Cape-headquartered PRAGMA, South Africa`s leading asset maintenance company, has landed a five-year contract with petrochemical giant Shell SA Marketing for the maintenance and management of its retail facilities and assets.
This forms part of a broader Shell Global process aimed at standardising and aligning the Africa business with the rest of the world.
PRAGMA`s initial focus will be on Shell`s operations in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. Shell will adopt a phased approach towards aligning the rest of the Africa operation over a five-year period.
"In terms of this facilities management contract, PRAGMA will be responsible for the creation and operation of a call centre through which all incoming calls, customer or dealer requests and notifications will be managed," says Karl Nepgen, director at PRAGMA. "Once calls have been logged, appropriate service providers or Shell personnel will be appointed to address the particular queries and action any requests or complaints, with PRAGMA managing the process, work execution and outcomes.
Outside the call centre environment, we will also be responsible for the management of all third-party contracts, including the financial aspects; engineering management; quality control; and the supervision of health, safety, security and environment compliance for all maintenance and project work to be performed at every Shell retail site."
The project will be launched with a three-month asset identification and condition survey across Shell`s 860 retail sites in southern Africa, including forecourts, fuel pumps, service areas, bulk storage containers and shops. During this period, all the company`s assets will be identified and bar coded and their physical conditions assessed. A complete asset register will be created with the information gathered, and will play a key role in the efficient and cost-effective maintenance and management of Shell`s assets.
A dedicated team of 15 PRAGMA personnel will be based in Cape Town, from where the Shell call centre will be run, and the entire facilities management contract co-ordinated. This team will strengthened by a field engineering team of eight more people, distributed around the country, says Graham Holding, construction process engineer at Shell Oil Products Africa.
"The awarding of this contract is in line with Shell`s global vision to streamline the maintenance processes for its retail outlets," Holding says. "The key strategy is a move to a global management of the network; supported by a consistent set of processes; using best practices from within and outside Shell. PRAGMA Africa will use its knowledge of maintenance delivery mechanisms to provide a continually improving customer value perception for our retail outlets. They will also improve the asset performance of our retail equipment and infrastructure, thereby minimising the total cost of ownership while achieving structural cost reduction in the maintenance of our network."
PRAGMA has been running an administrative call centre and performing asset data management for Shell for the last six years. In 2004, it participated in a global facilities management survey conducted by the petrochemical company. In May 2005 a request for information was formerly published by Shell and the contract for the management of all the company`s facilities and assets in Africa was awarded after six companies were shortlisted. Project work is set to coincide with Shell`s financial year start in 2006.
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