Cooperative Energy Upgrades to IBM MAS with Zero Disruption and Immediate Efficiency Gains

The Challenge  

Cooperative Energy lacked modern capabilities to improve reliability for aging assets and struggled with manual, time-consuming tasks. “Our team literally got printouts of work orders, went out into the field, did their work, made notes, and then came back and entered all that in Maximo,” Melissa George, Application Administrator at Cooperative Energy says. Melissa and her team also wanted to predict and plan for asset failure. “The more data we get keeps our fleet up and running and helps us be more efficient,” explains Melissa. “Ultimately, when our Reliability Coordinator calls on us, our generation unit needs to be ready to run. If it’s not, there are monetary penalties tied to that.”

At the same time, with IBM Maximo 7.6 approaching end-of-support, they faced an impending deadline. To advance their asset management program, they first needed to complete the upgrade to MAS. While the team was eager to tap into MAS capabilities that previously required add-ons, they first had to make some critical decisions. Chief among them was choosing between a cloud or on-prem deployment. They also needed to ensure continuity for their existing Oracle integrations and manage the upgrade with minimal disruption to operations.

Our Solution 

As a first step, Cooperative Energy made the transition to AppPoints, the new licensing model for MAS. They were then ready for the technical upgrade.

The technical upgrade to MAS included:

• Collaborative planning workshops: Cohesive facilitated sessions to assess deployment paths, evaluate existing integrations, and align stakeholders including operations, IT, and cyber security.

• On-Prem deployment via Red Hat OpenShift: The team chose to remain on-prem to meet security requirements, maintain direct access to their Oracle database, and support existing Java customizations.

• Full replatforming of the Maximo environment: All current modules, custom code, and key integrations, primarily with Oracle EBS and GIS, were replicated and migrated to the MAS platform with minimal rework.

• Secure user authentication: MAS was configured to leverage LDAP-based authentication with secure certificate management.

• Disaster recovery planning: The team had to rethink their approach to DR, recognizing key differences between their previous Windows-based setup and the Red Hat OpenShift cluster architecture.

While Cooperative Energy brought strong in-house Linux and containerization capabilities to the table, they leaned on Cohesive’s MAS expertise to guide them through the complexities of the upgrade, particularly resolving challenges like integrating NetApp external storage with OpenShift. Extensive user testing and a dry run set the stage for a successful launch. “We knew what to look for and what to expect, so Go Live was really quiet,” Melissa recalls. “To me, that’s definitely a win.” Following the MAS upgrade, Cooperative Energy and Cohesive began implementing Maximo Mobile, with asset barcoding integral to the initiative.

The Client Benefits  

The upgrade not only met Cooperative Energy’s compliance goals but also delivered tangible operational improvements, ensuring a smooth transition and satisfied users.

• Seamless Go-Live: The MAS upgrade went live with minimal disruption. Aside from a few desktop shortcut queries, the transition was uneventful as planned.

• Strong user adoption: A guided change management approach, featuring side-by-side “What’s New” UI comparisons, helped users quickly adapt to the new MAS interface with confidence.

• Increased field efficiency: The upgrade sets the stage for the next phase, which includes entering notes and closing out work orders directly from the field, eliminating redundant data entry, reducing delays, and accelerating workflow maintenance.

What’s Next  

The MAS upgrade successfully in place, Cooperative Energy is focused on unlocking the platform’s full potential. A key priority is advancing reliability initiatives by leveraging MAS capabilities like Health, Monitor, and Predict to improve generator fleet uptime.

The upgrade under her belt, Melissa has taken on a broader leadership role in the organization. Along with a new Reliability Manager, her team is also evaluating asset criticality and failure modes to identify the top 200 critical assets to ensure the team is doing the right work on the right assets at the right time.