From my experience, it is more common than not to find that the working relationship between operations and maintenance is one of adversity instead of a relationship of close and productive cooperation. Operations often sees itself as the customer of maintenance, and, consequently, maintenance is viewed as a service provider. In such a relationship, it should be obvious that operations is responsible for the cost of the maintenance work it requests and gets delivered. However, in a bad relationship, this is not the case.

A mentor can assume many different roles including teacher, motivator, advisor, coach, door-opener. A good mentor has some traits that are conducive to their role. They are supportive, patient, secure in their position and achievers. They tend to be accepting of others, even their shortcomings. Mentors require the ability to listen and possess questioning skills and a passion for their work and industry. They provide constructive and positive feedback and are able to plan and make decisions.

Manufacturers in process industries are no strangers to raw material price volatility. Historically, price fluctuations of 15 to 20 percent have been common and threatened only the weakest companies. But when prices surge by 100 to 200 percent over the course of 12 to 24 months, the rules of the game change. And when those increases become systemic—not just cyclical—they threaten the viability of all processors– large and small. And that’s exactly where the industry finds itself today.

The other big question is what will this trend towards more service jobs do to the middle class living standards? Statistics from the Congressional Budget Office show that 60 percent of the middle class worker’s after tax income has been declining since 1977. There is no economic evidence to prove that this trend will be reversed, but there is a lot of evidence to support the notion that the middle class living standards could worsen with the decline of manufacturing.

For decades, maintenance professionals have advocated and used information management systems, planned maintenance activities, emphasized preventive maintenance and assessed equipment utilization to eliminate non-essential assets (reducing numbers of equipment). These professionals also have been aware of the need for operator and mechanic training and, to some extent, decentralizing asset responsibility. Accordingly, they have been striving to build operator-ownership of equipment through basic care.

One of the major European postal services decided in the late 1990s to make a change in their plant maintenance organization. In my own U.S. Postal Service, there had been talk for years of combining the operations and maintenance supervision and reducing the supervisory ranks. It is easy to say, but how do you do it? Be careful of what you wish for!

The following paper will describe a methodology for automatically detecting and diagnosing rolling element bearing wear. The techniques involved have been proven in over 15 years of use in a huge variety of environments, machine types and applications. The techniques involved in diagnosing bearing wear will be described in detail and supported by a set of example graphs and an annotated diagnostic report.

There is still some controversy regarding the various certification levels, test questions and test procedures. These problems will hopefully be worked out in the future. However, despite these issues, certification is probably the glue that will be required to bind and network this group of analysts together in today’s dynamic job market.