Fun with Linear Assets Part 1......

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Hi again!  It's been a little while since my last entry so I thought I'd get back to it today with a three part series on one of my favorite Maximo topics and that's Linear Assets.  In the first installment of the series we'll take a look at what linear assets are, in the second installment we'll look at a use case and then in the final installment we'll look at some of various industries that linear assets might be useful for.

Linear Assets is an add-on component to core Maximo that extends asset related functionality.  Linear assets are assets that are defined by length to accurately depict such things as highways, roads, railway tracks, pipelines, or power-lines with their length directly impacting their maintenance.  Linear assets have a start and end point that can be defined using various units of measure such as miles, kilometers, feet etc.  The asset can further be broken down into segments that can help to define specific lengths throughout its span.  These segments can then be defined in even greater detail by creating specific reference points where work will be done.

Once installed, as I mentioned, the standard functionality of assets can be extended so that you can differentiate between standard assets and linear assets. When you determine that an asset should be linear, you check the "Linear?" check-box on the asset record.  This will open a new frame called "Linear Referencing Details" which allows you to configure a Linear Referencing Method (the LRM uses units of measure such as miles, milepoints, kilometers etc.), a direction that the linear asset runs in and finally start as well as end measures.  The LRM is defined using the "Add/Modify Linear Referencing Methods" option from the "Select Action" menu. These are the characteristics that set linear assets apart from standard assets.

Additionally you can associate other types of reference points to the linear asset such as relationships (which are relationships with other linear assets that define things like intersections, places where linear assets run into each other or become each other and also run in parallel with)......

...............or features (like mile / kilometer markers, guardrails, signs, bridges etc).  

In the next installment we'll look at a scenario that uses linear assets.  Until then, be safe out there!