When we started this company in 2004, coming from an infrastructures and utilities background, we would not have imagined applying our know-how and technology to retail stores! After all, a retail store is technically much less complex than a plant, represents a much smaller investment and technical failure certainly has less impact…This article will simply look into recent stories featuring our experience with retailers and try to show their relevance to other industries, more particularly to industrial plants.

The specialists data preparation services for SAP PM (or other CMMS) provided by Siveco primarily target greenfield projects. In some cases, such services may also apply to existing plants. With a strong background in greenfield infrastructure and industrial projects, Siveco has developed a specific expertise working alongside investors, EPC companies and their equipment suppliers during the construction phase, ensuring smooth transfer of technical documentation from construction to operation.

An unusual topic for our monthly Reliability article: we will look into the results of our yearly customer satisfaction survey and the interesting findings it reveals. In early 2013 we have launched our ISO 9001 certification project, with the aim to get certified during 2014. New procedures were implemented during 2013 and internal audits are conducted on a regular basis (we now have 7 certified ISO 9001 internal auditors in the company, which is around 15% of our staff).

We have, over the year, in the pages of this newsletter and in press articles, written extensively on the evolving Chinese technical service market. In 2013, China has come a long way, yet plant owners still have difficulties recruiting in-house maintenance teams and finding qualified contractors. At the same time, some service providers have significantly developed their capability but still have problems finding customers.

Many companies feel that their facilities or their organization are too small to implement a CMMS or to hire the services of a consulting firm like Siveco. This is especially the case in China, where small to mid-size factories may use second-hand equipment (low accounting value) and rely on relatively cheap labor (low perceived maintenance cost). Another China-specific phenomenon is that rather large companies may still consider themselves small…

This month’s Reliability article will summarize two of the presentation’s key points, which were not covered in the original article. It will also answer some of the most frequent questions that were asked during the event.