This November, the UK & Ireland Maximo User Group (MUG) community gathered at IBM’s York Road offices in London for what became one of the most energizing and forward-thinking meetups to date. With a brand new two-day format, a packed agenda, and nearly 200 attendees each day, the event struck the perfect balance between hands-on technical learning and user-led storytelling.
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What made this MUG special wasn’t just the new format, it was the energy. There was a real sense of momentum across both days: organizations accelerating their MAS journeys, users digging deeper into reliability and mobility, and a growing curiosity around AI’s role in asset-intensive operations. This felt, more than ever, like a community moving forward together.
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Day 1 - MAS Unlocked: Hands-On and Immersive

Day 1 debuted MAS Unlocked, transforming an entire floor of IBM York Road into an interactive, multi-room learning environment. Guided by colored badges, attendee groups rotated through themed rooms every 30 minutes, each focused on a different capability within the Maximo Application Suite.

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Room topics covered:

• Mobility/Technician work execution
• AI and its real-world role in MAS
• Reliability Strategies
• Visual Inspection and AI-powered insights
• Scheduler and Work/Resources Optimization
• Condition-Based Maintenance (Monitor, Predict, Health)

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Drop-in clinics ran alongside the main rotations, including Manage, Asset Lifecycle Management, Red Hat, Upgrades and Automation, offering attendees direct access to IBM designers, developers, and partner experts.

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The AI session was one of the most popular rooms of the entire event, with a queue forming outside for much of the day. It’s clear that AI is no longer seen as an add-on but is becoming central to how organizations are thinking about reliability, inspection, decision support, and long-term asset strategy.

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Naviam Mentors at MAS Unlocked

Our Naviam experts proudly supported some of the sessions, alongside IBM across Manage, Mobility, Reliability, and Visual Inspection, helping users troubleshoot challenges, explore new capabilities, learn about current projects and understand how MAS can be shaped to fit real operational needs.

Manage Drop-In Session

Andrew Jeffery, Senior Maximo Consultant with Naviam and author of MaximoSecrets, and Christiaan Loc of MaxLogic joined IBM's Steve Lee for the Manage Drop-In session to cover all things Manage related.
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In this session, it was interesting to see a majority of functional questions over technical ones. The use of Asset Templates also appeared more than once as a possible solution.
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Andrew shared: “The first question was about integrating sensors on wearables from a vendor looking to do some integration; the last question was about tracking assets that regularly move across sites and how to locate them. This led to discussions on RFID or NFC tags and Maximo Mobile Asset Manager, which has an ‘auditing’ capability. All interesting discussions, which kept others in the room."

Mobility in MAS Session

Naviam's Lee Daley, Customer Success Director, and John Rotaru, Senior Technical Pre-Sales Consultant, joined Ian Sellars from IBM to host an insightful session on Mobility in MAS. Each session across the day was packed-out, indicating that mobility remains a top priority for those involved in asset management.
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Lee said: “Whether attendees were interested in empowering the workforce or evaluating the suitability of their chosen application, the topic clearly resonated. Each session was highly engaged, with questions continuously flowing from start to finish.”
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John added: "Mobility remains front and center for many organizations. Attendees were keen to understand what truly works offline, how to streamline technician workflows, and the best ways to bring field teams on the MAS journey. Being able to share real-world examples from challenging environments helped show what’s possible today and what’s coming next."

Reliability-Centered Maintenance in MAS

Dominic Bramley, Head of Pre-Sales with Naviam, and Damien De Gouveia of Cohesive hosted the Reliability Strategies session with over 40 organizations attending over the course of the day.
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The session proved to be of great interest, the general understanding being that Reliability-Centered Maintenance is an effective way of reducing downtime and optimizing PM regimes within asset intensive organizations but can be a costly exercise to undertake.
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However, the session demonstrated how Reliability Strategies is included with MAS ‘free of charge’ and can accelerate the implementation of RCM with access to an extensive library of failure data and mitigation activities, a custom builder and AI assistance. Attendees were engaged with plenty of questions and suggestions for future enhancements that will be fed back to IBM.
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Dominic shared: "A straw poll of organizations who attended the sessions revealed that while 70% were using Maximo failure codes to some degree, only 15% had an active RCM program in place. However, 60% said they plan to undertake this in future, showing clear intent to move toward structured RCM.”

Maximo Visual Inspection

Naviam Product Developer Michael Rawlinson, who has recently been working on an exciting MVI project, joined Russ McKay and Claudio Guerrero from IBM to lead this session with live demonstrations.
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The session focused on the simplicity and flexibility of MVI. While many initially assumed it was designed mainly for manufacturing environments with consistent inputs, we explored how its use cases are far broader. As the associated technology becomes better in quality and lower in cost, the potential capabilities across many sectors are endless.
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Michael told us: “MVI can handle less structured inputs and adapt to varied scenarios, making it highly versatile. We also discussed how the underlying architecture required to run MVI in an organisation can be implemented at a much lower cost than most people think. "

AI – The Hot Topic!

Alexander Delic (MaxTAF) and Sandra Gannon from IBM hosted the most popular room of the day with a fantastic session on AI in MAS, and Alex kindly shared some of his findings from the day. Their goal was to provide attendees with a "critical questions" framework for upcoming AI initiatives. Users really valued having concrete criteria to evaluate AI tools, rather than just hype.
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A hands-up user poll showed a strong appetite to learn more about how AI might help on their EAM mission (80%+ were at least ‘curious’). When asked about adoption timelines, this varied widely from 1 year (10%), 2 years (40%) to 3-5 years (about 80%).
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There was clear agreement on two key points: that hallucination is a genuine concern, and AI systems should explicitly state when they can't find an answer rather than fabricate one.
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Also, there was clear recognition that conversational interfaces can actually be superior to traditional methods for complex queries. Being able to ask for data in natural language and chain multi-stage questions feels more intuitive than needing technical expertise to navigate complex screens.
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Alex added: “It was clear from my session that the interest in AI for improving asset management missions is definitely here, and the community definitely 'feels' that AI is more than just hype. There was consensus that the true mission over the months and years ahead is going to be working on identifying the areas where AI can genuinely add value, while still being trustworthy.”

Day 2 — Real Stories, Real Impact

Day 2 returned to the traditional MUG structure, bringing forward the authentic, user-led stories, that make this event so valuable. The morning was filled with practical insight from organizations navigating everything from large-scale transformation to operational modernization. Each presentation prompted lively discussion, with attendees eager to benchmark their own journeys against the experiences shared.

Morning Presentations Overview

Toyota: “Our Maximo Journey”

Presented by Asset Management Systems Specialist with Toyota, Phil Tuckley

Toyota opened the morning with a grounded and practical look at their long-standing Maximo evolution. Phil shared how Toyota continues to refine its asset management practices through consistent processes, structured governance, and a strong focus on user adoption across distributed sites.
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Their journey highlighted the importance of building capability step by step, ensuring that every improvement genuinely supports the technicians and teams who rely on Maximo every day. It was an honest, relatable account of modernizing operations without losing sight of day-to-day realities.

Stena Drilling: “Overcoming Disconnected Environments to Connect a Workforce”

Presented by Martin Eklund (Stena Drilling) with Andrew Carrie (Cohesive)

Stena Drilling’s session shone a light on high-risk, remote offshore environments. Martin and Andrew walked the audience through Stena’s MAS upgrade journey, regarded as a first for MAS implementations in a disconnected environment.
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The presentation included how they minimalized downtime while handling complex data, to ensure stable go-lives in environments where disruption simply isn’t an option. They demonstrated how thoughtful planning, strong collaboration, and the right approach can deliver a zero-disruption upgrade, even under extreme constraints.

Southern Water: “The OAM Story: Change, Mobility, and Early Wins”

Presented by Andy Beebee & Stuart Begent (Southern Water)

Southern Water provided a candid look at the organizational and cultural side of MAS adoption. Their journey explored how mobility is transforming frontline work, how change is being embedded in operational teams, and what early improvements they’re already seeing in asset reliability and service responsiveness.
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De presentatoren gaven een boeiend, evenwichtig perspectief, waarbij ze erkenden dat het moderniseren van reeds lang bestaande processen met zich meebrengt, terwijl ze ook de tastbare voordelen lieten zien die mobiliteit binnen gestructureerd vermogensbeheer binnen hun netwerk biedt.

Transport for London: „MAS op grote schaal integreren en toepassen”

Gepresenteerd door Richard Thomas, Senior Product Manager, Asset Management Systems (Vervoer voor Londen)

Gezien de locatie in Londen bood de presentatie van TfL inzicht in hoe Maximo een van de grootste en meest complexe asset-ecosystemen van het VK ondersteunt, waarbij meer dan 10.000 Londense metrotechnici er dagelijks op vertrouwen. Hij schetste hoe het platform het onderhoud van duizenden kritieke bedrijfsmiddelen ondersteunt en helpt bij het beheren van een groot aantal interne teams en externe contractanten.
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Richard onderzocht hoe MAS op grote schaal wordt geïntegreerd, welke uitdagingen gepaard gaan met de adoptie van een organisatie van de omvang van TfL, en de operationele voordelen die zich nu al voordoen, zoals verbeterde betrouwbaarheid, langere levensduur van bedrijfsmiddelen en minder kritieke storingen, waardoor de deelnemers een overtuigend idee kregen van hoe belangrijk een goed goedgekeurd MAS-programma kan zijn.

IBM: MAS-routekaart en update van IDEAS

Gepresenteerd door Andrew Foster, IBM
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Andrew sloot de ochtend af met een routekaarsessie waarin de punten werden verbonden tussen feedback van gebruikers, ontwikkelingsprioriteiten en de toekomstige richting van MAS. De update had betrekking op evoluerende mogelijkheden op het gebied van Monitor-, Predict-, Manage- en mobiele workflows, evenals de manier waarop iDEAS-inzendingen verbeteringen blijven vormgeven. Het was een open, transparante sessie die de deelnemers hielp zich voor te bereiden op wat er komen gaat en inzicht te krijgen in de invloed van hun input op de MAS-productlijn.
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Stuur uw ideeën, suggesties en feedback naar IBM via deze link.

Rondetafelgesprekken: kleine kamers, grote inzichten

Na de lunch brachten de immer populaire rondetafelgesprekken presentatoren rechtstreeks naar de zaal met de aanwezigen voor openhartige, praktische gesprekken. Deze sessies leveren vaak het echte goud op: eerlijke uitwisseling van ervaringen, „dit is wat voor ons werkte” en oplossingen die onmiddellijk kunnen worden toegepast.

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Diavragen en live peilingen hebben als leidraad gediend voor de discussie, wat eens te meer bevestigt hoe responsief en gebruikersgericht het organisatiecomité van de MUG nog steeds is.
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Vooruitkijkend

De energie op beide dagen was onmiskenbaar, een bewijs van de betrokkenheid van de gemeenschap, de groeiende belangstelling voor MAS in alle sectoren en de openheid van de deelnemers om te delen, te leren en elkaar uit te dagen.
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Het evenement in november voelde als een mijlpaal. Het nieuwe formaat werkte. De gesprekken gingen dieper. En de praktijksessies leverden echte, tastbare waarde op. Nu organisaties hun overgang naar Maximo Application Suite versnellen, zorgen evenementen zoals deze voor de duidelijkheid, het vertrouwen en de ondersteuning van de gemeenschap die nodig zijn om vooruitgang te boeken.
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Het was een voorrecht om deel uit te maken van zo'n samenwerkend, vooruitstrevend evenement. We kijken nu al uit naar de volgende!

7 mei 2026 - Dundee, Schotland