Ausenco’s asset optimization capabilities in South America

By Juan Carlos Duarte

4 min read

Stationed in Ausenco’s Santiago office, Juan Carlos brings more than 18 years of asset optimization experience across the oil & gas, mining, power, petrochemical and cement industries in Latin America.

His passion for asset optimization is attributed to the value added opportunities that we present to our clients, which significantly improve the performance of their business. Juan Carlos and his team are dedicated to implementing our unique solutions and best practices to his optimization projects, continually providing benefits to their clients’ assets.

Tell us about Ausenco’s Asset Optimization operations and team in Chile.

Our asset optimization operation in Chile was established in 2014, consisting of asset management experts with vast experience in various industries and regions. This allowed us to develop a diverse portfolio of solutions that draw upon many unique perspectives when we undertake a project. Our consultants come from industries including the mining, oil & gas and power industries.

One of the services we execute involves the optimization of maintenance strategies for critical assets like concentrator plants, mining fleets and power generation plants. Our operations are focused on the mining, oil and energy sectors. Our consulting approach is focused on projects that can significantly impact the performance of our clients’ assets.

The services we’ve provided include: asset management training, maintenance management, asset management audits, maintenance and supply chain business processes development and implementation, operational readiness, reliability engineering studies, etc.

What is the value that asset optimization brings to your clients?

The value is the application of our knowledge of industry best practices that allow clients to maximize the efficiency of their plants. We work with our clients to improve the way that they manage their physical assets by designing and implementing unique solutions that addresses their specific needs. All our solutions are designed so that our clients’ plants can reach their production goals at the lowest possible operational cost while mitigating risks.

What are Ausenco’s main differentiators?

Ausenco has a proven approach to asset optimization that has demonstrated our ability to consistently reduce OPEX costs by 10-20% using our in-house risk analysis and optimization tool, Rylson8. This reputation is backed by our experts with international experience, and certifications by international societies including the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) and The Institute of Asset Management (IAM) in the UK. We bring our global knowledge to local projects, allowing us to appoint the most qualified people to any project.

Our group is also endorsed by the IAM, a leading international asset management society, certifying Ausenco to provide asset management training, audits and consulting services for our clients.

What are some major project achievements to date?

One specific example of a value generating service we provided is an optimization project we completed in Chile, where we were tasked to optimize our client’s maintenance strategy. Our solution generated an increase in concentrator plant availability by 5% while achieving maintenance cost reductions of 15%.

Another example of a cost saving project is for a mining company where we were able to reduce their life-cycle plant costs by 17% with minimal increased risk to the asset. We have been working with this client for several years to define and implement an asset management strategy with a focus on improving the maturity and performance of their operations.

Can you expand on the utility of the Rylson8 (R8) software and how we implement it into our services?

Rylson8 provides a single entry point to define the business/asset requirements of our clients’ projects and relates them to the performance of their assets. Developed by Ausenco, it combines our proven reliability methodologies to help our clients make decisions that effectively maximize performance, reduce operational costs and maximize the useful asset life by finding the best trade-offs between performance, costs and risks. Rylson8 is aligned with the requirements of the international standard ISO 55000.

The first step to an asset optimization project is to identify the clients’ needs, which helps us understand the opportunities that exist in areas with low performance, high operational costs and unmanaged risks. We then integrate Rylson8 technology to address the problems that are affecting throughput, availability, operational costs and risk.

Our experience has also shown us that the key part of our services is optimising our clients’ plants to efficiently reach its maturity. We have developed an asset management maturity program, a transformative solution that improves the asset performance of our clients’ plants with a focus on reducing operational costs, mitigating overall risk and integrating the best asset management processes. We evaluate the level of maturity for our clients’ projects and customise a tailor-made solution based on their needs. Finally, we help our clients implement our plans and monitor their assets.