SAMI Bitumen Technologies has a proud history of innovation and growth across the globe. Roads & Infrastructure Magazine looks at the icon’s past, present and future to learn what’s next for the company.
If you’ve got anything to do with the roads sector, chances are you’ve heard of SAMI Bitumen Technologies.
Now a well-established developer of innovative road surfacing products and technology, SAMI Bitumen Technologies’ story, as well as its mission, goes some way to explain why the company has been – and continues to be – highly successful.
SAMI Bitumen Technologies was formed in 1978, born from a need for further innovation across the bitumen sector. From the beginning, SAMI’s influence and impact on the sector was clear for all to see, leaving an impression that’s helped to shape the industry today.
As Gerard Gnanaseelan, SAMI Bitumen Technical Manager explains, the company bolted out of the gates to deliver improvements to what was available at the time.
“We’re a company with a long history of bringing about innovative products in the bitumen industry,” he says.
“SAMI introduced the best polymer modified binders (PMB) to the Australian market in the early ’90s. From those humble beginnings in St Peters, New South Wales, we’ve grown to be a major bitumen and PMB supplier in the Australian bitumen industry.”
One of the biggest factors in SAMI’s early (and on-going) success was the backing of parent company COLAS.
Regarded as one of the premier bituminous product designers and manufacturers in the world, the French-based supplier entered Australia in 2008 following the acquisition of SAMI (now part of the COLAS Group).
COLAS is named after the terms ‘COLd’ and ‘ASphalt’. Fittingly, SAMI’s name also derives from the innovative products that it manufactures – and mostly importantly – represents.
“Our early success was also thanks to the development of our highly successful, signature product for ‘strain alleviating membrane interlayer’,” Gnanaseelan says. “This is the acronym by which SAMI derived its name”.
“The technical expertise and R&D capability that is backed by our parent company COLAS is currently unmatched in the country. It’s one of the many reasons why SAMI has been capable of introducing new and innovative products regularly in the market for the past decade.”
While product innovation is at SAMI’s core, it’s a commitment to people and communities that drives the company forward.
New direction
Such is SAMI’s commitment to its staff and customers, senior leaders within the business recently began discussions around what ‘SAMI’ meant in the market.
This conversation also led to considerations around what the company stands for, literally and figuratively. This existential assessment inspired one of SAMI’s biggest changes. As Sebastien Chatard, General Manager SAMI Bitumen Technologies explains.
“SAMI now stands for ‘Safety, Assertiveness, Motivation and Innovation’. This better reflects who we are as a company and where we’re going,” he says.
“We’re much more than just a single product. The most important thing is who we are as a group.”
SAMI now produces significantly more products than when it was first named. It also has more considerations, including diversity, sustainability and safety, on top of its product development – all key reasons behind the name change.
Safety, Assertiveness, Motivation and Innovation are buzz words that are used by many companies across Australia and the globe, so what do each of these words actually mean to SAMI? Chatard explains.
“Safety is a big consideration for us,” he says. “We want to go home to our family with confidence that the next day we will be working safely and in good conditions.
“Assertiveness is our people. It means that everyone is working aggressively towards our end goal, which is to be the very best that we can be as a company. Motivation also ties into that, when you’re happy to work for a business, you’re pleased to give back, so we want to keep our people motivated.
“Innovation and services are what we’re most known for, our technical ability, whether that’s around new products or customer services such as the different logistic solutions we offer, as well as our customer portal and our technical support.”
Gnanaseelan says the company culture has always encompassed these values, but applying these principles within the name exemplifies how they each contribute to SAMI’s identity.
“They reflect our core values and who we are,” he says. “Which is why the first is centred around safe operations to ensure that our community, both internally and externally, does not have their wellbeing hindered by our actions. It’s also about ensuring that the targets or goals that we set are successfully accomplished.
“We’re also proud to be an employer of choice for all our current and future employees, which is supported by the leadership of our senior management, who are constantly thriving to achieve this.
“All of the above drives the innovative company that we are.”
Chatard says the name change, from a technical term and product to a people-focused entity, reflects SAMI’s evolution in becoming a more holistic company. He adds that this won’t affect the company’s strong focus on product innovation.
“I come from a technical space and having the chance to work for a business that was committed to innovation and pushing the industry forward was one of the key reasons why I was interested in working here in the first place,” Chatard says.
“It’s still very exciting to be a part of a business like this.”
Related stories:
- SAMI: Raising the sustainability standard
- SAMI: Technical excellence worldwide
- SAMI: Quality, wherever you go
Community a constant
As part of the company’s renewed message and focus, SAMI has also made changes to its logo. This isn’t just an aesthetic change. To Chatard and the SAMI team, both the logo and acronym changes mean more. It’s seen as ushering in a new vision and outlook for the future.
Chatard believes the new logo better reflects SAMI’s global position and local network.
“Our new logo is two paths, one through the sea, which shows importing bitumen, and the other, which represents the Australian roads where our bitumen is being placed,” he says. “It shows both of these sides of our business coming together.”
SAMI’s commitment to the Australian market has always been a constant.
Even though it has import facilities and manufacturing facilities in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria, SAMI isn’t slowing down any time soon. Chatard says SAMI’s future goals and focus remain consistent to this day.
“When I look back 15 years, the company has grown and so has our supply network and facilities. We’ve invested substantially in our facilities, and we’ve always had a strong commitment to the Australian market,” he says. “Quality continues to be one of the biggest focus points for us going forward. So does maintaining and improving our product and to be recognised as doing such.”
One of the keys to this continued growth has been SAMI’s relationships with local markets and regions.
Scott Olsen is the State Manager for Western Australia and says that trust has never been an issue, but it is something that needs to be earned.
“In Western Australia we’ve got a large number of long-time and repeat clients and that’s all up to trust. They trust us to bring the right innovation, the right materials and the high quality to ensure that they can deliver on their project requirements,” he says.
“We’re as committed as we’ve ever been to grow across the nation. We’ve come a long way in a relatively short period of time and have played a massive part in large local projects, such as our upcoming works on the Tonkin Highway Extension.”
Olsen says another aspect of this commitment is striving to make things easier and more streamlined for customers. He uses the development of the My SAMI application/portal as an example.
“Internally, it’s like a one-stop-shop for our production, quality and dispatch. It helps with our accounts, and we can use our batch cards to identify what materials we might need to supply or need in the future,” he says.
“For our customers, they can view new and recent orders, can see delivery updates and view the test report, without having to ring anyone.”
Olsen has also seen SAMI’s investment into the regions first-hand. SAMI replaced its old Fremantle terminal and provided additional bitumen storage and processing capabilities with the opening of its import terminal and processing plant at Kwinana a few years ago.
“There’s been a lot of capital expenditure into our facilities, and not just for us but also across the East Coast,” Olsen says. “I’m sure there’s more on the way too.”
Chatard says this investment is well supported by the future ambitions of the wider COLAS Group.
“Our clients believe in us more and more and to keep delivering, we need to invest. Our parent company is ready to support the development of our activity in Australia,” he says.
Despite being one of Australia’s largest bitumen technology developers and providers, SAMI Bitumen Technologies’ culture reflects that of a smaller business that’s committed to local investment.
Gnanaseelan adds that community and customer support have been fundamental in SAMI’s growth, as such the company wants to continue to help improve and give back to the domestic bitumen sector.
“We’ve grown from a small-scale supplier to a major corporate company. From one location in New South Wales, we’ve grown to be present in all major cities,” he says. “SAMI has significant investments in these regions, which is why we’re here to stay for good.
“We don’t consider bitumen as a commodity product, that’s why we don’t just stop at sales. We provide technical services and innovative support to customers and the sector as a whole.”
This article was originally published in the September edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.