Describe your journey to AMCL.
My journey began in the oil and gas sector with a solid foundation in chemical engineering where I gained experience in monitoring and optimizing plant processes to improve efficiency and ensure safety. By working in an asset intensive organisation, I gained interest in maximizing assets to bring the most value to the organization.
This eventually led me to pivot towards consultancy hence joining AMCL where I could leverage my skills in helping organizations to improve their Asset Management capabilities. The transition from client side to consultancy has expanded my knowledge of what is best practice and my ability to assist wider clients in Southeast Asia through business development activities. My journey in AMCL is one that I find rewarding especially when I feel the clients’ appreciation of my help. It brings me satisfaction and fulfilment which motivates me to always give my best in my role as a consultant.
What project(s) are you currently working on?
I have recently completed assessments on Asset Management maturity for three sites for a key client in Indonesia with my project team. At present, we are in the process of developing improvement action plans that are aligned with the client’s strategic goals. This approach will assist our client with implementing corporate initiatives that are both about improving their Asset Management capabilities and achieving organisational goals and objectives.
I am very proud of our small team who supported me and delivered the back-to-back maturity assessments within a 3-month period. The engagement was very intensive which included travel to client site, having numerous discussions to plan and prepare the participants for the assessment, to kicking off the project and conducting all day interviews over several days. Following the development of the improvement plan, we will be presenting to top management about our findings and recommendation.
This experience and repeated exposure to assessing against the Asset Management Landscape and determining levels of good practice has enhanced my knowledge across all 39 subjects (now 40) of Asset Management and my skill as an assessor.
What are the most common pitfalls you see and how can you support your clients in Southeast Asia?
From my experience, I consider one common pitfall would be the tendency for asset intensive organisations to focus primarily on the daily operations and maintenance (O&M) and having less awareness of the benefits from taking a longer-term approach and considering the broader scope of Asset Management. While keeping assets functional in the short term is critical, the long-term aspect is also important to maximise asset’s lifespan and value.
We help our clients to understand that Asset Management is more than the O&M space and that the discipline also involves strategic planning, risk management, data and information management and sustainability, all of which goes together to enable optimization of the entire lifecycle delivery.
We also help our clients to make better Asset Management decisions and teach them how to connect the achievement of organizational goals to Asset Management activities. A key reason for creating this line of sight is because Asset Management is an integrating function that bridges various departments of an organization so that they are not operating in silos.
What advice would you give to women aspiring to succeed in this industry?
Continuous learning is a cornerstone of consulting due to the constant evolving of organizations, hence staying up to date with the industry trends and expanding our knowledge is critical to improving our abilities and ensuring that one provides the best advice to their clients. Listening with genuine empathy is also equally important in understanding our clients’ challenges and underlying issues. It enables us to provide an effective solution that caters to their specific and unique needs. Lastly, maintaining a positive mindset of believing in yourself is key as it may be easy to second-guess yourself especially in a competitive field. Our mindset is a powerful tool that can affect the way we think, behave and the ability to recover from setbacks.
I believe that by truly understanding our clients, accompanied with the knowledge to consult and having the right mindset in trusting your expertise are valuable, and in return will inspire confidence in our clients which are all essential for long-term success.
What is something interesting about you that your colleagues may not know?
Living in Southeast Asia provides me easy access to diving opportunities and to many famous dive sites. It therefore didn’t take too long for me to discover my passion for diving especially after being exposed to the rich marine biodiversity and an up-close encounter with the majestic manta rays with my friends on a dive trip. What I love most is the calm and serene underwater environment that to me, provides a space for reflection and relaxation. I look forward to further explore 71% of the Earth through more dive trips.