Overview
In order to manage assets, there is a lot of collaboration between technicians, reliability engineers, supervisors, storeroom managers, and clerks. Push notifications can be used to quickly notify users with critical asset information to take actions directly within the applications. This might reduce the overall cost of asset maintenance by fixing the problems on time before an asset needs to be replaced.
Aging workforces are a common problem nowadays. When a new technician goes out to the field to fix an issue (work order), they might need help to troubleshoot the work. Push notifications are a fast, reliable way to send the work order details to the technician and get the expert knowledge needed to resolve the issue quickly.
In these cases, email or text messages might not be as effective as push notifications. The push notifications allow the user to receive messages as well as open the relevant application to view details about the message and take appropriate action (for example, viewing work order details or creating a work order).
Use cases
Some of the key use cases where push notifications can be used in the asset management area are as follows:
- Technician: work is assigned or reassigned to a technician or an emergency work order is approved.
A message will be sent to the technician’s device where the app is installed to tell them that work is assigned or reassigned to them. The message includes a link to the work details.
- Technician: help is needed to resolve the work order (expert knowledge transfer from the expert technician.
In this example, Sam the technician sends a push notification message with his work details to Ed, the expert to help troubleshoot and fix the issue with an overheating air conditioning system. Ed receives the push notification, checks the work order details, and accepts the request. Sam receives the notification that his request is accepted. A collaboration session via chat, phone, or augmented collaboration can be created between Sam and Ed to resolve the issue.
- Reliability Engineer: a reliability engineer needs to be notified about an alert that is triggered for a critical asset.
When an alert is triggered on an asset, such as when a meter reading is above or below a threshold, a message will be sent to the reliability engineer including the asset details.
- Supervisor: emergency work is approved.
A message will be sent to the supervisor’s device where the app is installed to say that an emergency work order with priority is approved and it needs to be assigned.
- Supervisor: work is completed.
When work gets completed (that is, when the work order status is changed to complete), a notification will be sent to the supervisor or manager to keep them informed about the status of the work.
- Supervisor: work is not completed within the expected time and SLAs are not met.
When work is not completed within the estimated time, or a preventative maintenance work order is not performed, a notification will be sent to a supervisor or manager. A background process (such as an escalation or cron task) can check if the work is not completed in the estimated time and can call the notification API. The reason for the delay can be determined (for example, more resources are needed, the issue is weather-related, or more material is needed) and appropriate action can be taken to complete the work.
- Store Supervisor: material inventory falls below the reorder point.
When the inventory falls below the reorder point, based on the background process running to check the reorder point, a notification is sent to a storeroom supervisor or manager to inform them that action is needed or create a purchase requisition or purchase order or to automatically create it. The workflow can be triggered to follow the approval process.
- Store Supervisor: high-value materials are returned.
When high-value items or materials are returned, a notification is sent to a supervisor about the return that includes the reason for returning material (for example, the item or material was defective, overage, the quantity was exceeded, or it did not meet specifications). This will help in inventory management.
Custom use cases implementation in Maximo
The above use cases can be implemented with a custom Maximo Anywhere application. In case a custom mobile app needs to be built outside of Maximo Anywhere, the following additional code needs to be added to the mobile application because the Maximo push notification library is provided only through Maximo Anywhere.
- Register a device with the provider and Maximo.
- Handle the callback to process the push notification messages.
Additional Information
How to create and manage notifications:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLKT6_7.6.1/com.ibm.mam.doc/workcntr/c_notifications.html
Configuration for push notifications in Maximo Asset Management:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/1283332
How to set up notification queues for event-based notification:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/manually-configuring-jms-queues-notifications-websphere
Maximo push notification application usage:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSLKT6_7.6.1.2/com.ibm.mbs.doc/pushnotification/c_pushnotification_application.html#Featured-area-1#AssetandFacilitiesManagement#Featured-area-1-home#Maximo