Maximo Project Team

Robert Zientara in his book IBM Maximo Asset Management - The Consultant's Guide outlined the following roles and their competencies in a typical Maximo implementation project team.

Usually client side has their own sponsor and project manager, representatives from different end user teams, and in house administrators and supports who will be taking care of the system after the rollout.

The implementer side, usually has

Project Manager - for project management, who should have PMP certification, monitor the progress of the projects and make sure it is not over budget while meeting the requirements of the clients. Communication skills with the client side as well as the internal team is the important competency, and know how on the Maximo system as well as the industry is needed for that.

Maximo Consultant - who should have in depth knowledge in Maximo solution design, and able to understand the problems faced by the clients. So they should also have domain knowledge in clients industry as they need to transform users business requirements into the Maximo configuration approach, they need to quickly answer the users whether something is feasible or not. Moreover, they should suggest the best practice to the users.

System Engineer - who is responsible for the installation and administration of the system, database management and SQL writing, for the latest version of Maximo they should also have knowledge on managing the containers and IoT platform.

Programmer - some projects require customization, which might need Java programming to extend the native Maximo Business Object (MBO), since version 7.5 Automation script is another option, which is more easy to write compare to Java, and without the needs to stop the server for deployment. And the automation script code is highly reusable, for some smaller scale projects, the scripting works can be picked up by the Maximo Consultant or System Engineer as well.

MIF Specialist - some projects require integration with ERP or systems like GIS and CDE, which requires customization on the Maximo Integration Framework, usually in large scale projects there will be dedicated staffs for the integration work. Similar to the customization of Maximo, Automation script can be used most of the time unless the client needs to customize the UI as well.

Data Migration Specialist - if the system is migrated from a legacy system, a lot of core and transactional data will be needed to migrated as well. Usually this task might take up significant amount of time, and need to consider the cutover arrangement of the old and new systems.

Report Writer - in the old days Actuate, and now Birt or Cognos, there usually has dedicated staff work on the report writing, and SQL is the mandatory knowledge of this role.

Trainer - who responsible for training, as it normally take place before the User Acceptance Test or after the Implementation, usually the Maximo Consultant can wear this hat as well.

IBM - along the implementation life cycle, clients and implementers can also submit tickets to the vendor, asking for support on the product defects.

In summary, as Maximo is evolving to a low code application platform, in theory the configuration life cycle will become shorter compare to the old days, and the roles of the implementation teams should be flatten. But on the other hand, the product itself is rapidly expanding, from CMMS to EAM, to now including the IoT integration, predictive maintenance, visual analytics and AI, even addons like maps, BIM, linear asset etc. It requires the consultants to be more all rounded in order to understand the rapid changing business requirements and facilitate the implementation work in the future.

Thanks.