Suzane Greeman ASQ-CMQOE, CAMA, CAMP, CMRP, MBA is Principal Asset Management Advisor at Greeman Asset Management Solutions, Inc. based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She is an asset management strategist, instructor, international keynote speaker & the author of “Risk-based Asset Criticality Assessment (R-b ACA©) Handbook: A practical guide to improve asset criticality by incorporating asset, risk, quality and business management principles”. Mike Petrusky asks Suzane about the industry trends she sees in 2020 and new technologies available to optimize asset performance and manage funding deployment and risks. They discuss the human side of implementing new tools and strategies, keeping up in our fast-changing world and managing risks in the marketplace today. Mike and Suzane also have a common love of music and find time to pay tribute to Kenny Rogers with a “podcast karaoke” duet!
Get Suzane’s book: https://reliabilityweb.com/bookstore/book/risk-based-asset-criticality-assessment-handbook
Connect with Suzane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzane-greeman-asset-mgmt-exec/
Learn more about Greeman Asset Solutions: https://greemanassetmanagement.com/
Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikepetrusky/
Learn more about the iOFFICE Asset Division and explore more interviews at: https://www.assetchampion.com/
Share your thoughts with Mike via email: podcast@iOFFICECORP.com
Read the full transcript here:
Suzane Greeman:
We might as well get on board and start to develop an asset information management system, with a good digitalization strategy, working with the operational side of the business, the IT side of the business and network capability and all of those things that will go with the asset specifications.
Mike:
This is the Asset Champion Podcast, where we talk with facilities, maintenance and asset management leaders about the industry trends and technologies impacting your organization. This show is powered by the iOFFICE asset division, delivering easy to use maintenance management software tools to help you drive powerful asset performance.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to the show. My name is Mike, and this is episode two of the Asset Champion Podcast. It’s our first episode to feature a guest, and my oh my, do we have an amazing one to kick things off for us? If you heard my story on our introductory episode, you know that I really started researching asset management just a few months ago, and during my deep dive into this topic, there was a name that appeared time and time again, Suzane Greeman of Greeman Asset Management Solutions, inc, is a sought after strategist and a leader in this industry.
So a little while ago, certainly with some trepidation, I reached out to Suzane to ask her for some advice about this podcast, which she was so quick and generous to provide. We spent a long time on the phone together, and then a short time later, I asked and without hesitation, she agreed to be my very first guest on this new podcast. And I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I am about that.
Suzane’s expertise and depth of knowledge about asset management is undeniable, but add to that a delightful personality and a great sense of humor, and I knew immediately upon talking with her that we were going to become fast friends. So it is an honor, and my absolute pleasure to share our conversation with you. The very first interview for the Asset Champion Podcast. Here we go.
Joining me today on the asset champion hotline from Winnipeg, I’m pleased to welcome Suzane Greeman. Welcome to the show, Suzanne. Thanks for being here.
Suzane Greeman:
Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here, and I really, really like the name of your show. It’s great to be connected with the Asset Champion.
Mike:
Well, thank you so much. And the pleasure is mine because I am a big admirer of the work you do. I’ve been following you a long time online these last several months as I’ve been researching asset management and looking to see who the experts are in this field and your name keeps popping up again and again, how did that happen?
Suzane Greeman:
Oh, wow, listen. I am very, very pleased and very humbled that I’ve fallen into the line with those giants. So I’m glad that I pop up when you` search for asset management experts. Thank you.
Mike:
Suzane is principal asset management advisor for Greeman asset management solutions. She’s also the author of a book called the Risk Based Asset Criticality Assessment Handbook. And you’ve been in the business for quite a long time, over 20 years, right?
Suzane Greeman:
Yeah, 22 years, it has been.
Mike:
How did you end up where you are today?
Suzane Greeman:
So I think the combination of several things, good parenting by my mom, I have to credit her, of course.
Mike:
Of course.
Suzane Greeman:
And a lot of mentorship over the years, I’ve had a lot of extremely good managers and friends and colleagues and so on that reached out to me and to this day, keep mentoring me. So for me, it really started 22 years ago, as I mentioned, and I’ve had a ground up career.
I started out as an instrument technician, yes, troubleshooting instruments on the plant. I started out with a company Mike, that gave me a scholarship to go to college, that company curved cement.
Since that, I’ve worked across several asset management disciplines, it’s been quite an eclectic career for me. So as an electrical engineer, first and foremost, then as a project engineer, I’ve done capital program management as well. I’ve been a maintenance manager several times. I’ve done something called asset planning and development, which I didn’t understand was so important at the time. Now I hold it near and dear. I’ve also worked in HR. I joined a company and after a few months, I was invited to join the HR team-
Mike:
Interesting.
Suzane Greeman:
… as an HR business partner, which I did for a couple of years. And then finally roll that all up into asset management. And so two years ago, almost, I think. I started toying with the idea of starting a consulting and advisory firm to find some place to land all of the experience and expertise that I was developing. And so I ended up starting my own firm.
Mike:
Wonderful. That’s great, and I just have to ask, getting to know you here, we’ve talked a couple times before, but your accent doesn’t sound like a typical Canadian accent, Suzane. Am I picking up something else?
Suzane Greeman:
You are picking up something else, but as Canadians, we’re going to take a lot of offense to that because who knows what a Canadian sounds like? But anyway.
Mike:
I just have my American kind of version of Canadian accents. And I didn’t hear you say, eih, once. You didn’t eih or aboot even once during that introduction.
Suzane Greeman:
I haven’t been here long enough, so I got to learn that part. But yes, you did pick up right. I am from Jamaica.
Mike:
Excellent.
Suzane Greeman:
So I’ve been out of Jamaica I think for about 14 years now, and I’ve been living around, so Canada is actually country number seven for me. So I’m quite happy here.
Mike:
Wow. So you’ve been around the world. So I can’t wait to hear more and learn more about your expertise and I’m looking forward to having you share with my audience. But before we get too far, I’d love to hear a little bit more about that personal side of Suzanne.
Suzane Greeman:
Okay.
Mike:
And I’d love to ask this question, because I think it really gives us a shortcut to learn about your personality. What type of music do you like, Suzanne?
Suzane Greeman:
Oh, this is really, going to say it now. So I am a huge country music fan. Country does it from me every single time. I’m a huge Kenny Rogers fan, beard before beard was a thing guy. I really, really love Kenny Rogers. I think the first time I ever fell in love was with Kenny Rogers. And of course, being from Jamaica, reggae and dance hall are just in my blood. They just run right through my blood. So pretty much anything by my Bob Marley, but also Shaggy and Buju Banton.
Mike:
I grew up on Kenny Rogers singing the Gambler.
Suzane Greeman:
Oh, that’s one of my favorites.
Mike:
(singing).
Suzane Greeman:
(singing).
Mike:
All right.
Suzane Greeman:
I love it. I’ve never actually been told by anybody that I could sing well, and I sing so much. You should hear me sing. It’s terrible.
Mike:
No, that sounded pretty good, Suzane. I’m going to tell you, for the first episode of the Asset Management podcast, you are setting the bar very high. I got to tell ya.
Suzane Greeman:
Oh my goodness.
Mike:
Wonderful. Thank you for doing that.
Suzane Greeman:
Oh, you’re welcome.
Mike:
Well, I also hope to inspire our audience. These are fast moving times in which we live and getting up and getting going each day requires some motivation. So do you have a particular quote you could share with us to inspire us all?
Suzane Greeman:
There is one that comes to mind that I really, really like because it falls in line with my kind of constancy of purpose. So I found this quote a few years ago by Saint Basil. I haven’t done enough research to know all of who he is and what he did, but the quote is, “A tree is known by its fruit. A man by his deed. A good deed is never lost. He who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness, gathers love.” And I tried to live by that.
Mike:
Wow, that is inspiring.
Suzane Greeman:
Thank you. I really agree with it because I don’t think there can be too much love.
Mike:
Let me ask you this. What do you enjoy most about the work you do? You’re very passionate about asset management, you’ve spent a lot of time in the industry and you get to work with a lot of different people. What gets you most excited about this particular discipline?
Suzane Greeman:
Well, I’d have to say, I think firstly, two things, one, people engagement, definitely love interacting with people and meeting people where they’re at and seeing what their goals are, and helping them to achieve their goals as well as I do like building methodologies.
So one side of me there can’t get enough of people, the teaching and the reaching, and working with my client’s staff to implement the asset management practices at a very tactical level. So that does a lot for me. Then the other side of me likes to sit on the developmental side quietly studying and developing methodologies for the client, so I enjoy those two sides of it.
Mike:
Well, that’s what I’m all about too, it’s the people and helping people find their way in this fast moving world. Things are changing rapidly all around us in many ways. But when you talk about the marketplace in particular, as it relates to asset management, what are some of the trends you’re seeing in 2020 and beyond?
Suzane Greeman:
You’re very correct. Quite a few things are changing and really, really fast too. And get into the stage that now I’m old enough to remember big, all switch gears that had nothing electronic on it now to small, compact with a little PLC or a computer on board everything.
So a lot of things are changing and it’s over a relatively short space of time. So I’d say politically, we’re headed for quite a bit of uncertainty and in some ways term-wise. So a lot of keeping your head cool is going to need to happen in this new round.
Economically, I am of the view that we’re headed for some tough times, I see that a recession now has been declared because we’re below 3% global growth, and this is going to call for more and more asset management because the strategies that you have for your company, in fact times won’t work in lean times.
Then socially, we’re now seeing more interconnectedness than ever to the point that we were never able, and we’ll never be able to stop the spread of the virus. It just probably is going to peak itself, that we literally have to lock people in their houses to stop the spread of the virus. That is how interconnected the world is now socially.
It also is bringing new awareness to things like how you manage yourself as a brand, because there’s all of social media out there and you have to manage every part of your interactions. Then of course, new technologies. So new ways of doing things, bring in new careers as well, new business opportunities for some people.
So we have industrial internet of things, artificial intelligence, that those technologies, they sounded so new five years ago, they’re at the stage now that they’re starting to mature, that their optic is like that. So even where companies aren’t really embracing a maintenance 4.0 or industrial internet of things drive, the equipment that they’re going to buy and it’s just going to be everywhere and you won’t be able to avoid it. So you might as well come up with a digitalization strategy for your organization and a good asset information strategy.
So all of these new technologies are out there that can support the goals of the organization, but really against a good platform of managing asset information. And then on the legal front, we have new and changing regulations in the environment, and they’re bringing more and more government oversight and more legal oversight. So they will require some of them changes to the asset base that we have. You might have to change all of the assets if environmentally, they can’t comply with regulations for instance, and then all of them, whatever it is, they all carry now a need for increased external reporting to these very new demands from stakeholders. Let me put it that way, and management of compliance.
So within the business, organizations are going to have to start to manage their asset information in a way that they can facilitate, proving that they comply, provide an information around the compliance, and being able to report all of this to the government and other external stakeholders.
Mike:
Wow. This is a lot to digest for me, Suzane, but I’m drinking from a fire hose here, but I really am enjoying it. Can we drill down a little bit more?
Suzane Greeman:
Oh, I’m sorry.
Mike:
No, don’t apologize. Don’t apologize at all. This is exactly what I was hoping for. Is it possible, can we drill down onto the technologies a little bit more? It’s always something that fascinates me and the people element of that, where we’ve done things in many industries a certain way and we’re used to it, but then a new technology comes along, a new capability or a new tool.
You mentioned some of the things that have disrupted our world a little bit, but is there a resistance to… I imagine with people there might be some resistance to new technologies and if so, how do you think we get past that? And what are the real promising tools that might really help an organization achieve their goals in the area of asset management and provide those outcomes we’re looking for?
Suzane Greeman:
As we are seeing, a lot of tools and technologies are coming online, and most of it is not actually being requested by organizations, they’re being imposed on organizations, because it’s just where industry is going. It’s where manufacturing is going. It’s where equipment design and manufacturing itself is going.
So we’re seeing two paradoxical risks with big technology. First of all, we’re seeing this plain change resistive workforce as a risk, but a lot of industry that are just not prepared. So between the actual assets themselves, and then the other things like the IT infrastructure to support all of this, then we end up now with a lot of legacy systems that can’t really compete with any company, which is likely to be your competitor that was built, let’s say in the last five years. And that’s just the reality. How do you as a company that’s been around forever and have all of these systems retool quickly enough or efficiently enough to be able to compete with what’s out there?
So there is all of this technology. Then there is the fact that anything new that you buy will have it, and so your skillset and what your workforce looks like is going to have to be different now to respond to that. So these things are just challenging all the way around, so we might as well get on board and start to develop an asset information management system with a good digitalization strategy, working with the operational side of the business, the IT side of the business, with engineering, so that when people are specing new equipment, then they have the specs and the digital specs and network capability and all of those things that will go with the asset specifications.
Mike:
Sounds good to me. I’m sold.
Suzane Greeman:
You’d be surprised though how difficult these things would be to develop and enforce in companies.
Mike:
Wow, Suzanne, this has been great, but we’ve run out of time. I want to keep these podcasts to a digestible size, but I have so many more questions. Is it okay if I ask you to come back for a part two of this discussion?
Suzane Greeman:
Absolutely. I am here, I really enjoy this podcast and I enjoy sharing with your audience. Thank you.
Mike:
Awesome. Let’s do it. There you have it everyone. Part one of my discussion with Suzanne Greeman, not a bad way to kick off this new podcast, right? I have learned so much during my chats with Suzanne and there is so much more to come and you can keep listening immediately. So please, go check out episode three, where you will find the second half of our conversation.
And while you’re listening, if you happen to be a subscriber on Apple Podcasts, may I ask you for a quick favor? Please take a moment and leave an honest rating and a comment about the new show. It’s easy to do, and it helps so much to get new podcasts off the ground at the start. Even a quick one sentence or even one word review would be so appreciated. And I thank you so much for spreading the word about our new podcast community that we’ll be gathering here each week to encourage and inspire you to be an asset champion, peace out.
You’ve been listening to the Asset Champion Podcast. We hope you found this discussion beneficial as we work together to elevate asset management success by improving efficiency, reducing costs and building best practices. For more information about how the iOFFICE asset division can boost the performance of your physical assets by providing comprehensive enterprise asset management software solutions, please visit assetchampion.com.