Plant Services - October 2007 - (Page 25)

CRISIS CORNER Are you going the extra mile? Personal ways to advance your career and our profession H ave you heard about the city man who took a SunBattery, says that while his company excels in advanced day drive through the country to enjoy the fresh manufacturing processes such as Six Sigma and Lean air and the scenery? A pickup truck came around practices, it’s losing uptime because it lacks basics like a turn. As it passed him, a country woman rolled down her good alignment procedures and routine maintenance window and hollered out, “Pig!” He scrolled down his electric functions. If more of us mastered the core principles of window, stuck his head outside of his luxurious vehicle and maintenance, business productivity levels would soar. screamed back, “Wench!” Rounding the turn, he hit a pig Remember, it’s a portable asset you’ll be buying. that was standing in the middle of the road. The city man lost • Become an industrial tourist. Are you working so intensely control, veered off the lane, struck a tree and died instantly. that you’ve become oblivious to other companies’ advances? This is important and relevant to our crusade in fighting the Learn from others’ successes and failures. The Association for Maintenance Crisis not only because it is important that more Facilities Engineering is well known for hosting tours of fasmen to listen to women, but also that we not cinating locations such as nuclear power plants, take feedback as insults, but as information to aviation maintenance hangars, petrochemical guide us forward on a more appropriate path. processing facilities and even breweries. If the industry In maintenance, we’ve always been treated • Become a showcase customer. Develop strong became more as an afterthought and companies have alrelationships with your vendors that might want professional, ways used the go-get-’em (no) training methto pilot new products and tools. Get involved in od. While watching the History Channel, I a CMMS user group. It’s better to help develop we’d increase learned that even Thomas Edison and other new offerings that have your input than merely our efficiency pioneers in wiring America with electricity adjust to what others hand you. and need fewer 100 years ago didn’t invest in training for their • Read industry magazines as if they’re mainfuture workers. tenance bibles. Years before textbooks codify workers. That’s why there was one death for every two line workers. Most of the employees new approaches to maintenance, most trade learned the hard way not to grab live cables. publications have already featured those topToday, it’s really sad that many companies still won’t ics. Get ahead of the crowd by thoroughly studying indusinvest in developing their most important resource. Most try magazines. John Schultz of Allied Services read every maintenance workers have received limited formal training issue he could find of industrial publications. By studying and have huge gaps between what they perceive and what the wisdom of experts, he became one. actually are best practices. Many workers lack the fundaYou probably have heard me scream, beg, even sing mental knowledge to begin to grasp the complexity involved about increasing the population of future maintenance in electronic circuitry and advanced automation systems. workers. And, yes, that’s important, but if the industry That’s why maintenance workers, whether our employbecame more professional, we’d increase our efficiency ers are enlightened or not, need to invest in ourselves, go and need fewer future workers. More importantly, our the extra mile and truly become maintenance professionals. image would be elevated. There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile and if you apply the Next month, I’ll unveil more tips and would love to infollowing principles, you can advance your career to higher clude some of your ideas. This article, additional links and levels of prestige and compensation. future posts will be included on the PlantServices.com blog • Invest in your own career development. Get grounded appropriately titled, The Extra Mile. Please visit and submit in the fundamentals. Take courses at a community colyour suggestions and feedback. lege or locate a fast-track technical training school such as the MPACT Learning Center (www.mpactlearning. E-mail Contributing Editor Joel Leonard at leonard.joel@ com). Jim Thompson, maintenance manager at Energizer mpactlearning.com. October 2007 www.PLANTSERVICES.com 25 http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2005/453.html http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com http://www.mpactlearning.com http://www.mpactlearning.com http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - October 2007

Plant Services - October 2007 Contents Monetize It Letters Step into the Blogosphere What it Takes to be a Leader Up and Running Crisis Corner What Works From the Summit Treat Them Right Access Control Out of the Woods Show Me, Don't Guess Condition Assessment Made Easy The Air Above the Floor Power to the Prime Movers In the Trenches Illuminating Maintenance

Plant Services - October 2007

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