< PreviousSpartan’s customer-centric approach and employee ownership model go hand-in-hand in helping the company work toward its mission of delivering real customer value. 70Written by Ryan CartnerCompany profileSpartan Controls is the recognized leading provider of automation, valves, measurement and process control solutions and services in Western Canada. As a local business partner of Emerson, a global industrial automation solutions provider, Spartan offers a broad range of solutions for all process industries including oil and gas, oil sands, mining, pulp and paper, power, pipelines and municipal. Unlike most companies within the automation space, Spartan is a Canadian, employee-owned company that empowers its employees, whom they proudly refer to as “Spartans”, to think outside the box and do what it takes to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers. “They understood that allowing employees to own a piece of the company and share in its profitability would result in a more committed workforce.”The largest of its kind in Western Canada, the Edmonton Automation Centre is Spartan’s primary facility for sales, warehousing, assembly, and service operations71RESOURCE IN FOCUS “Whether you’re producing oil and gas, combining molecules to create ethylenes for making plastics, mining potash for use in fertilizers, or purifying water for the city,” says President and CEO Grant Wilde, “our valves, measuring devices, and control technology are at the heart of those operations.” Founded in 1963, Spartan Controls was established to repre-sent Fisher Controls in Western Canada, a control valve manu-facturer from Marshalltown, Iowa. Jasper Fisher, the company’s second generation of family ownership, wanted to expand and realized the most effective way to sell products beyond his regional borders would be to hire people who were invested in their own local markets. Fisher established a network of rep-resentative companies, including Spartan Controls, that would sell, supply and service the valves. The company name ‘Spartan Controls’ was chosen by the com-pany’s founder Bill Flegal to reflect the efficient and competi-tive nature of the Spartans of ancient Greece. “We’re a competi-tive group, and we like to win,” says Wilde. “When you think of the Spartans of history, you think about an efficient and effec-tive culture. These values are symbolized by our name.” Emerson purchased Fisher Controls in 1993, giving Spartan access to a broad suite of new process control and automation technologies. Emerson translates global market and technol-ogy trends into innovative products and solutions and Spartan understands the local market, provides regulatory expertise and offers responsive and flexible support to the local customer. Today, Spartan is Emerson’s exclusive representative in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and is part of a group of 21 Emerson local business partners in North America.Spartans live and work in 14 towns and cities across its terri-tory. Their primary facility for sales, warehousing, assembly, and service operations is based in Edmonton, Alberta. The company has numerous service and repair centers from Burnaby, to the oil sands of Fort McMurray, to the heart of natural gas produc-tion in Grande Prairie and as far east as Regina. Spartan employs roughly nine hundred people and operates over 700,000 square feet of facility space to support its customers. Committed workforce Spartan culture is often cited as a key advantage by customers, the companies it represents, and even its competitors. From its inception, Spartan’s leadership structured the company around the concept of broad employee ownership. They understood that allowing employees to own a piece of the company and share in its profitability would result in a more committed workforce. Everyone has an opportunity to purchase a piece of the company, and this drives a high level of dedication to customers. “We’re not employees; we’re owners, and when you have owners serving customers, there’s a higher level of atten-tion, focus, detail, and energy,” says Wilde. The company’s values reflect this foundation of ownership culture. Spartans are focused on establishing long-term customer relationships built on integrity and trust. From a management standpoint, Spartan leadership works to support frontline people by empowering them to be leaders and to make decisions. Particularly people who are interacting with customers are given latitude to take an active role, make impor-tant decisions and act as owners rather than employees. Creating and sustaining value for the customer“When we talk about customer value, it’s really how we’re wired,” says Wilde. “Our strategy is about creating and sustaining value that the customer wants. Whether it’s a simple transactional order, or a broad and complex application of control technology that gets implemented over many years, we’ve built our company on being able to serve specific customers and their needs.” Through various representative agreements and acquisitions, Spartan has continuously added to its product line, assem-bling a very broad portfolio of solutions and services. This has allowed the company to provide a complete process control loop solution to its customers. Before 1971, the company was only selling components as standalone products, but that year, it decided that to better serve the needs of its customers, it would begin packaging the various parts together into complete solu-tions. Today, Spartan is Canada’s largest supplier of control panels and assemblies for the oil and gas and petrochemical industries. Spartan encourages its people to collaborate with its customers to come up with new solutions to meet their needs. “Our strategy is about creating and sustaining value that the customer wants.”Each year, the Spartan team takes part in Corporate Challenge, Olympic-style games for companies in support of various charities72 Environmental leadership through innovation For the growing environmental compliance needs within many process industries, Spartan has a portfolio of implementation-ready clean technology developed to address environmental challenges such as energy conservation, reduction of vented and fugitive emissions, and increased production efficiency. “We deliver these technologies based on very low abatement costs,” says Wilde. “They are as low as two dollars per ton of carbon dioxide — very cost effective. You can achieve environ-mental compliance and still have a return on your investment.”Spartan’s customers in the oil and gas industry are leveraging its patented REMVue and Slipstream technologies for engine driven gas compression controls and are on their way to reducing CO2 emissions by over 1 megatonne per year. That is the equivalent to taking about 200,000 vehicles off the roads.The company has also brought together a dedicated team focused on supporting customer operational excellence. This group brings together solutions and expertise to help optimize customers’ plant operations, making them safer and more reliable while performing better, resulting in more output with fewer material inputs and a reduction in energy and emissions. “When you combine a number of our local innovations and solutions that we have been developing for 10 to 15 years now with those of Emerson’s, we can help our customers collective-ly reduce CO2 emissions by more than 15 MT,” says Wilde. “You can achieve environmental compliance and still have a return on your investment.”Spartan’s Calgary Solution Centre is Canada’s largest providers of custom pneumatic, electronic, electrical, and hazardous location control panels and assemblies for the oil, gas, communications, and petrochemical industriesThe Edmonton Automation Centre supports all of Spartan’s valve and actuation technologies including control, manual isolation and pressure relief valves, regulators, tank vents and all types of automated actuation equipment and controlsWith over $100 million in inventory, Spartan’s world-class shipping department processes over 400 orders per day, ensuring order accuracy and on-time delivery of nearly 100%74 Services Include:Industry recognition Spartan’s commitment to its customers, Spartans and commu-nities has not gone unnoticed. For the past 17 years, Spartan has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies and is now considered a Platinum winner. This is an annual award given to companies that can demonstrate a clear strategy, an ability to achieve the goals that they set, financial health and stability, and a culture of commitment to the company.Focused on the safety of its people, Spartan has also been rec-ognized by the industry for its exemplary safety performance. It has received a Certificate of Recognition including being rated number 1 out of 190 industrial supply companies by the Workers Compensation Board. “We recently received the Instrument Societies of America (ISA) Corporate Achievement award for the field of auto-mation, The University of Calgary’s award for Corporate Leadership and maybe most rewarding is the United Way Division Excellence award for outstanding campaigns in charitable giving,” says Wilde. Support for education and community involvement Investing in future experts of the industry through support of education is another core value at Spartan. In partnership with Emerson and other principals, substantial investments have been made to provide students in post-secondary institutions with the most comprehensive suites of technology. Spartan supports key technical training institutions such as the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, and other leading centers of learning with over $10 million of its equipment in place. Spartans are encouraged to be active in the communities in which they live and work. Through various community initia-tives, such as a fundraising campaign for the United Way, sup-porting families in need during the Christmas season, and assistance for community infrastructure programs, they strive to support families and children in need.As an employee-owned company, Spartan is dedicated to cus-tomers, Spartans and communities. Like the Spartans of the past, they are tirelessly devoted to the success of the vision they share. 75RESOURCE IN FOCUS Nordic Minesteel Technologies (NMT) is a global company that reaches Africa, Australia, South America, North America, Europe and Asia. Having such a wide spread and nearly thirty years of doing business around the world has given the company a high referral rate that sees new clients seeking out its expertise and quality. Not every client comes through these word of mouth channels. The company also boasts a productive outside sales team and a dedicated set of internal staff who take part in more creative marketing approaches.77RESOURCE IN FOCUS The cyclical nature of the mining business is a challeng-ing one that Ron Elliott has successfully navigated for over twenty-five years. Beginning in 1993, he went about pur-chasing a manufacturing facility, and this allowed him to found his own company, then known simply as Minesteel Fabricators. In 2006, the acquisition of Nordic Mine Technology and its Written by Josh Carmodyspecialized technology for high volume ore transport – the name for valuable ore deposits – along with its loading and unloading stations brought about a new era of opportunities for the company. Thirteen years later, these two companies were finally amal-gamated to become what is known today as Nordic Minesteel Technologies (NMT). As the company continued to grow, it also acquired Specialized Maintenance Equipment (SME) in 2016 and assets of German company Schalke Eisenhütte Maschinenfabrik (Schalke) just last year. The steady growth and expansions are not the only way to visibly measure its successes. Around the world, the company has taken part in joint ventures to build its footprint while helping to expand the mining industries of countries like Mongolia and Russia. As it has grown over the years, its company culture has flourished into a diverse and inclusive environment, like much of the global mining industry, which thrives on a healthy attitude of collaboration and invention.Success has come from a deep understanding of the under-ground mining market, with the biggest challenge facing NMT being maintaining a consistent workflow. This can be difficult with the underground mining world in a constant state of flux. However, the uncertainty has not slowed the company down, and its recent acquisitions of SME and Schalke have allowed the company to diversify, expanding into surface mining as well as bringing on new technology for its underground efforts. With Schalke under its umbrella, the company has added to its impressive assortment of material and personnel haulage systems, creating a one-stop shop for reliable, continuous, Schalke Freeport78 automated, smart rail systems. The acquisition of SME has paved the way to enter the open pit maintenance industry with fast, safe, advanced, heavy-duty equipment. This new range of products is joining the established line of mining products and haulage systems such as rail cars, loading pockets, skips, cages, and shaft steel. Nordic Minesteel prides itself on custom-engi-neered solutions and offers various levels of automation that focuses on vertical and horizontal haulage. Creating new products is something very much on the fore-front of company goals, and while the specifics of its newest product, the Titan220, are still somewhat under wraps, they will not be for much longer. The Titan220 will be fully unveiled come May 2019 as part of a new heavy-duty equip-ment line that allows off-road haul truck maintenance to be done faster, safer, and smarter. SME has taken its time to “Its recent acquisitions of Specialized Maintenance Equipment and Schalke Locomotives have allowed the company to diversify, expanding into surface mining.”First generation Titan220Clean under suspensionNext >