Managing work orders in large organisations can be a complex task, especially when multiple teams and technical skills are involved. Effective scheduling is key to ensuring that maintenance tasks are carried out efficiently and by the right people. With the growing reliance on digital tools and mobile technology, the need for streamlined, paperless processes have never been more essential. This is where IBM Maximo steps in, offering a suite of powerful applications that simplify work order assignment and scheduling, allowing teams to work smarter, not harder.
For large organisations, ensuring that work orders are scheduled and assigned effectively is crucial. This guarantees that the technicians or crews assigned to the tasks possess the required skills and competencies to complete the job successfully.
With the growing adoption of mobile technology, work orders are now electronically assigned, allowing them to appear on the technician's mobile worklist. This not only improves efficiency but also minimises the environmental impact caused by paper-based processes.
Maximo offers several methods for assigning work orders, including:
- Directly through the Work Order’s assignments tab.
- Utilising local actions in the Maximo Graphical Scheduler.
- Leveraging the Maximo Graphical Assignment application.
- Employing the new Scheduler Graphical Work Week application.
The first two methods have been covered previously, and while they are useful, they often limit the work group supervisor’s view. Accessing the Graphical Scheduler application requires the supervisor to manage numerous work orders, many of which may not be directly relevant, restricting their ability to get an overall view of the scheduled work week.
When work is fully planned and integrated into the scheduling process, collaboration between the scheduler and area supervisors is key to assigning a comprehensive maintenance schedule to the right resources. Maximo provides two additional applications to help workgroup supervisors assign tasks more efficiently.
For Maximo users with an established mobile suite, assigning work orders immediately transfers them to the technician’s mobile device, following predefined parameters.
Graphical Assignment
The Graphical Assignment application builds on the Graphical Scheduler, offering supervisors a more assignment-focused perspective to manage tasks across a range of scheduled work.
This application uses the same parameters as the Graphical Scheduler to select work orders and resources that need to be displayed.
Once the work orders and resources are selected, the supervisor is presented with two main views:
- Work View: Displays the work orders along with the status of their assignments. In the example below, you can see which work orders have already been assigned and which are still waiting for assignment.
- Assignment View: Shows the technicians assigned to work, as well as those still waiting for an assignment. Key features include:
- A full list of available technicians, grouped by craft.
- Color-coded indicators showing assignment status: green for assigned, orange for waiting, and red for over-assigned.
- Any crafts that are planned for the selected work but are not included in the current query (often because they belong to another supervisor or contractor).
Each window in the Gantt pane also gives access to several localised actions, allowing supervisors to quickly adjust assignments and manage resources more efficiently.
Graphical Work Week
More recently, IBM introduced the Graphical Work Week application, designed to give workgroup supervisors a streamlined perspective on their team’s workload for the current week. This tool focuses specifically on the active week, avoiding the distraction of future tasks and allowing for more agile management.
The image below illustrates the out of box layout of this application and several configuration options are available to tailor the view to your business needs.
In this single view, supervisors can:
- Select and assign work to resources.
- View all scheduled work for the current and surrounding weeks.
- Track daily assignments and identify over or under-allocation, with over-assignments flagged in red.
- Monitor the team's progress as the week unfolds.
- Adjust assignments to account for changes in resource availability, emergency tasks, or any work that overruns and needs to be carried over.
- Ensure all changes are saved directly to the work order and updated on the mobile devices of the assigned technicians.
- Share the week’s workload with the team via email or discuss it during morning meetings.
As outlined in previous blogs, these tools require proper data population and queries aligned with the overall scheduling process to maintain consistency across your work management cycle.
With the powerful combination of Maximo’s Graphical Scheduler, Graphical Assignment, and Graphical Work Week applications, supervisors and schedulers can effectively manage work orders in both the short and long term. This not only helps them respond quickly to changing conditions but also enhances the overall efficiency of their maintenance teams.
