Turning risk into resilience with IBM Maximo Vegetation Management

In 2024, the US saw over 61,000 wildfires that scorched nearly 8.9 million acres, many of which sparked by vegetation overgrowth near utility infrastructure. This has become a leading cause of both ignition and power outages, especially in high-risk states like California and Texas.* 

That’s why IBM is proud to announce a powerful new feature: IBM Maximo Vegetation Management is now a part of Maximo Application Suite, transforming data inputs into actionable insights in one unified solution.

In utility, infrastructure and operational landscapes today, vegetation management isn’t just about trimming trees; it’s about protecting assets, ensuring public safety and optimizing operational efficiency. With climate volatility increasing the risk of wildfires and outages, organizations need smarter, data-driven solutions to proactively manage vegetation near power lines, pipelines and transportation corridors.

A modern vegetation management solution empowers teams with real-time insights, data analytics and automated workflows—transforming reactive maintenance into proactive asset protection. It’s not just a tool; it’s a safeguard for reliability, compliance and sustainability.

IBM Maximo Vegetation Management transforms diverse data inputs into actionable insights, enabling companies to proactively identify high-risk areas, helping to prioritize tree trimming, reduce risk and optimize resource use, instead of relying on cycle-trimming.

Clients can tailor their insights using multiple imagery sources—whether it’s 2D satellite views, 3D LiDAR scans or a hybrid approach—ensuring the right level of detail for every terrain and asset. Our AI-powered risk scoring engine analyzes imagery and asset data to detect encroachment risks, predict growth and prioritize maintenance going beyond detection, calculating vegetation density and priority levels to pinpoint high-risk zones before they become incidents. And with seamless work order integration, teams can move from insight to action in a unified product that tracks execution, compliance and contractor performance—all in one place.

Vegetation management is evolving from reactive maintenance to proactive risk mitigation—and the impact spans far beyond forestry.

• For utilities, it means preventing outages and wildfires by identifying encroaching growth near power lines before it becomes a hazard.
• In the insurance sector, it enables more accurate risk assessments and claims validation by analyzing vegetation density and proximity to insured assets.
• For transportation, it ensures safer routes and uninterrupted service by monitoring overgrowth along railways and highways. Our solution brings together geospatial intelligence, analytics insights, and automated workflows to help these industries reduce costs, improve safety, and stay ahead of environmental risks.

This is a leap forward in operational resiliency. By combining AI-driven vegetation insights with the robust asset and work order capabilities, utilities gain a scalable, end-to-end solution for outage prevention improving operational efficiency and reducing costs.

Whether you’re a vegetation manager, operations lead or asset reliability engineer, IBM Maximo Vegetation Management empowers you to:

• Reduce outage risk: Prevent outages by identifying and addressing vegetation threats early
• Increase cost efficiency: Reduce manual inspections and emergency maintenance costs by prioritizing high-risk areas
• Optimize maintenance: Unified products provide data insights and track work orders and execution

Learn how you can move from insight to execution, and build a smarter, safer operation.

Explore the IBM Maximo Vegetation Management