On the 4th of June 2010, Pragma celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Hard work, innovation and a dedicated team have been the underlying factors in Pragma’s development into a successful international business.

Pragma started off in a small office in Mark Street, Stellenbosch. The founder members were Adriaan Scheeres (current CEO of Pragma Holdings), Arnold Botha (current head of ACC Development in Pragma Products), Dries van Zyl and Gerhard Ackerman.

Over the past 20 years, the company has grown from a small engineering consultancy to a fully fledged asset management service company. The company’s footprint has expanded beyond the borders of South Africa, with various global partners enabling companies to improve the performance of their physical assets.

Our Technology
On Key was initially developed on request from a client. Further client needs paved the way for the growth and development of On Key into a world-class product that today competes in the international arena. From its initial “Dos” days, On Key is now developed in C Sharp and is browser based. On Key is a best-of-breed Enterprise Asset Management System (EAMS). What sets it apart from other ERP modules on the market is Pragma’s focus on the needs and requirements of the asset care fraternity. The system is designed with a single-minded aim – to make the effective management of physical assets as fast, easy and painless as possible. On Key boasts numerous unique features that support this objective.

Our Methodology
From pure maintenance consultancy, the team started developing an outsourced service model, initially called the Buro service. Research and development led the way for the development of our own Asset Management Improvement Programme (AMIP) with which maturity assessments and improvement projects were done for clients. The Asset Care Centre (ACC) was established in support of our expanded asset management service concept. With this, the need for formalised Business Processes arose, and we invested in a special department focusing on the development of Business Processes, best practices and supporting material. A fully fledged Enablement department saw the light and partner enablement training kicked off, ensuring that all engineers understand and deliver the ACC to the same standard. We now find ourselves in an arena where our professional service is in demand due to the high success rate in terms of improved performance, cost reduction and risk containment at our clients.

The Pragma Academy
In the late ‘90s we realised that tertiary institutions did not adequately equip engineers for the field of asset management. Due to the continuous need for training at client sites, we launched our own academy to fill the gap. The Pragma Academy has grown to a competitive Seta-accredited training centre, hosting scheduled public training throughout SA and onsite training for clients.

The Physical Asset Management Thought Leadership Conference
What started off as a client user conference in the early ‘90s grew to a fully fledged independent asset management conference. The PAMTLC is benchmarked as one of the most successful asset management conferences in SA, annually attracting 120+ delegates to come and listen to international as well as South African speakers on asset management and other challenging thought leadership topics.

Our partnerships
Through the years, we have built close partnerships with Value Added Resellers and Pragma Partners across the globe. These entities have helped us to take our products to the international market and to grow our client base.

What’s in store for the next decade?
Our international expansion is high on the agenda with our focus on Original Equipment Manufacturers and Large Asset Owners. Setting up asset management best practices that are coupled to formal business processes, and thereby helping manufacturers enable their end users to take good care of their assets, is one of our missions. Centralised asset registers, a consistent asset management strategy, proper maintenance plans and schedules, and good work planning and control procedures, can save Large Asset Owners millions. We know that we can help them standardise asset management at their plants. Locally we have a large role to play to help our own municipalities, hospitals and government institutions with their asset management in order to improve service delivery to our nation. We have state- of-the-art facilities, a host of mines and various manufacturers that must still improve their output and we can contribute by offering them our ACC solution that has already enabled hundreds of clients to do just that.

For the longevity of our planet, we all have a role to play to ensure that we take good care of our environment by cutting down on waste and pollution. If we all join hands and do our bit, we can all globally contribute to the wellbeing of mother earth.