Toronto, 2 July 2010
GMC Global is pleased to announce that because of our focused capabilities and unique talent base within the Mining and Oil & Gas industries, GMC Global has now officially become an SAP Services Partner. This partnership is strategic to both GMC and SAP, as SAP is working on expanding their Mining and Oil & Gas footprint and is looking to work with partners with our level of expertise to support these initiatives.
This partnership will enable GMC Global to further enhance existing SAP customer relationships and future opportunities as an endorsed SAP Services Provider.
Houston, 15 May 2010
GMC Global has been selected to manage and execute a major Operational Improvement Program across the USA gold mines of one of the world’s largest gold companies. The program builds on the successful delivery of improvements at the client’s operations across South America. The program, which will take approximately 12 months, aims to deliver sustainable business and operational improvements in the maintenance and supply chain areas while ensuring that the mining/processing business functions are also fully involved.
The USA program is modelled on a similar scale task in South America where GMC has so far delivered tangible improvements at one of the client’s operations including:
These 4 tangible results have increased the client’s revenue by USD15.5M (based on a gold price of USD1050/Oz and annualised throughput increase based on first 8 months of the program). This equates to app. 600% ROI for the client.
The close working relationship with the client has also delivered numerous other business benefits:
"The program supports GMC's successful expansion into North America and reaffirms GMC's commitment to develop a mixture of strategic and operational relationships with key natural resources sector companies in the region", said Irek Stawiczny, GMC Managing Director and CEO.
Melbourne, 27 April 2010
Ernst and Young, one of the Worlds Largest Assurance, Tax, Transactions and Advisory Services companies, have nominated the GMC Global Managing Director and CEO for the Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year, 2010 Award. The award is the most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs. The award makes a difference through the unique way it encourages entrepreneurial activity and recognises the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievements.
Launched in Australia in 2001, the Entrepreneur of the Year program has recognised over 800 Australian entrepreneurs for their vision and achievement. Globally, the program acknowledges around 10,000 entrepreneurs each year.
The Entrepreneur of the Year program is founded and produced by Ernst and Young. In Australia, the program is supported nationally by its primary sponsors Westpac, Qantas and the Australian Government.
Melbourne, 27 January 2010
Global Maintenance Consulting Group ("GMC") has entered into a definitive agreement with Mito Consulting ("Mito") to acquire all of the Mito assets. Mito is a specialised Supply Chain Consultancy which offers a combination of deep technical skills and extensive business process knowledge. Mito's extensive knowledge of the resources industry coupled with expert Supply Relationship Management (SRM) and Business Intelligence (BI) functional understanding, make it a very good capability fit for GMC Group.
Following the final sign off of the agreement all Mito consulting resources will join the GMC Group Supply Chain integration group. This will expand and compliment GMC's capability in this services area. Thomas Hynes, Mito's Managing Director will become the GMC Group VP for Supply Chain Integration. Tom will be based in Melbourne, Australia and will report to the GMC MD and CEO.
‘The strategic acquisition of Mito Consulting represents a significant strengthening of the GMC Group Supply Chain integration capability', says Irek Stawiczny, GMC Managing Director and CEO. ‘Mito's in- depth understanding of the challenging aspects of supply chain within the mineral resources industry will compliment GMC's capability, making GMC a leader in supporting effective maintenance and supply chain integration'.
'By combining Mito and GMC capability, our customers will benefit from a comprehensive range of services for both Maintenance and Supply Chain systems and processes', comments Thomas Hynes, Mito Consulting Managing Director. 'In particular, our deep understanding of the integration dependencies and a proven track record of delivering successful projects for the resources industry will translate into increased benefits for all our clients'.
The strategic acquisition supports GMC's strategic business plan and signals the company is well positioned to build on our 10 years of success. It is envisaged the transaction will be finalised by mid-February 2010.
Melbourne, 1 December 2009
Supporting the continued sustainable growth and very exciting future, GMC Group is pleased to announce the formation of the new GMC Board. The new Board has been carefully selected and it reflects the continued GMC Group commitment to the mineral resources industry. The following criteria were used to select the Board Members: Resources Industry Experience, Industry Passion, GMC Core Values Fit, Functional Experience, Experience in a growth firm(s), Industry Connections, Advisory Experience, Working Relationship, Time and Availability, Reputation / Credentials.
The New GMC Board members include:
In Addition to the above talented team, two external advisors will be supporting the GMC Board with various governance tasks:
Canada, 28 October 2009
GMC has been working with De Beers mines in Canada since early 2008. In this time we have had consultants work at both their Victor and Snap Lake mines as well as the Corporate Office. GMC has been involved in, and taken a leading role in, supporting their activities to improve their Maintenance and Supply Chain processes. We wish to congratulate them on the recent announcement of the Victor Mine being named 2009 Mine of the Year.
See the article here at the De Beers web site.
Melbourne, 18 August 2009
GMC is pleased to announce the appointment of Lee Bedford to the position of Vice President Mining - Asia Pacific. Lee will be based out of the GMC Melbourne office and will work closely with all other Regional Vice Presidents to assist our clients with the focus on improving the integration between Maintenance and Mining Operations.
Lee is a passionate asset management professional with a proven track record in delivery of Operational and Asset Management Strategy. He has some nine years experience in the oil and gas industry and twenty years experience in the mining industry. He has highly developed change management and facilitation skills developed from his global experience with large scale open cut, and underground mining, petrochemical processing, metallurgical extraction and refining. His global resources industry experience make him a great subject matter expert in many key GMC service areas including strategic advisory consulting, maintenance - operations integration, MARC agreements negotiations, and benchmarking.
Melbourne, 31 July 2009
Supporting GMC's continued successful activities in the region, the GMC board has approved further expansion of the group into South America. This will support GMC's geographical expansion and recognition of opportunities in the region, while still retaining the focus on delivering services in Maintenance and Supply Chain integration consulting within the Mining and Energy (Oil and Gas) industries. These activities include a large maintenance and supply chain integration improvement program for a global Gold Miner in their South American assets.
This decision recognises the on-going growth within our client base in the South American region, and our desire to ensure greater local support for these clients. To sustain the growth GMC has also opened an office in Santiago and appointed Ron Galisky to the locally based position of Vice President South America.
In recognition of the greater opportunities that this will offer the group, we also expect to increase the number of locally based consultants. This will ensure that our clients have access to a range of multi-lingual consultants skilled to support all of our service offerings.
Canada, 15 July 2009
The GMC Group has just completed a large scale business review of the mining operations for a large Global Gold Mining Corporation. The review focused on evaluating the maintenance maturity of all the company's operations across North and South America and in Russia. The review had a particular focus on warehouse - maintenance - operations integration. One of the key review aspects has been the assessment of Oracles' JD Edwards system utilisation across the company's assets and recommendations on potential improvements. GMC will be working with Oracle to develop a set of standard global processes which will be then supported by a standard JDE Solution across the entire company.
GMC Group, as the strategic maintenance partner for the large gold producer, is well positioned to unlock the value associated with aligning and simplifying the processes and JDE system solutions. Our effective Change Management approach, for which GMC is renowned, is seen as the key enabler for sustainable business improvements for the client.
Canada 18 June 2009
As a part of the GMC expansion and providing increased support to our clients, GMC are pleased to announce the appointment of Dale Ekmark to the position of Vice President Mining. In this position Dale will assist our clients to focus on improving the integration between mining and maintenance. Dale, who will be joining us as part of our global leadership team, will be based in North America and provide expertise and support to our clients globally.
Dale has over 26 years mining and operations experience in mining and heavy industry. In this time he has held a number of senior management roles in both Operations and Maintenance . He has had diverse international experience including USA, Canada, Africa and the Former Soviet Union. His experience also includes responsibility across single and multi-site mining operations. He has been responsible for the implementation of strategic growth plans and improving maintenance practises at facilities across entire companies. Dale is an innovative leader with a balanced focus on safety, sustainability, operational results, customer satisfaction and team development who has a proven record of optimizing business processes, reducing costs, increasing revenues and building dynamic organizations by optimizing current asset utilization
His areas of expertise include developing and implementing maintenance and operations management systems, strategies and business process change with an overall aim of improved productivity and business performance in all areas.
Chile 9 March 2009
To support the growth of GMC into South America, the GMC Group is pleased to announce the appointment to the new position of GMC Vice President South America of Ron Galisky. Ron, who will be based in Santiago Chile, joins our GMC team in the position of Vice President South America with the responsibility to support the GMC growth strategies in the region. Reporting to the GMC President America, Ron will oversee the expansion of the GMC business in the region and will have a strong focus on supporting the clients there.
Ron brings over 30 years of technical and managerial experience in Operations, Projects and Consultancy in the Mining Industry. After a sound career with Placer Dome that included leading the Corporate Business Process and Asset Management implementation in Chile, Ron entered the international consulting business in 2006, leading the Performance Improvement Practice for CRU Strategies. Focused on delivering value, he has proven, practical, experience in Strategic Development, Business Process Reengineering, Project Management and Maintenance Management in copper and gold operations in Canada and South America
His areas of expertise include; asset management; extensive operational and maintenance management; strategic development and application; operational and business process improvements; continuous improvement projects; equipment reliability improvements; formal & informal operational / maintenance audits & diagnostics; project management including ERP implementations.
The Nickel West implementation team have been busy preparing the NiW assets for the 1SAP pilot rollout. The team comprising of Dario Tomini, Laurie McCarthy, Reuben Schon, Justin Lewis and Mike Amen have been engaged with the business unit representatives as they identify the assets to be migrated. This process is being completed in accordance with the 1SAP design methodology, which will help ensure the maximum benefits can be realised for these defined data structures.
As expected with a pilot site, there has been a close working relationship with our design team in Singapore and there have been many site visits both ways to ensure there is a strong communication channel. The team are currently preparing for Mock 1 data conversions where a sizeable percentage of functional locations, assemblies and maintenance plans will be mapped and migrated to a test client.
The test data will provide the opportunity to validate the data design and associated load processes. It will also provide a mechanism for the team and business unit reps to further engage the NiW business in the change management process and enhance their understanding of the data structures.
GMC Canada has been assisting De Beers Canada over the last 6 months with a variety of Maintenance and Supply Chain improvements aimed at increasing effectiveness. After the successful delivery of various cost reduction programs, De Beers Canada Senior Executive Team, lead by the CEO Jim Gowans, have asked GMC to progress with further larger scale programs aimed at reducing the Supply Chain function costs and improving the Maintenance - Supply Chain Integration areas.
The program, which is a testimonial of the GMC Group relevance to the mining and oil and gas clients current challenging market conditions, will deliver multi-million dollar tangible savings to De Beers Canada, supporting the company vision of being the leading mining company in Canada.
GMC Group is pleased to announce a strategic addition to its North American and Global Leadership Team. Gerhard van Niekerk joins our GMC America team in the position of Vice President with a responsibility to support the GMC North America growth strategies. Reporting to the GMC President North America, Gerhard will oversee the expansion of GMC America business and will have a strong focus on growing the GMC Oil & Gas EAM industry practice.
Gerhard is a business and multiple-sciences professional with technical, operational and management experience in global corporations. He has extensive business advisory and development experience with a particular interest in corporate performance management. He operated within the Chemicals, Oil & Gas (including Oil Sands) industries yet specialized in Mining. He is the founder of the SAP AG Mining Practice and is well respected within the global mining community.
GMC's Supply Chain Integration clients continue to recognise system, process efficiencies and financial gains by focusing on key touch points between maintenance and Supply Chain.
GMC established a Supply Chain Integration capability early in 2008 in response to the growing demand for business system and process efficiencies between maintenance and Supply Chain. Since then, GMC has been engaged by Rio Tinto Iron Ore to identify and address maintenance and Supply Chain integration improvements at their Pilbara operations in Western Australia.
Recently, GMC was engaged by De Beers to identify and deliver Supply Chain Integration improvements at their Snap Lake and Victor Mines in Canada.
At the Victor Mine in northern Ontario, GMC's Supply Chain Integration programme is building on substantial gains already delivered to the site through GMC's maintenance activities. GMC has assisted Victor Mine's Supply Chain personnel to improve their SAP transactional and functional skills while delivering business process and system improvements following SAP implementation. GMC is now working with the site to develop a supply improvement programme which will see delivery of financial gains, as well as further business and system improvements and efficiencies to support site maintenance. GMC also supported Victor Mine through their recent annual stocktake.
At the Snap Lake Mine in the Northwest Territories, the GMC Supply Chain Integration team has identified improvements and delivered short-term business system and process enhancements while supporting the site through their first full stocktake. As an independent entity, GMC oversaw and verified integrity of the stocktake in preparation for the Snap Lake's annual audit.
GMC was proud to be involved with the St Barbara's Parish School (Roxby Downs, The township supporting Olympic Dam Mine Site) for their first fundraising fete. The event was held to raise enough money to establish a perimeter fence to protect the children and the school grounds.
We are pleased to pass on the news that the St Barbara's Parish School Fundraiser was a great success. School Principal, Bernadette Lacey, said "The support of the business community was so positive and we wish to acknowledge the hard work Global Maintenance Consulting Pty Ltd has done in its own right to be able to offer our school such a generous sponsorship ... On behalf of the students, parents and staff of St Barbara's Parish School I would like to again send our sincerest thanks".
In support of this year's trend, GMC has undergone further expansion amongst our existing clients after signing 10 new consultants for worldwide placements.
HR Manager Mark O'Donnell has said the quality of applicants coming through is of an exceptional level, well suited to our existing teams, and we have been able to quickly match the highly skilled consultants to existing teams in Singapore, Canada, and Australia.
After months of hard work GMC Australia has received approval from the Department of Immigration to become a Standard Business Sponsor for the 457 Working Visa, allowing us to sponsor non Australian residents to work for GMC Australia for a period of up to 2 years.
This approval further enhances the GMC Groups ability to provide our mobile workforce a variety of opportunities all around the world. GMC is now experienced in successfully obtaining working visas for a variety of countries around the world, with our new ability to deliver non Australian residents into our home market being the missing piece of the puzzle.
In typical GMC fashion no time has been wasted with our first successful 457 application and approval having already taken place seeing a new team member soon to relocate from South Africa to the sunny surrounds of Perth.
If you, or someone you know, is interested in pursuing work opportunities in Australia in light our new Sponsorship feel free to contact HR Manager - Mark O'Donnell on cv@globalmaintenance.com.au or on +61 (0) 398364481.
GMC have commenced work at Kennecott Utah Copper, placing Senior GMC Consultant Allan Wynne on the ground. The first assignment is to assist in the embedding activities for Kennecott Utah Copper, and to help manage critical tasks for their Manage Physical Assets team lead. This includes assisting KUCC planners in their piece of the Rio Tinto integrated planning solution.
GMC have managed to move the Zero Based Budgeting process from a Data Administration task to a function of the Maintenance Planners at most of the sites. Significant work has been done over the past few months to utilise Task Lists to capture maintenance acitivty with an intial focus on the high cost or high frequency tasks.
There is a sense of accomplishment in many areas as the planning portion of the Zero Based Budget is calculated and the figures are much closer to the 80% Planned and 20% Allocated target (Up from a <20% Planned last year).
Based on the success of the initial stage of the GMC Canada Asset Mangaement Improvement Program at De Beers Victor Mine (Canada), GMC has been invited to assist with the maintenance - supply chain integration tasks.
The initial scope of the tasks focuses on effective use of SAP Materials Management functionality and one-on-one coaching of the supply chain employees. The scope will also involve the critical spares review, equipment warranty management, repairable spares management and other maintenance and Supply Chain Integration tasks, which will add immediate benefits to the Victor Mine performance.
GMC Canada were recently engaged by De Beers Canada to deliver a maintenance improvement program at Ontario's first diamond mine: Victor Mine. The initial program will be approximately six months.
The program commenced with a detailed operations and requirements review at the corporate office and the mine, led by Irek Stawiczny and Nick Cecil. The review focus was to gain a detailed knowledge of the culture, existing processes and systems utilisation in the context of the overall mine business plan and the De Beers Canada Asset Management Strategy.
The High Level Scope of the GMC program is best summarised as: People Alignment - ‘Willing and able people sharing common vision'; Reliability Improvements - ‘Eliminating and preventing failures'; Maintenance Business Process Improvements - ‘Disciplined processes reflecting business needs'; SAP System Improvements - ‘Effective tools to support Victor Mine business processes'; Facilitate Sharing of learnings, processes and technical solutions across both De Beers Canada mines.
The Program is being managed by utilising the GMC Canada and GMC USA resources, and the approach is based on the successful programs of similar nature delivered in the region by GMC's North American operations.
GMC recently commenced a supply chain improvement program with a significant resources client in Western Australia. GMC formally expanded its services to incorporate Supply Chain Integration with Asset Management driven initiatives in April 2008.
The consultancy is assisting our client to identify and implement improvements within the Plan-to-Pay process, specifically by reviewing material master data processes, critical spare holdings and developing strategies to improve inventory availability to Asset Managers.
The engagement is being sponsored by the client's maintenance department, who understand the benefits that upstream Supply Chain efficiencies can deliver to Maintenance and Supply specifically by focusing on key touch points between the disciplines. A number of key strategies have been developed, and helping our clients to realise the benefits from full exposure to all processes within the Asset Management Life Cycle differentiates GMC from our competitors.
The GMC Board officially approved further expansion in Canada. The decision supports the ongoing North American Business Strategy, developed to consolidate GMC's geographical expansion, which remains 100% focused on delivering services in Asset Management consulting within the resources industry sector.
With offices established in Australia, USA and Singapore, the GMC Group are pleased to announce the opening of a new office in downtown Toronto, Canada, located at 1 Yonge Street. Our Toronto office is focused on addressing all of the Asset Management and Supply Chain Integration needs of our existing and future Canadian mining clients.
In line with the North American Business Strategy, GMC's Chairman and Managing Director Irek Stawiczny is relocating with his family to Ontario to drive the expansion process.
In response to client demands, GMC has expanded our asset management expertise to incorporate supply chain management. Our increased supply chain focus compliments GMC's asset management capabilities by providing clients with a "plan to pay" approach to asset management.
While GMC Group continues to be an industry leader in asset management solutions for the resources industry, this additional capability delivers increased value to our clients by focusing on supply chain drivers that improve asset performance and reliability.
Supply Chain Integration compliments an effective change management programme with business process re-engineering and systems implementation and improvement. GMC's programmes are unique to the resources industry and deliver sustainable improvements and benefits to any organisation.
In response to GMC Group ongoing growth, we have relocated the corporate office. The new premises are located in Melbournes picturesque suburb of Canterbury. We welcome you to visit our new open plan office on your next trip to Melbourne. Suite 6/333 Canterbury Road, Canterbury Victoria, Australia
In the last 12 months the GMC Group has been engaged in over 10 countries from Azerbaijan to Chile, Trinidad & Tobago to South Africa. GMC continues to build on strong relationships and our 4 ½ year partnership with Barrick Gold Corporation is no exception. Our Asset Management programs across Barrick's operations are once again gathering momentum.
GMC is a valued partner of Barrick Gold with expertise in maintenance process and systems. GMC is set apart from other technical specialists by our efforts to drive improvement and effect change through recognition of the human element.
Supply Chain Integration Manger - Peter Stewart joined the GMC Group to drive our supply chain programme. Peter has over 25 years contract management and supply chain experience as a management and supply chain professional across a diverse range of roles in the public and private sectors.
Business Process Manager - Neil Robinson joined the GMC Group late 2007 to provide support in the corporate office. His experience in IT and accounting will drive capability gains in efficiency and reporting.
Marketing Manager - Raelene Gill joins us from BHP Billiton, with a background in English Literature and Mass Communications. Raelene will introduce new and effective channels of marketing and communication between the corporate office, our valued consultants, and the broader marketplace.
Human Resources Manager - Mark O'Donnell joins the GMC Group providing specialist support around recruitment, retention and consultant engagement. Mark will develop strong working relationships with all GMC Group members to improve internal communication and ensure consultants are informed of emerging opportunities.