Tech Shelter Group > Texas Industrial Process Consultants

Tech Shelter Group, Ltd.

"Aligning Expectations with Opportunities For Over 30 Years"

Tech Shelter Group Ltd. is a professional services and consulting organization dedicated to providing it's clients with the knowledge and confidence necessary to build and sustain process improvement and employee growth and learning in today's competitive marketplace. Our strategic focus is to engage with client companies that are physical asset intensive and that seek optimal people, process and equipment reliability.

Our goals and our abilities as an operations improvement organization are to "Align our clients expectations with opportunities", then help them succeed.

Since 1976 our partners and associates have brought leading edge system and process improvement to our clients and have helped them measurably improve their operations, safety performance and balance sheets. Our core competencies are:

Work Management Process Improvement
Employee Assessment, Training & Development

Our people are seasoned and mature, each with years of success behind them in their respective disciplines. Our people skills and industry experience differentiate us from all others in our industry. We have successfully served industry and government throughout North America and Europe for over thirty years. We presently maintain representative offices in Houston, TX, Denver, CO and Tampa, FL.

Richard Tracey

Managing Partner, Tech Shelter Group, Ltd.

For the past thirty years, Dick has provided executive leadership and structured business solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense and over forty Fortune 500 manufacturing organizations located within the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Asia and Europe. His leadership, project management & technology skills have returned profitability and increased operating margins for a variety of oil and gas, pulp and paper, chemical manufacturing and mining organizations.

A Few Examples:

Dick led a world wide benchmarking and ‘best practice’ analysis and consortium for the international polymer manufacturing industry encompassing fifty manufacturing plants in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. He developed and shared baseline operating and performance metrics among participating organizations in order to develop “performance platforms” aligned with specific production processes, maintenance practices, equipment technologies and commodities.
For a major domestic oil refiner, Dick led the design, development and implementation of the “Excellence in Reliability” process aimed at increasing unit asset productivity through improving production equipment availability, utilization and throughput. Sustaining results of this initiative have generated sustainable production increases and reduced OPEX by an average of $18 million per unit since implementation.
For one of the largest natural gas compression equipment manufacturers and service organizations, Dick led the multi-team development and implementation of a Work Management Process directed at the timely maintenance and repair of over 3500 field based compression units. Unit locations span 20 states and a broad range of climatic conditions and elevations. The success of this effort resulted in a 50% reduction in customer/operator trouble calls, a 20% reduction in material and spare parts inventory and overall labor savings exceeding $7 million per year.
For one of the world’s largest oil producing firms, Dick led the Integrity Management planning and implementation effort within a major offshore deepwater business unit. Contained in this BU are the largest and most technologically advanced floating production assets in the world. Dick and his project team defined the specific Mechanical Integrity, Campaign Maintenance, Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment and Corrosion management processes to be implemented, measured and controlled to ensure maximum process safety, risk reduction and functional reliability of the assets throughout their 25 year life cycle.
Reporting to the BRACC commission, a joint U.S. Senate and House initiative, Dick led numerous projects within the U. S. Department of Defense in a multi-year effort to better align defense assets to defense “readiness” objectives (NIIP). He drove process improvement and consolidation within U.S. Naval shipyards, naval air and surface launch missile systems, antisubmarine warfare systems (ASW) and ordnance depots for the U.S. Navy and Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). These efforts resulted in numerous shipyard, naval weapon station and repair depot realignments, closings and consolidations.

Dick is a recognized member of numerous national manufacturing and maintenance and engineering societies and associations. He has written numerous articles on Asset Management, equipment reliability and organizational effectiveness for the manufacturing industry media and related national publications. His clients have included BP, Dow Chemical, Weyerhaeuser, ExxonMobil, General Chemical Corp., Champion International, Stone Container, Noranda Corp., Monsanto, Lyondell, Universal Compression, National Oilwell Varco, CenterPoint Energy, Ford, Pillsbury among many others.

James Gortimer

Partner, Tech Shelter Group, Ltd.

For over twenty years, Jim has delivered sustaining operating improvements and bottom line financial results to a wide variety of Fortune 500 and other international manufacturing clients. His financial and operations acumen and project management expertise have gained him international respect within the commodity chemical, energy and basic metals manufacturing industries. His Facilitative Management methodolgy (FMM), which he developed while working in the international chemical industry has been widely utilized by many manufacturing and service organizations for over twenty years.

A Few Examples:

Within a leading international petrochemical organization, Jim led a major restructuring of multiple, product aligned, maintenance departments into strategically focused core units. The effort resulted in a significant improvement in planning and scheduling of craft resources, an elimination of redundant services, a broader plant wide focus on equipment reliability and a reduction of overall maintenance expenditures of approximately $14 million per year.
For one of the largest natural gas compression equipment manufacturers and service organizations, Jim led the multi-team development and implementation of a Work Management Process directed at the timely maintenance and repair of over 3500 field based compression units. Unit locations span 20 states and a broad range of climatic conditions and elevations. The success of this effort resulted in a 50% reduction in customer/operator trouble calls, a 20% reduction in material and spare parts inventory and overall labor savings exceeding $7 million per year.
Jim led the design and implementation of a major process improvement initiative for a large international chemical manufacturer resulting in $35 million in operating savings. Results were achieved through a supply chain reorganization, packaging and distribution center consolidations and production cycle time reductions within each product manufacturing zone.
He managed the design and execution of a Lean Sigma project and implementation in 6 manufacturing sites across 3 divisions for a major OEM for the oil & gas industry. He led multiple self-directed work teams through cost improvement process redesign resulting in savings of over $9 million in infrastructure and operating costs in 6 months.
For a leading North American mining and metals manufacturer, Jim led design and development teams in planning and scheduling training and a CMMS implementation aimed at reducing the maintenance cost per ton of mining and smelting zinc ore. This successful effort yielded a reduction in maintenance costs within mining operations that enabled a 7 year extension of mine life beyond its planned 2010 abandonment. Further, smelter utilization improved approximately 30% due to improved planned maintenance, fewer unplanned shutdowns and better preventive maintenance scheduling and execution.

Jim is a recognized member of numerous national manufacturing and maintenance and engineering societies and associations. He has been a keynote speaker on numerous occasions for domestic and international industry seminars and conventions. He is a graduate of Ohio State University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He holds an MBA in Industrial Management from the University of Illinois.

Paul Kleinman, PhD.

Partner, Tech Shelter Group, Ltd.

Paul has provided exceptional guidance and organizational development expertise to numerous multinational organizations and governments in a wide variety of consultative assignments over the past thirty years. His practical and quantitative approach to complex organizational issues continues to promote and enable culture change and ongoing individual, group and corporate performance improvements for his clients.

A Few Examples:

For a Fortune 100 manufacturer of consumer products, Paul led a multi-phased project engaged in longitudinal and cross-sectional research on specific audience groups (candidates, executives, managers, individual contributors, etc.) aimed at identification of candidate and employee characteristics associated with high performance and leadership attriibutes and competencies. The work of his project team resulted in a comprehensive redesign of the management structure and performance evaluation process for five manufacturing and distribution divisions and a number of subsidary organizations.
For a major international manufacturer of computer hardware and telecomunication equipment, Paul and his team designed, developed and conducted skill-building activities and new decision making paradigms, including training programs, which targeted individual and group development of new product design approaches and innovative research capabilities. The tools and processes applied in these areas have migrated to other industries, U. S. government agencies and numerous educational institutions within the United States.
Working for the U.S Department of Defense, Paul led a strategic planning and change management initiative which redesigned the organizational models and competency assessment tools for a major defense support and logistics agency. He and his team desgined new psychometric assessment models and platforms to better align tactical and operational communications for critical supply and logistics events. He innovated new methods aimed at improving operational job analysis and validation metrics for multiple command structures and facilities.

Paul is a recognized member of numerous national and international academic societies and associations. He is a member of the International Cognitive Behavior Society, the American Society of Psychologists and has written numerous papers and articles on organizational development, performance assessment, change management and competency modeling. He holds a B.S. Mathematics, University of California, M.S., PhD. Psychology, Washington St. University.