International Business Machines (IBM), is a global technology company that provides hardware, software, cloud-based services and cognitive computing.

Founded in 1911 following the merger of four companies in New York State by Charles Ranlett Flint, it was originally called Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. It would be renamed to IBM in 1924.

Given that the company is over 100 years old it is no surprise that it has had to adjust to different technological trends throughout the decades.

The company is now transitioning from being an infrastructure player to one that is more cloud and data driven.

Nicknamed ‘Big Blue’, the company offers cloud products in the shape of Bluemix, a SoftLayer cloud, and data analytics, or cognitive computing capabilities, with the Watson supercomputer.

International Business Machines Corp. provides integrated solutions that leverage information technology and knowledge of business processes. It operates through the following segments: Cloud & Cognitive Software, Global Business Services, Global Technology Services, Systems, and Global Financing. The Cloud & Cognitive Software segment provides integrated and secure cloud, data and solutions to the clients. The Global Business Services segment provides clients with consulting, application management and global process services. The Global Technology Services segment provides comprehensive IT infrastructure and platform services that create business value for clients. The Systems segment provides clients with innovative infrastructure platforms to help meet the requirements of hybrid cloud and enterprise AI workload. The Global Financing segment encompasses two primary businesses: financing, primarily conducted through IBM Credit LLC, and remanufacturing and remarketing. The company was founded by Charles Ranlett Flint and Thomas J. Watson Sr. on June 16, 1911 and is headquartered in Armonk, NY.

While the company has expanded its portfolio from server hardware, this is still an area that it operates in with the z Series mainframe. The company also offers software with the likes of its DB2 database offering, and IBM SPSS.

Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO, said:  “Digital is the wires, but digital intelligence, or artificial intelligence as some people call it, is about much more than that. This next decade is about how you combine those and become a cognitive business. It’s the dawn of a new era.”

IBM has been focused on continuous innovation for more than a century. Patenting is an important barometer of that innovation, and IBM has topped the annual list of U.S. patent recipients for the 20th consecutive year.

IBM is a leading cloud platform and cognitive solutions company. Restlessly reinventing since 1911, we are the largest technology and consulting employer in the world, with more than 350,000 employees serving clients in 170 countries. With Watson, the AI platform for business, powered by data, we are building industry-based solutions to real-world problems. For more than seven decades, IBM Research has defined the future of information technology with more than 3,000 researchers in 12 labs located across six continents.

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Asset Management

IBM Maximo® is a market-leading and fully integrated platform that uses advanced analytic tools and IoT data to improve operational availability and reduce risk. Now, OT and IT leaders have the tools to operate high-value physical assets with visibility and control across the enterprise to optimize performance, extend asset life cycles, and reduce operational downtime and costs. With multiple deployment models, you can maintain all asset types no matter where they reside, set up new assets quickly and upgrade enterprise asset management (EAM) software automatically for nonstop uptime, reduced costs and minimized risk.

Maintenance management and planning

Maximo Scheduler: Plan, schedule, dispatch and track work efficiently.
Maximo Health Safety and Environment Manager: Integrate health, safety and environment processes with asset management and central reporting for all incidents
Maximo ERP Adapter: Connect Maximo to SAP or Oracle Systems, using approved integration processes on both ends, for an end-to-end integration solution

Tracking and traceability

Enterprise Asset Management Anywhere on Cloud: Get remote access from most mobile devices to Maximo Asset Management processes-work and asset management.
Maximo Linear Asset Manager: Extend Maximo capabilities so you can user manage linear assets using dynamic segmentation
Maximo Spatial Asset Management: View complex GIS information inside the IBM enterprise asset management solution

Enhanced asset management

Maximo Service Provide: Get a suite of applications that manager customer agreements, service delivery, customer billing and supplier contracts
Maximo Asset Configuration Manager: Receive real-time calculation of an asset’s configuration and life of each component of the asset
Maximo Calibration: Calibrate instruments tools and measurement equipment with this add-on, which provides requirements for traceability, calibration, history data, calibration data sheets and required reporting

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Remote Monitoring

With IBM Maximo® Monitor, remote monitoring at enterprise scale, powered by AI delivers fewer but more actionable alerts, and greater insights into root causes. By preventing process failure, you can increase production uptime, optimize asset lifecycles and monitor smarter.

Maximo Monitor enables AI-powered remote asset monitoring at enterprise scale for asset maintenance and operations leaders seeking to optimize operating performance with fewer, more accurate alerts, and greater insights into what is causing failure.

Key capabilities of Asset Monitor:

1. Configurable dashboards, alerts and analytics
2. Enterprise-wide view of operations
3. Workflow to drive ownership of issues
4. Auto-generation of work orders
5. Rapid data integration
6. Hierarchical data filtering and management

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Predictive Maintenance

With IBM Maximo® Predict, go beyond time-scheduled maintenance to condition-based action to predict the likelihood of future failures by applying machine learning and data analytics to reduce asset failures and their costs. Now part of the integrated IBM Maximo Application Suite, Maximo Predict looks for patterns in asset data, usage and the environment, and correlates those patterns with any known issues to help reliability engineers and maintenance managers predict failures and share data and scoring.

Reduce unplanned downtime and risks: Predict asset failure and initiate action to avoid breakdowns.
Reduce maintenance costs: Avoid over-maintaining assets by enabling scheduled maintenance before failure based on early warnings.
Improve asset utilization: Enable more efficient use of existing assets when you can predict maintenance issues and reduce failures on the job.
Extend asset life: Identify operational performance factors and improve maintenance practices and reliability.
Increase production output: Make industrial manufacturing, production processes and products more efficient and dependable to deliver higher output.

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Mobile EAM

Technician productivity is essential to operational resiliency. To sustain uptime and reliability, technicians require real-time access to asset history and operational data — even in the most remote locations, online or offline. Empowering your technicians with intelligent mobile EAM can help your business improve field management, productivity, and first-time fix rates.

IBM Maximo® Mobile, built on next-generation mobile technology, is a revolutionary, easy-to-deploy platform that provides technicians the right asset operational data at the right time—all in the palm of their hand. As part of the IBM Maximo Application Suite, IBM Maximo Mobile can be deployed on premise or any cloud environment, with flexible options. It helps your technicians scale their expertise, improve asset reliability, and streamline your business operations.

AI and remote human-based assistant: Extend technicians’ abilities and enhance knowledge with AI assistant, or collaborate with experts remotely.
Disconnected mode: Empower technicians to read, update, create data and perform inspections even in the most remote locations.
True mobile native: Improve work efficiency with the device’s native capabilities, including capturing image, scanning barcode, voice-to-text, and GPS location.