Asset management software like IBM Maximo can help the region's utilities maximise the value of their asset investments. Hani Atout, Managing Partner, eSolutions Maximo and Alex Sanders, Consulting Manager, eSolutions Maximo spoke to Anoop K Menon on Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority's (ADWEA) journey with Maximo which started nearly 11 years ago.
Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA) was like any other government organisation," reminisced Hani Atout, Managing Partner, eSolutions Maximo while providing a historical context to Maximo implementation within the utility. "Processes were manual and weren't very efficient. After they decided to privatise, they wanted to streamline their operations and were looking for system to achieve better utilisation of assets,inventory and work hours."
In the run up to ADWEA's privatisation, Hani and colleagues were implementing Maximo for the ADNOC Group where most of the group companies had selected the solution. "When ADWEA privatised, many key people left ADNOC and joined ADWEA,"said Atout. "Due to their experience with Maximo, they recommended it to ADWEA to improve operations. In fact, ADWEA was totally manual while ADNOC was using legacy IT systems."
When ADWEA issued an RFQ to implement a Computerised Maintenance and Materials Management (CMMMS)system, the fact that lot of people within ADWEA were ex-ADNOC, were familiar with Maximo and its capabilities and the successful implementation at ADNOC all worked in Maximo's favour. "We implemented Maximo in maintenance,inventory, purchasing and contract and integrated to Oracle Financials at the time," said Atout. "As a lot of key people were ex-ADNOC, they were keen on implementing the system to enhance operations."
As with all technology implementations,there was resistance to the project. But ADWEA's then Chairman, His Highness Sheikh Diab bin Zayed Al Nahyan, directed that everybody should use the new system,ensuring management commitment and a top down enforcement of the system. To make the transition easier, employees were trained on the system. To ensure the implementation went smoothly, the eSolutions Maximo team carried out GAP analysis for all the modules and wrote the functional specification business process document. Once the approvals came through, the team would configure the system to meet the requirements and carry out data migration from legacy systems. ADWEA appointed Howard Finley to gather data for them while eSolutions Maximo worked on the integration side.
Atout pointed out that ADWEA have upgraded their systems twice in 11 years, which enabled them to get a lot of functionality while correcting things that were not optimal for them in the previous implementation. "I would say that they have very good visibility of their assets, a very good idea of how much they are spending on them and which ones are performing," he noted.
A new functionality that ADWEA has gained with the upgrade is CUE (Compatible Unit Estimating), which is the ability to get very accurate estimates of work to be done by contractors based on common operations that take place within the transmission and distribution world. ADWEA can estimate how much material and manpower is needed to carry out routine complex operations like laying new lines and creating substation hook ups. "This is a new functionality in the Maximo for the utilities version and has been quite successful for them," noted Atout.
Alex Sanders, Consulting Manager, eSolutions Maximo contrasted his experience during the initial implementation and the recent upgrade. He said: "When we first trained their users 11 years ago, we were sent people who didn't have the ability to read and write even though it was a perquisite, and some of them had never used a computer before. We had users lift the mouse off the table not sure how it worked. When we trained them last year, we found these users challenging us so much that we had to provide a suitably experienced trainer because they knew more than even our people. They had come a long way in terms of their knowledge of asset management software."
During the first roll out, ADWEA told the eSolutions Maximo team that they only wanted their existing processes to be mapped in Maximo. "The reality was more of a hybrid where some of our ideas were incorporated and some of their processes remained as they needed it to be," said Sanders. Atout added: "Apart from ADWEA, we have also implemented Maximo in Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA). Our solutions have been implemented in 10 regional power generation companies. We have not only taken the message of ADWEA to other utilities but also other companies that possess complex plant and equipment."
Sanders emphasised that a critical factor behind the success of Maximo implementation in ADWEA was management support and end-user involvement. "You never want to begin an undertaking like this without management commitment," he continued. "Departments like operations, warehousing and procurement need to be dedicated to the project implementation. If not, their requirements will not be met. Also, such projects should never be run by the IT department. IT should not lead it or influence it to the same level as the users who are going to end up with the system."
This raises the question- why is asset management critical for utilities? "It is the thing that helps them get their money at the end of the day," responded Saunders. For example, for an oil and gas company, the main assets are refineries, pipelines, wells, valves and motors. Every single component and tens and thousands of different pieces of equipment that make up their assets need to perform at the optimal level all the time in order for the company to run its operations. If they are producing millions of barrels a day and selling at USD100/barrel, and if they face a shutdown of just a few hours, they have already lost a fortune, which is going to affect the company and the country.
"Our favourite customers are always the asset intensive organisations because when they lose their assets or when their assets contribute to a shut down, they lose money for the entire time those assets are down," said Sanders. "If we can help them produce more efficiently and cost effectively and with less interruption, we have paid back many times over."
Some of the benefits that are not quantified in terms of cost are better integration of data systems, better communication between the departments, more routine when it comes to doing daily work and more visibility. "You don't have the problem of people losing papers, invoices and purchase orders or nobody taking care of the work if somebody goes on leave," said Sanders. "The system handles these kinds of things very well. You can enforce routines, processes and provide visibility on the process because they are all electronic."
Another important benefit is documentation. In the past, when documentation related to assets was on paper, they tended to have a very short life cycle. Whereas a corporation will last longer than its employees, the paper work and the information that is useful in that paperwork, tends to retire along with the experts who know everything about the assets. One of the benefits of implementing asset management systems is that the documentation becomes electronic and therefore, is around for a longer time than the experts.
Such systems are also important for organisations seeking the PAS 55 asset management standard. "Not having a tool like Maximo means they simply won't be able to get it," claimed Sanders. "PAS 55 talks about line of sight or the ability to know what's going in with your assets - a system like Maximo will definitely put you in the picture. In fact, if you are being audited for PAS 55, one of the things they will be looking for is your asset management system - whether it is paperbased or software based."
Not a silver bullet
Even today, there are companies who regard asset management software or enterprise software as a silver bullet that will make all their maintenance problems go away. "The fact is asset management software is not a pill which you swallow and everything gets better," cautioned Sanders. "It is a process which takes time and a system like Maximo, when implemented for multiple departments and thousands of users, takes time to implement. Just the basic implementation will take nearly a year if it is a very large implementation."
Once that phase is over, people have to get used to the system, change the way they work and start doing things in a systematic way. The classic resistance to change will naturally invite management pressure on people reluctant to use the system. In fact, people are wary of such systems because they provide a lot of visibility to the management.
"Once ADWEA realised how much redundant manpower they had, they were able to reallocate the manpower. Now in the minds of the individuals, they would just assume they would get fired as opposed to perhaps being put to better use elsewhere in the organisation," said Sanders.
The process of change takes many years. "When we go back to ADWEA every four to five years to do an upgrade, there are so many new things they would like to try and one or two things that didn't work out very well and need to be changed," continued Sanders. "Just because something was asked for earlier, it doesn't mean it continues to be the best thing for the company. Organisations and people change all the time, government regulations change all the time and new ideas emerge from other organisations."
"A nice thing about products from a company like IBM is that they make significant investments into the product," said Atout. "The product always retains its freshness and always has new functionality coming in so upgrading is very desirable to gain new functionality and to fix any old problems."
When it comes to ownership of asset management systems, a trend with large asset intensive organisations is the setting up of an asset management department or division that becomes responsible for the database being built up by the system. The other scenario is where the system's ownership is distributed between maintenance, procurement and IT with each part owning the system from different points of view. Sanders explained: "Procurement will own procurement data, maintenance will own their operational work management data, sometimes operations are involved but at a low level and IT will own the system as a system and provide for its continued sustenance in terms of database and software operating systems, licensing and so on. End of the day, it is owned by the organisation and not so much by a department."
The future road map
Future versions of Maximo are expected to be smarter, with more intelligence and analytical capabilities. Sanders said: "If we look at the road map of Maximo, we see more and more modules coming in for making informed, intelligent decisions and even predictive decisions. They will enable more optimisation, integration with smart metering; they will be more instrumented and interconnected. Basically, we are trying to make Maximo a smarter product using as much intelligence and experience that can be possibly poured into one product."
Future versions will seek to extract value out of the huge quantities of data coming out of highly instrumented and smart production environments. "The focus of our R&D is on reading and analysing that data. We want Maximo to be smart and capable of helping asset managers look at trends and patterns, make predictive assertions and change the way they do their business," said Sanders. He claimed that the modules for predictive analytics are also getting more and capable. "Because so many factors go into them, it is understandable if people are unable to trust or tend to disregard the output of predictive analysis," noted Sanders. "But as these systems get better, you will see people start making decisions based on what they predict is likely to happen. As inputs get better, output gets better too."
© Power & Water Middle East 2013
