The Global Forum on Maintenance and Asset Management (GFMAM) held its sixth face-to-face meeting from 17 – 21 June 2012 in conjunction with the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) Annual Conference, Warwick, UK. The theme of the conference was Building for the Future. Global Forum members were active in presenting at the conference, giving 4 plenary presentations and 2 streamed sessions.
l – r: Hans Klemme-Wolff, David McKeown, Kari Komonen, Edmea Adell, Alex Stuber, Nezar Shammasi, Tim Goshert, Jan Franlund, Joao Lafraia, Celso Azevedo, John Hardwick, Alan Tait, Richard Edwards, Peter Kohler, Cindy Snedden, Athayde Ribeiro, Takao Hara, Stephen Morris, Diane Baseley, Chris Yexley, Karen Hardwick, Chris Newsome
The Chairman shared with the attendees the past twelve months achievements and appreciated all societies’ contribution to these accomplishments. The GFMAM achievements included the addition of two new members, PEMAC and SAAMA, completion of the Asset Management landscape, first phase of certification project completion, and the financial stability of GFMAM.
Building on the work from the previous meeting held in Greensboro, the Council members reviewed the full list of proposed projects that had been generated through the development of the Strategic Plan, prioritized them and assigned leaders and team members to the full list of priority projects. This work was captured and included in a working document called the ‘Operational Plan’.
Regarding the proposed update to the governing documents initiated in Greensboro, it was agreed that there will be three documents governing the activities of the GFMAM. At this meeting, the contents of the two legal documents were agreed subject to approvals of final drafts. These documents will need to be endorsed by the member society boards prior to the meeting in Rio so they can be finalized and take effect as of that meeting. The third document will be finalized at Rio.
Project Updates
Accord
The International Accord is an approved GFMAM Project. It is being led by the IAM and AM Council but all other GFMAM members are welcome to participate. All results will be made available to members of GFMAM.
The Accord will offer a standardised, reliable and transparent process for making comparisons between different types and levels of asset management qualifications which employers and others can understand and trust.
The Accord has been developed as a two stage process, namely to:
1. Test whether Asset Management qualifications have sufficient Asset Management content to be recognised as an Asset Management qualification, and
2. Define the relative level of the qualification when compared to other Asset Management qualifications.
The Accord process is currently being trialled with a number of qualification bodies both in Australia and the UK. ABRAMAN indicated that they could assist with the trial of the Accord process. The project team will provide an updated briefing note regarding the proposed commercial arrangements for the International Accord, to the GFMAM at their September Global Forum meeting.
Relationship between Maintenance and Asset Management
This project team hosted a well-attended debate on the relationship between Maintenance and Asset Management at the IAM conference. Through a review of the debate presentations and subsequent lively discussion team members determined that the nature of differences in understanding is not merely confined to technical aspects, but also includes cultural and behavioural aspects. The next action is to map the elements of maintenance (as defined by EFNMS) to the 39 elements of Asset Management (defined in the Landscape project) by the next face-to-face meeting in September.
Certification
The members of the Certification team made a decision that Phase 2 of the project will proceed with the work of mapping the competency statements underlying each Certification scheme to the 39 subjects of the GFMAM Landscape document. They also developed an agreed upon methodology for that work. As an outcome the team will prepare and publish a compilation of the competency statements which indicates how they map as a whole to the Asset Management Landscape. This map will become a tool for existing and future bodies interested in developing training and certifications. By the September meeting the mapping work will be submitted for consolidation and discussion of the team members. We expect the published work will be available by June 2013.
Increasing Membership
The Project to “Increase GFMAM Membership“ decided on the following goals: to do a scan of other Maintenance and Asset Management societies that may exist throughout the 8 defined regions around the globe for potential new members (gap analysis), improve the available information package for potential new members, streamline the information pack with the actual GFMAM homepage, establish a measuring system with KPI’s to measure success, efficiency and effectiveness of the project. The sub group will test the process over the next two months in order to present a working system during the next council meeting in Rio. The membership pack will be provided to all councilors in order accelerate the acquisition of new members.
Surveys
The surveys of international maintenance and asset management societies are ready and uploaded to an online delivery format. Current member societies will be invited to take the surveys, data will be collated reported in Rio. Surveys will go through one more design iteration before external societies are invited to respond.
Other Activities
GFMAM Position on the ISO55000 Standard
The Global Forum has reviewed the progress of the forthcoming standards ISO55000, ISSO55001 and ISO55002. GFMAM members have contributed to ISO Project Committee 251 and believe that ISO55000/1/2 (and other relevant standards) should be used by organizations to help obtain better value from their assets (and optionally for certification of conformance). In addition to a Management System, the Global Forum believes that proper attention to leadership, competence and cultural issues is critical for success in this field.
Abraman proposed MBA
Abraman presented a proposal of an Asset Management MBA program during the meeting to be delivered in Brazil. The next step for the proposal is to test the draft content using the GFMAM Accord. Abraman expects to receive comments from GFMAM Council members to assist in consolidating the syllabus before they submit to their Government for approval.
Conclusion
The members of the Global Forum considered this a very productive session and we are sincerely looking forward to progressing our projects. We are excited to meet again at the Brazilian Maintenance conference September 11-14, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro.