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If we categorize the past few years as an economic war of sorts, based on conference participation, enthusiasm, user success stories and innovative opportunities for future growth, it would be a fair assessment to say a strong representation of the winning troops were gathered at the 2010 Meridium Conference, April 12-16, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Undoubtedly, the past couple of years offered an opportunity for reassessment. Some Meridium users shared their strategy for identifying areas for cost reduction using a Smart Cuts approach. Others focused on data improvement through improvements in failure coding. Some mature asset performance management users even forged ahead with new construction, using Meridium to beat start-up deadlines. However, all participants expressed a new and heightened awareness of the importance of adding context to their growing mounds of asset data.  As Forbes magazine publisher Rich Karlgaard shared, "The bandwidth between our ears isn't growing at the rate of the bandwidth of capability to gather data." A key step of future market leaders will be to adopt technology capable of placing volumes of data into a context which can drive business strategies translating into competitive advantages. Early adopters of this business strategy like BHP, DOW, EASTMAN, RIO TINTO and SILCAR began working in conjunction with Meridium in 2009 in the development of Asset Strategy Optimization (ASO). As a live conference simulation between Joe, the asset owner looking for cost reduction and Shannon, the analyst tasked to deliver solution and benefits demonstrated, ASO's ability to quickly pinpoint current asset performance down to the component level, perform strategy adjustments and demonstrate the immediate gains or losses in terms of production and maintenance costs, not only provides actionable and measureable context for data, but captures, leverages and attaches dollars and cents to the valuable tasks being performed by operations and maintenance personnel.  According to keynote speaker Jeff Dudley, Maintenance Technology Center Director, The Dow Chemical Company, it is precisely key tasks performed or not performed by operations and maintenance personnel which in large part determine the number of costly unplanned events in an organization. Translated into dollars, this can easily represent 10% lost revenue or another perspective - your company is spending 45 days a year on unplanned events. To significantly decrease unexpected events, Jeff advises adoption of the management practices of highly reliable organizations outlined in the book Managing the Unexpected, as well as fostering a culture of personal leadership. "If you say, ‘I need to do something' and you don't do anything, you didn't mean ‘I need to do something,' what you really meant was ‘someone needs to do something'." Empower employees to do something, and a reduction of unexpected events will follow.
Clearly, technology alone cannot make organizations successful. As the industry leader of asset performance management products and services, in 2007, after almost two decades of experience, Meridium decided to invest significant resources into documenting the best practices of the most successful APM initiatives, a study resulting in the development of the Meridium Value Assurance Program (MVAP). Based on existing maturity levels, MVAP is now helping customers better align their work processes, culture, business drivers, people and technology to build a roadmap based on where they are now, where they can/should go, direction on how to get there, and proof that they've arrived. As Brent Johnston (recently retired from ExxonMobil) emphasized during his presentation, Connecting the Dots: Developing Your Own Strategy-Driven R&M Roadmap, a well developed and followed roadmap can help to provide structure and continuity to R&M initiatives, assure that passing the baton won't bring initiatives to a halt, and provide the necessary direction on what to pursue when. While user presentations covered a wide range of topics including new construction, quantifying business results, improving mechanical integrity, whole life modeling, risk based inspection, safety instrumented systems, RCM & FMEA and others, invariably presenters pointed out that success within any of these areas required a mixture of elements - technology, best practices and training. "Investing in the long-term success of our customers requires us to look beyond the development of just leading edge technology," said Bonz Hart, President/CEO, Meridium. "The first step in laying the foundation for these efforts was the development of MVAP, the second, has been the development of Meridium Packaged Solutions." While MVAP helps users develop a strategy driven roadmap, Meridium Packaged Solutions provides the vehicle (software) and critical supplies (best practices, training and services) necessary to complete the trip. "Packaged Solutions is Meridium's demonstration of our commitment to being sure that our users can complete the trip," said Hart. "Sometimes, because the focus is on the technology, the importance of applying best practices and adequately training resources can become lost. Our products may be ranked the No. 1 vehicle for asset performance management, but Meridium Packaged Solutions is a demonstration of how equally committed we are to seeing that our users arrive quickly, safely and deliver value."  Sharing the perspective of the insurance industry, Donald Schubert, Senior Vice President, Marsh Insurance and Risk Management, reminded attendees that institutionalizing asset performance management with products like Meridium could not only significantly reduce insurance premiums, add life to their assets, but most importantly, can help to reduce safety incidents, reiterating a precept we can all agree on - people are every organization's most valuable asset and should be respected and protected.
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