How do you choose the best BI platform for your asset management?

Your asset management system is a valuable source of information for improving your maintenance processes. But which tool should you ideally use to gain insight into your asset management data in IBM Maximo? In this second blog in a series of three about asset management and BI, we will discuss various reporting options.

27 June 2022 • 11 min read

Your company may have been collecting all kinds of data about the maintenance of your assets in IBM Maximo for years, but hardly uses it. That is a missed opportunity, because a smart use of this data yields a lot. For example, analyzing failure data can lead to very interesting conclusions. It may turn out that you need to replace certain parts earlier, that it is time to switch to another manufacturer, or that you should use different specifications. Analyzing the performance of your maintenance teams also provides important insights. It may be that the routing of your maintenance activities is not optimal or that certain assets structurally require more maintenance than average. And what about an analysis of your maintenance costs? Are you spending the most on materials, people, or specific assets?

But if you want to look more at the trends in your maintenance data, make predictions, or make data insightful through visualization, then IBM Cognos is the right tool. With it, you can, for example, create a MJOP, in which you can see what a change to your maintenance plans means for the costs. Or a report that maps the integrity of your entire asset structure, with the ability to click through to detailed information about an asset.

Typical users of IBM Cognos are, for example, your business analysts or site reliability engineers. Just like with BIRT, the use of this BI tool is included with your IBM Maximo license.

No data models or extra license fees

If you want the ability to create reports directly from IBM Maximo, then BIRT and IBM Cognos are good choices for you. The advantage of using these BI tools is also that you do not have to build your own data models, because they are already fully interwoven with IBM Maximo. You also have no extra license costs. That is different if you choose to use another reporting tool, such as MS Power BI or Tableau. For example, because this tool is the standard in your organization or because your financial department wants to combine data from IBM Maximo with data from your company’s ERP system.

Sufficient knowledge of BI tool in house

Finally, the available knowledge of a BI tool is also an aspect that you should take into account. If a certain tool is completely established in your organization and is used by all departments, it is better to also use it for the reporting of your asset management data in IBM Maximo. That way, you can be sure that there will be sufficient knowledge in-house in the future to adapt existing maintenance reports and develop new ones to optimize your asset management.

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