Overview

Maximo® Assist is an application in IBM® Maximo Application Suite. Maximo Assist combines artificial intelligence and augmented reality to enable technicians to troubleshoot and repair equipment problems more efficiently.

Maximo Application Suite is a suite of asset management and data analytic offerings. Maximo Application Suite is offered as a customer-managed product on Red Hat® OpenShift® and as an IBM Managed solution.

For more information about installing and deploying Maximo Application Suite in a customer-managed environment, see Installing Maximo Application Suite.

What is Maximo Assist?

Maximo Assist provides technicians with AI-powered guidance through a knowledge base of equipment maintenance data and gives them remote access to experts for assistance. By using an intuitive mobile interface, technicians can diagnose equipment problems, find solutions, and collaborate with experts by using audio, video, and AR to resolve problems.

For every expert collaboration session, a session summary is generated and attached to the work order. The session summary is then added to the AI knowledge base so that it is searchable the next time a similar incident occurs. Maximo Assist helps to reduce the mean time to repair, reduces troubleshooting times, improves first-time fix rates, improves diagnosis accuracy, and drives higher levels of technician productivity. Maximo Assistalso enables companies to capture their valuable expert knowledge and scale it across the organization.

Maximo Assist is only available when you are online. A workaround for the Query and Diagnose functions is to download the useful documents from these functions while you are online so that you can access the documents offline. No workaround exists for the Collaborate function. Collaborate is only available online.

Important:

Starting in Maximo Application Suite 9.0, the document query API is no longer available in Maximo Assist. If the document query API is enabled and you are upgrading to Maximo Application Suite 9.0, this API is automatically removed during the upgrade.

Search

Maximo Assist uses market-leading AI-powered search and text analytics capabilities, which include powerful and innovative natural language processing to understand your company’s unique language. Technicians can access knowledge and experience from a broad knowledge base of equipment manuals, work orders, diagnostic processes, and more. Technicians can unlock insights in the correct steps to maintain, repair, or operate assets.

Diagnose

Important:

Starting in Maximo Application Suite 9.0, the Diagnose function is no longer available in Maximo Assist. If the Diagnose function is enabled and you are upgrading to Maximo Application Suite 9.0 this function and any associated diagnosis libraries are automatically removed during the upgrade.

Extract knowledge from your industry content to build diagnosis libraries and enable AI-powered troubleshooting. Technicians can use the diagnosis capabilities for a dynamic step-by-step troubleshooting experience. The highly interactive experience takes technicians through a sequence of questions and suggests solutions based on their responses, allowing technicians to tackle highly complex equipment problems.

Collaborate

By using audio, video, and AR-enabled collaboration, technicians can identify the correct expert to help them troubleshoot the problems that they face. Technicians can communicate remotely with the experts to resolve the problems faster. AR allows experts to provide pointed, guided, step-by-step instructions. The AR is enabled for the mobile devices that technicians and experts already use. A collaboration session summary is attached to the work order. A session summary can also be added to the AI knowledge base to make it searchable the next time a similar incident occurs, providing an enhanced search experience.

Collaborate sessions use WebRTC to transfer video and audio data. Video data is transferred from the technician to an expert and audio data is exchanged between the technician and expert. The following minimum incoming network bandwidths are required for collaboration sessions:
  • Technician: 100 Kilobits per second
  • Expert: 500 Kilobits per second
  • Gateway: 600 Kilobits per second
The following minimum outgoing network bandwidths are required for collaboration sessions:
  • Technician: 500 Kilobits per second
  • Expert: 100 Kilobits per second
  • Gateway: 600 Kilobits per second

Use the mobile technician app

By using the intuitive mobile interface, technicians can quickly access AI assistance in the field through the Search, Diagnose, and Collaborate features. Experts can use the app to collaborate with technicians to help them resolve issues efficiently. A field technician receives work orders and can start a conversation with Maximo Assist. Maximo Assist can help the technician to understand repair procedures and identify the parts, materials, and tools that are needed. The field technician can also update environment or situation information, feeding valuable information back to the system.

Administer Maximo Assist

Maximo Assist includes tools for administrators to manage and configure application settings.