Strategic Asset Management Inc. began as a concept during the early summer of 1996, in an attempt to rectify the poor record of consulting firms in making long term change.
Maintenance consulting simply failed to work most of the time. While there were usually some short term gains, it seemed that neither party was satisfied for long. Consultants took on a burden on every job, because they were always fighting an uphill battle with the client.
The core issue was that a maintenance project was always seen as something that engaged only the maintenance department. And while it represented a valuable goal, the key enabling factor, ownership by production, seldom happened. Secondly, when activities are considered to be temporary by the work force, that is, of a project nature, there is always the view that once the project is over, people can revert to their former activities and comfort level.
Solving these two issues was the genesis of SAMI. First, the work wasn’t just maintenance, but dealt with the whole plant population, as everyone in the plant has ownership of assets from some aspect. Thus the part of our name, Asset Management. Then, that the nature of the work had to originate at the highest levels of a company, and be the basis of a new way of working, now and forever. It would not be a project, but a strategic initiative, matching our five stages of development in what we then called the SAMI Triangle. This would require a Strategic Plan. Thus the part of our name, Strategic.
SAMI’s first client was as a subcontractor for Gemini Consulting, with Phillips Petroleum in Puerto Rico. The project failed to immediately turn into an implementation. In the meantime, we had received a turnover of a prospect from a former employee, who had tried to go out on his own, and decided to take a job offer with Showa Denko Carbon, a manufacturer of graphite electrodes.
Then we had a big break, from Mobil Refining in Beaumont, Texas. They read our seminal article in Maintenance Technology, where we featured the SAMI triangle and our ideas on Asset Management for the first time in a major publication.
During the early days of the Mobil design, we had submitted an RFP response to Iron Ore of Canada for a Strategic Plan for Asset Management. It went out to a dozen companies, all of whom were established To my immense surprise, we were short-listed. The IOC team visited Mobil Beaumont, and got a glowing recommendation and selected us. Now we had to figure out exactly what to do, and try to find some senior consulting people who could lead a conceptual exercise.
We completed a very good Strategic Plan, but they were aghast that the implementation could cost over a $million US. Their business case was well over $100 M CAD—but they went ahead and tried to do things internally. Not long after they were purchased by Rio Tinto Mining of Australia.
About this time we launched a maintenance benchmarking effort in combined efforts with Townsend Associates, for forty sites worldwide.
Somewhere in this timeframe we began engaging with Brunswick Mine, a mine of the Noranda company. Eventually, we got the assessment during the frozen time of the year up there and were later awarded the design contract.
At this point SAMI also began hiring its core staff, starting with Jan Franlund, Dave Army, Michael Frilling, Ralph Hedding and Steve Kubas. The company needed to grow past its founder Brad Peterson and a small group of contractors.
SAMI got an assessment, and subsequent implementation work at General Chemicals in Amherst, Ontario. This was followed by jobs with Hayes Lemmerz and Columbian Chemicals Company. Then came work with Tesoro Petroleum in Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota and Utah. Theses projects helped us gain some momentum, cash flow, and develop our methods.
Then the Constellation Power project began in 2001. SAMI delivered three strong plant assessments, which resulted in a three plant implementation. A major milestone at that point for multi-plant implementations and project size.
In the spring of 2002, we got our big break with Shell Exploration and Production. Since we began (and continue to be engaged there) they have achieved an additional cash flow from this work of $1 billion, a decent return however you look at it! We learned how to handle a big, mature client that way.
Then came another major client, SASOL Synfuels in South Africa. SAMI was first contacted by SASOL in 2002 to come over and get to know them. Things dragged on for over a year, when we started the assessment, using a new format of highly leveraging our client’s staff. We followed with a OSP for AHC, and developed a two year implementation plan. It was arduous work, but significant headway was made.
This led us to a new realization, which SAMI began to postulate in the Spring 2003, our ELEPHANT strategy. WE COULD DELIVER LARGE PROJECTS, AND DO THEM WITH BETTER RESULTS THAN SMALL PROJECTS. We have developed and articulated this strategy ever since.
As we enter into our second decade of life, what have we accomplished and what is left to do?
We are a vibrant, capable organization of like-minded and committed people.
We have a cadre of excellent client references, and contractors who work with us project after project. We have an experienced delivery process, and can deliver consistent quality jobs, based on our documented methods and processes. We know who we are, where we intend to go, how we will get there and what values we will employ with each other and our clients. We have developed four triangles for functional excellence, and a managing system model, which together we believe are the best models for process industry performance improvement available anywhere in the world. We have global reach and the ability to take on the largest jobs (in maintenance), anywhere in the world. We step up to challenges, and challenge ourselves to improve by looking at where we have fallen short.
We are here for long-term growth, and have all the necessary ingredients for continued strong growth in the future. We are working a plethora of outstanding opportunities, and we can be assured more will come our way.
