Software provides asset and service management.
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Press Release Summary:
Based on IT Infrastructure Library guidelines, Maximo® Enterprise Suite includes IT asset management, service management, and service desk. It provides compliance with contracts, service level agreements, internal corporate standards, and government regulations and encourages partnerships between asset management team, internal customers, and external suppliers. Third-party service providers can use MXES to manage customer relationships and perform financial transactions.
Original Press Release:
MRO Software Announces Availability of Maximo Enterprise Suite
Next Generation Suite Delivers Enhanced EAM Functionality, Service Management and ITIL-Based Solution for ITAM and Service Desk
BEDFORD, Mass., February 28,2005 - MRO Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: MROI), the leading provider of strategic asset and service management solutions, today announced that its next-generation solution, Maximo® Enterprise Suite, will be available to ship at the end of March 2005.
Maximo Enterprise Suite (MXES) provides a comprehensive solution for companies that are seeking increased business performance from improved asset and service management. MXES is a comprehensive suite of products all built on a single, common platform. It combines enhanced Enterprise Asset Management functionality with new service management capabilities that together improve the effectiveness of asset management strategies. MXES includes advanced IT asset management, service management, and a full-featured service desk, all based on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guidelines. MXES provides compliance with contracts, service level agreements, internal corporate standards, and government regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley, HIPAA and others. Each product can be implemented separately as a stand-alone solution or readily deployed together. The solution enhances asset management and ensures service performance of production, facility, transportation and IT assets.
Improved EAM Functionality
Already the market leader in the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) space, MRO Software has expanded the breadth and depth of its solution. With more than double the number of applications in the existing version of Maximo, the Company now offers enhanced functionality for customers and prospects in this core market. This suite includes additional features for work management, asset management, inventory management, and procurement, with greatly expanded contract management and entirely new service management capabilities. By offering customers a single platform with the breadth and depth to address the challenges of managing many disparate types of assets, as well as the service management practices that go with them, MRO Software allows customers to consolidate the number of smaller niche applications that they have to support. Achieving system consolidation while adding functionality will result in lower IT costs and improves asset management efficiencies.
"We've evolved our use of Maximo over time and we now use it to manage all of our production, facility and transportation assets as well as controlling all non-direct inventories and purchasing. The current inventory management and purchasing modules have greatly improved our visibility to and control of variable expenses and the new Contracting module in MXES will give us even more opportunities to improve," said Dave Bone, Maximo system network resource manager, Ocean Spray. "Today, Maximo is continuing to help us improve our production equipment uptime and throughput rates. Maximo was also a key to our Henderson plant setting a beverage plant world record for safety with over 1.5 million hours with no lost time accidents. Having evaluated the new functionality in MXES I see opportunities to improve our in-house services management and expand into the areas of IT asset management. Our IT group is considering Maximo for implementation as the IT asset management tool."
Service Management
"Service Management, as it applies to asset-intensive industries, looks at the streamlining of disparate processes, organizations and technologies. The basic goal is cost reductions, but the bigger opportunity is to participate more directly in the business goal of creating more loyal and satisfied customers," said Michael Maoz, research fellow and vice president for Gartner Research. "The bottom line is that businesses are moving to a greater awareness of the role of asset management in the growth of their revenue base. They will increasingly take steps to introduce department-spanning processes in what is often referred to as service management."1
In addition to the improvement in the core functionality, MXES includes applications for advanced service management for both internal departments and third-party service providers. Capabilities such as service level agreement management, service catalogues and automated escalation and notification will help customers employ an internal service management model that allows asset management strategies to align with overall corporate business objectives.
This model shifts from a traditional view of asset management as a cost center to a service delivery model that adopts a customer-oriented approach. This new environment encourages partnerships between an asset management organization, its internal customers and external suppliers. These partnerships will lead to clear standards of expected asset and service level performance and the business practices to achieve them. As a result, internal asset management organizations are incented to pro-actively and continuously improve their delivery of asset management services in alignment with corporate objectives.
Third-party service providers will be able to use MXES for managing customer relationships, delivering on customer agreements and performing accurate financial transactions through contract management, customer management and billing functionality.
IT Asset Management and Service Desk
Key features of MXES include enhanced IT asset management (ITAM) capabilities and new IT service desk functionality based on the guidelines of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL®). The solution delivers comprehensive lifecycle asset management, as well as offering critical service desk capabilities such as incident, problem, configuration, change and release management, call tracking and self-help, all based on industry standards. IT assets can be managed to maximize the value they deliver to the business by ensuring software license compliance, lowering costs on leases, acquisitions and inventory, and delivering high-quality IT services to the business.
MXES provides a full IT infrastructure management solution. It delivers a comprehensive IT asset management solution including automated discovery of IT assets, and service desk capabilities that support ITIL processes and can operate as a stand alone solution or integrate with existing IT solutions. MXES provides the ability to manage and optimize all IT business processes including asset, work and service management to deliver cost effective service levels in alignment with business objectives. With an integrated solution that includes IT asset management and service desk capabilities MXES provides a holistic view of all critical IT processes to deliver better IT service and management results.
Application Consolidation
MXES allows customers to capitalize on another industry trend, application consolidation. IT departments are looking for ways to reduce their operations, maintenance and administration costs, and one way to accomplish that is to reduce the number of applications and platforms they need to manage. MXES allows customers to eliminate smaller niche applications with an EAM focus and because MXES delivers a complete service desk and IT AM solution, customers can now use Maximo to manage and service the entire range of critical assets across the enterprise.
"We work with some of the more forward-looking organizations in the market and we've seen the trend in systems consolidation," Mike Pollitt, Associate Partner, Enterprise Asset Management, Business Consulting Services, IBM Global Services. "Delivering a solution that meets or exceeds all the parameters we established with the client is our focus. The functionality that Maximo Enterprise Suite has would allow us to offer more asset management solutions on one platform; clearly that is a plus."
Development Partners
Part of the development process that the Company employed included enlisting the expertise and experience of almost two-dozen development partners. This group included customers, service providers and technology companies that provided input and design specifications during the early phases of development. By incorporating firsthand, industry knowledge and experience into the development of MXES, MRO Software was able to deliver a functionally robust solution that meets the proven requirements in a number of areas.
"We believe that Maximo Enterprise Suite will address our customers' emerging business requirements and several industry trends," said Chip Drapeau, president, and CEO, MRO Software. "Built on our proven heritage and expertise in the EAM market we expect that MXES will continue to be a leader in that market. More importantly, we'll be able to approach our existing Maximo installed base with the opportunity to consolidate service desk and IT AM applications. These customers can migrate to MXES and enjoy improved functionality while reducing the IT costs associated with managing legacy systems. With MXES we are uniquely positioned to solve the asset, service desk and service management requirements for enterprises that consider production, facility, transportation and IT assets critical to their business."
About MRO Software, Inc.
MRO Software is the leading provider of strategic asset and service management solutions. Maximo Enterprise Suite, the Company's flagship solution, is delivered on a web-architected platform and increases productivity, optimizes asset performance, and service levels, reduces costs and enables asset-related sourcing and procurement across the entire spectrum of strategic assets.
The Company's asset management solutions allow customers to manage the complete lifecycle of strategic assets including: planning, procurement, deployment, tracking, maintenance and retirement. Using MRO Software's solutions customers improve production reliability, labor efficiency, material optimization, software license compliance, lease management, warranty and service management across the asset base.
MRO Software (Nasdaq: MROI) is a global company based in Bedford, Mass., with approximately 900 employees, 10,000 customers and more than 260,000 end-users. The Company markets its products through a direct sales organization in combination with a network of international distributors. MRO Software has sales offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Additional information on MRO Software can be found at www.mro.com.
MAXIMO® is a registered trademark, and MRO Software(TM) is a trademark, of MRO Software, Inc. ITIL® is a registered trademark of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC).
1 From "Business Trends, A Strategic Overview" Interview with Gartner analysts Michael Maoz, Kristian Steenstrup, 2004.
