City Scape

2013 Year in Review

Category: 

LOOKING BACK

Maintenance Management Professional

As we compare our association to others around the world we realize that PEMAC has set the bar high with the MMP Program in terms of commitment required to achieve the MMP professional designation. And when we hear from many of our Maintenance Management Professionals we know that those going through the program believe very strongly in its value, with many this past year expressing keen interest in helping us promote the merits of the program across the country. This means that we are confident that PEMAC-designated "Maintenance Management Professionals" should be very proud of their education and experience wherever they may seek to work in this field around the world.

Another sign of recognition is the continued growth in numbers. There are now over 860 people who have applied to PEMAC for the MMP Professional designation and there were more than 2000 course enrollments across Canada in the 2012-2013 academic year. We are also fielding more and more inquiries from international organizations and we are working out how we might expand the program internationally while maintaining quality control.

We continue to invest in maintaining and improving the quality of the program. We now have a full-time "Education and Professional Development Manager" position (welcome Steve!) who is tasked with evaluating instructors, working with teaching institutions, keeping the materials current and convening regular curriculum review meetings.

Financial

With nearly 100% of the staff being new or shifting positions, we exceeded prior year revenues by 50%, attributable to increased memberships, increased enrollments in the MMP Program, revenue from our new bookstore (we now stock texts shipped for the MMP Program), as well as two successful conferences in 2012. (The MainTrain 2013 revenues acrue to next fiscal year.)

Asset Management Curriculum Development Project

We launched our 2013 fiscal year on August 31st, 2012 by submitting an application to the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to develop a new certificate program in Asset Management. In January we learned that our bid was successful. Since then we have hired a project manager, done our research, run curriculum development meetings, developed the first draft of a one day course for senior managers and run the pilot offering of that course. We have determined that a new program of courses in Asset Management is warranted and there are clear signs of demand. The courses should be ready for pilot offerings in fall 2014 in a format similar to MMP - five 30-hour courses plus a capstone project.The course titles for these courses are now set, learning objectives have been vetted against ISO 5500x and the GFMAM "Asset Management Landscape" subjects, and six "subject matter developers" are engaged in researching and writing the first drafts of the courses. Much credit is due to Colin Carrington who is the project manager for this work.

Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management

PEMAC volunteers have been active with the Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management (GFMAM), attending biannual meetings and contributing to project work of that body, which is essentially an international organization of associations like ours. In the process we have been both learning from and contributing to the global knowledge base in maintenance and asset management. This work will help to assure that our learning programs remain aligned with the global developments in the field, such as ISO 5500x. We were privileged to host the GFMAM meetings at MainTrain 2013 in Calgary where we called on the expertise of the GFMAM representatives to present to our conference attendees and we also took the opportunity to engage our volunteers in GFMAM project work. GFMAM representatives from Australia, Switzerland, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, France, UK, Japan and the US attended (and even seemed to enjoy the adventure of a -20 C blizzard that was unseasonable even for Calgary.)

Exponential Growth in Volunteer Support

Over the course of the year we benefitted tremendously from renewed interest and volunteer support from our members, beginning with the Board of Directors whose meeting workload accelerated from relatively sporadic to intense and regular monthly meetings. The Education and Professional Development committee which had recently reformed after many years of dormancy, and reset its vision and priorities. It met monthly to guide the operation and improvement of the MMP Program, to oversee the rebranding of MainTrain, to give input to the new Asset Management program and to continue to add educational opportunities for PEMAC members such as the online lunch and learn initiative.

Chapter Growth

We had a great turnout to several 'Meet and Greet' events held across the country which have translated into new local Chapter activiity in Vancouver, Saskatoon, Sudbury and Toronto. The Fort McMurray and Alberta Chapters hosted several successful learning / networking events as well.

Recasting MainTrain

MainTrain 2013 Calgary was a great event. To catch a bit of the flavour if you were unable to attend please go to www.maintrain.ca and click "MainTrain 2013" in the top right corner. And be sure to put MainTrain 2014 on your professional development plan (if you are a practitioner) or on your marketing plan (if you are a vendor).

We would like to thank all of the speakers, sponsors and exhibitors who put effort into providing great content and learning opportunities for the delegates. In terms of organization, all credit goes to our Events Coordinator, Julie West,

and the MainTrain committee made up of Sridhar Ramakrishnan and Susan Lubell who worked as co-chairs with input from committee members Corey Conolly and Sergio Bollito.