diff --git a/lib/openbmctool_utils.py b/lib/openbmctool_utils.py
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..a34436b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/openbmctool_utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+r"""
+This module provides many valuable openbmctool.py functions such as
+openbmctool_execute_command.
+"""
+
+import gen_cmd as gc
+import gen_valid as gv
+from robot.libraries.BuiltIn import BuiltIn
+import re
+
+
+def openbmctool_execute_command(command_string,
+                                *args,
+                                **kwargs):
+    r"""
+    Run the command string as an argument to the openbmctool.py program and
+    return the stdout and the return code.
+
+    This function provides several benefits versus calling shell_cmd directly:
+    - This function will obtain the global values for OPENBMC_HOST,
+      OPENBMC_USERNAME, etc.
+    - This function will compose the openbmctool.py command string which
+      includes the caller's command_string.
+    - The openbmctool.py produces additional text that clutters the output.
+      This function will remove such text.  Example:
+        Attempting login...
+        <actual output>
+        User root has been logged out
+
+    NOTE: If you have pipe symbols in your command_string, they must be
+    surrounded by a single space on each side (see example below).
+
+    Example code:
+    ${rc}  ${output}=  Openbmctool Execute Command  fru status | head -n 2
+
+    Example output:
+    #(CDT) 2018/09/19 15:16:58 - Issuing: set -o pipefail ; openbmctool.py -H hostname -U root -P ********
+    ...  fru status | tail -n +1 | egrep -v 'Attempting login|User [^ ]+ hasbeen logged out' | head -n 2
+    Component     | Is a FRU  | Present  | Functional  | Has Logs
+    cpu0          | Yes       | Yes      | Yes         | No
+
+    Description of arguments:
+    command_string                  The command string to be passed to the
+                                    openbmctool.py program.
+    args/kwargs     These are passed directly to shell_cmd.  See the shell_cmd
+    prolog for details.
+    """
+
+    if not gv.valid_value(command_string):
+        return "", "", 1
+
+    # Get global BMC variable values.
+    openbmc_host = BuiltIn().get_variable_value("${OPENBMC_HOST}", default="")
+    openbmc_username = BuiltIn().get_variable_value("${OPENBMC_USERNAME}",
+                                                    default="")
+    openbmc_password = BuiltIn().get_variable_value("${OPENBMC_PASSWORD}",
+                                                    default="")
+    if not gv.valid_value(openbmc_host):
+        return "", "", 1
+    if not gv.valid_value(openbmc_username):
+        return "", "", 1
+    if not gv.valid_value(openbmc_password):
+        return "", "", 1
+
+    # Break the caller's command up into separate piped commands.  For
+    # example, the user may have specified "fru status | head -n 2" which
+    # would be broken into 2 list elements.
+    pipeline = map(str.strip, re.split(r' \| ', str(command_string)))
+    # The "tail" command below prevents a "egrep: write error: Broken pipe"
+    # error if the user is piping the output to a sub-process.
+    # Use "egrep -v" to get rid of editorial output from openbmctool.py.
+    pipeline.insert(1, "tail -n +1 | egrep -v 'Attempting login|User [^ ]+ has"
+                    " been logged out'")
+
+    command_string = "set -o pipefail ; openbmctool.py -H " + openbmc_host\
+        + " -U " + openbmc_username + " -P " + openbmc_password + " "\
+        + " | ".join(pipeline)
+
+    return gc.shell_cmd(command_string, *args, **kwargs)