Continuous professional development (CPD) is key for maintenance and reliability professionals to keep abreast of new technologies and practices, and do their work effectively to keep mission-critical assets running.
By Jimmy Swira
After earning that much-needed certification issued by a prestigious body or an accredited professional institution and securing the role of their dreams, some engineers (and in associated trades) may feel there is little need to broaden their knowledge further. Perhaps that feeling of ‘I have arrived; I don’t need to go any further’ is human nature. A comfort zone.
Yet the heavy industry world is undergoing fast-paced transformation.
Technology such as task automation and remote monitoring is transforming how condition monitoring is performed, reducing the need for some manual inspections and measurements. And the evidence is right there before us, unfiltered, and it must be said, at times unsettling.
For this reason, it is important that maintenance and reliability professionals keep abreast of new trends and practices in their respective specialities.
Threats of job losses and redundancies aside, you can’t dispute that technology has made life considerably easier for maintenance and reliability professionals.
Instead of driving to a site and descending down a shaft to physically check the operating parameters of instrumentation, thanks to advances in telemetry, this can now be done remotely.
As you would expect, there are still other professionals, especially among the older generation, who still stick to old, conventional ways of doing things.Their thinking goes: As long as it serves the purpose, there is no need to fix what is not broken.
Yet those reluctant to embrace new technology overlook the fact that some of the ‘tried and trusted’ traditional ways are prone to human error. Manual readings can also be affected by factors such as difficulties in interpreting measurements, measurement interference and instrumentation faults. Potentially, these can increase inaccuracies and result in wrong decisions being made.
What else? They are time-consuming and can result in delays in carrying out processes, contributing to significant production losses.
It reminds me of one retired plant engineer, a charming veteran in his late 70s, whom I met at a manufacturing event in Johannesburg a couple of weeks ago. Now working full-time in commercial farming, he confessed: “Features of some of the machinery and instruments I have seen have made me feel ancient. I feel as though I have been living in a cave. You snooze a minute, you lose a lot.”
Such is the level of technological advancement taking place in engineering.
It cannot be overstressed that, in this environment, continuous professional development is key for maintenance and reliability professionals. This positions them better to tackle the challenges they encounter and improve equipment uptime.
Yes, you are qualified, but are you still learning?
