Maintenance and reliability professionals, assemble!

Sept. 5, 2014

The new breed of plant superheroes rally around productivity and profitability

The days of maintenance workers swooping in to repair what’s broken and save the day, like so much Captain America, are long gone. This is the new breed of plant superhero. Productivity and profitability are the rallying cries. Maintenance and reliability are strategic ends toward raising the flag.


In Orlando, Florida, maintenance and reliability heroes will assemble at the SMRP Conference on Oct. 20-23. The session tracks are full of great presentations designed for every job title in the plant. Tracks include Business and Management, Manufacturing Process Reliability, Equipment Reliability, Organization and Leadership, Work Management, and newly added Physical Asset Management.

This year’s conference motto is Educate, Equip, Excel. And there are plenty of opportunities for each. Expand your skills and knowledge with more than 50 sessions and workshops, as well as facility tours.

Greg Folts, CMRP, president at Marshall Institute, will reveal the true art of leadership in his presentation on Oct. 22. He’ll share behaviors most proven to initiate and sustain improvement efforts and offer practical ways to enhance leadership capability. Read his article on the subject at http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2014/sustained-leadership-for-sustained-performance/.

Gary Smith, CMRP, northern & western region reliability lead at Momentive Specialty Chemicals, will use information he collected at a workshop and share how to establish an expectation that ownership of reliability is required in his presentation on Oct. 21. He’ll explain how to understand what “good” looks like, how to educate operators on their places in the work flow process, and how to establish a team relationship between operators and maintenance. You can read his article on this subject at http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2014/operations-driven-reliability/.

Phil Beelendorf, CMRP, maintenance technology senior manager at Roquette America, will share his thoughts on the essential characteristics of a transformational reliability leader on Oct. 22. Beelendorf will map out the skills needed to unleash the reliability leader within you. Today’s reliability leader needs more than technical competency to produce the results that lead to sustained culture change. Soft skills such as vision, courage, and empathy are needed to create an atmosphere of greatness. His article on acquiring those skills can be found at http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2014/more-than-a-quiver-of-technical-competency/.

If your facility or organization is on the verge of an EAM/CMMS implementation, then the presentation by Eric Edmisten, CMRP, reliability engineer at PPG Industries, is just what you need on Oct. 22. His talk will cover the CMMS conversion experienced by the maintenance department of the PPG Barberton, Ohio facility in April 2012 and includes the events of the preparation, changeover, and adaptation to the SAP PM Module after years of using Maximo. Read about it at http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2014/shift-cmms-eam/.

Presentations like these will allow you to equip yourself with best practices and bring home lessons to your own operation. Take your career to the next level by networking with thought leaders and building lasting business connections. That’s where you excel.

This year’s CMRP of the Year — both the Veteran Professional Award and the Rising Star Award — also will be announced at the conference. Last year’s Rising Star Award winner, Chris Mears, recently spoke with us about the future of the discipline. He is section manager, asset management process and technologies, at Aerospace Testing Alliance, Arnold Engineering Development Complex, in Tennessee. You can listen to the podcast recording of his thoughts on the next generations of maintenance and reliability professionals at http://www.plantservices.com/multimedia/2014/mentoring-future-generations-reliability-professionals/ or read a transcription at http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2014/mentoring-next-generation-maintenance-leaders/.

So, grab your cape or shield or accelerometer and convene in Orlando. It’s where plant heroes will be meeting. Reserve your spot now at www.plantservices.com/smrp2014.

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