Is Maximo Manage the same as classic Maximo EAM?

Yes — Manage is the MAS application that carries forward everything you knew as Maximo EAM: work management, assets, inventory, procurement, calibration, and reliability. It runs on the same TPAE foundation and the same database schema (WORKORDER, ASSET, ITEM, and friends). What changed is the packaging (containers on Red Hat OpenShift), the navigation, the licensing (AppPoints), and a wave of new role-based applications and AI.

Did Work Centers go away in MAS Manage 9?

Yes. In Maximo Application Suite 9.0 and Maximo Manage 9.0, IBM removed Work Centers. Some Work Center experiences moved into Maximo Application Framework (MAF / Graphite) role-based applications, and mobile work execution moved to Maximo Mobile. Part 2 of this series covers what was removed, what replaced the key experiences, and where to find the new apps.

Do my automation scripts, workflows, and customizations still work in Manage 9?

Overwhelmingly, yes. The MBO layer, automation scripts, workflow, escalations, conditional expressions, Application Designer, and Database Configuration all carry forward. The main change is deployment: custom Java is now built into container images rather than dropped into a WebSphere file system. Part 11 covers configuration and administration in detail.

Which parts should I read first?

Everyone should start with Part 1 (the architecture and what changed) and Part 2 (the move from Work Centers to role-based applications). After that, follow your role: reliability engineers go to Part 4, planners to Parts 3 and 7, technicians and mobile teams to Parts 5 and 6, and admins to Part 11.

MAS MANAGE Series: The Complete Guide to Maximo Manage in MAS 9

Who this is for: Maximo administrators, planners, reliability engineers, work managers, mobile leads, and developers who run the day-to-day asset and work management platform — and who now need to understand what changed when Maximo EAM became Maximo Manage inside MAS 9.

Estimated read time for this index: 9 minutes | Total series read time: ~4 hours across 11 parts

Why This Series Exists

You have spent years inside Maximo. You know where the Work Order Tracking application hides its tabs. You know which automation script fires on WORKORDER.save. You know that a publish channel and a cron task are not the same thing, even when a vendor insists they are.

Then MAS 9 arrived, and the questions started.

"Where did my Work Centers go?" "Is this still the Maximo I know, or a rewrite?" "My PMs and job plans — do they survive the move?" "What is this Reliability Strategies thing, and is it just FMEA with a new coat of paint?" "Everyone keeps saying AI — what part of that actually runs inside Manage?"

Here is the honest answer that most marketing decks skip: Maximo Manage is Maximo EAM. It is the same TPAE foundation, the same Maximo Business Objects, the same WORKORDER and ASSET and ITEM tables you have queried a thousand times. A work order created in the new UI lands in the database exactly the same way it did in 7.6.

And yet — almost everything around that core changed. The packaging moved from a WebSphere monolith to containers on Red Hat OpenShift. The navigation changed. The licensing changed to AppPoints. The Work Centers you were just getting comfortable with were removed in Manage 9.0, with key experiences moving into MAF role-based applications and Maximo Mobile. And a layer of generative AI was woven directly into the product.

This series is the bridge. It is written by practitioners, for practitioners — no slideware, no hand-waving. We start from what you already know and walk feature by feature through what Manage 9 actually does, how it is built, and how you configure and run it. Every claim is tied to IBM documentation or a reputable community source. Where a feature is new in 9.0 versus 9.1 versus 9.2, we say so plainly.

This series is strictly about the Manage application. We do not wander into the AI add-on suites that have their own homes — Health, Monitor, Predict, and Visual Inspection each get their own series. The one exception is the AI that runs inside Manage itself (Work Order Intelligence and the Maximo Assistant), because that is genuinely a Manage feature now.

The Series at a Glance

Part — Title — Focus Area — Read Time

1 — The New Manage in MAS 9 — Architecture shift, MAF, AppPoints, what changed and what stayed — 22 min

2 — From Work Centers to Role-Based Applications — The 9.0 deprecation, MAF/Graphite, the new application model — 20 min

3 — Work Management Reimagined — Work orders, job plans, PMs, routes, Work Order Planning, Work Queue Manager — 24 min

4 — Reliability Strategies — FMEA/RCM, the 58,000-failure-mode library, RPN-driven actions, AI assists — 24 min

5 — Inspections and Digital Forms — The Inspection Forms app, Form Builder, scoring, follow-up actions — 20 min

6 — Maximo Mobile for Manage — Technician and Inspections apps, offline sync, the end of Anywhere — 22 min

7 — Graphical Scheduling, Assignment, and FSM — Scheduler, Planning and Dispatching dashboards, qualifications, crews — 22 min

8 — Asset and Location Management — Assets, locations, meters, ACM, linear assets, condition monitoring — 22 min

9 — Inventory and Procurement — Storerooms, reorder, POs, contracts, the Issues and Transfers app — 20 min

10 — The AI Inside Manage — Work Order Intelligence, the Maximo Assistant, AI Configuration — 20 min

11 — Configuring and Administering Manage — Scripts, workflow, Operational Dashboard, App Designer, DB Config, the admin split — 24 min

Part-by-Part Guide

Part 1: The New Manage in MAS 9

[Read Part 1 — The New Manage in MAS 9](/blog/mas-manage-the-new-manage)

Read time: 22 minutes

The foundation. Before any individual feature makes sense, you need a clear mental model of what changed when Maximo 7.6 EAM became Maximo Manage inside MAS 9 — and, just as importantly, what did not change. This post draws the line between the two so the rest of the series has solid ground to stand on.

You will learn:

How the WebSphere monolith became a containerized application on Red Hat OpenShift
What the Maximo Application Framework (MAF) is and why it matters for every later part
Why your MBOs, automation scripts, workflows, and database schema survive the move intact
How AppPoints licensing replaces the old authorized-user and PVU model
Why MAS Manage 9 is a migration, not an in-place upgrade — and what that means for your plan

Part 2: From Work Centers to Role-Based Applications

[Read Part 2 — From Work Centers to Role-Based Applications](/blog/mas-manage-work-centers-to-rba)

Read time: 20 minutes

The change everyone asks about. If you invested in Work Centers, this is the post you have been looking for. Work Centers are removed in Manage 9.0; selected experiences moved into role-based applications built on the same MAF/Graphite platform as Maximo Mobile, while field execution moved to Maximo Mobile. We map the practical replacements and explain how the new application model works.

You will learn:

Which Work Centers were already retired before Manage 9.0 and what IBM removed in 9.0
How the Inspection Forms, Inventory, and Monitoring Information Work Centers were replaced
What a MAF role-based application is and where to find the new apps in the navigation
How the new apps share an engine with Maximo Mobile — one definition, two surfaces
A practical checklist for moving your users off Work Centers without disruption

Part 3: Work Management Reimagined

[Read Part 3 — Work Management Reimagined](/blog/mas-manage-work-management)

Read time: 24 minutes

The heart of Manage. Work orders, job plans, preventive maintenance, and routes are the daily currency of any maintenance operation. This post covers the full work lifecycle plus the new apps Manage 9 added on top of it — including Work Order Planning for parent-child coordination and the Work Queue Manager.

You will learn:

The work order lifecycle, statuses, and how tasks and child work orders are modeled
Job plans with the new Qualifications field and milestone tasks ("Is Milestone")
Preventive maintenance, master PMs, meter-based triggers, and conditional PMs
The Routes application and its new draft/active/inactive status
The Work Order Planning and Work Queue Manager applications and where they fit

Part 4: Reliability Strategies

[Read Part 4 — Reliability Strategies](/blog/mas-manage-reliability-strategies)

Read time: 24 minutes

From firefighting to strategy. Reliability Strategies is one of the most significant additions to modern Manage, and it is far more than FMEA with a new name. It ships with a curated reliability library and AI assistance to turn failure analysis into actual maintenance plans.

You will learn:

How FMEA, RCM, and failure modes connect to job plans and PMs
The built-in library spanning 800 asset types, 58,000 failure modes, and 5,000+ PM activities
How to import, apply, create, and edit FMEAs, and act on Risk Priority Numbers (RPN)
Custom strategies (added in 9.0) and AI-suggested boundary conditions and failure mechanisms (9.1)
How reliability data feeds the rest of the work-management loop

Part 5: Inspections and Digital Forms

[Read Part 5 — Inspections and Digital Forms](/blog/mas-manage-inspections-digital-forms)

Read time: 20 minutes

Paper checklists, retired. The Inspection Forms application — now a MAF role-based app in the Planning module — replaces the old Inspection Forms Work Center with the same functionality on a modern platform. This post covers building forms, scoring answers, and triggering follow-up work.

You will learn:

The Inspection Form Builder: answer types, conditional logic, mandatory rules, and scoring
How inspection results link to work orders, assets, and locations for a clean audit trail
How failed answers can trigger corrective work orders, status changes, and notifications
How numeric answers map to asset and location meters
Form versioning with effective dates and why historical results stay tied to their version

Part 6: Maximo Mobile for Manage

[Read Part 6 — Maximo Mobile for Manage](/blog/mas-manage-maximo-mobile)

Read time: 22 minutes

Work in the field, offline. Maximo Mobile replaces Maximo Anywhere with an offline-first platform that talks to Manage over REST and shares definitions with the desktop apps. This post covers the Technician and Inspections experiences and the sync model underneath them.

You will learn:

The Maximo Mobile architecture: REST-backed data sets, offline storage, and sync policies
The Technician app: labor, materials, meter readings, task completion, and attachments offline
The Inspections app and how it shares one forms engine with the desktop
How identity, security groups, and sigoptions carry through to mobile
Migrating from Anywhere: what changes, what to retire, and how to sequence it

Part 7: Graphical Scheduling, Assignment, and FSM

[Read Part 7 — Graphical Scheduling, Assignment, and FSM](/blog/mas-manage-graphical-scheduling-fsm)

Read time: 22 minutes

Getting the right work to the right person at the right time. This post covers Graphical Scheduling and Graphical Assignment, the new Planning and Dispatching dashboards, and the Field Service Management capabilities introduced in 9.0.

You will learn:

Graphical Scheduling: Gantt views, constraints, dependencies, and resource leveling
Graphical Assignment for short-horizon dispatch against calendars, shifts, and crews
The Planning Dashboard and the drag-and-drop Scheduling Dashboard
Field Service Management: AI scheduling and dispatching, qualifications, and milestones
Dispatching Status states (travelling, on-site, started, restored) and real-time position

Part 8: Asset and Location Management

[Read Part 8 — Asset and Location Management](/blog/mas-manage-asset-location-management)

Read time: 22 minutes

The system of record for your physical world. Assets, locations, meters, and classifications are the backbone every other module hangs from. This post covers the data model and the specialized capabilities for complex and linear assets.

You will learn:

Asset hierarchies, rotating items, and how serialized history follows the physical unit
Location systems and overlapping spatial and functional hierarchies
Asset Configuration Manager (ACM): configuration rules, positions, and life limits
Linear assets: reference points, segments, and GIS integration
Meters and condition monitoring that trigger meter-based PMs and corrective work

Part 9: Inventory and Procurement

[Read Part 9 — Inventory and Procurement](/blog/mas-manage-inventory-procurement)

Read time: 20 minutes

Parts on the shelf, money out the door. The supply chain side of Manage keeps technicians working and budgets honest. This post covers item master, storerooms, reorder processing, purchasing, and contracts — plus the role-based apps that replaced the Inventory Work Center.

You will learn:

Item master, storerooms, balances, costing methods, and material transactions
Reorder processing: cron-driven runs, lead times, and exception handling
The purchasing chain: PRs, POs, receiving, and three-way invoice matching
Contracts, blanket agreements, and vendor performance
The Issues and Transfers role-based application and where inventory lives now

Part 10: The AI Inside Manage

[Read Part 10 — The AI Inside Manage](/blog/mas-manage-ai-inside-manage)

Read time: 20 minutes

Not a separate product — built in. This post is about the AI that runs inside Manage itself, distinct from the Health/Monitor/Predict suites. We cover what it does, what it needs, and how to turn it on.

You will learn:

Work Order Intelligence: watsonx-powered approval, data quality, and failure-code recommendations
The Maximo Assistant: natural-language queries over your asset and work data
The AI Configuration application and how AI is enabled and governed in Manage
What infrastructure and keys these features require (watsonx.ai, AI Service)
How the Assistant's scope expanded from 9.1 into the 9.2 feature channel to cover more object structures, including custom objects

Part 11: Configuring and Administering Manage

[Read Part 11 — Configuring and Administering Manage](/blog/mas-manage-configuration-administration)

Read time: 24 minutes (Series Finale)

The capstone. Everything in this series is configurable, and most of those configuration tools are the ones you already know — now joined by Operational Dashboard, a few new tools, and a new division of responsibility between MAS and Manage administrators.

You will learn:

Automation scripts, workflow, escalations, and conditional expressions in Manage 9
Application Designer and Database Configuration, and what a pod restart now means
Operational Dashboard: KPI cards, work queues, quick actions, public/private dashboards, and security options
The new Formulas application and the in-suite Application Configuration Tool
The split between MAS Suite administration and Manage administration
How to deploy customizations into container images without breaking upgrades

Key Themes Across the Series

Manage is EAM, modernized — not replaced. The single most important thing to internalize is continuity. The data model, the business logic, and most of your customizations survive. What changed is the platform around them. Holding both truths at once — familiar core, new everything-else — is the key to a calm migration.

The application model shifted to MAF. Work Centers gave way to role-based applications on the Maximo Application Framework. This is the same platform that powers Maximo Mobile, which is why desktop and mobile increasingly share one definition. Understanding MAF early pays off in every later part.

Reliability is now a first-class discipline. Reliability Strategies, with its enormous built-in library and AI assistance, moves Manage from "record what broke" to "decide what to maintain and why." This is arguably the biggest functional leap in modern Manage.

Mobile and inspections converged. Anywhere is gone. Maximo Mobile is offline-first and shares its inspection engine with the desktop, so a form you build once works in both places.

AI moved inside the product. Beyond the standalone AI suites, Manage itself now ships generative AI — Work Order Intelligence and the Maximo Assistant — that you enable and govern like any other Manage feature.

Administration is now a two-team sport. Suite-level concerns (identity, SSO, AppPoints, deployment) live with MAS administrators on OpenShift, while application-level concerns (security groups, scripts, workflow, screens) stay with Maximo administrators. Knowing which lever lives where is half the battle.

References

Series Navigation

Previous: — You are at the beginning of the series

Next: — Part 1 — The New Manage in MAS 9

Published by TheMaximoGuys | June 2026

MAS MANAGE Series: The Complete Guide to Maximo Manage in MAS 9

TL;DR

Key Takeaways