MRO Software, a provider of asset and service management solutions, on Wednesday announced the availability of its new line of mobile-enabled solutions for its Maximo Enterprise Suite (MXES). This new solution was designed from the ground up within the MXES architecture, and supports companies’ efforts to significantly cut the time, cost, paperwork and delays of servicing mission-critical assets in a distributed environment. MXES Mobile Suite allows for employees to be more productive by enabling them to efficiently perform critical work, and access critical asset and process data wherever and whenever needed, using handheld devices and mobile phones.
MXES Mobile represents the next phase of the company’s roll out of MXES solutions. These mobile solutions are designed and built into the MXES service-oriented architecture. The mobile solution lets customers take full advantage of MXES’s workflow, business rules, business objects and easy application configuration, without the need for third-party solutions. These new solutions seamlessly extend the reach and accessibility of the core MXES functionality, allowing remote users to benefit from the enhanced asset and service management capabilities that MXES delivers.
"Our research shows that users will not accept critical business applications unless they are available on a mobile platform. The ability to provide the full functionality to the remote user enhances application usability and criticality. Vendors that can provide this complete capability stand to benefit by gaining a greater wallet share,” said Michael Maoz, vice president, research fellow, Gartner Inc.
Initial applications for the MXES Mobile Suite include the Maximo Mobile for Work Management, which provides remote, real-time access to work and asset data necessary to complete work and service management tasks, and Maximo Mobile for Inventory Management, which gives paperless inventory and receiving control.
“A recent ARC survey identified the use of mobile solutions for asset management as an important trend that can increase productivity and improve workflow when properly deployed,” said Houghton LeRoy, research director at ARC Advisory Group. “The new embedded MXES Mobile Suite from MRO Software better addresses productivity and workflow by downloading only what is needed and by working with or without a live connection with minimal disruption. A practical design positions PDAs for the more complex work order and inventory management functions and limits cell phone usage to simple communications such as dispatching and notification. Since the MXES Mobile Suite is developed and embedded by MRO Software, customers should not have to deal with costly incompatibility issues that require partner solution updates.”
The new connected and disconnected features of the MXES Mobile platform allows the mobile applications to dynamically connect to the server as required, based on user profiles and available wireless connectivity. The MXES Mobile Suite enables employees to both capture data in the field during maintenance or inventory procedures, as well as providing dynamic access to critical and related information about those procedures. At the same time, managers can assign and re-prioritize work as necessary in real-time and manage and receive valuable, up-to-the-minute information about field service performance.
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Using open standards and a Java 2 Micro Edition runtime profiles, MRO Software has combined the portability of Java technology with open, industry standards to deliver a comprehensive solution for extending many of the MXES existing business processes onto mobile devices. MXES Mobile Suite’s work management and inventory applications run on Microsoft Windows Mobile-based devices. Cell phone-based applications based on light-weight java profile are scheduled for release later this year.