The efforts of the Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals Best Practices Committee in developing maintenance and reliability metrics culminated in a highly successful Best Practice Metrics Workshop at the recent SMRP 2006 conference in Birmingham, Ala. The two-hour workshop was conducted as part of the SMRP Initiatives Track, and featured hands-on calculation of the metrics that are being developed by committee members.
The concept was based on the "Workshops on Maintenance Indicators" conducted in Europe by Working Group 7 of the European Federation of National Maintenance Societies (EFNMS). The chair of EFNMS WG 7 is Tom Svantesson of the Danish Maintenance Society, who is also the liaison with the SMRP Best Practices Committee.
Utilizing both published and "out for comment" metrics, a Best Practice Conference Track Subcommittee developed a workbook which gave the essential information necessary to calculate best practice metrics for a mock company "Speedy Mac Reliability Products". The metrics were sequenced according to an asset reliability process so that participants could understand at which steps in the process each metric would be applied and tracked. Large posters of the individual process steps were posted in the room as visual aides.
The workshop was preceded by a session in which the Best Practices Metrics Development Project was described in detail. The session, entitled "What Best Practices Metrics should I be Using?", conducted by Dick Olver, drew an audience of more than 100.
Thirty-four SMRP members participated in the metrics workshop.
Each participant received: 
- The metrics workshop workbook
- The six metrics and one guideline published
- The 27 metrics that are out "for comment"
- A certificate of participation
Based on the comments provided on the evaluation forms, the workshop was deemed a huge success. Comments included:
- "Very Good! This became interactive, very good discussion."
- "Would like to see this workshop offered more than once during the conference."
- "Practical application in a workshop is a plus."
- "Excellent series of sessions. I sat through all three. The introduction, followed by the calculation, then group discussion really put some substance into the discussion"
