It’s one of the most common things we hear: “We have Maximo, but we’re not getting value from it.” PMs exist but don’t get followed. Work orders are open but coded inconsistently. Failure history is there — but nobody trusts it. Leadership wants reporting, but the data doesn’t connect to real decisions.
The software isn’t the problem. The foundation is.
Maximo doesn’t fail organizations. Organizations implement Maximo without the reliability strategy foundation that makes it work — and then blame the platform when results don’t follow.
Reliability isn’t a module you turn on. It’s an operating model you build: agreement on how work gets prioritized, how assets are classified using asset criticality, how failures get described through consistent failure codes, and what good data quality actually looks like. Without those definitions in place, Maximo becomes a very expensive digital filing cabinet.
The most important question after any Maximo implementation isn’t “did we install it correctly?” It’s “did we build work management discipline that will still exist 12 months from now?”
This article is part of the Maven Asset Management Insights series on Maximo data quality and reliability.