Edmonton Chapter - MainTrain 2025 Keynote Comes to Us

Join us for the Edmonton Chapter’s networking event and a chance to hear Bill Mercer's MainTrain Keynote.

We’ll begin the evening with light networking, followed by a great opportunity to hear Bill Mercer's insightful MainTrain Keynote, "Realizing Value From Assets - But What The Hell Is An Asset And What Is This Value We Keep Talking About?"

Bill Mercer is Senior Manager with more than 40 years of experience in energy, infrastructure, asset management, and Operations and Maintenance.  He has a Power Engineer 1st Class with an MBA and certifications in Quality Assurance, and Asset Management.  He  has broadly based progressive management experience primarily in the power generation industry including general management, operations, R&D, asset management, reliability, and maintenance.  

Starting in operations at coal fired generating plants in central Alberta, Bill worked in business development, financial management, and maintenance management before starting an international career operating and managing facilities and service departments in New Zealand, Asia, Europe, and Canada.  He has been an active member of PEMAC for over 15 years and has been on the National Board of Directors for the past three.  Bill Mercer received this years Sergio Guy Award during MainTrain 2025.

According to ISO 55000, asset management is the coordinated activity of an organization to realize value from assets. Unfortunately many of us (me included) focus far to much effort on coordinating activities without first understanding what our assets are, and what is the value(s) we how to get out of them.   

Summary:

This presentation is based on over 40 years of experience and a lot of lessons learned through the school of hard knocks.   

The basic fundamental of Asset Management is the Asset.  Based on my experience an asset can mean different things to different people, especially as we move up the organization’s structure from front line practitioners to asset owner executives.  Coordination of the asset management functions is highly dependant on an alignment of views of how best to manage each level to achieve the optimum value.  Therefore, understanding value is vital to understanding assets management needs across all levels of the organization. 

This is where it can get tricky.  Values may be defined by the organization in a policy statement or roadmap with alignment with the context of the organizations place in its environment and recognizing its “Stakeholders”, but this may not really align with what the organization actually values in the real world.  The purpose of this discussion will be to help Asset Managers at all levels of the organization identify and test for the organization’s real values and then to align their assets and asset management activities for the best outcomes.

After the talk, continue the conversation and make new connections during a networking session.