Since I first started to hear about the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals I have been impressed by their focus and the value they bring to the marketplace.
If you haven't heard about them then they do certification of reliability and maintenance professionals based on experience and a brief test. The idea was to provide practitioners with some form of recognition that employers / clients can use as a benchmark.
I liked the approach when I first heard it, and as the years roll on I like it even more.
But, as always, it doesn't go far enough... While the SMRP have done wonderful things in the states. We have yet to see organizations like the Asset Management Council (Australia) and the Institute for Asset Management (UK) endorse and adopt this framework approach.
This is a tragedy I think. Everyone is doing great work around the globe and as much as possible it would be very wise to leverage each others work rather than continually try to reinvent the wheel.
For example, regardless of what you may think of it the work that the IAM did on PAS-55 was world leading and worthy of review and reference by the other institutions at least. The work that the AMC is doing on forming a national council directed to this area is beyond what I have sen in any other nation.
And all three of these organizations produce what is their regions premier events each year in terms of conferences and networking events.
I think pride and a "we do it better" attitude is probably the primary reason for any problems. I think that a level of pragmatism, and accepting that a CMRP certification isn't the end of the road, but merely the beginning. Providing members in all three of these nations with a benchmark for initial benchmarking of reliability skills and experience.
How can we make this happen? At the end of the day these councils and institutes are set up for us, not for their own existence.
Well put Daryl. The various professional societies have tended to be rather nation-centric, but I'm seeing a great deal of interest in the IAM for going international. As an international member I've offered to help organize their first extra-national chapter here in Canada / USA and discussions on how that will work are begun.
ReplyDeleteThe various designations are nice, and indeed they are a start. But to what? As a professional group we have a rather limited view on where we are headed. What is our vision? We still tend to act like technocrats rather than managers and leaders. What are we doing to raise our message to the world outside of Asset Management?
I receive regular Google Alerts and one is for Asset Management. It's always populated with talk of financial assets - the traditionally limited perspective. Who among us is truly writing anything new about Physical Asset Management?
Let's keep raising the bar. PAS 55 is an excellent document - well worthy of use beyond its "infrastructure" roots and the UK. Why not get over the "not invented here" syndrome, latch onto it, use it and collectively we an improve what will eventually be a truly International Standard.
James Reyes-Picknell
Thanks James,
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you. I agree fully with many of your sentiments. In fact, I started this blog because I couldn't bear to read another hundred articles about "how RCM saves you money"
Lets hope that the big three organizations covering Australia, the UK and the USA at least are able to pool their resources and provide a consistent and unified service for all of us.
Daryl...