MAS suite · Field Service Management
The plan changes at 10:52. The crew hears about it at 10:56, once.
IBM Maximo Field Service Management on MAS for dispersed estates: Maximo Mobile online and offline, Scheduler, Optimizer, Spatial and Collaborate, with mid-shift change rules agreed before anything is optimised.
One shift, both ends
06:40 to 15:20, read from the dispatch desk and from the van
A composite shift on a dispersed estate. Times and jobs are illustrative. The case for this capability is the four minutes between 10:52 and 10:56.
Dispatch desk
In the van
06:40
Six jobs released in route order, skills and van stock checked against each.
Mobile caches history, PM procedure, expected parts and permit status. The third job sits in a valley with no signal.
09:15
Two jobs close on the board with no phone call and nothing to chase.
Findings, labour and photographs entered at the asset, offline, queued until signal returns.
10:52
A priority pressure fault lands fifteen minutes away. Two crews are nearer, neither qualified, one mid-job. Optimizer proposes a reassignment against skills, travel, van stock and commitments.
Nothing. The technician is under an actuator and the plan on the device is still the plan.
10:55
The dispatcher accepts it, protects the started job on the other crew, and defers one inspection to Thursday with a reason.
Still nothing, deliberately. A crew is told once, after a person decides.
10:56
The deferral sits in the plan with a name against it.
One notification: a job added, one removed, the route resequenced, a line saying why. The job in hand is untouched.
15:20
Nothing to reconcile between a field tool and Manage.
Close-out at the asset: findings, labour, parts and photographs against the work order.
Who feels it
Five roles, and what changes in the day of each
Mobile, Scheduler and Optimizer change different jobs by different amounts. Naming which is how a rollout gets accepted rather than tolerated.
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Dispatcher
Stops doing arithmetic on who is qualified and whether the afternoon still fits. Works the exceptions Optimizer hands back, and the deferrals carrying a customer commitment.
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Field technician
Arrives with history, procedure, expected parts and permit status on the device. Hears a change as one acknowledged notification, not a call while driving.
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Crew supervisor
Sees a feasible week before Monday from Scheduler capacity heat maps rather than a whiteboard, including what was deferred and by whom.
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Maintenance planner
Job plans, durations, skills and van stock become model inputs. This is the role whose workload rises, because planning data quality stops being invisible.
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Storesperson
Van stock requirements arrive from the schedule rather than a call at 07:00, and a job dispatched without its part is visible before the crew leaves the yard.
Before configuration
Three decisions that settle the rollout
Every FSM engagement we have run turned on these three. Configuration is the straightforward half.
Which work types go on the device first
How much of a started shift may move
Which constraints Optimizer owns, and which the dispatcher keeps
Scope and boundaries
Where FSM depends on your dispatch model
Optimizer schedules against the planning data it is given
Durations, skills and parts as recorded. Where those are wrong the output is confidently wrong, and correcting them is a job-plan exercise scoped separately.
It does not decide who gets stood down
A person chooses which commitment moves. We keep that visible and recorded rather than automatic, because the consequences are contractual.
Optimizer is rarely the starting point
Mobile and Scheduler sit inside a Manage licence already. We say when Optimizer is premature, even though it is the larger purchase.
The work at the asset takes as long as it takes
Travel, access, permits, the repair and the parts lead time are unchanged by any scheduling tool. No first-time-fix percentage is quoted here: that depends on your parts policy and asset mix, and is scoped per estate.
Offline scope is designed, not switched on
A cache scoped for a depot does not survive a valley, so what the device holds through an unsignalled shift is designed per environment.
IBM Maximo Field Service Management, frequently asked questions
- What is IBM Maximo Field Service Management on MAS?
- Capabilities on top of the Manage instance holding your asset, work and inventory data: Maximo Mobile online and offline, Scheduler for plan of work, Optimizer for dispatch, Spatial for GIS and Collaborate for remote expert support.
- Do we have to use Optimizer to do field service?
- No. Mobile and Scheduler sit inside a Manage licence and carry most estates a long way. Optimizer earns its place when the dispatcher spends more of the day on schedule mechanics than on exceptions.
- What happens to a crew when the schedule changes mid-shift?
- The pattern we deliver protects work already started, sends one notification carrying the reason and the resequenced route, requires the technician to acknowledge it, and caps how much of a day may move once begun.
- Does Maximo Mobile work offline?
- Yes, in production: accept, start, update and complete work, inspections, images, barcodes and embedded mapping while disconnected, then sync on reconnection. Cache scope is designed per environment; a hangar bay and a remote linear asset differ.
- How does this connect to the rest of the suite?
- Same Manage data model and OpenShift estate as Visual Inspection, which supplies image-based inspections inside Mobile, Monitor and Predict, whose alerts generate field work, and Health, whose criticality scores inform dispatch priority.
Related capabilities
Related capabilities and components
Bring the dispatch board from yesterday.
Walk us through the day at the dispatch desk: every change made after eight, and what each one did to a crew. We name which parts of FSM earn their licence first, whether Optimizer is premature, and the offline scope your worst-signal route needs.
Bring this to the first call
- Yesterday's schedule, and every change made to it during the shift
- The work types you would put on a device first, and the ones you would not
- Your three worst-connectivity locations
- What proportion of jobs need a second visit, and the usual reason
- Who may defer a customer commitment, and how that is recorded today