India's first Reliability Maintenance Council is formed

MUMBAI, INDIA -- The Indian Reliability Maintenance Council (IRMC) was recently formed by the attendees of Joel Leonard’s February 2012 “Fighting the Maintenance Crisis Workshop”. The impetus for forming the council was the enormous task of maintaining large, aging infrastructure and dealing with a long list of industrial challenges including: equipment failures, production outages, budget cuts, deferred maintenance expenses, skilled workforce challenges and increasing inflationary costs.

This new organization plans to meet regularly to discuss current maintenance and reliability challenges, tour industrial facilities throughout India to network and share best practices and work to certify members. IRMC will follow established successful societies and councils such as the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) in the U.S and the Institute of Asset Management (IAM) in the U.K., to name only a few.

Engineering leader Sanjay Sorte said “This organization was created out of the frustration of lack of respect, appreciation and support for maintenance personnel and to help others realize that without proper reliability and maintenance programs our businesses and national economies will literally crumble before our eyes.”

Deep Savaliya identified another one of the key goals of the organization, Indian working behaviors and safety standards are lower than those followed in other countries. Through IRMC they want to enhance both our technical and safety competency so that it is on par with other countries.

Joel Leonard, a workforce development consultant based in the U.S. supports the board’s efforts and is connecting them with resources worldwide to help accelerate the growth and implementation of the IRMC. Leonard has been dubbed by American media as “The Maintenance Evangelist” because of his passion to elevate awareness of maintenance and engineering career paths. His passion seemed to spark a latent desire for greater maintenance standards, education and support during his Mumbai workshop.

The IRMC is facing a great challenge; however, with their passionate leadership team and desire to learn from established societies around the world, they look set for success. We certainly support their cause and wish them the best of luck.