Profile Powering through Georgia Smart is Asset Management Leader at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, but her career journey has not always been easy. She chats to Louise Parfitt about overcoming prejudice, flipping switches and the roar of success Before she became an engineer, Georgia Smart had to battle to get there. I really enjoyed physics and maths at school, but because I didnt have a background of reading electronics magazines or playing with Meccano [construction toys] as a child, the physics teacher at my school told me I was mad if I thought I would ever become an engineer. He only let me on to the physics A-level course to keep another girl company. I decided then to do an engineering degree to prove him wrong, as much as anything else. IAMwork On involvement satisfaction I recently met some old Jones Lang LaSalle colleagues at a seminar who told me that the systems and processes that we built when I was there are still in use. That was quite gratifying to hear. Another thing that stands out is back when I worked for PepsiCo. It was building a new tortilla-processing plant in a factory near Paris. We only had six months to build it. They were concerned about the instrumentation and control side because the factory in England kept having recurring problems, even after two years. I proposed carrying out a proper user-requirement specification by talking to the people who operated the machines, and also build in some simulation training. It was initially met with scepticism, especially given the short timescale. But after being put into use, the Vice President of Operations told me that they had only had two days of instrumentation issues in the beginning that got sorted. It made me proud that I had made it happen because it was a different way of doing things and had de-risked the whole situation. That was not the end of her challenges. During the milk round, where employers visit universities to look for students to join their graduate training programmes, she was told by one interviewer that he would be concerned about employing her in case she wanted to get married and start a family. I was 20: I hadnt even thought about that yet! she says. Ive often wanted to find him and say: Look, I did have a baby and a successful career! I just seemed to keep hitting these weird brick walls with regards to peoples attitudes but then that made me even more determined. Nearly 40 years later, Smart is Asset Management Leader at UK Atomic Energy Authority. I have been here for two years driving the development of processes, systems, standards and tools to build a comprehensive asset management system that will support the organisations quest for a viable fusion energy solution. We are starting with configuration, work management, reporting and analysis of course we are still in the early days of doing that, but it is such an exciting challenge On childhood dreams When I was about eight, I wanted to be Prime Minister: maybe because I wanted to go to university and no-one else in my family had done that really. I also wanted to be an actor and then a teacher. Ironically, it was a teacher saying that they didnt think I could succeed at engineering that meant I ended up as an engineer, which has led to where I am today. Its not really career advice I would give to my child, but it has worked out for me. The whole idea of analysing and recording and doing all of this stuff electronically appealed to me. So that was my introduction to asset management Harnessing opportunity The UK Atomic Energy Company is a huge organisation that made the headlines earlier this year when its JET laboratory broke the record for how much energy can be generated when two forms of hydrogen are squeezed together, bringing fusion power a step closer to becoming a reliable energy source. Its cutting-edge science but, says Smart, while there is this whole exciting, geeky, experimental element, there are also buildings and facilities to build, operate and maintain and its Smarts job to provide a robust asset management system, flexible enough to cover them all. The operations that support the fusion research have normal equipment such as process equipment, boilers, pressure systems, and masses and masses of electrical equipment to provide electric pulses. They also have novel processes and equipment, including neutral beams, magnets and unique failure mechanisms, such as damage due to neutron bombardment. So its huge. But whats really exciting for Smart is the opportunity to bring asset management in from the beginning of something this big. The organisation is trying to move now to create an actual commercially viable reactor that could then be put into production. For me, the biggest opportunity is right now. If we get the asset management right at the early stages, how much better is that? Because most of the other organisations are trying to apply asset management principles retrospectively. So while the work Im doing for the authority at the moment is more retrospective, going forward, there is the chance to ensure asset management is part of the process when it comes to fusion energy. Because even while the team is experimenting, all of the information that can be gathered is useful for understanding how the equipment and systems work, how and why they fail, how to operate them reliably and effectively, and how to build them better next time. All of that is a huge opportunity. On joining the IAM I first seriously considered joining the IAM when it started publicising PAS55 in the early 2000s. I thought: Wow, thats what I have been espousing all this time: I want to be part of it. So, I found my way into the Institute around 2005 and Ive been involved since then in all sorts of different ways. I worked on the curriculum development committees for the Asset Management Certificate and Diploma and I have contributed to the subject specific guidance publication on maintenance and operations. Making changes Smart first became aware of asset management during her first job. After getting her degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Smart finally found an employer who recognised her worth. She was offered a place on the Unilever graduate trainee programme. I ended up working there for 11 years for one of their companies called Unichema Chemicals on Merseyside, retrofitting control systems, moving from the old pneumatic controls to electronic control systems and managing the electrical and control systems for new chemical process plants. After working for the companys Chicago branch for a couple for years, she returned to the UK to manage the electrical department. I had electrical instrumentation control project engineers and also a small team of people maintaining the electrical instrumentation and control equipment. I found the maintenance interesting. However, Smart was perplexed by the structure, which was quite fragmented with mechanical maintenance in one department, electrical maintenance in another and project engineers scattered across both. I suggested to the Chief Engineer that there should be project engineers and one maintenance department. I hadnt reconciled the fact that this suggestion would mean that my role of Electrical Department Manager would disappear! Six weeks later, the Chief Engineer announced he was changing the department but Smart got the role as the Maintenance Manager. I was able to indulge what I loved: processing systems about how to make things work. I was able to rearrange the teams to have reliability engineers, planners, people dedicated to doing condition-monitoring work. And we had fledgling computerised maintenance management systems these were still green-screen computers but the whole idea of analysing and recording and doing all of this stuff electronically appealed to me. So that was my introduction to asset management. On downtime My teenage son races motorbikes, so I dont really get much downtime: we are always off at one event or another most weekends. I am his pitboard operator at British SuperBikes where he races in the British Junior SuperSport championship. I enjoy graphic design, so I am now in charge of designing and printing the teams and fan club t-shirts! On favourite places I have been lucky enough to travel extensively both with my job and for fun. I have been around the Netherlands, Italy and Spain on my motorbike, on a tall ship in the Caribbean, and I have even visited Siberia, Mongolia and spent time in the Gobi Desert. I made up for being a bit of a workaholic mum by treating my son to long weekends away: weve been to Copenhagen, Berlin, New York, Chicago and Norway, where we saw the Northern Lights. Now, I dont feel there is anywhere I particularly want to go: I am happier now visiting places because of the people I know there. I have family in the Highlands of Scotland and we visited them as part of a road trip last summer, and friends in Australia, who I hope to go to see at some point soon. Snacks and systems There is the chance to ensure that asset management is part of the process when it comes to fusion energy. For me, the biggest opportunity is right now. If we get the asset management right at the early stages, how much better is that? Smarts next moves were to PepsiCo as an Electronic Systems Manager and then Horizon Biscuits as Factory Maintenance Manager it sounds like I was just doing a tour of all the snack options which was quite a difficult environment. At the biscuit factory, I was trying to change from a traditional 1970s maintenance environment where they largely waited for things to break down, to having systems in place to plan, manage and identify maintenance and equipment issues. They didnt even have a system to record information about assets so we set up systems to record data adding in processes that aligned with ISO 9000 (ISO 55000 didnt exist at this point). It really flipped my switch about creating the processes that make asset management an integral function of operations and I found it quite exciting. Life changes Smart swapped the snack industry for the pharmaceutical sector and spent seven years working for Pfizer, first as an Instrumentation Engineer and then as Strategy Development Manager (Facilities and Engineering). We saved probably at least 100,000 per year in the calibration by examining what we were doing and how we were doing it. It was during her time at Pfizer that two things happened that were to change Smarts life: she was involved in a horrific motorcycle accident that left her in a wheelchair for six months and on crutches for about four years; and she had her son. They both changed my career in different ways. While in recovery from the accident, she was persuaded to attend a conference by her boss. I thought I would just go to listen, because I still got tired very easily at that point. But I found I had to contribute: I was waving my crutch around and pointing at the board. It really fired me up and I think as a result of that they gave me my own department and we started to do proper asset management care. We put in strategies and applied the data, and built good asset planning programmes, which was then rolled out to their American sites, too. Her son was born in 2007, towards the end of Smarts time with Pfizer. For the next five years, she was self-employed as an asset management consultant. It was the same time as the 2008 financial crisis and I was out selling myself to new clients. It was tough in the beginning: I didnt earn much at all in that first year. My mother says it was fate making me spend time with my baby. Business took off and she enjoyed a successful four years when a chance meeting with a director at Jones Lang LaSalle, who was looking for someone to develop its maintenance delivery model, convinced her to take the leap back into life as an employee. It was all about developing the processes and systems, and contextualising them for facilities management. Its what I love: making a system work for a particular context. When the chance came to join the UK Atomic Energy Authority, she jumped at it. Its a perfect fit. What Ive done my whole working life is to try to make things more effective and with streamlined processes and using data to analyse and improve. To have the opportunity to build asset management processes into fusion energy from the start is just amazing. On different jobs I was I the Territorial Army for 28 years. Between leaving Horizon Biscuits and joining Pfizer, I went to Canada as a mechanic on a full-time reserve service engagement, and spent six months fixing Land Rovers and Warrior-armoured vehicles. It was certainly an experience. During Covid, before I started at the Atomic Energy Authority, I worked as a care-giver looking after adults with disabilities. On my first day, I thought: I could be rubbish at this! Ive only got two things to offer: the fact that I know what it is like to be in a wheelchair and be ignored, and I am not scared to wipe peoples bottoms. It was a big learning curve, but I really enjoyed it.
