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From the Maximo Support Desk - Overview of IBM Internet of Things' Maximo Support

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Abstract

From the Maximo Support Desk - Overview of IBM Internet of Things' Maximo Support

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Part One - The Scope, Scale, and People of Support

 

I am a "Level 2" Support Engineer for IBM Maximo and this is the first part of a five-part series of articles.  These articles are based on a presentation that has been given by the Maximo L2 Support Manager, Thomas Aaron.  I work for Thomas, who manages a team of Level 2 Maximo application support engineers in North America (United States and Canada), South America (Brazil), and the Philippines.  Thomas is based in the United States and is a proud Texan!

As this series of articles progresses, I will give more detail and refinement to the process, but here in Part One I will describe the physical structure of Maximo support...

 

IBM's Internet of Things' division has approximately 200 IoT Support resources.  Approximately 162 of these resources are dedicated entirely to being

support engineers.  Out of this group, approximately 100 are supporting Maximo products.

The Maximo support engineers are located in the following sites, that we often refer to as Maximo Labs:

-Littleton, MA
-London, Ontario - Canada
-Sao Paulo, Brazil
-Quezon City, Philippines      
-Bedfont, UK
-West Pennant Hills, Australia

 

Maximo Support is just one component of IBM Internet of Things' (IoT) Product Families:
-Maximo Asset Management portfolio
-TRIRIGA
-Continuous Engineering family
-Message Sight
-Maximo
 
Maximo is supported through 5 Teams of Expertise, based on major functionalities: 
 -Systems                               
 -System Administration
 -Applications
 -Reporting
 -Integration

What this means to you is that when you enter a PMR, you will be working with a support engineer whose primary focus and area of knowledge is primarily one of the five functional categories listed above.  It's important to know that each physical office houses members of all, or most of these functional skillsets.  This helps us assist our clients when issues overlap into more than one functional area.  Our collaborative abilites in this model allow us to provide a streamlined delivery of a resolution when it's necessary to involve more than one functional area of expertise.

 

Just to give you an idea of the number of individual Maximo support cases were serviced by these teams:

In 2015, there were 16,000 PMRs opened by our clients:
 Average hours per problem: 7.2
 Average turn around time: 25 days (please understand that this includes time to revise code, such an APAR/IFIX delivery)
 CSAT: 86% Satisfied - this is based on returned surveys that get sent out randomly to clients when a PMR gets closed

Also in 2015, from a product standpoint, and from those 16,000 PMRs:
1,369 APARs were opened
1,332 APARs closed (some of these can be attributed to APARs opened near the end of 2014

 

Of course, the most important component of the physical structure of Maximo support is our customer base.  Our clients range from the worlds' largest corporations to federal, state, and local municipalities, and to small, technical consultancies.  Maximo is being used in many different industries, and all over the planet, as well.  The actual clients who contact IBM for Maximo support can range from an end user of a specific application module who has run into a problem, to a certified Maximo administrator or specialist who is supporting Maximo for a site, or a project manager who is overseeing a large-scale Maximo implementation or upgrade.

 

The entry point to this support structure is typically a PMR that gets opened and serviced by an L2 support engineer.  As an L2 support engineer, I can tell you that our primary goal is to resolve this as quickly as possible within our own resources, but sometimes that is not possible.  When the issue demands a different skillset, or a higher level of expertise, we have immediate access to the best and brightest developers, product architects and other technical gurus within the IBM Maximo global environment.  This support structure gives both you and I the confidence that your issue will be resolved in the best manner possible.

 

For your further enjoyment, please see the other articles in this series, "Overview of IBM Internet of Things' Maximo Support":

Part Two - Care and Feeding of your Maximo product: Maintenance, Fixes, Patches

Part Three - Severity, Response, and Engineer Engagement

Part Four - Additional Support Process and Resources

Part Five - Ours Go To 11: Expanded Support and the Maximo Support Community

 


Tom Richardson is an IBM Maximo Support Engineer and frequent contributor to the Asset Management Blog community.  For a complete index of links to his articles, visit
Index of articles by Tom Richardson, Support Engineer

 

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