Our History

Omega Consultants Inc. was established in 1986 by former airline CEO, Rhett Ball, retired Dupont engineer, Donald Warner, and former VP of Emerson Consultants, Lyle McCormick.

In the early 1980s, manufacturing around the world saw a need for improving maintenance records on all equipment. As computers became more user-friendly, keeping equipment records and tracking cost became a standard best practice within the manufacturing industries. Omega was formed with these new technological advancements providing the cornerstone of our business concept.

In 1986 Omega was awarded a contract with Dupont to set up a program that would help maintain equipment records and track the costs of materials, labor, and equipment downtown.

The project started with all moving equipment, pumps, motors, conveyors, agitators, gear boxes, fans, etc. Our team set up manual programs to track and compile the data, while the client developed a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).

Over the next 15 years with Dupont, working in their US, Canada, and Mexico plants, millions of dollars were saved as a result of implementing these systems and procedures at the individual plants.

One of Omega’s key strategies in developing and implementing these programs, was to set attainable goals and determine quantifiable and tangible metrics to measure progress and achievement.

We then encouraged management to use these measurements for equipment replacement by manufacturer and purchasing maintenance materials, as well as using to validate personnel promotions and awarding bonuses.

One of the essential measurements we tracked was the exact labor cost as compared to the material cost to maintain a piece of equipment. This data was used to understand the number of maintenance personnel required to maintain the equipment.

Some examples of tracked measurements and goals:

Labor to material ratio- $1.00 to .65
Productivity of workforce- 50%
Maintenance Stores investment as a % of Plant Replacement cost-  1%

Omega later developed a marketing strategy to nurture ongoing and generate future business relationships. With contacts in the American Management Association, New York City (AMA), Omega conducted an average of 20 maintenance seminars a year across the US, Canada, and Mexico, to existing clients and to the public. Maintenance personnel, engineers and craftsman would attend the 3 to 5 day sessions, where we discussed equipment-related topics and challenges, to include: run time, downtime, problems, materials, opportunities, equipment histories, and how to track this information. Most importantly, we discussed how to use the critical data collected during the seminar.

Omega was initially established as a maintenance management consulting organization. Our office was in Atlanta Georgia and incorporated in Georgia.  One of our business decisions was to hire maintenance engineers as our consultants. Most of these engineers were retired Dupont personnel that got us started. This practice was one of our best tools to secure new contracts, and Omega continued to grow and thrive with this approach. We had the same type of projects with Alcoa and other chemical companies. Our projects and clients led us to work  in Australia, Asia, Canada, Mexico, and most of the islands south of United States.

In 1997, when Lyle’s son Stephen completed his electrical engineering degree at the University of Central Florida, he began working with a Tampa based engineering firm and secured an onsite position with a large phosphate producer based in Florida.  In 1998, Steve decided to join his father at Omega Consultants, and they expanded Omega’s services by opening an Engineering division of the company.  When Steve’s father retired, Steve became President of Omega Consultants in 2009, and purchased all the shares of the company.

For nearly 21 years, under Steve’s leadership, Omega has provided a broad range of engineering services for clients.  With each new project, Steve has grown and added key team players with expertise in electrical engineering, power engineering, project management, CADD design, documentation specialists, and programming, and developed strong partnerships with Mechanical and Structural Engineers to offer more robust services.