Making critical infrastructure sustainable and resilient for centuries to come

Increasing the service life of the bridge by another century will allow millions more people to benefit from it. What’s more, by preserving and prolonging our existing infrastructure we can avoid new construction work and strengthen environmental sustainability, a key objective for Øresundsbro Konsortiet, says Davor Peric, Facility Data Coordinator at Øresundsbro Konsortiet.

Challenge: Maintaining complex and critical infrastructure

The Øresund Bridge is highly complex, comprising more than 40,000 individual assets including bearings, fans, lighting systems, control cabinets, cameras, railings, stay cables, and many more components. To help keep track of asset maintenance, Øresundsbro Konsortiet has relied on IBM Maximo for more than two decades. To maximize the business value of its investment, the company began a long-term partnership with enterprise asset management (EAM) experts at AFRY. One of the main goals was to shift from scheduled to data-driven maintenance, enabling strategic, well-informed decisions about when and how to maintain, repair, or replace assets.

Solution: Harnessing the power of asset management data

Øresundsbro Konsortiet tracks approximately 43,000 assets in IBM Maximo. Maintenance engineers use a wide range of data for decision support, including operational status and fault codes, mechanical stress and vibration, energy consumption, and more. This data is captured via sensors, video cameras, SCADA systems, and digital maintenance logs created by teams working in the field.

Before partnering with AFRY, data was collected inconsistently. While engineers recorded details of inspections and maintenance work in Maximo, the system was not configured to link those reports to specific assets. As a result, the company could not see the proportion of time spent on corrective versus planned maintenance or identify opportunities to improve efficiency.

Working with AFRY, Øresundsbro Konsortiet created a set of core EAM key performance indicators (KPIs) backed by a robust data validation process.

"Dependable data is the essential foundation for a strategic approach to maintenance. For that reason, we started with a strong focus on gathering high-quality, trustworthy information on all the assets across the bridge. As part of this process, we helped Øresundsbro Konsortiet restructure its Maximo asset hierarchies, connect work instructions to work orders, and define the criticality of each asset," says Mats Eliasson, Senior Business Consultant at AFRY.

"Adding data on asset criticality was a crucial early step in the EAM transformation at Øresundsbro Konsortiet. With that vital context in place, we were able to determine where we should start when building the new preventive and corrective maintenance capabilities," says Frank Severinsson, Senior Maximo Consultant, Data Driven Maintenance at AFRY.

Capturing and protecting institutional knowledge

Øresundsbro Konsortiet issues public tenders for external contractors on a three-year procurement cycle. During the initial phases of the engagement with AFRY, the company worked closely with its maintenance and engineering provider to ensure that all maintenance instructions were clearly documented in Maximo.

"In the past, we had no single source of truth for maintenance best practices, which meant there was always a risk of losing valuable operational insights when individual engineers moved on or when we re-tendered for the maintenance work. Now, all maintenance instructions and histories are clearly documented in Maximo, which means it is much easier for new engineering teams to step into the role," says Davor Peric.

Future-proofing EAM capabilities

As the modernization project progressed, Øresundsbro Konsortiet saw an opportunity to future-proof its capabilities by moving to the latest version of IBM’s solution: Maximo Application Suite.

“While our existing IBM Maximo deployment had served us well for many years, the level of customization in our environment made the solution increasingly labor-intensive to manage and maintain. Moving to Maximo Application Suite promised to streamline these processes, and to give us access to the latest EAM innovation from IBM, including Maximo Mobile,” says Davor Peric.

Because Maximo is mission-critical, the company could not afford unplanned downtime during the upgrade. AFRY carried out rigorous testing, resolved technical issues, and provided training on the new interface to ensure a smooth transition.

“Before we performed the Maximo Application Suite upgrade, we carried out rigorous testing to identify and resolve technical issues. To help the Øresundsbro Konsortiet team start realizing the value of the upgrade immediately, we also provided training on the new user interface. This careful planning and preparation helped us to ensure that the switchover went smoothly, with no disruption to EAM operations,” says Mats Eliasson.

Today, AFRY is helping Øresundsbro Konsortiet switch from a third-party mobile app to Maximo Mobile. The new module’s offline mode will streamline data entry for field engineers working in areas with poor connectivity. Moving to Maximo Application Suite will also allow the company to take advantage of Maximo Health and Maximo Predict in the future, enabling automatic LCC calculations based on sensor, SCADA, and work order data.

Delivering actionable intelligence and measurable improvements

Now in the seventh year of its partnership with AFRY, Øresundsbro Konsortiet has driven far-reaching enhancements to its EAM capabilities. The company uses Microsoft Power BI dashboards to track KPIs such as delivery precision, time spent on corrective and predictive maintenance, and equipment fault codes. It has also created a risk-based view of asset performance, enabling targeted maintenance and investment based on criticality.

"Whenever we are performing planned, corrective or predictive maintenance, we want to know how long it takes our teams to inspect the asset and perform the work. Today, we have strong guardrails in place to help ensure that we record all the relevant information about these activities in Maximo. From a single Maximo Start Center, we can immediately see if data is missing and follow up to ensure it is captured in the system," says Davor Peric.

Øresundsbro Konsortiet is tracking substantial improvements across its EAM operations. For around 6,000 assets, the organization can now use data from sensors and other digital sources to trigger inspections automatically, an increase of 15% over five years. Crucially, the company is steadily increasing the proportion of preventive versus break-fix maintenance tasks, helping extend asset lifespans and reduce LCC.

"Around three times a year, we perform maintenance that requires us to shut certain lanes of the road. In the past, we usually performed this work at night, based on the assumption that traffic would be lowest at these times. However, we can now see that the maintenance time and cost for this type of work is actually lower during certain periods during the daytime, allowing us to optimize our approach." Davor continues.

A strategic partnership for the future

As Øresundsbro Konsortiet continues to strengthen its asset management capabilities, the collaboration with AFRY remains a cornerstone of its long-term strategy. Together, the organizations are building a future-proof platform that combines reliable data, advanced technology, and predictive insights. This approach not only optimizes life-cycle costs and reduces environmental impact but also ensures that the Øresund Bridge will remain a safe, efficient, and sustainable connection between Sweden and Denmark for generations to come.

"AFRY has deep knowledge of our organization and our working methods, and they are always looking for ways to help us enhance our capabilities. AFRY looks after every aspect of our IBM Maximo Application Suite solution, including updates, upgrades, training and solution development. With AFRY as our trusted advisor, we are moving toward our goal of creating world-class, data-driven maintenance capabilities that will help ensure that people can enjoy traveling on the Øresund Bridge for centuries to come, " says Davor Peric.

All photos: Johan Nilsson/Øresundsbron