Hacking Maximo
Love, hate, love
I've managed a Maximo installation for about 12 years,
and the experience certainly has had its ups and downs. It's a good
application for the most part, but there were some frustrating
idiosyncracies that had to be dealt with.
At left, are links to pages outlining some of the hacks that I've
used to make life with Maximo easier. These tips apply to Maximo V4.11
running on MS SQLServer 2000.
Disclaimer: Use these
utilities and techniques at your own risk. No guarantees are expressed
or implied. They fit my needs and may not fit yours. They
are NOT endorsed by MRO, Inc. and do things that would make Tech Support
shudder. Be sure that you understand what these utilities do before using
them and only then do so in a "demo" database until you're confident of
the outcome.
Out to Pasture
The company I work for started using Maximo at several sites in 1988. I got involved in 1993.
By the late 90's, plans to replace our legacy systems with SAP R/3 were underway. Myself and two
other administrators evaluated four options: keep our Maximo systems standalone, interface Maximo to
SAP, migrate to Plant Maintenance module from Maximo, or convert to Datastream's MP2.
After several weeks of comparisons, we determined that migrating to SAP/PM would be our
best option. We'll have our migration complete in a few months, and maybe I'll start to add
some SAP/PM hacks.
Assimilation into the Borg
Maximo was a silly registered trademark of PSDI, Inc. A few years ago, PSDI changed their
name to MRO, Inc. That struck me as a cheesy ploy to define themselves as the leader in
Maintenance,
Repair and Overhaul by assuming the name. Not that they're weren't already a major player.
A couple years ago, IBM acquired Maximo and added the product to their Tivolo product line.
