Maximo Open Forum

Good morning! (at least as the time of writing this..)

I've recently had a request to try to eliminate the clutter of fields on our Maximo work orders.  The thought behind this request is that by doing so, the end user (our field technicians) will be less confused about the process, so will be more likely to accurately complete the work order in Maximo.  I have mixed feelings about this request and what I see as the result of it, but I'm biased as a long-term Maximo user (10+ years) and lifelong technology enthusiast.  The end use for Maximo and our configuration doesn't confuse me so I have a hard time really visualizing the issue.  I recognize that Maximo has a lot of information it collects and helps control, even more so when you take into account the spec attributes we include in our work order classifications.  My ultimate goal here is to find out if anyone else has run into a request such as this and how the request was handled.  Thanks in advance for any information you can share around this.  

Hello Joe!  I am also a long-term Maximo user and very comfortable with the platform.  But I empathize with your users, as I believe Maximo screens as-delivered are extremely poorly-suited to a positive user experience.  As you are aware, there are a number of ways to address this issue.  At different times and for different reasons, I have used all of these:

1) educate the users--leave things "as-is" and help them deal with it

2) clone the screen to keep the "full" experience available and then provide a pared-down version for end users (we did this with Work Order Tracking, cloning to make a Work Order Entry screen for most technicians)

3) invoke conditional UI rules to show things / hide things based upon relevancy

4) leverage tab groups--in a recent IT project pipeline application, we found great success in grouping like fields into meaningfully-labeled tabs so that the amount of stuff in front of a user at any one time was reduced and targeted

5) leverage dialog boxes to break out less-often-used fields into a "detailed view"

Cheers,

Jade

I've faced that same dilemma many times in my career, attempting to balance the keep-it-simple for better usability with the business requirements of the organization, whether those requirements are asset reliability or financial or . . .?  In the end, if the techs struggle with the applications, you won't get the data quality that you desire.

Here's some thoughts . . .

• Be careful not to go too far in your simplification, Maximo functionality is always there for a reason, a good reason
• Consider using the tools already built-in such as Quick Reporting for an easy to use work order completion tool
• Define your work management processes, and stick to them, using management to drive the utilization.  If you're classifying work orders, I'm guessing that you're got pretty well defined processes.
•  Consider automation to simplify the mundane tasks - workflow, escalations, automation scripts.
• Consider pay for performance - a token reward for who has the highest number of technician hours reported on work orders?
• Your techs do have adequate training, don't they?

At the end of the day, though, if folks struggle to use the tech, it won't get used (at least with any quality) so I'm all for simplifying the UI, be it through the native Maximo apps or a mobile device to enable the wrench-turners to focus on turning wrenches.