“Pragma’s roots are in engineering consulting solutions. With over 200 engineers dedicated to enterprise asset management, Pragma’s software competes comfortably with the world’s top brands, such as SAP, Maximo and IFS Ultimo. I plan to use my experience growing software businesses to help Pragma achieve its international expansion goals,” says the newly appointed CEO of Pragma, Scott Gibson, who has a proven track record from leading Dimension Data’s global digital practice and as CEO of the Britehouse Group.
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Pragma’s locally designed software platform, On Key, is widely used by multinational food packaging and processing companies.
An industrial technology business headquartered in South Africa, Pragma has enterprise clients in 46 countries, where it helps industrial businesses to maximise their return on asset investments by supporting highly-functional and reliable operations.
The company’s specialised, home-grown solutions include consulting services, business process managed services, training and a computerised maintenance management platform.
On Key: designed by engineers for engineers
Pragma’s locally designed software platform, On Key, has been used by a multinational food packaging and processing company for more than 14 years.
To date, it has generated over 2.7-million work orders to keep its assets in 172 countries in pristine condition. Other large operations using Pragma’s platform and services include Tetra Pak, Shell, Astron, Bell, Fair Cape Dairies and Massmart.
On Key is a world-class enterprise asset management (EAM) system that offers a suite of software applications to assist asset-intensive organisations to manage their physical assets across their entire life cycle.
This includes planning and scheduling maintenance work, managing maintenance activities, repairing and operating inventory items, tracking life cycle costs, analysing failures, managing the maintenance workforce, and more.
The On Key EAM platform
To elevate maintenance management to a holistic and integrated asset management system that facilitates informed decision making through credible, real-time information, the core On Key EAM system is extended through four dedicated supporting platforms:
- On Key Insights is a set of business intelligence apps that produces information to help make decisions, when needed, in the form of standard or customised reports.
- On Key Action focuses on streamlining maintenance work processes. Web-based and offline mobile apps are used to optimise, automate and simplify maintenance activities.
- On Key Integrate enables standardised system-to-system integration solutions that include monitoring and maintenance.
- On Key Connect is a complete integrated monitoring solution that connects assets, gathers data and automates work management processes using a combination of technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and EAM systems.
On Key has evolved over a period of more than 30 years. It incorporates insights from seasoned asset and maintenance management practitioners and industrial engineers who have worked closely with the software development team to ensure that the system addresses the primary requirements of an asset management system.
Smarter business decisions rely on credible, real-time information. On Key supports this requirement through built-in features, keeping appropriate business processes and triggers in mind to ensure data is captured in full, timeously and accurately without duplication. This approach makes On Key the system of record for all physical asset information across an entire installed base.
Since it can also integrate with other enterprise systems, teams from different divisions can perform the work they need to on their preferred systems, knowing that the information they use is accurate and up to date.
The advantages? Accurate, real-time data, enables asset managers to:
- Increase asset availability and performance, and improve product or process quality.
- Increase efficiency of maintenance teams and increase asset longevity.
- Reduce spending on parts, inventory and insurance premiums.
- Create structures and data management in support of asset management strategies such as ISO 55001.
- Support quantifiable and transparent environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability initiatives.
- Consolidation of all maintenance related information and processes into a single centralised platform.
- Improved structure and control of all maintenance related information and processes.
“The breadth of applications and features delivered on a single platform is what differentiates On Key from competitors. Its open architecture is geared for integration with industrial software, business systems and sensors, making it an ideal fit for most system landscapes,” says Gibson.
Asset management service providers and large asset owners across sectors use On Key’s comprehensive feature set to manage the complexities in their businesses to deliver different services, across different asset types, different sites and clients, under different conditions, and at different service levels and priorities.
Key capabilities include:
- Dedicated mobile application and flexible user profiles that provide simple and configurable role-based user interface capabilities.
- Multi language.
- Multi time zone and multi-currency support.
- Workflows can be configured toautomatically action insights generated from analytics.Software is available for on-premises deployment.
- Data management that keeps data updated over an asset’s entire life cycle.
- User friendly and responsive user interface.
- DIY report development.
- Integration connectors with leading enterprise software.
- Capabilities to consume IIoT technology and drive condition-based maintenance.
Also, though, while On Key remains the system of record for all asset management related information and primary asset management processes, its superior integration platform enables seamless integration with most ERP and other business systems in support of streamlined and optimised business processes.
As a seasoned angel and later-stage investor in niche tech, Gibson used his investment criteria to guide his decision to join Pragma. “The business owns its intellectual property and appeals to a defined niche, and my experience has shown that clients buy business outcomes, not software. On Key delivers against this mandate and, when combined with the deep subject matter expertise within the business, Pragma has a compelling local and global offering. It is also a particularly agile business with a great client-centric culture,” he says.
Going forward, he plans to improve the ratio of people-focused versus platform-based revenue. “While our people will always be a key driver of our success, we are looking for innovative ways to grow revenue using our in-house developed platform.”
Co-founder and outgoing CEO Adriaan Scheeres, who led the Pragma Group for 34 years, will remain a shareholder and member of the board. He believes that Scott Gibson is the ideal person to lead the business into its next growth phase.
