IBM is currently working with the Louvre Museum, Paris on the innovative project that is aimed to preserve and protect the museum’s artwork. One of the greatest and largest museums of the world has more than 650,000 square feet and features thousands of artifacts ranging from prehistory to 1848.

Photo: a guided tour through Louvre, by Clement Martin, from www.louvre.fr

The museum staff makes more than 65,000 repairs and maintenance visits per year to protect the facilities and masterpieces. IBM offers Louvre its Maximo Asset Management software for the museum’s staff to streamline their maintenance processes. It will be done to help improve customer service as well as the management of the museum.

With a record breaking 8.8 million visitors in 2011, Louvre is Europe’s most visited museum. For many years, the museum has been managing the museum maintenance work by paper but now, with help of IBM, Louvre will computerize the maintenance process.

IBM’s Business Partner SQLI will upgrade IBM Maximo software to create a single information database and shared repository for the museum staff. The processes of cleaning, maintenance and disposal of the rooms will be visualized. The software will also enable staff to manage both planned and unplanned maintenance activities.

“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.”

In the end of 2011, IBM unveiled five innovations that would change our lives within the next five years.