How Wannon Water's cloud-native IBM MAS upgrade became the foundation for smarter asset management.
Story In Numbers
As a regulated utility, Wannon Water reports asset and maintenance performance to its regulatory bodies, with auditors verifying the accuracy of that data. For Wannon Water, data integrity is a regulatory requirement with direct consequences.
The organisation invests seriously in asset data and analytics, using Power BI feeds from Maximo to drive maintenance decisions and performance analysis. Wannon Water's philosophy in the digital landscape is to be a 'first follower' - acknowledging the need for uplift in digital capability to drive efficiency of operations, maximise the value of human input from their workforce, improve the service to customers and maintain the reliability and performance of their assets. That mindset shapes how the organisation approaches every platform decision - including the decision to upgrade to IBM Maximo Application Suite with COSOL.
The Challenge
For Wannon Water, the path to IBM MAS was never going to be straightforward. The organisation was managing three converging pressures at once:
- Support for Maximo 7.6 was coming to an end.
- Maximo Anywhere (the mobile solution field teams relied on daily) was also being phased out, requiring a replacement to be assessed, selected, and implemented.
- And underpinning all of it was a technically complex environment carrying significant customisation, which had to be rationalised before any upgrade could safely proceed.
With 220,000 assets, active regulatory reporting obligations, and Power BI analytics built on Maximo data, there was no tolerance for data loss or operational disruption.
Why COSOL
Wannon Water came to COSOL with a complex technical environment shaped by years of accumulated customisation. COSOL worked with Wannon Water to understand, rationalise, and stabilise that environment - and over time, delivered the reliability and accountability the organisation needed.
As trust grew, so did COSOL's involvement. When Wannon Water needed to evaluate its mobile solution options, it tasked COSOL with conducting an independent assessment - presenting findings across multiple solutions and letting the evidence speak. COSOL also participated in Wannon Water's internal user sessions during the transition, on hand to answer technical questions the client team could not, ensuring field teams went into the new environment with confidence.
Four years of working through technical challenges together gave Wannon Water a thorough understanding of COSOL's capability - and gave COSOL a thorough understanding of Wannon Water's environment. When the MAS upgrade decision came, that mutual knowledge was important.
The Solution
COSOL recommended a phased approach from the outset - reflecting the complexity of the environment and the regulatory sensitivity of the data it held.
Phase One
Mobile Solution assessed and rebuilt
COSOL conducted an independent assessment of available mobile solutions on behalf of Wannon Water. Maximo Mobile was selected on its merits; its inclusion in the MAS licensing model and IBM's ongoing investment in the product made it the right fit. COSOL then implemented Maximo Mobile on the existing Maximo 7.6 environment, with Maximo Anywhere retained as a fallback while the new solution was validated. Maximo Mobile went live in July 2025.
Phase Two
MAS Upgrade
With Maximo Mobile stable and the environment fully validated, COSOL proceeded with the MAS-SaaS upgrade, which went live in February 2026, on time and within budget. During delivery, COSOL identified performance issues affecting how quickly work orders were reaching field devices and redesigned the underlying queries and removed non-essential customisations that were creating performance drag.
Post Go-Live
Stabilisation
Go-live was a milestone, not a finish line. Persisting issues with Maximo Mobile led Wannon Water to stand up a dedicated team to work through them - around 40 issues spanning platform behaviour, legacy customisation, performance, and training. COSOL stayed engaged beyond project close, ensuring the right people remained available until the platform was truly reliable and performing the way Wannon Water's operations demanded.
The Impact
Following a period of focused stabilisation work, Wannon Water now operates on a fully supported asset management platform with a modern, intuitive mobile interface that field teams have found easier to use than the environment it replaced. The MAS upgrade was delivered without disruption to operational processes or ESC reporting obligations.
The platform is more stable, faster in the field, and ready for the asset intelligence Wannon Water has been working toward. Reliable data flows into Power BI for analysis and regulatory reporting across a 220,000-asset portfolio, and for the first time Wannon Water has the foundation to move into MAS Health: asset health scoring, remaining useful life analysis, and proactive maintenance planning across its critical water and sewage infrastructure.
- Fiona English
Assets Digital Platform Manager, Wannon Water
Key Business Outcomes
- Vendor support risk eliminated - Migrated from unsupported Maximo 7.6 to IBM MAS on a fully supported cloud-hosted platform
- Data integrity protected throughout - regulatory reporting obligations maintained during the migration
- Phased approach protected a complex, regulated environment - Maximo Mobile validated on 7.6 before MAS upgrade, removing transition risk
- Mobile capability modernised - Maximo Anywhere replaced with Maximo Mobile following an independent, evidence-based assessment conducted by COSOL
- Field performance improved - faster, more reliable mobile access for field teams
- Post go-live stability achieved - persisting issues resolved through sustained partnership, delivering a platform Wannon Water's operations can rely on
- Ongoing support continues - COSOL remains the organisation's Maximo partner post go-live
- Path to asset health monitoring now open - MAS Health available to Wannon Water as the next step toward condition-based maintenance
About COSOL
COSOL is built on one belief: in asset-intensive industries, reliability is everything. We are a trusted, Intelligent Asset Operations partner - known for our deep expertise, dependable delivery, and ability to keep critical assets performing at their best.