Hi All, just posting some thoughts. This isn't my area of expertise. People like Terry O and those who provide such are more knowledgable but I do wonder about some things.

For instance: They have targets like Las Vegas and you know all the others - who is the target? It seems to me the providers are providing a wonderful thing here but who attends and what is the focus? There are workshops, who is attending: they guy doing the job or someone in management? If the workshop is a hands-on type thing for the guy performing the work, is there a gap on who is attending? Should the focus on the National Shows be aimed at management and focus directed to those types instead to the technician? Can management be 'led by the hand' more so he/she can know what can this do for my ROI? I don't think saying, we have this wonderful product that will save you tons of money will get it at this level of management! Are more hands-on seminars needed at more of a local level targeted at the tech? I THINK SO!

The training is great and needed and we should get all we can from these folks who take the time to provide us with assistenance and help. I certainly appreciate those who provide these seminars and help but we need to be fully realistic and honest. I've been teaching alignment for over twenty years and giving diplomas w/6 CEU's but........... next page 2 and the rest of the story................

Thanks to all. I'm not critizing what is taking place, just asking can we improve?

Hi Sam

The answer is not linear or simple. All levels within plant maintenance and reliability should attend learning events and networking events.

The Las Vegas Conference we organize on Reliability Centered Maintenance and Enterprise Asset Management are designed for Maintenance Managers and Reliability Engineers and in general - that is who attends.

Now the PdM-2005 Predictive Maintenance Technology conference was designed for the person actually using ultrasonic detectors, vibration analyzers, infrared cameras, laser alignment devices etc...

Who showed up? A bunch of Maintenance Managers and Reliability Engineers.

Side note: of 350 brand name companies that attended - over 50% had no organized Predictive Maintenance Program. They attended this event to see what was available and how to get started.

Anyway - we have not figured out if our conference attendees simply match the majority of the Reliabilityweb.com audience (Maintenance Managers and Reliability Engineers) or if the technicians are simply too valuable to let out of the plant for 4 days or if the technicians are simply not funded for such events.

This year we are designing PdM-2006 (Sept 12-15 in Chattanooga) to have a track for management, a track for people who are at the beginning of their journey and another track for advanced PdM topics. Perhaps that will attract more of the people who should be there.

There are also great organizations that are branching out into local chapters such as SMRP, AFE, ASME in the USA, PEMAC and CMVA in Canada, Abramam in Brasil, Copiman in South America, EFNMS in Europe VANZ in New Zealand and MESA in Australia (also some in South Africa). These groups offer grass roots educational and networking opportunities.

Then there are all the trade magazines and the web.

Message boards like this one also help.

I am not sure if this adds to the conversation you are trying to have but I wanted to add my perspective.

Terry O

Audience Matching / Only engineers & managers attending

As I see it:
Travel/Training budgets are tight and highly controlled by upper management.

Middle management justify the training trip by sending just one engineer or manager with the assignment of gather all the information and return to teach the rest of engineers / staff / technicians.

Why not sending the technician? In ocassions they are good at doing their job but not as bright to teach others how to do it.

Eugene, Sam, Terrence,

quote:

Middle management justify the training trip by sending just one engineer or manager with the assignment of gather all the information and return to teach the rest of engineers / staff / technicians

Great vision, but invariably not followed through on return, because these same managers are so busy, especially after being away!

I question the view that managers can teach (while techies are not bright enough to do so); the reverse is often equally true! Some can teach, others not; rank has nothing to do with it.

Coming to the question of why people should attend Conferences, consider,
1. Exposure to new thinking, methods, tools
2. Opportunity to network and form buddies (e.g., to set up benchmarking)
3. Meet vendors and see what innovations can match needs
4. Refresh knowledge base
5. Renew contacts

A cynic may say however that the reasons include
6. Enjoy a break from the monotony of routine
7. A nice trip to Las Vegas (or other choice location)
8. Sending a specialist or manager helps avoid charges of favoritism
9. An opportunity to drop names on return

In an ideal world, Conferences aimed at managers should be attended by managers. Those aimed at technicians or specialists should draw them, not those who hold the purse strings. And every Conference attendee MUST be required to make a presentation to his peers, bosses and assistants. This requirement alone will stop some of the holiday makers.

But we live in a commercial, free-market world and have no influence on who attends. Organizers have to recover costs, so they cannot turn away customers.

In a departure from these practices, I have seen a major multi-national allocate a self-development budget to every employee. The staff are encouraged to decide what is good for their career path and choose training courses or Conferences to attend. Where travel costs are high, some special grants are possible. Surprisingly, the budgets are never fully spent!

I do not know if there is a solution. These musings are in response to Sam's. My 2c!

All of the above are certainly correct although I don't think there's enough being done to raise the awareness of those who really hold the purse strings and make the real decisions......We need to speak their language and increase thier knowledge about Asset Management and Reliability. Maybe some of the better authors could get articles published in management magazines in addiiton to the Reliability, Engineering, or Maintenance rags. Or possibly pursue an oppotunity to present at a management related conference.

I remember one of my early engineering prof's reminding the class that "you can't push on rope". Many times it seems like that's what we're trying to do.....

Somehow we need to make them think it was all their idea.....this maintenance and reliability thing.....maybe if they read it or hear it in their backyard....they might believe the message.

Thanks Terry,

I sometimes have thoughts on this subject but no real answers; it's not my area of expertise.

I sometimes get critical but also realize it's people like you who take time and put forth effort to make these training sessions and seminars better. I know it has to be a frustrating dilemma as there are a number of factions to deal with and there is a bottom line of making money and existing. We may want to be benevolent but it would take deep pockets.

But, it's people like you that will make improvement; not me ... I only have a soapbox but love this discipline and want to see more geared to the everyday man. All too often the guy going back to the plant and playing catch-up - nevers gets anything into the plant or shares his/her knowledge.

I like what Denny said - if we could get management to think that effective maintenance and reliability were their idea - then we would probably progress pretty fast!

Now the question is what country club or golf resort we hold the next maintenance conference at?

Terry O

quote:

Now the question is what country club or golf resort we hold the next maintenance conference at?

Terry O

Do you like the sun? Try Dorado, Puerto Rico.

We may take you up on that Eugene.

I have not been there myself however I keep hearing great things about PR.

Terry O

For more information you may like to contact:
http://www.meetpuertorico.com/your_event/our_services.asp

http://www.prhta.org/

http://www.islands.com/travelplanner/309.asp?type=ad

For good Golf, sun/beach, and excellent convention facilities in the same place check for hotels/resorts at the Dorado and Fajardo areas. At San Juan and Isla Verde the hotels do not have golf but they will offer transportation to Dorado's.

End of the marketing stuff (besides this is promotion of my island only, not my company products or services).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Eugene,

The Greenbeir in WV is central. The north is industrailized and WV beats the huzzle and ??? of the cities. But who's to attend?

No doubt that management works well if they can adopt your idea as their own and get credit. Thank God only a few are like that.

Sam,

I wouldn't short change Vegas. We had an inhouse (not an outhouse) meeting last year for people from Europe, North America, and South America. Vegas is easy to find flights at good prices. Hotel rooms are a good value, as were the meeting rooms. Also, it tended to attract people.

There are other locations that get the meetings. Some of it has to do with value and other attractions. It is probably easier for many to get to Vegas or Orlando than the WV - nothing against WV (at least that I will go into here.), my wife is from near the Greenbriar.

The dilema started as "for whom the seminar are targeted" versus "who are attending"; but it the conversation changed a little bit to "seminar location".
On that second dilema, maybe Terry or other members that organize these type of events may comment which factors influence the desicion of which city choose for next event.
* available convention facilities
* hotel / lodging accomodations
* airports
* industries at the nearby area
* costs (always include costs at any analysis)
* what else? personal preferences? other?

On the other side, the humble engineer at a plant, struggling to convince the management to authorize a charge from the highly controlled training budget decides somewhat like this:
* search list of events available for this year
* perform a little cost/benefit analysis
** benefits (my needs to improve? technical skills? supervisory skills? new technology? industry related?
** costs: travel?, hotel? seminar fees? etc.?
* rank options and start negotiating with inmediate manager.

If one event is hosted at Orlando, Fl and another is at Las Vegas, Nevada; and your plant happens to be at Puerto Rico (just $99 dollars apart from Orlando, Fl) which event is most likely to be approved by the manager?

Do attendance to seminar would increase by changing locations every year? every two years? vs fixing one location as the base?

Terry,
To get the ball rolling (with the management guru's) would it be worthwhile to specifically invite a few of the more notable presenters in the executive management arena, Jack Welch, Tom Peters, Drucker...., etc. etc.to attend (or possibly present at)a conference free of charge?

I think this would be a win-win situation as they could add a level awareness to the reliability/maintenance folks about what management is looking for, increase their awareness of the reliabilty/maintenance world, possibly add a level of credibility to the conference, while serving as as additional "draw" to those who need to hear the message.

Just some thoughts....

Denny C.

My thinking on the Greenbier and those type places is targeted at the tech. Also, Chattanooga is a good spot IMO along with Denver and Savannah to name a few or what I would think and again - it's not my area of expertise.

Vegas is great as is Orlando, Atlantic City,etc. But the big draw for those few cities is managerial types and as pointed out will make a draw from Europe.

But for the tech type more locations in a hub of manufacturing that hopefully you could drive to would have a better draw or so I would think but I certainly can be wrong.

If you aim at having indusriies near by, it would be difficult to beat Houston. Plus, Houston. I would suspect that there is as many tech's and as much industry around Houston as there is in chattanooga, Denver, and Savannah combined.

You're right Bill - that's my point: Houston is a huge target for everything from SKF and FAG brg seminars to gates belts. I attended those three in or near Houston. And the turbo machinery synposium there is great attracting people from all over the world - but, no tech left behind...may make Ann Harbor or my thinking an area that can bring in tech geared seminars that could draw 75-125 or so. As I said, this area is not an area where I excess or have an opinon that could even near hit a dictate approach. Maybe some of the guys who do these things could bring there mountain to the tech. I have taught my seminar at local tech colleges, Holiday Inns and as in-house seminars and taught 27 such seminars to Ga Kraft way back when. I would love to be teaching to the Houston crowd but I'm not there and at my age probably won't be.

I might be able to offer an additional perspective, as I am a trainer, a marketing guy and worked in the front lines.

We deliver seminars/workshops in a very niche market (AB PLC), and actually had the same but opposite problem as the original poster mentioned.

Our Seminars/workshops started out intending to attract maintenance management and engineers as our goal was to deliver the importance of Reliability and Safety as well as the how-to's on working with PLCs. So we wanted the aforementioned audience so they could pass the proper procedures down to Techs (Who typically where only concerned with the how-to's, or self taught not knowing what they did not know.)

Our opposite dilemma, was the seminar/workshops where mostly attracting Technicians. Not that we did not want to train techs, but our marketing strategy was give the mangers more technical knowledge and a strong reliability/safety concept, and they would in turn hire us for on-site training where we could get more technicians trained than the company could afford to let go to seminars.

This was and is a good plan, as indirectly pointed out by other posters here. Few Techs can leave the facility at any one time, and managers may not have the time, skill or social environment to deliver the training to the techs as good as we can. Thus reducing their Training ROI. (Part of our goal is to get at least 3 tech per facility trained, one per shift.)

So we targeted Management/Engineering for the seminars, but got techs. The solution had to do with who our online/marketing audience was. (Just like another poster to this forum mentioned, Terry's I believe.)

Our online/marketing audience was the Technician, so we received mostly techs at the seminars. We changed our marketing to mostly managers and engineers, now we mostly get managers and engineers to the seminars and train the Technicians on site. Problem solved, goals reached.

NOTE: We actually found a neat way to even improve on the successful results. We offered our on-site customers the opportunity to train 5 employees for the same price as 1. As a result, most customers find 5 employees they can free up for the training. Also as a result, we meet our goal of getting at least one person on each shift, trained.

So in summary, my advice is ...

If you want technicians trained, you need to market the service as on-site training. Leave the fancy conferences as they have always been, for buyers and decision makers. Because of the nature of the Technicians job, on-site training is going to be the only way to maximize the number of technicians per facility with quality training.

A combination of Seminars (managers/engineers) and On-Site training (Technicians) is the only way we are going to improve our industry as a whole. That is my opinion, for what it is worth.

PS: I have spoke with many who have chosen our Stone Mountain Resort seminar over our St. Louis seminar because they wanted to see Stone Mountain.