Maximo Vs Other Players (Oracle EAM, IFS & Infor) - Product Comparison

Magic Quadrant for Energy and Utilities Enterprise Asset Management Software

Energy and utility companies evaluate and procure enterprise asset management (EAM) products to resolve physical asset care requirements — that is, they provide maintenance support for fixed plants (such as power generation plants, water plants, refineries and offshore rigs), for linear distributed assets (such as power lines and pipelines), and/or for fleet assets (such as service equipment, transformers, pumping stations and wind generator towers). (Note: The term "energy and utilities" as used in this document includes oil and gas [upstream, midstream and downstream], power generation [fossil, nuclear, hydroelectric and renewables], electricity transmission and distribution, gas transmission and distribution, and water/wastewater.)
An EAM solution includes planning and scheduling, work order creation, maintenance history, and inventory and procurement, as well as equipment, component and asset tracking for assemblies of equipment. In some instances, the functionality is extended by the addition of basic financial management modules, such as accounts payable, cost recording in ledgers, and HR functions such as a maintenance skills database.
Technically, the EAM applications are designed to scale to larger numbers of users (typically, more than 100 concurrent users) and run on multiple sites from a single central database, thereby catering to whole-of-business requirements, rather than departmental or site requirements. They should also be increasingly able to support cloud and hosted deployments, the use of mobile technology, and analytics.

Magic Quadrant

 Magic Quadrant for Energy and Utilities Enterprise Asset Management Software

Source: Gartner (September 2014)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

CGI

CGI is an approximately $10 billion global business process services and system integration firm with headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. CGI entered the EAM market through the acquisition of Logica in 2013. Logica's EAM product, the Asset & Resource Management (ARM) Suite, is the result of combining functionality from prior products, the Work Management Information System (WMIS) and STORMS (Severn Trent Operational Resource Management System). ARM is more oriented toward work management than asset management.

Strengths

• ARM is particularly well-suited for work-management-centric requirements typically found in transmission and distribution environments.
• The product is scalable and suitable for large transmission and distribution utilities.
• It has a strong presence in natural gas distribution environments, in addition to its core electrical transmission and distribution business.
• It offers integrated asset investment planning (AIP) through its partnership with Seams.

Cautions

• CGI has no deployments in power generation or in oil and gas.
• ARM has not been adapted for global delivery, and installation resources are not available.
• There are limited service provider options (mainly CGI).
• The product doesn't have integrated inventory/materials management functionality.
• References report lengthy and costly upgrades, although in some cases this reflects a client's preference to skip upgrades.

IBM

IBM is an approximately $100 billion global technology and consulting corporation with headquarters in Armonk, New York. Its Maximo Asset Management product is positioned in the Cloud & Smarter Infrastructure group (formerly Tivoli) within IBM. It is also working with other IBM divisions such as the Cloud Services division (for its Maximo SaaS offering) and its Business Analytics division's SPSS (for predictive maintenance). Maximo is deployed in a broad cross-section of energy and utility subsectors around the globe.

Strengths

• Maximo is a highly scalable product that is suitable for very large enterprises.
• IBM has a mature and extensive global community of EAM support resources and partners, minimizing implementation risks and support shortfalls.
• The product provides a broad range of functionality to support all energy and utilities subsectors.
• References rate the product and the value received highly.
• Maximo offers several industry solutions with enhanced functionality (such as environmental, health and safety [EH&S] in its Maximo for Oil and Gas solution), as well as extensive product partnerships.

Cautions

• References, customers and prospects report that costs to deploy and maintain are at the high end of the EAM market.
• Industry solutions are extra cost add-ons.
• Customers report significant hardware requirements to run applications.
• Mobile strategy has been evolving over the past several years, with the current offering largely unproven in production.

IFS

IFS is an approximately $400 million global enterprise application software vendor based in Linkoping, Sweden. It sells ERP, enterprise service management (ESM) and EAM systems, including delivering the EAM module as a point solution. IFS sells its products to a wide range of industries but focuses on asset-intensive businesses with significant maintenance and construction requirements. It has expanded sales in new geographies; however, its utility industry presence in North America is still very limited.

Strengths

• The IFS Applications product can be deployed in most energy and utilities subsectors.
• IFS's references report above-average satisfaction with both the product and service levels.
• IFS Applications can be — and is often — deployed as a complete ERP solution, including financials.
• IFS has a mature mobile strategy, and the product has construction functionality.
• IFS is able to offer an in-house reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) module to extend functionality.

Cautions

• IFS still has few energy and utilities customers in North America.
• Its European customer base is heavily weighted toward the Nordic countries and Poland.
• It has a limited presence in oil and gas (predominantly service companies).
• There are limited service provider options, though this is improving over time.

Infor (EAM)

Infor is an approximately $3 billion global enterprise application software vendor based in New York. Infor's EAM product (formerly known as Datastream 7i) had been focused mainly on manufacturing. Infor has increased its EAM product focus and closed new business with utility companies, mainly municipal utilities.

Strengths

• The product has a strong presence in the water and wastewater subsector.
• It has one of the highest user satisfaction ratings among its peers.
• Infor EAM is relatively easy and cost-effective to upgrade and maintain.
• The product is highly configurable.

Cautions

• Its energy and utilities deployments are concentrated among smaller, municipal customers (not unlike Infor's separate Public Sector product described below).
• It has a limited presence in oil and gas.
• References report limited or no adoption of Infor mobile solutions.
• Infor development efforts are diluted by having two products that target the same water/wastewater market.

Infor (Public Sector)

Infor is an approximately $3 billion global enterprise applications software vendor based in New York. Infor Public Sector (originally acquired from Hansen) is focused on client type (the public sector, particularly water authorities) rather than functional process. This means it can deliver a broader government business solution, but overlaps in some EAM functionality with its sibling product, Infor EAM.

Strengths

• Public Sector is part of the broader Infor suite of public-sector functionality, including customer service and HR applications.
• It has a significant presence in the water and wastewater industries in North America, Australia and New Zealand.
• It has above-average customer ratings for service and value received.

Cautions

• It is not suitable for EAM deployments other than public-sector utilities.
• It does not have a significant presence outside of North America, Australia and New Zealand.
• Infor development efforts are diluted by having two products that target the same water/wastewater market.

Mainsaver

Mainsaver is relatively small, independent, stand-alone EAM software vendor based in San Diego. It is privately held by investors who purchased the Mainsaver product from Titan in 2002. Mainsaver is designed specifically for fixed-plant environments such as power generation. It is primarily focused on North American power markets, but has a growing partnership network outside the continent.

Strengths

• Mainsaver's references rate its service levels highly.
• The product is inexpensive, easy and quick to deploy and upgrade.
• It has been widely deployed by independent power producers, including both conventional and renewables.

Cautions

• The product is primarily installed at small stand-alone power generation facilities, not enterprise deployments.
• Mainsaver has limited presence outside of North America.
• The product has limited presence in oil and gas, transmission and distribution.
• Mainsaver's references rate its technology and product below its peers.

Oracle (E-Business Suite)

Oracle is an approximately $38.3 billion global technology company with headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Oracle's E-Business Suite (EBS) is a complete ERP suite solution designed for a broad cross section of industries. The first version of the EBS Enterprise Asset Management (eAM) module was developed a dozen years ago for a manufacturing customer and has more recently been deployed at a variety of energy and utilities companies.

Strengths

• The eAM product is preintegrated to the Oracle EBS suite of enterprise applications, including financials, procurement and HR.
• Oracle has an extensive global presence minimizing implementation and support risks.
• It has an increasing customer base in upstream and midstream oil and gas.

Cautions

• Oracle's reference customers rate its product, services and value received below its peers.
• Most of its energy and utilities EAM customers have been using the product for less than five years.
• Oracle EBS is targeted at many industries and has limited energy- and utility-specific functionality.
• Oracle EBS eAM is not designed for integration with enterprise applications from other major ERP vendors.

Oracle (Work and Asset Management)

Oracle is an approximately $38.3 billion global technology company with headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. Oracle's Work and Asset Management (WAM) is an EAM product brought in through the acquisition of SPL WorldGroup (which had acquired the Synergen product) in 2006. WAM is part of a broader set of utility industry functionality such as customer information management (CIS) and outage management systems (OMSs) that is delivered to mainly public-sector utilities.

Strengths

• Oracle's references rate its service levels, user satisfaction and overall value near the top of its peers.
• The product is particularly well-suited for deployment to support a range of municipal services, including electrical distribution and water/wastewater.
• WAM is part of the broader Oracle Utilities product suite, including utility-centric customer service applications.

Cautions

• The product is not widely deployed in large, multifaceted utilities.
• It is North American-centric, with limited presence in the rest of the world.
• The product has no presence in oil and gas and limited presence in generation.

SAP

SAP is an approximately $22 billion global enterprise application software vendor based in Walldorf, Germany. SAP Business Suite is a complete ERP suite designed for a cross section of industries. Its EAM module (formerly called the PM module) is used by a broad spectrum of, mostly large energy and utilities companies. Its EAM customers are located in every major region of the world.

Strengths

• SAP EAM is preintegrated to the SAP suite of enterprise applications, including financials, procurement and HR.
• SAP has a mature and extensive global community of EAM support resources and partners minimizing implementation risks and support shortfalls.
• Business Suite is highly scalable and suitable for large enterprises across the full spectrum of energy and utilities subsectors, especially oil and gas.
• SAP has made significant investments in innovation relevant to EAM, including mobile and analytics.

Cautions

• SAP EAM is not designed for integration with enterprise applications from other major ERP vendors.
• References and customers report costs to deploy and maintain the product are at the high end of the EAM market.
• References and customers consistently rate usability of the product as poor (although SAP's investments in simplified user experience [for example, SAP Fiori UX] show promise in addressing this perennial issue).

Schneider Electric (Invensys)

Schneider Electric is an approximately $31 billion electrical distribution and industrial automation company with headquarters in Paris. Schneider Electric's Avantis EAM product has a long history in the EAM market, having come to Schneider through its recent acquisition of Invensys. Although Avantis is found in a large cross section of industries, approximately half of its revenue comes from a diverse set of energy and utilities subsectors. It's too early to assess the impact of Schneider's acquisition on Avantis' future.

Strengths

• Avantis is a broadly used best-of-breed EAM solution suitable for most energy and utilities subsectors.
• Its references rate its service levels near the top of its peers.
• Schneider is primarily an OT provider, and has invested in OT integration with Avantis to support condition-based maintenance.

Cautions

• Avantis has a diverse customer base and hence doesn't focus on energy and utilities industry functionality.
• The product is not suitable for large, multifaceted energy and utility enterprise deployments.
• Its references rate its technology near the bottom of its peers.
• It is one of the few business IT applications in the Schneider portfolio.

Ventyx

Ventyx is a wholly owned subsidiary of ABB, an approximately $55 billion power and industrial automation company based in Zurich, Switzerland. Ventyx was acquired by ABB in 2010 but operates independently of the parent company with its own offices around the globe. Ventyx's Asset Suite product has been focused almost exclusively on the EAM market for utilities. Asset Suite is primarily deployed at large utilities in North America, with some deployments in Europe and some recent success in the Asia/Pacific region.

Strengths

• Asset Suite has a strong presence in nuclear power generation.
• It is a highly scalable solution suitable for large, multifaceted enterprise deployments.
• Ventyx investments and partnerships in asset health technologies are utility-specific and target both generation, and transmission and distribution.

Cautions

• Asset Suite is one of the highest-cost EAM solutions to deploy and maintain.
• It has very limited presence outside of power generation, transmission and distribution.
• Its references rate both the product and service levels below average.

Source : Gartner