A premier asset management organization, the Society of Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP), is a nonprofit society formed by practitioners to advance the reliability and physical asset management industry. To provide their 5,000+ members the opportunity to learn, mentor, and network, the SMRP hosts an annual conference. We interviewed Kevin Clark, a member of the Conference Committee and director of Perficient’s asset management practice, to find out more information on the conference.
How did you first get involved with SMRP?
I joined SMRP in 2003, while a leader in engineering at Johnson & Johnson, and the Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) program in 2004. At the time, the SMRP only had 1,000+ members and CMRP members were still a small number. Today, the SMRP is 5,000+ members with over 4,000 certified worldwide. Over the years I have served as board member, vice chair, chair and past chair for the Indiana SMRP, one of the largest and most active divisions in the SMRP community. Most recently, I became a member of the Conference Committee for the Annual SMRP Conference being held in Jacksonville, FL in October.
It’s been an incredible and rewarding journey.
What is your current role with SMRP and the upcoming annual conference?
The Annual Conference is the BIG event for the SMRP. It draws in over 1,000-1,500 attendees composed primarily of asset management practitioners from around the world. My role on the Conference Committee consists of workshop and tour coordination, ensuring the content is relevant to the trends of our industry and the quality of presenters and environment is second to none.
Next year, 2017, I will coordinate over 75 track sessions for the conference. In 2018, I will co-chair the conference, followed by the conference chair position in 2019.
What is the goal of the conference and what should attendees learn by attending?
In reality, the conference is designed so that the attendee decides what they are going to learn and at what level. We have tracks and workshops that start at the beginning of your trek towards asset management excellence OR simply add to your existing skills OR hone those expert skills by sitting in on success stories and lessons learned. Our sponsors and leaders are practitioners, so they expect the very best. There’s also the opportunity to get CMRP or CMRT certified while at the conference.
How important are maintenance and reliability solutions to Perficient?
Perficient has grown into a very unique and exciting position in the asset management industry. Our focus is enhancing and perfecting the sustainability processes surrounding our clients’ most critical assets by utilizing technology best practices. This means we understand assets, we understand their likelihood to fail, we understand their need to be maintained, we understand the technology, and we understand how to make the technology and assets work together.
How is Perficient helping customers implement these solutions?
First of all, Perficient is a diverse technology management organization. Our ideas are strategic. Our strategic ideas become solutions. And, of course we can integrate, build infrastructure, configure interfaces, enhance user experiences, upgrade environments, migrate to the cloud, implement mobility, etc. But we only consider those our elementary skillsets. We provide our clients with asset management solutions that provide critical data and information to the executive team, assist the Maintenance Manager in strategic and tactical decisions, the Maintenance Planner in predictive planning, the Engineer in equipment design and enhancements, and the Inventory Coordinator in spare parts stocking levels. Our clients depend on Perficient to help them see today and into the future.
