Last Updated on July 9, 2025 by maximosecrets

Agenda

Good morning, I’m Andrew Jeffery and I’m pleased to be introducing you to some of the new features in MAS 9.0 and MAS 9.1.

This presentation is mainly for existing Maximo clients who haven’t upgraded yet or may have implemented an earlier version of MAS. Those clients who are already on or planning to move to MAS 9.0 will also find this of interest as I will highlight changes to Maximo Manage in MAS 9.1.

We’ll start with reviewing the product portfolio from 4 years ago before MAS was introduced, then we’ll skip to what the product portfolio looked like 15 months ago when the version was MAS 8.11, before either MAS 9.0 or MAS 9.1 were released.

Well then look at some of the new features in MAS 9.0 and MAS 9.1 with a focus on Maximo Manage.

We’ll finish by reviewing the Product Portfolio for MAS 9.1 and why the IBM Ideas portal is so important. So, let’s get started.

This slide is a copy of a presentation I made in March 2020, 5 years ago. The product portfolio of Maximo had a core solution with a set of industry solutions and add-ons with some integrations and four applications shown in magenta which were relatively new applications for Asset Performance Management (APM), Maximo Assist, Maximo Health, Maximo Predict and Maximo Monitor.

Maximo was also being provided on cloud-based SaaS solutions.

Maximo 7.6.1.2 was released on 24^th July 2020 and Maximo 7.6.1.3 was released on 30^th August 2022, but the landscape of Maximo products had changed little in those two years except for Maximo Mobile for EAM which was first released in March 2021.

IBM were working on something bigger.

The March 2020 presentation can be found here – https://maximosecrets.com/portfolio/maximo-overview/

In May 2020 we started to hear about the Maximo Application Suite (MAS) and the Journey to Predict. MAS was first released on 26^th June 2020 as MAS 8.0 it included the Monitor application. With MAS 8.1 on 28^th August 2020 Health and Predict were added, and a few months later with MAS 8.2 on 30^th October 2020 there was the addition of Visual Inspection. MAS 8.3 was released on 29^th January 2021 adding Assist, Safety, and globalisation support for 22 languages. It wasn’t until the 18^th May 2021 that Maximo was added as the Manage application in the suite.

Maximo Application Suite (MAS) is a suite of applications built on a common platform based on RedHat OpenShift that can operate on multiple cloud providers. Together they provide Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), Asset Performance Management (APM) and some additional applications which are based on AI. MAS is recognized as a leading Asset Life-Cycle Management (ALM) Application.

In the 40-year life of Maximo this is the 4^th architecture change, it is needed to be able to handle the greater interoperability with other systems and to incorporate AI into Maximo, it is the architecture of the future, well hopefully for at least the next 15 years.

This slide is taken from a presentation I created in March 2024 when the current version at the time was MAS 8.11 – https://maximosecrets.com/ibm-maximo-application-suite-overview/

During the 4-year period from March 2020 to May 2024 and the introduction of MAS, the product portfolio of the Manage application in the suite, what many of us will recognize as Maximo, had changed. 

Maximo Scheduler and Maximo Scheduler Plus were earlier merged and along with Maximo Linear, Maximo Calibration and Maximo Mobile were now part of a set of included capabilities, they are now part of Maximo, they are no longer separately licensed.

There are still the same set of industry solutions with the exception that there is no longer Maximo for Life Sciences, it has mostly been incorporated into Maximo, some parts can be downloaded from the Maximo Accelerator Catalog. 

The Add-ons exist but there are some additions. 

• Maximo Optimizer is an extension to Maximo Scheduler for Schedule Optimization. 
• There is only one version of Maximo Service Provider, there was previously a single code set but two different licenses for external and internal use, that has now been removed as licensing for MAS has changed, we’ll come to that. 
• IBM Control Desk has been rebranded as Maximo IT. 
• There is an additional Maximo Connector for ERP systems and Workday Applications to that of SAP and Oracle. 
• There are additional connectors to TRIRIGA for real estate assets and Envizi for ESG reporting. 
• Maximo Reliability Strategies is the newest add-on. IBM acquired a large library of RCM studies across 800 asset types, and 58000 failure modes, suggesting over 5000 Preventive Maintenance activities along with the step-by-step tasks to be performed. This was the start of providing a Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) capability to Maximo. 

The integration to Cognos Analytics and MRO Inventory Optimization still existed in May 2024 as did the Maximo Archiving integration to IBM InfoSphere Optim Data Growth Solution. There was an integration to the Environmental Intelligence Suite, primarily used by utilities involved in tree-cutting and scrub clearance around electric power lines. In MAS 8.11 IBM introduced the Maximo Accelerator Catalog a way of IBM and IBM Business Partners providing solutions that could be downloaded, some for free some for a fee.

This very colourful slide comes from the Maximo Manage Overview I wrote for MAS 8.11 in April 2024 – https://maximosecrets.com/ibm-maximo-manage-overview/

The article provides an overview of each of the 10 core capabilities and the five included capabilities. I’ve included the Reliability Strategies add-on as an Included add-on because it is available to be downloaded, and it doesn’t consume additional license.

One of the big differences with MAS apart from the architectural change was the approach to licensing. There is a completely different model and instead of having a license for each add-on and industry solution you are now entitled to use all the products of the Maximo Application Suite with a few exceptions. Licensing is based on AppPoints and a user will fall into generally one of four tiers depending on how much of Maximo they use. Each tier consumes a certain number of AppPoints depending on whether the user is registered as an Authorized user or a Concurrent user.

For MAS 8.11 Maximo IT requires a separate license. Some add-ons will also consume some AppPoints if they are installed, like Optimizer and Spatial.

The benefit that the new licensing provides is that it allows you to install any of these products and investigate how you would use the additional functionality. Some of these add-ons and industry solutions have a lot of functionality, you can’t deploy all parts in one go because the additional applications and functions require additional data, you deploy add-ons like HSE or Transport over a period, perhaps 5 years or more, focusing each year on a new aspect that the product provides. The new licensing model is great for this gradual deployment, instead of spending money up front you need to buy additional AppPoints only when you deploy into production new capabilities and only if that is to new users or with existing users the new application rights will mean that they are now in a license tier that consumes more AppPoints.

You can grow your use of Maximo either staying within Maximo Manage or exploring the other applications in the Maximo Application Suite. Many clients will find they already have spare AppPoints or the people who will investigate the functionality in these other products are the super users or administrators who are already Base or Premium users that consume the most AppPoints.

If you upgraded from Maximo 7.6.1.3 to MAS 9.0 (released June 2024) or MAS 9.1 (released June 2025) and you had access to the same applications as you had before, then you wouldn’t see many changes. There are some, but you would have to hunt around the system to find them. You will see some slight user interface changes, and I’ll come to that slide a little later.

Apart from the not inconsiderable effort that went into the architecture of Maximo Application Suite, the suite’s Administration functions and enabling AI configuration, a lot of the other development effort has gone into Maximo Mobile, Maximo Scheduler Dashboards and Schedule Optimization to provide more Field Service Management capability, and pulling the applications in the suite closer together. Dashboards have been introduced and some applications have been built using a new application building tool, which is in addition to Application Designer. In MAS 9.0 there was the first addition of AI into Maximo Manage and this has been extended in MAS 9.1. You won’t find too many changes to Inventory, Procurement and the other core capabilities of Maximo Manage.

Today, new functionality is driven by customers who have used the IBM Ideas portal to register enhancement requests, and who have voted for those ideas that have merit. If Ideas aren’t created, then new functionality is far less likely to be created. There are some TechXChange Community User Groups that are focused on a particular industry that may be able to drive some enhancements, but the Ideas portal does seem to be working and creating some changes in these core capability modules.

So, what changes will you find in the core modules of Maximo Manage, if you know where to look:

• Asset Cost Rollup replaced the BIRT report and was introduced in MAS 8.5. The action will be found in the Assets application.
• Count Books is a function transferred from the Transportation industry solution which provides functionality for performing inventory counts, there is a corresponding application in Maximo Mobile, it was introduced in MAS 8.8.
• In MAS 8.9 a new Work Orders applications started to be developed using the Maximo Application Framework and the new UI configuration tool. It has been enhanced in each of the four subsequent releases, but it doesn’t yet have all the same functionality of Work Order Tracking, nor does it include any functions from the Work Order Tracking clones found in the industry solutions and add-ons. In MAS 9.0 it was the first place in Maximo Manage where you might find the use of AI. The Failure Reporting page will use the long description of the work order to suggest the problem code for the failure class. In MAS 9.1 AI is used to suggest similar work orders, you get to it from the View Similar Work Orders action. The arguments for the WOSIMILARITY model must be defined first in the AI Configuration application.
• The Scheduling Dashboard is part of Maximo Scheduler but is dependent on the use of the Maximo Optimizer, it is for those clients who are using Graphical Scheduling or Graphical Scheduling Large Projects. It was introduced in MAS 8.9 and enhanced in the subsequent two releases with drag/drop capability being added in MAS 9.1.
• The Dispatching Dashboard is also dependent on the use of the Maximo Optimizer; it is for those clients who are using Graphical Assignment. It was introduced in MAS 8.11 and has been enhanced in each subsequent release.
• The Operational Dashboard will eventually become the replacement of Start Centers, there are some features which Start Centers don’t have, but also features of Start Centers which are not yet available in the Operational Dashboards. It was introduced in MAS 8.9 and has been enhanced in each subsequent release with the goal to have dashboards working across all applications of the suite or pulling data from other suite applications.
• Work Queues are like Start Center Result SetsA set is used to share data across the Maximo Database. There are two types an Item Set and a Company Set. More, but they are configurable, and the same result set can be displayed with different columns, filters and record sorting, they can also be defined for a person group, with configurations being personalised. They do a lot more than a result set, but they don’t yet have the graphing capability of a result set. More like a configurable List page of an application. They are dependent on the use of the Operational Dashboard; there is a Work Queue card.
• In MAS 8.9 the Workflow Assignments application not only provided a list of your assignments (the inbox) but allows you to perform bulk actions, accept, reject, reassign or route multiple assignments in one action. The application has four standard KPIs on the List page.
• In MAS 8.9 there was also an enhancement to electronic signatures to allow them to be associated with status changes.
• Cognos Analytics Integration was established in MAS 8.10; it requires the installation of Cloud Pak for Data. There are some license restrictions, but clients are entitled to use Cognos Analytics against the Maximo database.
• MAS 8.10 saw some enhancements to shift breaks in the Calendars application
• In MAS 8.11 we were exposed to the Reliability Strategies application, if you installed the add on. A single application initially that gave you access to the library of 58000 failure modes across 800 asset types. It was further enhanced in MAS 9.0 to allow for custom strategies to be built and in MAS 9.1 those custom strategies can exist in the Maximo database and AI has been added in a few places for example to suggest boundary conditions or to generate components, failure mechanisms and influences.
• Also, in MAS 8.11 IBM Control Desk (ICD) was introduced back into Maximo as Maximo IT. This was initially only compatible with Transportation and ACM, but in MAS 9.1 it is also compatible with HSE/O&G. Maximo IT has its own development team and there were quite a few enhancements and integrations in both MAS 9.0 and MAS 9.1, for example Watson Virtual Assistant and Slack in MAS 9.0 and Microsoft Teams in MAS 9.1. Maximo IT has integration with leading OT (Operations Technology) security platforms like Claroty.
• There was a new Formulas application in MAS 9.0 which allows people with access to the System Configuration module but not the Database Configuration application to build object and attribute formulas.
• In MAS 9.0 there were a set of new features resulting from IBM Ideas including with the Routes application which was given a Status field.
• In MAS 9.0 the Graphical Resource View and Graphical Work Week applications were each given a field to set the start day of the week.
• In MAS 9.0 Job Plan and Work Order tasks can be set as a milestone.
• Also, in MAS 9.0 the KPI Manager application has additional fields to set an End Point so that KPIs can be generated from external sources. This was enhanced in MAS 9.1 to support the JSON format.
• The big enhancement in MAS 9.0 for work management is the inclusion of Qualifications in Job Plans and Work Order Tracking so that when you assign work you can select from the Labor that match the qualifications required to perform the work. This is functionality that originated in the Transportation industry solution. In MAS 9.1 this has been extended to also cover Crews.
• In MAS 9.1 there is an action to Reevaluate Assignments which opens a dialog showing the assignments which you can choose to Keep (or not) and then you use the Reevaluate button to verify the assignments against the qualifications.
• In MAS 9.1 a Dispatching Status has been added in addition to the existing Assignment Status and they work together. This provides a more granular status, so that at the level of assignment status STARTED you now have TRAVELLING, ONSITE, STARTED, and RESTORED. The ASSIGNED level has ASSIGNED, DISPATCHED, RECEIVED and ACCEPTED.
• In MAS 9.1 a Planning Dashboard was introduced which works against Graphical Scheduling projects. It shows a set of KPIs, and a list of Schedules and you then drill into one of the schedules to see another set of KPIs and a list of work orders. You can view Break-In and Break-Out work orders. The Planning Dashboard is useful for planners, resourcing managers and those reviewing maintenance finances.
• In MAS 9.1 the AI Assistant was added to Maximo Manage to answer questions on assets, service requests and work orders (the default). You can ask questions like ‘Which work orders are due in the next 30 days?’ or ‘Show me assets that are missing data for ASSETTYPE’
• A Cron Task was developed to automatically calculate the destination travel times between service addresses; this is used when determining the best order for a technician’s route to their work assignments. In the Map Manager application, you will need to configure your user and password to access the cost matrix service of your map provider.

To use AI you will need a license for the Maximo AI Service.

Maximo Mobile started development in March 2021 as the eventual replacement for both Maximo Anywhere and the Work Centers. Maximo Mobile continues to be developed mainly driven by ideas from the IBM Ideas portal; there were quite a few enhancements in both MAS 9.0 and MAS 9.1. Maximo Anywhere and the Work Centers ceased to be supported with MAS 9.0.

While most of the functionality of Maximo Anywhere and the Work Centers will be found in Maximo Mobile, there were a few gaps in MAS 9.0, some of those are closed in MAS 9.1, but a few remain. For example, you cannot review a Service Request, turn it into a work order and assign the work order to a technician as you could in the Supervisor Work Center. There is no support for asset moves or swaps except if you are using ACM, and apart from registering an asset as a linear asset there is no linear asset functionality for the Technician.

Maximo Mobile consists of a single mobile application that you can download from the Apple, Google and now (MAS 9.1) Microsoft stores. The mobile application works both offline and online and synchronizes data whenever a signal is found. There are also a set of Role Based Applications (RBA) which use the same code set developed using the Maximo Application Framework configuration tool. This makes Maximo Mobile and the RBA applications configurable and customizable. Security is handled through Object Structures Security found in the Security Groups application. The RBA applications replace the Work Centers; the native mobile application replaces the 12 or more Maximo Anywhere applications.

The Mobile applications support barcode, QR code and Near Field of Communication (NFC) tags, there is also support for both online and offline maps There is support for electronic signatures, physical signatures, GPS tracking and push notifications. There are functions to collaborate with a remote expert, and if you are using Visual Inspection you can send the photos to be analyzed. A preloaded database can be created for a Person Group using a Cron Task, in MAS 9.1 this was extended to provide an alternative for SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More and Language. The preloaded database contains all the supporting data which saves time when onboarding a user. Devices can be shared if pin and biometric are available for authentication. In MAS 9.1 the data for each user is stored separately it does not need to be shared.

22 languages are supported but not bidirectional languages, Hebrew or Arabic.

The Incident Reporter was a further Maximo Mobile application new in MAS 9.1.

Apart from the Role Based Applications and the one for Inspection Forms (MAS 9.0) and Mobile Configuration (MAS 9.1) there are a set of other applications which have been developed in the same configuration tool. The two new applications in MAS 9.1, Users and Security Groups exist at the suite level but they are using the Manage database. The User Profile is also new in MAS 9.1 and provides some advantages over that previously provided for MAS.

There are four dashboards in Maximo Manage, the Operational Dashboard and three from Maximo Scheduler, the Scheduling Dashboard, Dispatching Dashboard and new to MAS 9.1 the Planning Dashboard.

Maximo Mobile 9.0

In the Service Requests application, the long description has rich text formatting including links. You can rename attachments. Attachments can now only be added after a Service Request has been submitted. Web links open in the browser.

In the Technicians application assignments can be accepted or rejected. You can create a new work order using quick reporting where the work order is already in an in-progress state. You can enforce the scanning of an asset. You can now share the GPS location of the technician.

The Inspection Forms application was converted from a Work Center to a Role Based Application. The Inspection Forms are now downloaded once and reused on multiple inspections improving performance.

The Issues and Transfers application now supports staging and shipping; transfers are now supported between storerooms or across bins of the same storeroom, although transfers with internal purchase orders are not supported in MAS 9.0. You can now issue unreserved items, view and edit the charge information, but not the GL account. You can add reserved or non-reserved items to the Inventory Usage record, and you can check available balances if you are online.

The Technician application supports recording measurements for a calibration work order; it will be enhanced in MAS 9.1. There was also limited support for Maximo Linear. Support for configuration managed assets (ACM is being used) was provided, asset removal, installation and switching.

There were some general enhancements including eSignature support on status changes, general performance improvements when refreshing data and during data synchronisation. There are timeouts for idle mobile devices and photos can be saved as attachments or as the image of a record. For example, on a work order add a photo to become the image for the work order’s asset.

Maximo Mobile 9.1

In the Service Requests application, you can now duplicate a SR or view or follow the SRs created by other users. You can create a Service Request from the map and there were enhancements around service addresses either entering service address details, using GPS co-ordinates, or inheriting the service address from the location or asset.

In the Technician application there were several enhancements around labor reporting, including reporting premium labor hours for the user or their co-workers. When starting the timer, the technician can select the co-workers. Previous hours can be edited if they are not approved and hours are now recorded for craft, skill level, vendor and contract.

There were enhancements around assignments in the Technician application. You can now unassign or reassign an already accepted assignment or self-assign yourself to a work order. The Start Travel can be configured to display regardless of distance of the GPS location from the work order service address. Timers can be automatically stopped when a timer is started on another work order, and you can delete timers started accidentally.

There were enhancements on the multi asset table in the Technician application supporting maps, creation of a follow-up work order and viewing asset details. When you create a follow-up work order you can now select the assets and locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More which apply.

When reporting meter readings the delta/actual setting is displayed, meter readings can now be entered on newly created work orders while offline, if online the last meter reading is fetched, and a remark can now be entered.

There are many more enhancements in the technician application, mainly driven from IBM Ideas, here are a few. There is support for asset auditing, creating a work order from a map, additional filter and sort options, you can enter a failure date/time when reporting the failure, and when reviewing a safety plan it is timestamped.

There were several useability enhancements to Inspections. Attachments can be added to questions; you can create an inspection, select an inspection form and assign the inspection to a technician. You can enable an electronic signature during a status change. Questions can also be reused between inspection forms.

In Inventory Receiving you can now receive purchases including rotating assets. You can also create assets, scan the asset number or serial number or use auto numbering for the asset identification. You can add the receiving bin and other attributes, and additional information is displayed to help identify the item, receipt or purchase order.

In Issues and Transfers, tools can be transferred with or without a reservation while referencing a work order, material request or internal PO. You can choose a storeroom when creating an Inventory Usage record and you can transfer items with an internal PO.

There is a new Incident Reporter application if you have HSE/O&G installed. It is modelled like the new Service Request page with additional details for the incident event, impacted people and actions taken. It can work offline or online.

The Mobile Configuration application has data sync settings and time zone settings. Users may be able to set the time zone on their mobile device. The mobile application can now be downloaded from the Microsoft App Store.

With MAS 9.1 there are quite a few changes for Maximo administrators.

Instead of two menus, one on the left and one on the right (the 9-dot menu), there is now a unified menu on the left that includes access to the other MAS applications. There is also a new User Profile page which opens over your current app instead of navigating you away from your application. In MAS 9.1 you can select both language and locale, it supports Hebrew and Arabic and is Accessibility Compliant.

There are new User and Security Group applications built using the Application Configuration tool of the Maximo Application Framework. The Security Groups application is used to provide access to all MAS applications. The Application Configuration Tool is available from within MAS you no longer need to use Docker or Podman. It is no longer a desktop tool and so will require persistent storage.

There are a set of user management enhancements, admin invoked log out, and enabling maintenance mode are two of these.

From a technical perspective the big one is the update to fully support Java 17. As there is no compatibility mode it is important to thoroughly test customizations, reports, automation scripts, and web services to ensure everything functions smoothly and without issue. It is also important to ensure that add-ons and industry solutions are updated to the MAS 9.1 versions.

BIRT has been updated to 4.16 and there is now support for Python 2.73.

There is support for Guest User Accounts, external users who may be creating a service request. This was one of the IBM Ideas that was implemented.

Maximo Manage is now available on IBM LinuxOne/Z and Linux on IBM Power. It looks as if this is being done over three phases with core Maximo in the first phase, add-ons and industry solutions in the second phase and other MAS applications and Maximo for Real Estate and Facilities coming in a third phase.

There have also been improvements in authentication with support for OpenID Connect (OIDC) in addition to SAML and LDAP and you can configure synchronization with multiple LDAP servers.

In MAS 9.0 there was one HSE/O&G enhancement that provided an Emissions Management Dashboard to the Operational Dashboard. To enable this a couple of small changes were made to the Incident Events page of the Incidents application to record a fugitive emission. The Locations application and MeterA Meter is an identifier for recording meter readings, measurements and observations on assets or locations. More page was updated to handle continuous emissions; it is called Emission Details it used to be called Environmental Consent. The Locations application also has actions for View Fugitive Emissions and View Continuous Emissions. Both fugitive and continuous emissions are shown on the Emissions Management Dashboard.

In MAS 9.1 additional fields were added to the advanced search of the Incidents application, event type, event category, emission type, emission category and emission impact. For compliance reporting you can now mark an incident as Recordable. The Create Incident and Review Incident self-service applications have been enhanced to show emissions category, emissions type, and emissions impact.

There is a new Incident Reporter mobile application.

Inspection Forms have been added to the applications Incidents and Audit and Surveys. In the Assets application you can view continuous emissions and add environmental details, fugitive emissions are entered via an Incident. There is an Asset Emission Profile.

There are a few layout changes on the Defects (HSE) application and there is an update to the Emissions Management Dashboard. The Action Tracking application supports using an environmental action type and associating it with a location or asset.

Maximo Application Suite 9.1 was released on 24^th June 2025. There is a new application added to the suite – Real Estate & Facilities, this is the TRIRIGA suite which is a leading Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS).

Real Estate & Facilities has four modules:

• Space Management and Reserve is used with office space utilisation including move management and desk and meeting room reservations
• Service Management and Maintenance is used for performing maintenance and operations (similar functionality as Assets, SR/WO in Manage)
• Lease Accounting is used for managing real estate leases, it includes workflow, document management, payment schedules and accounting schedules.
• Capital Planning / FCA handles Real Estate Portfolios combining occupancy and condition assessments to determine whether there can be a consolidation of your facilities by moving people to different buildings. It includes reviewing floor plans to see whether the new occupants can be accommodated. The module also handles the transaction project for the move including the financial impact, a Gantt chart is used in the project plan.

TRIRIGA also has a Sustainability and Energy Management module for handling carbon emissions tracking and energy benchmarking, but this did not appear in the MAS 9.1 modules.

If you compare this slide to the one, I created for MAS 8.11 you might notice that the Assist application in the suite has been dropped. There were two aspects to the Assist application, one was a remote collaboration between a technician and an expert that has been built into Maximo Mobile, with the expert using a new add-on called Collaborate. The other aspect was an ingestion of documents and non-structured data that could be analysed to provide guidance. This used some IBM AI capability that has been superseded by WatsonX; AI capabilities are being introduced into Maximo Manage, the AI Assistant introduced in MAS 9.1 is the first step.

The other difference is that instead of several different Watson tools: Watson Studio, Watson ML, Watson Discovery, Watson Assistant, MAS is now connecting to the Watsonx portfolio of AI services, including Large Language Models.

The AI component is not just in Visual Inspection but is being added to other parts of the suite in increasing numbers.

The Maximo Manage 9.1 Product Portfolio doesn’t include the modules from TRIRIGA as that is a suite level application. The product portfolio over the last two years has changed a little. There are the same MAS SaaS options and Industry Solutions and many of the Add-ons and Connectors still exist.

Maximo Collaborate is the new name for Maximo Assist.

Maximo Asset Investment Planning is new to MAS 9.1 and will require the Maximo Optimizer. It is used for capital planning and investment strategies and to identify the best time to replace an asset or perform a major intervention. It uses a value framework to manage failure costs and KPI impacts. The MAS 9.1 documentation says – Running optimization flows is not available in 9.1.0.

The Maximo Connector for TRIRIGA and Maximo Connector for Envizi are still referenced in the Maximo Manage documentation but they seem to have dropped off recent roadmap presentation materials. Maximo Archiving is no longer mentioned.

Maximo Inventory Optimization is for optimization of MRO spares and is relevant to anyone who is managing Inventory in Maximo. This is a SaaS solution with integration to/from the Maximo database. There is now an Essentials package which allows reorder points to be recalculated. The full MRO IO product is known as the Standard package and identifies stockouts, excessive inventory, slow moving or potentially obsolete inventory and overall helps to reduce inventory costs.

Maximo Renewables is also a SaaS solution for managing solar, wind and energy storage farms. This complements Maximo as it is more focused on Asset Performance Management. It came from an acquisition made In October 2024 of Prescinto, it will be interesting to see how this product integrates with Maximo Manage in the future.

Maximo Maintenance Cost Insights is also new to MAS 9.1 and provides a dashboard giving visibility to the total cost of maintenance from work orders including labor, materials, services and tools. It is powered by IBM Apptio, and you can launch into Apptio to drilldown into the cost data and analyse the data to understand cost drivers. It would help to understand where moving to Condition Based Maintenance can be justified. Apptio was acquired by IBM in August 2023 and is a platform for managing, optimizing and automating technology spends and was acquired as an additional product in the IT Automation portfolio.

MAS now includes a foundation layer for integrating AI into Maximo Manage, this started with MAS 9.0. The Maximo AI Service is new to MAS 9.1 and is a licensed product which uses watsonx large language models (LLMs) to enable AI features. Maximo AI Service is the integration hub between Maximo Manage and watsonx and leverages several integration capabilities and cron tasks. When installed it consumes 10 AppPoints, but there is a monthly limit on use before additional watsonx license will be needed.

There is an interface from the Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS) in what is referenced as the Maximo Vegetation Management Solution. EIS creates work orders to rectify areas where tree felling, tree trimming or scrub clearance is needed. The details are displayed in the Assets application and Map tab.

The Maximo Accelerator Catalog is a catalog of solutions created by IBM or IBM Business Partners which can be downloaded, some for free, some with a cost. It is where we downloaded IBM Maximo Manage Complex Assets which is Maximo Aviation with the Aviation terminology exchanged for Maximo terminology. Complex Assets is not yet a full add-on, a pity as it would be useful in some industries where there are multiple complex assets like mining, and ports/terminals, at its core is Maximo Asset Configuration Manager.

Finally, earlier I said that new functionality in the core applications of Maximo Manage, the add-ons and industry solutions, is largely being driven from ideas registered in the IBM Ideas portal. This slide is taken from an IBM slide desk for MAS 9.1; it shows that 173 ideas were delivered in this last year since MAS 9.0 was released.

The message is simple, create your ideas and spend time reviewing another persons ideas and if it has merit, then vote for it, you can also leave a comment. I created more than 90 ideas in 2024, and I’ve now got 30 or more to review when I get my MAS 9.1 system installed. You do need an IBM ID to create or vote for an idea, but the form for submitting an idea is simple. If you think it is particularly useful to others, you can use social media like LinkedIn to promote it, I do this for those which I know will resonate well with many Maximo clients.