UMS Group Helps Asset Managers Learn How to Build Value

PARSIPPANY, N.J., Feb. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- UMS Group recently sponsored the 5th Annual Strategic Asset Management for Power Plants conference, organized by Marcus Evans (http://www.marcusevans.com), which took place in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The conference was attended by more than 50 executives and managers who learned how to build value for their companies through the Strategic Asset Management business model, Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 55, maintenance management, and system and asset data management.

By sponsoring and participating in the conference, UMS Group sought to help Clients answer the question "How do we release maximum long-term value to our stakeholders and, at the same time, manage our risk profile within levels acceptable to our customers, regulators and communities?"  To provide insight into achieving this objective, UMS Group presented a Case Study on how Risk-Based Strategic Asset Management can add value to a business. It described how transforming from an engineering-based culture to a business-minded one provides the ability to understand and manage the trade-offs among cost, risk and performance.  Managing this trade-off successfully can provide significant improvements in productivity and reduced costs, as demonstrated by more than 20 UMS-facilitated global client transformations to the Strategic Asset Management business model, which have led to productivity improvements across the infrastructure operations and maintenance functions ranging from 20 to 40 percent.  

In addition to its presentation, UMS Group led a lunch time exercise where each table was introduced to the UMS Group Asset Management Game, a "competitive" role playing Asset Management simulation that facilitates learning by doing, so participants can actually experience what Risk-Based Asset Management is all about.  Excerpts of the UMS Group presentation, an opportunity to play the Asset Management Game, and other public domain information from the conference are available upon request.

"The right culture and the development of asset management competencies are key to achieving the potential benefits," said Mike Scholtens, Senior Vice President, UMS Group.  "The key mindset shift is that the entire business revolves around the asset requirements rather than the capability of the resource base and size of financial budgets."

About UMS Group

UMS Group is a leading global consultancy and thought leader in utility asset management, performance assessment, performance management and the management of sustainable change.  UMS Group's proprietary databases, analytical tools and methodologies have been utilized by over 300 gas, water and electric utilities on six continents to build world-class operations. UMS Group is also 1 of only 3 North American PAS 55 Assessors Endorsed by the Institute of Asset Management (IAM), which enables UMS to certify compliance with PAS 55. For more information: http://www.umsgroup.com

SOURCE UMS Group