The 13th annual Reliable Plant Conference and Exhibition held May 1-3 in Indianapolis marked another highly successful event for Noria Corporation. The international conference, which is the premier event for lubrication, oil analysis and reliability professionals, drew nearly 1,000 industry experts, decision-makers and practitioners from around the world.
With a choice of five tracks – three focused on lubrication and two focused on reliability –featuring more than 60 learning sessions, attendees gained valuable information and insight into the latest advances in technology and industry best practices over the course of three days.
“This was by far one of the best conferences I have been to,” said Charles Maupin of Ring Container Technologies. “The sessions were the best part. Getting in there and hearing the questions stimulates a lot of stuff that doesn’t come across directly in the presentations. When you collect this many people, you get a lot of input and a lot of discussions are generated.”
Lubrication Excellence sessions included presentations on effective electric motor lubrication, the true cost of filtration, setting effective oil analysis alarm limits, oil sampling best practices, as well as many others. Reliability World sessions discussed the path to maintenance excellence, rolling element bearing fault detection techniques, preventing equipment failures with condition-based maintenance tools, equipment installation for optimum reliability and much more.
“This was a great conference with highly relevant presentations, lots of knowledge sharing and the right people participating,” noted Steffen Nyman of C.C. Jensen.
In the exhibition hall, more than 80 industry-leading companies and organizations showcased a broad range of products and services. Among the new products highlighted were Air Sentry’s Guardian breather, HYDAC’s Metallic Contamination Sensor (MCS), Y2K Fluid Power’s hand-held compact filtration system, PerkinElmer’s Oil Express 4 system, Shell’s Tellus S3M and Lazar Scientific’s AV2 automatic viscometer.
“There were great vendors, products and new protective measures to maintain a good lubrication program,” said Daniel Ledet of Entergy. “Indianapolis was a great choice of location to have the conference. The opening ceremony kept everyone awake and excited. The pace of the conference was just right.”
Keynote speaker Davey Hamilton offered attendees inspiration and motivation while describing how he fought his way back to the cockpit after almost six years away from IndyCar racing following a crash at Texas Motor Speedway.
“You have to have that trust in who you are dealing with, in your employees, in the engineering and in everything that is involved,” Hamilton told attendees. “You have to have that faith and trust that it is going to be successful, and you have to strive for that. It doesn’t matter what position you are in within a company, you have to have that goal set to where you want to be, to what the product needs to be and how to be the very best. That was something that I had to fight to be able to come back to do.”
Many attendees also enjoyed the Indy Track Tour, which provided an up-close look at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indy Hall of Fame Museum.
The grand-prize winner of the “high-performance hideout” was Lou Herington of Alcoa, who was awarded a check for $5,000 from Noria Corporation to outfit his own high-performance hideout.
“I’m glad I made the trip,” Herington said. “This will be a nice chance for me to do the basement up and get it the way I’ve been wanting to do it anyway.”
Pre-conference workshops were presented in half-day and full-day sessions with topics such as understanding oil analysis reports, extending the life of rolling element bearings, detecting and controlling sludge and varnish, and root-cause analysis tools for plant equipment failures.
On-site certification exam opportunities were also offered during the event through the International Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML) and the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP).
“Overall, this conference offers practical training and knowledge to allow users to return to their companies to provide value-added changes to lower costs and increase revenue,” said Richard Woolley of North American Construction Group. “Everyone must attend.”
Preparations are already being made for next year’s Reliable Plant Conference and Exhibition scheduled for April 16-18, 2013, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. Visit conference.reliableplant.com for additional information.