Informed Decisions: The Value of a Renewed Focus on Asset Integrity
By Chris Straub, Vice President & General Manager of Argus Consulting.
Through the pandemic, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves… our priorities, pain points and passions. We learned about the world… its good, its bad and its future. We came to a greater understanding of how we take care of the people and things we are responsible for. And that also means taking care of what we build. The future of our critical infrastructure means continued investment in asset integrity.
At Argus, we provide fuel system engineering and support services for many types of clients in the energy, transportation and defense sectors. The last 18 months have affected each of them differently, but one thing is the same: the opportunity to become more efficient, more sustainable and more reliable.
It’s not our first time being in the position to help our industries find a new way. Going back to our roots, Argus was founded in 1994 as a traditional engineering design firm. A client would have a need, and we would help them with everything from planning through permitting and construction support. It was the hallmark of our business and still is when it comes to capital infrastructure programs. But we uncovered a trend that we wanted to disrupt. We noticed that many of our clients were struggling to get the maximum service life out of their critical assets. We’d build something beautiful together and come back ten years later to an asset that needed a lot of maintenance. There was a gap. We needed to do something differently. And we did.
We started an asset management organization to help our clients improve maintenance and compliance requirements to get the maximum service life out of their fueling assets. We added fuel operations, maintenance, and POL industry experts to our team and started exploring new technologies to streamline how engineering, construction and maintenance projects get done.
We evolved then, we’re continuing to evolve now, and our clients are too.
“We evolved then, we’re continuing to evolve now, and our clients are too.”
One example of that evolution is the commercial aviation industry. When the pandemic significantly reduced air travel, it helped challenge businesses to think differently, and it revealed priorities. Two concerns rose to the top: maintenance and intelligence. Clients want to be more streamlined, they need centralized and accurate information, and they want to make fact-based decisions. This is where SAIM fits perfectly into the equation.
SAIM is an online portfolio of Smart Asset Integrity Management solutions built by Argus in partnership with airline industry experts. It delivers data, which equals intelligence. We now have ten commercial airports using or getting ready to deploy the SAIM platform. These airport fuel facility owners and operators are getting valuable insights to help them make maintenance, staffing, and budget decisions that are critical to the business of fuel. They’re benefitting from the power of data, predictive maintenance, and digitization of records, which will power their facilities into the future and minimize safety and environmental risks.
As someone who has been in the fuels industry for nearly 30 years, I can confidently say: we’re making a positive difference. I’m proud that Argus had the foresight to be a part of it. We have the people, the knowledge and the tools to help our clients through the entire asset lifecycle. I couldn’t be more excited for the future as the industry and our nation put a renewed focus on taking care of our critical infrastructure.
Originally published on LinkedIn.
