"SAAMA hopes to reach the decision makers in the utilities serving Africa to increase their awareness of the benefits of using solid, proven asset management principles," says Anton Booyzen, president of SAAMA. Booyzen will be a panellist during a discussion on the asset management of power stations.
"The obvious challenge in most developing countries is the lack of skills to ensure that assets reach their expected life span," says Booyzen. "This is exacerbated by the lack of understanding of many professionals of the impact of their decisions on the life cycle cost of assets and functions. One of the best examples of this lack of understanding is the reduction in maintenance expenditures by many utilities in order to meet budget."
SAAMA is currently busy with the registration of the organisation as a professional body. "This will allow us to register asset management practitioners as professionals in their own right and issue them with a professional designation. We are developing the training frameworks that will allow training bodies to develop curricula that will assist asset management practitioners to obtain the professional designation," says Booyzen.
"We are also rolling out a certification scheme for auditing organisations that want to do ISO55001 assessments, ensuring that auditors have the required asset management knowledge as required by ISO."
SAAMA's annual conference is joined by the global forum on maintenance and asset management (GFMAM). "The GFMAM participation adds a different dimension to the discussions we have in South Africa and Africa. Many of the more advanced countries have gone through the same painful development curve that we are now experiencing in Africa, and their experience is invaluable in enabling us to develop short cuts on the road to asset life-cycle cost optimisation," Booyzen concludes.
