Having fun in Milwaukee!

It's hard to believe the conference is almost over, but it's been a great few days here in Milwaukee! See for yourself...

Some of our board members enjoying breakfast

Our exhibitors enjoyed networking with attendees on the show floor

Our keynote speaker, Clyde Fessler, wowed the crowd when he rode into the session on a Harley!

Ali and Nicole and the rest of our staff are working hard but

smiling all the way through!

There has been lots of networking!

The Harley Davidson museum reception was a big hit and I sat on my first motorcycle!

Here's to making more memories and connections!

Maureen Gribble
SMRP

See YOU in Milwaukee!?

During my almost 20 year career as an association professional, I have been privileged to produce or participate in many of the leading professional society’s Annual Conferences. Instead of this making me jaded, I have to share how much I am excited about and looking forward to SMRP’s 2010 and 18th Annual Conference in Milwaukee!!

Your SMRP Conference Team, led by Conference Chair Craig Seibold, meeting staff and all of the SMRP staff have been working hard since the beginning of this year – to produce one the best programs SMRP has offered! Did you know we had 33% more abstracts submitted this year!? That speaks to the high quality educational sessions at SMRP. You can easily figure the best session for you as we’ve formatted these sessions into the Five Pillars from the Body of Knowledge as well as into Fundamentals or Advanced Levels of education.

In addition to the stellar education in these 50+ sessions, we have 11 Workshops and 3 top notch Plant Tours at three high profile facilities. I enjoyed my first Plant Tour back in March to a DuPont Houston facility – I’ve been hooked on these educational and interesting tours ever since!

We have a high profile Keynote Speaker in Clyde Fessler (former VP of Business Development for Harley- Davidson. We have our networking reception at the Harley-Davidson Museum. We have our annual golf tournament at one of the top award winning golf resorts in the country. We have an Exhibit Hall featuring leading companies, a bookstore featuring the latest in M&R publications, and our own SMRP Body of Knowledge Metrics and Benchmarking products for sale.

Milwaukee boasts so many great features and attractions to get attendees excited. They have a convenient, downtown, state-of-the-art convention center now called the Frontier Center [our meeting location!] They have so many unique, off-site meeting venues, they have major attractions within walking distance, and dining and nightlife that turn down time into good times. With value, accessibility, and affordability and friendly people who will make you feel at home, there’s so much to choose here – they say, “Milwaukee is where you want to be!” Check them out in advance at http://www.visitmilwaukee.org/index.php/visitors.

With all of this quality education and all of these incredible features – can YOU really afford to miss this conference? Don’t you want to be Driven by Performance and emPowered by Professionals!?

This economy has left us all reeling…but it’s time to start reinvesting now so we can grow into the future. Let the reinvestment start with you and you commitment to this profession by learning and growing at the SMRP 18th Annual Conference. I look forward to seeing you in Milwaukee!

Barb Dunlavey, CAE
Executive Director
SMRP

Asset Reliability Maintenance… Getting Production More Involved!

In an industrial environment, maintenance is generally considered one of the most important activities utilized for improving reliability, and as such, the first one to be blamed for the lack or poor performance of it. If production goals are not met, or there are quality issues, or if there are safety or environmental issues, etc… maintenance is often seen as the guilty party.

Today, managers are feeling the pressure to respond to these changes and a continuously increasing pressure to achieve higher plant availability and lower costs; as a result, there is a growing awareness of the effect of maintenance in safety and the environment, accompanied by a growing awareness of the connection between maintenance and product quality and a continuously increasing pressure to achieve higher plant availability and lower costs.

However, everything said above in association with reliability, typically refers to the maintenance function, not just the maintenance department. The maintenance function is a responsibility shared with every department in the plant. The production department is responsible for operating the equipment within its established parameters, to perform certain tasks to maintain the equipment within those parameters and to report operating anomalies to maintenance so corrective action can be planned and scheduled. In this day and age, Production/Operations must be more involved in the whole asset care (maintenance) function. They must work with the Reliability/Maintenance department as “partners”, forgoing the old “customer/supplier” relationship.

Before any effort to improve asset reliability has any chance of success, all departments and all personnel, managers and workers alike, must have a complete understanding of the process and a firm commitment to support organization asset care.

In this upcoming workshop, "Basics of a Sound Asset Reliability Maintenance Management Program...Getting Production and Operations More Involved," we will explore three main ways to accomplish this objective:

1. The principle of the Production/Operations Maintenance Coordinator
2. The basics of Operator Basic Care (OBC)
3. Production/Operations use of EAM


Jim H. Davis, CMRP
VP-Business Development
Performance Consulting Associates, Inc.

Workshop on Leading Change...

I did some interesting reading over the weekend. Two recent reports, one by IBM and one by McKinsey, found that organizations continue to struggle with effectively managing organizational change. Compared to research performed 20 years ago, organizational effectiveness in successful change has improved little and is still less than 50%.

As reliability professionals, a 50% failure rate borders on unconscionable. As leaders in our organization, learning how to successfully lead and manage change is critical. One thing that has happened over the past 20 years is that there is significant information, tools, and research related to organizational change management. Many, if not most, organizations are more cognizant of the people issues related to change. What they are not getting better at is application. This was the primary driver in focusing this year’s post-conference workshop on how to change. On Thursday, October 21, the workshop “Real World Change Management: Putting Theory to Practice” will give you a chance to develop and advance your change management skills. Based upon the Prosci change management methodology, the workshop uses real-world examples and tools to evaluate your current change efforts, quantify risks, and develop a change management strategy. We had a great workshop last year on change management theory. I hope you will join me this year as we get our hands dirty.

Scott Franklin, CMRP
Life Cycle Engineering

How is Maintenance Reliability like Yoga?

Lot's of people call me crazy because I practice Bikram Yoga - a rigorous 90 minute Yoga workout in a room heated to 105 degrees (minimum) and about 50% humidity. (they call me crazy for many other reasons as well - but this blog post is about Yoga).

It was very difficult to get started but soon I was putting together many of the required elements and doing my best to advance into the correct postures with maximum effort. Having a satisfying Yoga practice requires putting together all the required elements (focus, breath, flexibility, strength, being hydrated, and many more) continuously while doing the work to the best of my ability.

If I only focus on one or two elements - I do not get very far and do not make much progress. If I am tired and I dog a posture - the result is also substandard.

There is a beginning to every Yoga posture but there is no end. You can progress as deep as you care to go.

Maintenance reliability is very similar in that we must learn all the required elements, and practice them all at the same time - to the best of our ability. If we loose focus on some of the elements we do not get very far and we do not make much progress.

My Yoga teachers say 90% right and 10% wrong = 100% wrong. You must try to do it all right and your must try do it all right all of the time.

There is a beginning to maintenance reliability but there is no end. You can go deeper and deeper daily. The journey is continuous.

Does that mean you will not make mistakes as you progress?

No - like Yoga - you will fall as you move to deeper levels of maintenance reliability - but that is not important if you are making progress. What is important is that you return to your maintenance reliability focus and go as deep as you can. With small incremental progress daily - you will be surprised at how fast you develop your maintenance reliability practice.

Dig in and learn as much as you can at this year's SMRP conference. Get back to work with new elements to add to your maintenance reliability practice and go as deep as you can. Then come back next year and learn about more of the elements you need to go even deeper.

The benefits of Yoga and the benefits of maintenance reliability make the world a much better place.

Serenity now!

OM

Terrence O'Hanlon, CMRP
Reliabilityweb.com, Inc.

**Join us for Bikram Yoga in Milwaukee! There are 6:00 a.m. classes on Monday and Wednesday. Start your day off right and get energized to spend the day learning!
http://www.bikramyoga-milwaukee.com/