Ageing workforce widens the technician shortage

The technical labour market was already under pressure, and at the same time a significant part of the sector is ageing. Figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) show that the average age of employees in industry rose from 42.7 years in 2010 to 44.3 years in 2019. ROA expects that around 90% of vacancies in the coming years will stem from replacement demand, for example due to people retiring. UWV also lists many technical roles as hard-to-fill for 2025 and 2026, ranging from installation engineers and electricians to technical service staff.

The core issue is clear: demand for maintenance people remains high, while experience is flowing out. So it’s not just about capacity, but also about knowledge that is becoming less readily available.

The risk: knowledge is disappearing from maintenance

A manual helps, and a well-structured EAM system helps too, but not all maintenance knowledge can be fully captured in advance. Part of it lives in experience: recognising an unusual sound, knowing which fault occurs more often with a particular type of asset, or quickly assessing whether you need to push on, carry out further investigation or call in a specialist.

What happens when that experience is less available? Diagnoses take longer, pressure on specialists increases, and the same questions keep landing with the same people. This costs time, slows down repairs and makes your organisation more vulnerable than it needs to be.

How do you keep maintenance knowledge directly available?

Bridging this gap requires more than recruitment or training, important as those are. It also calls for smarter ways of handling the knowledge you already have; not a document hidden somewhere in a folder structure, but support that is available on the job.

This is where AI comes in. Not as a replacement for craftsmanship, but as a way to make knowledge available faster. By supporting technicians with an initial diagnosis, enabling remote expert input and capturing new insights immediately, knowledge becomes far more usable exactly when it is needed.

IBM Maximo Collaborate as the successor to Maximo Assist

IBM Maximo Collaborate is the successor to IBM Maximo Assist. Since IBM Maximo Application Suite 9.1, IBM has officially used the name Collaborate. It better reflects what the solution does: not only providing practical AI support for technicians, but especially enabling collaboration when extra knowledge is required.

IBM describes Collaborate as an application that combines AI-driven guidance with a knowledge base full of maintenance data. It helps technicians speed up diagnoses and repairs, work more accurately, increase first-time fix rates and boost productivity. Using their mobile phone or tablet, they can assess faults, view recommended solutions and bring in experts to think along with them.

How IBM Maximo Collaborate supports technicians in the field

Imagine a technician encountering a problem and not immediately understanding what he is seeing. He can capture images, for example with a photo or video. Based on that, the system first helps with diagnosis. It recognises patterns from previous situations and gives an initial recommendation on the logical next step.

If that is not enough, the technician can immediately call in an expert or colleague. He can select by skills, so the right person joins, such as the electrical or mechanical specialist who is relevant at that moment. A video call then starts, allowing the expert colleague to see the situation in real time.

In this way, you reduce the distance between experience and execution. The technician does not have to wait until the right specialist is on site. Even less experienced technicians can move forward faster, without needing to know everything themselves.

What does IBM Maximo Collaborate deliver for maintenance?

The value lies precisely in the areas that maintenance and asset managers focus on: faster and better diagnoses, more targeted use of specialists, and less dependence on a small number of experienced people. IBM highlights shorter diagnosis and repair times, higher first-time fix rates and increased technician productivity. The solution also makes the expertise of experienced staff more readily available to less experienced colleagues.

There is a second important benefit. Support sessions can be recorded and linked to a work order. This means you not only solve the immediate problem but also enrich your knowledge base for next time.

AI does not replace craftsmanship, but makes knowledge more readily available

You cannot solve the technician shortage with a single tool. But you can make expertise available faster, share it more effectively and reduce dependence on individual people. That is where AI becomes interesting for maintenance: as a practical way to organise knowledge closer to the work itself.