Draft:MaxGrip

MaxGrip is an international consultancy company that specializes in asset performance management (APM) and maintenance. The company was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The company is fully owned by its employees... . MaxGrip supports companies in industries like Manufacturing, FMCG, Pharmaceuticals, Power Generation & Distribution, Oil & Gas, Water & Wastewater and Metals & Mining. Customers include Heineken, Shell , Vopak, Abbott Pharmaceuticals, Hibiscus, FedEx, Pemex, TenneT , Victrex and Waternet. The main activities are improving asset performance, deploying Enterprise Asset Management(EAM) and APM software solutions and asset integrity management. They are an independent consultancy firm working with different software partners. Since 2022, Mark Mulder is CEO of MaxGrip

Early Years (1997 - 2007)
MaxGrip was established in December 1997 by three founders including Jakob Boelens who is still active for the company as a senior partner and board advisor. In the beginning, the company developed maintenance concepts and completed services regarding maintenance management, mostly for Dutch clients. Another branch of the company focused on optimization challenges regarding maintenance reliability and safety. In 2000, the company expanded their services to asset management. The company acquired MaintControl in 2007. This developer for specialized maintenance and asset performance software, including Optimizer+, had already been partnering with MaxGrip.

Global Expansion (2007 - 2018)
The following years, MaxGrip focused on expanding their business. In the Netherlands, the company worked for many international clients who wanted to make use of the services of MaxGrip abroad as well. This led to the establishment of an office in Houston, USA in January 2012. Later that year, in May, MaxGrip expanded to Singapore as well. This was followed by the establishment of MaxGrip APAC in Malaysia in February 2013. In the first few years, initiatives led to a steep growth in yearly revenue. In January 2017, MaxGrip expanded to Australia and it opened an office in Germany in April 2018.

Focus on Consultancy (2019 - 2023)
In 2019 the software assets of MaxGrip were acquired by AVEVA, a partner of MaxGrip since 2017. MaxGrip’s software assets were called Optimizer+, strEAM+ and APMSmartApps and offered specialized APM modules for EAM systems. After the sale of the software assets, MaxGrip focused entirely on consultancy and deployment services in APM.

Asset Performance Improvement
MaxGrip developed the Asset Improvement Program to help clients with assessing and improving Asset Performance Management. The program consists of three stages. The first stage, the Asset Improvement Mapping (AIM), is the most well-known stage; MaxGrip has applied the AIM over 150 times in sixteen years. The assessment scopes the current situation and maturity of an organization’s asset performance management across fourteen competencies in the areas of maintenance execution, asset reliability and management. The second stage is the Asset Improvement Deployment (AID) in which recommendations for improvement are deployed. The last stage is the Asset Improvement Rollout, in which efforts are scaled up to multi-site or multinational level.

EAM System Deployment
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) systems are used by companies to manage the maintenance of physical assets throughout their lifecycle. This enables easier monitoring, inspecting and the maintaining of assets. MaxGrip is experienced in several EAM software solutions including SAP, IBM Maximo, IFS and IFS Ultimo. MaxGrip was chosen as the IFS Ultimo Channel Partner of the year 2022 due to the large number of certified consultants, their proactive marketing approach and several successful joint projects

Digital Transformation
Industry 4.0 is the fourth industrial revolution that comprises the current trend of automation and data interconnection. MaxGrip supports their clients in the adoption and deployment of industry 4.0 solutions. This includes Connected Frontline Worker solutions and Predictive Maintenance. MaxGrip combines domain expertise with change management capabilities. This has also been recognized by research firm LNS Research as an important added value for the market. They pointed out that there is many technology available but that companies are struggling to equip employees to adopt these new systems and tools