Organizational change management creates the opportunity for a new EAM system to further your objectives for asset management maturity and modernization strategies. Best practices in EAM implementation reveal how to drive user adoption, so your powerful platform becomes an essential tool.
When it comes to user adoption of a modern EAM platform, department managers –– such as maintenance managers, operations managers, and engineering managers –– are crucial leaders for success because they don’t only relate to and work with the shop floor personnel. They also speak with senior management and other department managers, so their influence goes in all directions. While senior managers are talking strategy, KPIs, and results, department managers talk about making processes easier and keeping things simple. For any work tool, those user benefits resonate.
Department managers already know who can help them drive change. They have long ago identified key personnel who can serve as early champions of the new EAM system –– even before it is implemented. These informal networks of change champions are a familiar face with whom reluctant users can voice their concerns, ask questions, and get the facts about the EAM platform’s ability to stand up quickly and start delivering value.
Get senior management buy-in
While department management plays a pivotal role in daily adoption efforts, senior management buy-in is the foundation for long-term success. Without visible, consistent support from executive leadership, even the most well-planned EAM implementation risks being seen as a passing initiative rather than a strategic investment.
Senior leaders need to do more than approve budgets and timelines; they must actively champion the system by reinforcing its importance in meetings, referencing its data in decision-making, and holding teams accountable for usage.
One of the most effective ways to get senior management on board is to focus on rapid time to value — demonstrating how quickly the EAM system can start generating insights, improving decision-making, and driving efficiencies. When leaders see early wins and tangible results, their continued support becomes more than rhetorical — it becomes a strategic priority embedded across the organization.
Strategize your multisite rollout
Rolling out an EAM system across multiple sites is a detailed and rewarding process. The goal is to standardize processes, improve asset performance, and streamline maintenance activities across different cultures and all organizational locations.
A typical roadmap follows four main phases (plus one key milestone):
Start up: Make sure each site is ready to mobilize.
Initiate: Build a detailed implementation plan—this often works best on-site.
Roll out: Put the plan into action and prep the system for daily use.
Go live (milestone): Transition from implementation to operations, with your central team onsite for hands-on support.
Stabilize: Provide hyper care, address issues in real time, and drive continuous improvement.
The multisite rollout starts after the pilot site has gone live and completed its hyper care. From there, your focus shifts to replicating success — site by site — while adapting to each location’s unique needs. The goal is to provide post-implementation support and to stimulate continuous improvement.
Configurability for ease of use
With a multi-site rollout, a blueprint for standardization is important because it gives you flexibility for customization to reflect specific site objectives, ways of working, and language. With the right EAM system, users have the capability to make changes to the user interface. For example, configurable authorizations allow individuals to do more (or less) based on their specific roles and responsibilities.
Configurability also applies to process fit. The maintenance management software should work seamlessly alongside other business systems such as your ERP or financial tools. If integration is difficult, it can quickly become a barrier to adoption. Ease of use — both in standalone mode and in connection with other platforms — is critical for user adoption success.
Support during the cutover period
Involving your key stakeholders, especially department managers and key users, is essential during the cutover and at go live. These individuals play a crucial role in peer-to-peer coaching and informal training, which are key drivers of user adoption. Their presence on the ground helps embed new behaviors and practices right from the start.
Providing targeted, upfront training empowers these stakeholders to become knowledgeable conversation partners. In a multisite implementation, creating this shared understanding early on sets the stage for success. These users not only understand how to navigate the EAM system, but they can also identify which configurations are required to make the system fully operational before the wider workforce begins using it. Their input ensures that go live is more than a technical switch –– it becomes a coordinated effort across your organization.
Offer ongoing e-training
Modern cloud-based enterprise asset management platforms should have built-in e-learning capabilities that allow users at each location to build a strong understanding of the system and how to configure it to fit their site-specific needs. This continuous learning platform supports consistent knowledge transfer and helps users become confident in using the system over time, not just at go live.
Enable mobile work, even if offline
Mobile capability is essential, especially in industries like utilities, logistics, and oil and gas, where fieldwork can happen in areas with limited or no connectivity. An EAM system with mobile features empowers technicians to continue capturing data, executing tasks, and completing work orders on their phone or tablet, even when they’re not connected to Wi-Fi.
This flexibility not only improves efficiency in the field but also contributes to better data quality. Accurate and timely data collection supports key business goals, especially as more organizations turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to improve reliability and performance.
Our partnership focuses on user adoption
IFS Ultimo and MaxGrip have over 60 years of combined EAM experience. We work together to ensure that user adoption is built into every stage of your EAM implementation. The hallmark of success is user adoption. That’s where organizational change management comes in. With these proven strategies in place, you can guide users through the transition, help them embrace the new way of working, and ensure your EAM platform sets the foundation for EAM maturity and modernization.
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More information about MaxGrip, who were awarded with the Ultimo Implementation Partner of the Year 2024 award, can be found here.
