"Maintenance Must Do It Right the First Time"

Personal and professional development must be continuous. For today's Maintenance Leaders training must add value and create practical solutions for a very challenging profession; the maintenance of physical assets. The art and science of maintenance is almost constant but applications have extreme differences. Doctors and lawyers can "practice medicine and law". "Maintenance Leaders cannot practice maintenance, they must do it right the first time".

 The TrueWorkShop Series Introduced in 2009 & Expanded for 2012

The following provides a summary and the benefits of selected TrueWorkShops available as public sessions in the USA and around the World. Each is also available as in house sessions; customized for you and presented as applicable to your unique maintenance operations. TMEI understands and has experience in almost all maintenance areas where applications can have extreme differences within the "operating context of the assets"

  Click to Download Adobe Reader

The Reliability & Maintenance Excellence Leadership Series

• Advanced Maintenance Practices and Benchmarking for Reliability & Maintenance Excellence: - This is our signature course that covers advanced topics plus "the essential basics" for leaders at all levels. You receive technical knowledge to apply practices from all major categories from TMEI's Scoreboard for Maintenance Excellence. This course requires both pre-course and post-course activities along with pre and post course testing.  And without question, you receive the most extensive set of course references and a copy of McGraw-Hill's Maintenance Benchmarking and Best Practices: A Profit and Customer-Centered Approach. by your instructor, Ralph W."Pete" Peters. During this course you will work with and receive all of TMEI's benchmarking tools described in this book, in electronic Excel format. Available as a 3, 4 or 5 day offering.

• Continuous Reliability Improvement for Rotating Equipment - You gain a working knowledge of reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) and condition-based maintenance (CBM) all integrated with (RBM) risk-based maintenance of critical assets. While focused upon rotating equipment you will gain the knowledge about a wide range of reliability and predictive maintenance technologies and the "mathematics of reliability".  This course covers the six maintenance resources and how they should be covered within a strategic plan, how leadership driven teams work, keys to implementation, measuring results and ROI for investments in maintenance. Extensive reliability references and all of TMEI's benchmarking tools are included with much more. Available as  3, 4 or 5 day offerings. 

• Effective Maintenance Leadership for Improved Craft Productivity - We know there is a scarcity of qualified crafts people around the USA and the World. As a result of many factors, craft productivity declines due to "status quo maintenance managers". There is also a shortage of true "Maintenance Leaders". This course focuses upon improving two important things: Maintenance Leadership and Craft Labor Productivity. You will gain renewed capabilities for being a modern day Maintenance Leader. And this is today's only course addressing craft productivity and how to improve Overall Craft Effectiveness (OCE) . Available as 2 or 3 day offerings and as a ½ to 1 day executive level presentation.

• Reliable Maintenance Planning, Estimating and Scheduling - This important offering is recognized worldwide as the very best course for this essential best practice. It is the topic of TMEI new book planned for completion in 2011 which is focused upon day to day scheduling for petrochemical operation.  This TrueWorkShop applies to small, medium and large operations for all types of maintenance operations; discrete manufacturing, continuous processes, facilities maintenance and fleet maintenance including the "green industry" and golf courses. TMEI staff has helped clients recruit, train, install and follow up on over 300 actual planners around the World. This course is also for all Maintenance Leaders and key Top Leaders "Certification for The ACE Team Process for Estimating" being available. that must implement and fully understand the importance benefits from this practice. Click on title above to download the complete course content and topics covered. Many case studies from TMEI along with practical exercises make this course one that can provide a relatively quick ROI from your planner investment. And this course can add life and measured results for a new planning function trying to get off the ground. Available as a 3, 4 or 5 day offering with a

 The ACE Team Process is an exclusive, reliability improvement and work measure methodology that is available only from The Maintenance Excellence Institute.

• Modernizing Maintenance Storerooms and MRO Materials Management - Lack of MRO parts and materials obviously can be the "game breaker". Having them in house but lost is even worse. Of all the opportunities found from over 300 Scoreboard Assessments across all types of maintenance operations, this TrueWorkShop title sums it up perfectly. A top improvement opportunity! This course ranges from layout design principles to strategic sourcing of MRO items. This is another course from TMEI that is considered the best available. Download the brochure and see how you can make your current storeroom operation one cornerstone for maintenance excellence. But some Maintenance Leaders do not "own" the site storeroom operation. In that case bring the storeroom manager, the MRO purchaser or the site materials manager to this course when you come as a team where you can saw 25% in total fee. Available as a 2day, 3 day or even a 5 day on site offering. Our 5 day version is an onsite session and is a hands-on improvement process for an existing storeroom. Also available as a ½ or 1 day executive level presentation.

• Go LEAN for Maintenance Excellence - Lean has been a popular business term. Sometimes lean is viewed as "let's indiscriminately cut maintenance staff". Go LEAN here is about "Working Smarter-Not Harder" a retro phase from the early 1970's used now by Harvard Business Review (HBR) and other business publications. This course focuses on Value Engineering (VE) and the best from the past and present; now used in modern business literature. Work Simplification, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma and positive mental attitude essentials, Purpose Driven Life principles and effective "teaming processes" will be crystallized into philosophies and techniques that will help you manage and lead maintenance forward as a true profit and customer-centered maintenance enterprise. Available as 2 or 3 day offerings and as a ½ or 1 day executive level presentation.
• Effective Preventive, Predictive and Condition- Based Maintenance Technologies: A TrueWorkShop that concentrates on Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) technologies to identify equipment problems for earlier and easier prevention of failure. Understanding these old and new technologies will achieve measurable results in more efficient plant and facilities maintenance, increased, productivity, lower operating costs and improved asset availability. Upon the successful completion of this TrueWorkShop, participants will have the knowledge about Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) and monitoring and the know how to optimize reliability with the latest technology. They will understand why a Continuous Reliability Improvement (CRI)The Scoreboard for Maintenance Excellence to audit current use of Preventive and Predictive Maintenance applications and how to improve both areas. They will see how performing maintenance affects reliability and the techniques and control systems for component condition monitoring. This TrueWorkShop is available as a 3, 4 or 5 day offering. strategy with RCM techniques is far superior to a pure RCM approach.  Attendees will use

Additional TrueWorkShops

• Maximizing the Value of Your CMMS System - Just like many IT systems and program suites, the functionality of CMMS systems (of all types from System Analysis and Program Development (SAP) to Micro Main  are not fully utilized. Via The CMMS Benchmarking System, an exclusive from TMEI, you will see where you stand. And you will learn techniques to gain full value from an important maintenance investment. This offering is also for IT staff members needing a better understanding of maintenance processes and true maintenance information needs. You will understand "why CMMS is not the solution". But you will see that CMMS is the core requirement for a true maintenance business system integrating all maintenance best practices for bottom line, measurable results.  Available as a 2 or 3 day offering and as a ½ day or 1 day executive level presentation.

• Advanced Maintenance Planning, Estimating and Scheduling - Similar to "Reliable Maintenance Planning, Estimating and Scheduling but with more in depth coverage of scheduling, planning for project work and project management. This course includes "The ACE Team Process Certification for Estimating" which is an exclusive certification available only from TMEI. Many case studies from TMEI along with practical exercises make this course one that can provide a relatively quick ROI from your planner investment. And this course can add life and measured results for a new planning function trying to get off the ground. Available as a 5 day offering that requires extensive pre-course work and post work for The Ace Team Process Certification for estimating reliable maintenance times.
• Commissioning Petro-Chemical Plants with Excellence: "Deliver on the Promise:  Successful commissioning of new plants, major start-up of new units, equipment and even individual systems requires planning, organizing and controlling. There must be early and careful methodical, detailed planning which is the key to the success of any commissioning. Proper planning defines many important tasks defining scope, approach, goals, organization, control plans, schedule, methods, safety, quality, equipment, crews, information flows, threats, and opportunities. Successful planning for commissioning is done in a variety of forums: meetings, visits, presentations, negotiations, alone or with others. Learning outcomes and professional development for participants will:

• Define a thorough before planning evaluation of lessons learned from other commissioning projects.
• Know that commissioning includes mechanical completion, equipment verification, systems validation, production operations, start-up, and continuing production.
• Understand what needs planning at the strategic, tactical, operational, & task/tools level for each phase of commissioning.
• Examine commissioning resources and their management to ensure quality and quantity of each: people, supervision, tools, materials, project equipment, information, time, and money.
• Understand that mechanical completion, equipment verification, and systems validation requires detailed planning and careful execution. Inspect, verify and account for incredible amounts of information and documentation.
• Learn why operators and maintenance participate in all three phases to verify, validate, and ensure quality of equipment and systems.
• Operators and production supervision are the keys to start-up. The commissioning team must be relentless in providing the best training, reference materials, and start-up plans to make start-up flawless.
• Learn how maintenance technicians and supervision must integrate with production preparing equipment maintenance plans along with lubricating, watching, helping, and adjusting, during start-up.
• Develop progress and quality controls to assure flawless production and maintenance plans for maximum up time and asset reliability
• Documentation and control procedures for all systems and equipment included within the scope of the commissioning project.

Available as a 5 day offering that requires extensive pre-course work to include using The Ace Team Process for estimating reliable construction and maintenance repair times.

• Commissioning, Testing & Start-Up of Electrical Systems

Today's electrical and control systems utilize thousands of separate parts, manufactured by hundreds of different manufacturers, installed by several different trades.  It takes a skilled professional, adept at all facets of the design and construction process, to ensure that the complete system meets and operates according to the design intent.  The commissioning process ensures that systems operate at their highest efficiency, as intended by design.  This course helps you understand the process of commissioning of major electrical systems and equipment and includes testing and balancing, tuning control loops, point-to-point wiring verification, and testing of safety and backup systems.

The start-up of any electrical and control system for the first time, regardless of its size, type or industry, is a very special occurrence and poses some unique challenges to electrical and control personnel.  Proper start-up and commissioning of power distribution and control equipment is vital to the long-term health of an electrical system.  Improper installation and commissioning are the leading causes of premature failures.

Inexperience and poor planning will inevitably result in prolonged delays in the unit or complete plant start-up which can lead to costly productivity losses.  Commissioning is often a critical component of the design and installation process, and can distinguish whether a project will succeed or fail.  Commissioning can help ensure proper equipment operation and maintenance user acceptance and intended energy savings in both new construction and renovation projects.

This course provides invaluable information to anyone who wishes to know and understand the role of Acceptance Testing, Commissioning and Start-Up of Electrical Power Distribution and Control Systems.  The importance of planning and preparation for the project, from engineering to commissioning and start-up and maintenance will be emphasized. Unlike most commissioning course provides strategies for reliability and long term maintenance excellence.

 Commissioning, Testing & Start-Up of Electrical Systems deals with safety and risk considerations and testing and start-up procedures for all the components of any electrical and control system.  By understanding electrical testing specifications developed by NETA, ANSI IEC 62337 and NEC 2005  participants can create a commissioning program designed to meet their facility's needs. 

This course will also help "owners" decide what can be done by in-house personnel and what is best left to an accredited electrical maintenance professional.  The course will provide the delegates with a solid understanding of real world practices, related theory and existing standards.  The course will also make the delegates aware of issues concerning the proper application, installation, risk assessment and maintenance of electrical and control systems with a strong emphasis on safety. Available as a 5 day offering that requires extensive pre-course work to include using The Ace Team Process for estimating reliable construction and maintenance repair times.

•  The ACE Team Process Certification for Estimating - This is only available from TMEI and is the standalone course for certification in The ACE Team Process Certification for Estimating. ACE is an acronym for "A Consensus of Experts"; experts who know and have performed maintenance work. It includes the complete process ranging from selecting and analyzing benchmark jobs for actual wrench time for job tasks up to the development of the planned time for the schedule that includes planned travel and other miscellaneous time not considered wrench time .  The process trains the planner and ACE Team members to analyze job tasks (that also become standard job plans) in terms of repair method, safety, quality and reliability issues. This exclusive certification is available only from TMEI and has several delivery options;

  1. As a supplement to our 3 day or 5 day Planning, Estimating and Scheduling offerings.
  2. As a two day session public session with pre-course and post course work.
  3. As a self-paced, self-study, TMEI facilitator led and directed course requiring no travel.

• Project Management for Maintenance Planner/Schedulers: Maintenance shutdowns, turnarounds and large retrofits require different skill sets than planner/schedulers require for day -to-day corrective and "small: maintenance repair projects. Project management is an extensive cross-functional process that planner/schedulers must understand because their role is so important. Your course leader for this TrueWorkShop brings over 35 years of real world results to share with you. Alliance Team Member, Lee Peters, PE is recognized as one of the world's experts on project management while having an extensive background in maintenance operations of all type. Click on title above to download the complete course content and the important topics covered.

• Continuous Reliability Improvement (CRI): Going Well beyond Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) & Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) - RCM is severely limited in that it focuses upon the physical asset only. CRI is about continuous reliability improvement of all six maintenance resources . TPM processes often create a "we versus them" situation rather than improving the total maintenance process for total operations success. You will gain knowledge to apply TMEI's proven process as part of your Strategic/Tactical Plan for Maintenance Excellence. This course covers the six maintenance resources and how they should be covered within a strategic plan, how leadership driven teams work, keys to implementation, measuring results and ROI for investments in maintenance. Available as a 2 or 3 day offerings
• Maximizing the Value from Contract Maintenance Services - Contracted Maintenance services of all types are here to stay and growing fast around the World. Getting maximum value is a serious and costly challenge when contractors do not have... nor work at your site with proactive maintenance processes. Currently this is the only course that addresses how to ensure contractor productivity. Download the complete brochure of this important new TrueWorkShop from The Maintenance Excellence Institute (TMEI). Also if you are a maintenance contractor you will find this course very valuable. Contract Maintenance Leaders who will find out how to show clients measured benefits, improve their business proposition for outsourcing maintenance and how to achieve their own profit optimization and customer service. Available as 2 or 3 day offerings and as ½ day or 1 day executive level presentations.

• Safety, Security and Sustainability - People and physical asset protection is required in every aspect of public and private sector operations. New Creed LLC (a long time Alliance Team Member company) has developed a methodology that results in a Risk Profile - for a single facility or a network of operations. Your risks are identified and evaluated - based on a combination of Probability and Criticality. You will establish a framework from which to avoid, reduce and manage areas of risk. Carla and Glenn Reed will lead facilities management and manufacturing attendees through the steps necessary to develop the Risk Profile. You learn how to take into account specific criteria related to your unique operation. This course will help Maintenance Leaders apply a proven process to achieve greater safety and security to ensure sustainability of the total operation. You will learn how to use proven strategies for safety, security & sustainability of all organizational assets. Also you will receive tools necessary for conducting a facilities safety, security and sustainability evaluation that will achieve important results before a disastrous event occurs. Available as 2 or 3 day offerings and as ½ day or 1 day executive level presentations.

• Energy Management and Going GREEN: What Maintenance Leaders Must Know? - This is a real TrueWorkShop of five intense days. It provides an in-depth, comprehensive learning and problem-solving forum for applying the latest energy cost reduction techniques and green strategies. You will learn the basic fundamentals within all key areas of energy management. From there, you will move to "working level" knowledge of the specific principles and techniques needed to really get the job done.

 This approach fulfills the needs of professionals who seek a broader and more detailed learning experience than can be provided in shorter courses. In only five days, you will gain the knowledge and confidence it takes to effectively apply state-of-the-art principles of energy management, gaining control over energy costs in your organization. This course is for those responsible for managing a single facility and those developing an energy management program for multiple corporate facilities or government buildings.

 This course parallels the Association of Energy Engineer's (AEE) most requested program which has been completed by thousands of professionals since its 1994. Note: If becoming a Certified Energy Manager is your goal; this certification process requires the submitting of a separate application and $200 application fee, which qualifies you to sit for the exam. For further information on the CEM program, visit http://www.aeecenter.org/certification/cem/

• Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for Maintenance and Reliability Excellence

RCA is most often used in environments where there is potential for critical or catastrophic consequences, but this is by no means a requirement. Root Cause Analysis can be employed in almost any situation where there is a gap between actual and desired performance.

Furthermore, RCA provides critical info on what to change and how to change it, within physical assets, critical systems of integrated asset such as refining or even business processes.

Significant industries using Root Cause Analysis include manufacturing, construction, healthcare, transportation, chemical, petroleum, and power generation. The possible fields of application include operations, project management, quality control, health and safety, business process improvement, change management, and many others. This course supports achieving reliability and maintenance excellence

Your problems may be small, medium or large and hopefully not catastrophic or life threatening. But problems have many similarities under the surface. This is the point of root cause analysis -- to dig below the symptoms and find the fundamental, underlying decisions and contradictions that led to the undesired consequences. If you want your problems to go away, your best option is to kill them at the root.

The Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for Maintenance and Reliability Excellence session reviews areas such as successful uses of RCA in maintenance, definitions used in failure analysis, reasons for applying RCA in maintenance, understanding the physics of why equipment fail, the true cost of failure and common causes behind equipment failures.

You gain understanding that the human element can be a big contributor to failure and overall process reliability.  You will learn mapping of work processes as activity chains, the Root Cause Failure Analysis (RCFA) method, cause and effect diagrams, fault tree analysis and  selecting when to Use RCFA ,the steps of RCFA and guided application of RCFA  via actual case study examples.

Available as a 2, 3 or 5 day offering and as a ½ day or 1 day executive level presentations.

• Measuring Maintenance Performance for Profit-Centered Maintenance

Performance measurement is a fundamental principle of good leadership and modern maintenance management. The measurement of performance is important because it identifies current performance gaps between current and desired performance and provides indication of progress towards closing the gaps. Theses gaps represent lost productivity of labor, material and the physical asset. 

Carefully selected key performance indicators identify precisely where to take action to improve performance. This session deals with the identification of key performance indicators for the maintenance function, by first looking at the ways that maintenance performance metrics relate to metrics across the total operations.

Since performance measurements for maintenance must include both "results metrics" and "metrics for the process" that produces the results. You see will that the business process for maintenance is both profit-centered and customer-centered. This session clearly shows "Why We Measure and How to Measure the Right Areas" and "How to View from the Systems Perspective" and your contribution to "The Real Goal: Total Operations Success". Available as a 2 or 3 day offering and as a ½ day or 1 day executive level presentation.

• Zero Breakdown Maintenance Strategies Can Be Established

Successful Zero Breakdown Maintenance is built on three fundamentals. The first is zero breakdown equipment needs low stress parts kept in good health. The less fatigued the parts, the more reliable and failure free will be your equipment. The second requirement for zero breakdown maintenance is to stop human error from causing plant and equipment failures. The better your people know how to prevent degradation and produce maximum reliability, the longer will your plant run well. The third premise is that you want world class equipment performance. This means removing all the operational risks your equipment experience. The more integrated your operational risk management is across the equipment life cycle, the more certain you are to get zero breakdowns and always deliver low production costs and low maintenance costs. This Zero Breakdown Maintenance course was developed by world leading maintenance management professionals with enviable track records of exemplary plant and equipment maintenance performance and workplace improvement. Some areas this course covers includes;  Limitations of Machines and Materials, Understand How Machines are Designed and the Limits They Must Live Within (operating context), Strength of Materials Limitations, The Degradation Cycle, The Overload Cycle, Determining the Reliability of Parts, What is Reliability and the Key Strategies?, Drawing the Reliability Curve Failure Rate Variation, Reading' Failure Curve Shapes, Reliability of Complex Parts, Modeling Reliability of Complex Parts, Reliability Mathematics in ‘Random Failure' Zone, Instilling Reliability Principles into Maintenance, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis and many more modern best practices such as PM, PdM, CBM and Risk Based Maintenance. You will learn how to "Move from Reactive... to Proactive... to Risk Reduction....Profit-Centered Maintenance." Available as a 2 or 3 day offering and as a ½ day or 1 day executive level presentation.

The PRIDE-in-Maintenance Series

• PRIDE-in-Maintenance I for Craft Leaders and Support Staff: - The recognition and celebration of crafts people and support staff is what this session is all about. And it is about getting ideas from them to support improving your maintenance operation. Each attendee get numerous references plus the book PRIDE-in-Maintenance One by TMEI founder. We highly recommend the in house version but public offerings will be scheduled. We make these sessions fun and famously memorable for each attendee. Attendees work in teams to brainstorm ideas, team leaders and team spokesperson are elected and team presentations are videotaped. So what are the key course deliverables? Attendees will;

1.  
   1. Gain greater appreciation of their important roles.
   2. Gain greater PRIDE-in-Maintenance for their profession
   3. Provide real ideas for improvement across a broad spectrum of activities
   4. Gain commitment that their Maintenance Leaders will listen to ideas.

Public sessions will be one day and limited to 30 attendees. In house session will 4 to 8 hours sessions for up to 30; typically 5 teams of 6 people each per team.

• PRIDE-in-Maintenance II for Maintenance Leaders: - Selling Craft Leaders and Top leaders on taking the journey toward maintenance excellence is what this session is all about. And it is about developing a strategic plan for maintenance excellence that Top Leaders will accept and Craft Leaders and the shop floor will support. Again it is about gaining total support for improving your maintenance operation. Each attendee gets numerous references plus the book PRIDE-in-Maintenance Two by TMEI founder. We highly recommend the in house version but public offerings will be scheduled. We make these sessions fun and famously memorable for each attendee. Public sessions will be one day and limited to 30 attendees. In house session can be scheduled as 4 to 8 hour sessions.

• PRIDE-in-Maintenance III for Top Leaders - Educating Top Leaders about the "High Cost of Gambling with Maintenance" is what this session is all about. And it is about getting their attention and commitment to maintenance processes and maintenance strategies with clearly defined return on investments. They will understand how in house maintenance can be profit and customer-centered and some of the cons associated with outsourcing a core business requirement. Each attendee will get numerous references plus the book PRIDE-in-Maintenance Three by TMEI founder. We highly recommend the in house version for large multi-site operations in both the public and private sector. Public offerings will be scheduled. We make these sessions fun and famously memorable for each attendee. Examples of The Good, Bad and Ugly Case Studies from TMEI are shared. Public sessions will be one day and limited to 30 attendees. In house sessions are scheduled as a 4 hour session.