Workshops Will Kick Off Noria Event

From September 1-3, Noria Corporation's RELIABLE PLANT 2009 conference in Columbus, Ohio, will host more than 100 educational sessions in five concurrent subject tracks: Lubrication Excellence, Reliability World, Lean Manufacturing, Plant Safety and Plant Energy/Sustainability. However, focused training is available during pre-conference workshops on Monday, August 31. What follows are synopses of three of these informative workshops:

Workshop: "Change Agent Maintenance Planning and Scheduling"

Presenter: R.D. (Doc) Palmer, PE, MBA, CMRP

Time: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Synopsis: The author of McGraw-Hill's "Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook", Doc Palmer helps "change agents" develop tools to make planning and scheduling successful. The workshop offers more detail than a review of the fundamentals of planning and scheduling. After explicitly defining the purpose of planning and scheduling, the class spends time evaluating the workflow necessary for their contributions to work.

The workshop then develops a barriers-and-aids analysis for the different aspects of a successful program. The workshop concludes with identifying and illustrating the calculations of key process indicators to guide world-class planning and scheduling.

All participants will receive a copy of Palmer's handbook (a $85 value).

Participants will learn:

• planning's strategy to create better job plans over time, including the proper level of plan detail and the accuracy of time estimates;

• scheduling's particular role in boosting productivity and and balancing the weekly schedule with the daily schedule;

• helpful guidance regarding planned maintenance workflow, particularly involving acquisition of parts and intermediate job priorities that cannot wait until next week;

• what will help planning work orders and what will hinder;

• what will help scheduling work orders and what will hinder;

• what will help establish and sustain a planning organization and what will hinder; and,

• what the key process indicators are (schedule compliance, wrench time and others) and how - and why - they should be calculated.

Workshop: "Integration of Safety through Mapping and Maintenance Excellence"

Presenter: Robert Levandoski, Fuss & O'Neill Manufacturing Solutions

Time: 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Synopsis: This workshop presents different approaches to integrate continuous improvement with safety to tackle OSHA's low-hanging fruit as well as present examples of solutions other businesses developed to safely perform lubrication, preventive maintenance, repairs, etc., while machines are still in operation.

Companies are seeking to improve a vast array of performance metrics through the integration of lean principles (value stream mapping, 5-S and many others). Companies struggle with the acceptance of non-value-added time consumed by traditional safety program requirements, including procedural development, training, audits and accident investigation. Many of these programs neglect to incorporate and use the existing tools and methodologies readily available from the lean side of the business.

Workshop: "Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)"

Presenter: John Kravontka, Fuss & O'Neill Manufacturing Solutions

Time: 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Synopsis: Total Productive Maintenance is a data-driven process for improving the productivity of your manufacturing or facility equipment. So, the question remains: How do you measure productivity? OEE is that measurement system. But, there are a lot of misconceptions about OEE.

In this hands-on workshop, you will work with case studies, calculate OEE percentage, categorize losses and develop improvement plans. You'll learn the basics of OEE (measuring the six major losses) and see real-life examples (pictures and data from the shop floor). You'll also discuss the categories of losses and how to approach each loss and eliminate or minimize them.

For more information about these workshops and to register, visit http://conference.reliableplant.com.