Maintenance Management Systems on the Rise

By Ed McKenna


To improve the upkeep of their far-flung facilities and assets, military and civilian agencies are deploying maintenance management software systems that can be programmed to provide efficient oversight of basic facility or program operations.

A number of government facilities are using a product, known as Maximo, from Project Software & Development Inc. (PSDI) of Cambridge, Mass. The software provides notification of routine maintenance tasks and detailed directions for doing them. It also can be programmed to alert maintenance personnel of the procedures to protect valuable assets during an emergency.

Maximo is being used to monitor maintenance at a long list of federal buildings, including the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, the Pentagon, CIA headquarters and the Bureau of Standards, says Charly Tupitza, manager of federal business development at PSDI.

It is also being used to monitor the upkeep of a number of military installations, such as the Navy Public Works Center in San Diego, where it is replacing a tangle of old legacy systems.

"It makes the data much more accessible to more people, and we no longer have to write programs to transfer data or replicate data in other areas," says Steve Crawford, production services support manager, Naval Facilities Engineering Center.

The system is running on a Windows NT platform and Oracle database, Crawford says. Once it's operational, the system will have as many as 500 users at different facilities around the city.

Innovative Logistics Techniques Inc. (Innolog), McLean, Va., has adapted Maximo to keep track of the information technology assets of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. facilities throughout the country. Innolog is developing "a real-time database of all IT assets that the FDIC owns, operates or leases, which constitutes 12,000 pieces of hardware valued at about $20 million," says Christopher Losa, director of integrated systems at Innolog.

Innolog also has designed its own maintenance manager for the Army's Integrated Sustainment Maintenance (ISM) program, under the auspices of the Army Materiel Command. Initiated in 1993, ISM's goal is to transition to a regional approach general maintenance of vehicles and aircraft at Army installations in the United States and abroad, says Larry Stier, ISM project manager at Innolog. The Army has estimated the shift will save it $142 million in maintenance costs, he adds.

Innolog designed the executive management information system to be used to determine what needs to be fixed and where the repair should be performed, and it helps monitor the performance of the different installations, Stier says.

"It is a client/server-based system that is Web-enabled and runs an Oracle database," says Stier.

The company also is providing operational field support for the program, as well as training for the government personnel at the various installations, he says.