IBM Transforms The Louvre into a Smarter Museum
Tech company IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced Monday that it is working with The Louvre Museum in Paris to preserve and protect its facilities and artwork, which covers more than 650,000 square feet, making it one of the largest museums in the world.
Established in the 18th century, The Louvre is home to thousands of objects and artifacts ranging from prehistory to 1848, including the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa.
To preserve and protect its facilities and world-famous artwork, the museum staff handles more than 65,000 repairs and maintenance visits per year. Through the use of IBM Maximo Asset Management software the museum’s staff has been able to streamline their maintenance processes to improve customer service as well as the efficiency, real-time operation and management of the museum, says IBM.
As Europe’s top museum, one of The Louvre’s goals is to keep the majority of its galleries open daily. To meet that goal while managing more than 65,000 repairs and maintenance visits, the museum needed to make its corrective and preventative maintenance more streamlined and efficient.
[ Also Read: Samsung TVs in Hollywood’s Most Glamorous Night ]Prior to working with IBM, the staff managed its facility-related repairs and maintenance work by paper, involving hundreds of vendors. In order to keep the majority of its galleries open daily, the museum recognized that it needed a computerized maintenance management tool to make its corrective and preventative maintenance more streamlined and efficient.
The museum engaged IBM Business Partner SQLI to upgrade IBM Maximo software in order to create a single information database and shared repository for the museum staff.
The software solution’s integrated database helps the museum visualize processes including the initial planning, cleaning, maintenance and disposal of the rooms and facilities systems such as the air-conditioning system, heating system, elevators, lights for each room or gallery, and the locking system for more than 2,500 doors.
[ Also Read: Autodesk Brings LEGO Brickley to Life Digitally ]“Managing thousands of repairs, cleaning and maintenance visits per year to preserve the facilities and artwork while keeping the galleries available and accessible to visitors is a daunting undertaking,” said Metin Pelit, department manager of computerized maintenance management system, The Louvre Museum.
“Thanks to IBM software, we’re able to visualize our entire infrastructure and make better, more informed decisions about when and how to respond to problems — and about when to proactively address a potential problem that we otherwise wouldn’t have seen coming.”
The Louvre’s management system can now aggregate data from individual systems within the museum, providing the museum staff and its vendors, coherent and real-time information on each asset.
Additionally, the software provides a predictive view into the performance and reliability of the facility equipment and systems, allowing museum staff to better determine which assets need to be repaired or replaced.
“Technology today can make it possible to ‘listen’ to the abundance of information from buildings,” said David Bartlett, vice president, Industry Solutions at IBM. “The Louvre Museum has created a fabric of intelligence to better manage and preserve their art and infrastructure for the world to enjoy.”
