS) can be applied to create the asset hierarchy if the asset references a rotating item, a subassembly. One difference here is that if the IAS references consumable items, then these are created as spare parts to the asset, both subassemblies and spare parts are displayed in the Spare Parts tab.
• An asset can be classified and if there are associated attributes these are copied to create the Asset Specification. Like locations the asset’s description can be derived from the classification description and some of the attribute values.
• An asset and a location can reference a calendar and shift that represents its operational hours.
• There are actions for creating a service request or work order direct from the asset, for viewing work, ticket, and contract details and for associating the asset with one or more services and collections.

An asset can be related to other assets through user defined relationships. You can only relate assets that belong to the same site. The changes that are made to these relationships over time can be viewed.

An asset can be marked as a linear asset, this is where the relationships between assets is most likely to be used. Roads, airport runways, and rail tracks would be good examples of a use of linear assets. Work can be performed on a segment of the linear asset. The asset specification’s attributes can also change over the length of the linear asset. Along a linear asset there may be point or linear features, for example kilometre posts, or guard rails on a road. The Features application is used for defining features before they can be used on a linear asset. I intend to write an application map for the Linear capabilities of Maximo Manage.

Other functions that can only be applied to assets and not locations are:

• Downtime can be reported against an asset including the ability to manage the downtime history. Often downtime would be reported as part of a work order, but it can be reported directly against the asset.
• Changes to the asset specification are recorded in a history table and it is possible to see what the asset specification looked like at a historical point in time.
• An asset can be a tool asset and the tool used to service other assets. 
• It is possible to issue items directly from a storeroom to an asset.
• An asset can have a depreciation schedule. The Assets application can be used for creating and adjusting the depreciation schedule.
• You can roll up maintenance costs in an asset hierarchy.

Another difference to a location is that an asset can be created and maintained from an Asset Template. Assets are much more likely to be used with Maximo Manage add-ons, industry solutions and with the other applications in the Maximo Application Suite than a location.

Asset Templates

There can be many assets that are similar and require the same inspection and maintenance routines. An asset template can be defined, and assets created from the asset template. Changes made to the asset template can also be applied to the associated assets.

The asset template can have:

• Asset details including vendor, manufacturer, and model.
• The spare parts used by the asset.
• The set of Master PMs that contain the details for routine maintenance and inspections.
• A meter group or one or more meters.
• A classification and the attributes and values associated with the specification.
• A depreciation schedule.

When the asset template is associated with an asset, a PM will be generated for each Master PM referenced on the asset template. All the other details on the asset template, the spare parts, meters, and classification/specification are also copied.

Asset Templates are used with Maximo Calibration, there are other details that can be set-up on the asset template, particularly the associated data sheets which define what measurements need to be performed during the calibration.

Although it is a hidden field the asset template can also reference a rotating item. If you use this field then you need to be a little careful as to what data you add to the asset template and what will be on the rotating item as both copy data to the asset.

Rotating Items and Rotating Assets

A rotating item is an inventory item for which each instance of the item is tracked by its own asset number (rotating assets). Rotating items are typically repaired or refurbished, not discarded as a consumable would be, and they have a value, one that is often depreciated over time. Rotating items can be defined in the Item Master and Tools applications, here it is referred to as a rotating tool. In each application there is a checkbox marked as Rotating. For an asset to reside in an inventory or tool storeroom (Stocked Tools application) it must be marked as rotating.

When a quantity of an item is received that is marked as rotating then there is the opportunity to create the assets and to place them in a storeroom bin or location. Thereafter the asset is tracked as it moves from the storeroom is issued to a work order and commissioned at an operating location. When it is due for repair it may be moved to a courier location and then received at a vendor location or repair workshop. After repairing it is tracked to the storeroom that needs it before it is issued and commissioned at another operating location or retained as a strategic spare.

Rotating items can also be used as templates for both assets and locations. The rotating item can have:

• A classification and specification which is copied to the asset and maintained from the rotating item.
• A hierarchy referred to as the item assembly structure which may contain other rotating items or spare parts.
• A reference to a meter group.
• A depreciation schedule – this is not copied to a location.
• Documents and drawings which can be referenced by the location or assets associated to the rotating item.

Failure Codes

The Failure Codes application provides the ability to create failure hierarchies with four levels headed by a failure class. The 2^nd level are the problem codes associated with the failure class, then their cause codes and at the 4^th level the remedy codes associated to the problem and cause. There is a common set of codes and their descriptions, for example a code could exist as a problem code and a remedy code. 

Failure classes are applied to locations and/or assets and the failure class is copied to the work order when it references the location or asset. If both the location and asset have a different failure class on the work order, then the asset failure class wins. During work order completion the maintenance engineer completes the failure report for the work types that require a failure report to be created. The engineer picks the problem code and then the cause and the remedy taken.

Condition Monitoring

The Condition Monitoring application allows measurement points to be created for a location or asset against a meter of type gauge or characteristic. For gauge type meters for upper and lower warning and action limits can be entered and a reference to either a PM or Job Plan that will need to be performed if the measurement exceeds the action limits. For characteristic meters a PM or Job Plan can be associated with a characteristic value that is to be performed if the characteristic is referenced when an observation is made against the meter and asset or location.

Meter readings are entered in the Location or Assets applications, against a work order or directly in the Condition Monitoring application. A corrective maintenance work order can be created manually or automatically from a background Cron Task if the action limits have been exceeded or a specific observation has been made.

Role Based Application

Asset Manager – This application allows you to create and update assets from a mobile device or tablet while online via a browser. There is a Maximo Mobile application which supports this while offline, there is no mobile application for creating locations.