SMRP Members Gather on Capitol Hill to Advocate for Workforce Development
The work of SMRP members directly impacts safety and efficiency—careful planning in the physical asset management field prevents system downtime and dangerous mishaps. Maintenance and reliability planning is one of the many insufficiently valued jobs keeping the American manufacturing and energy sectors running smoothly and safely. However, the high-level work our members and CMRP certificate holders do to plan out and execute maintenance routines requires deep experience and years of training.
The physical asset management talent pool is experiencing a demographic issue: 74% of respondents to our latest annual survey have been in this industry for multiple decades, and only 2% of respondents were new to the industry. If this worrying demographic trend is not reversed, there will not be a sufficiently qualified and experienced workforce of new professionals to replace the current workforce of maintenance and reliability planners. It can take years to build the skills and experiences to qualify a person for reliability planning management for a multi-million or billion-dollar operation.
SMRP members are passionate about workforce development. On May 10, 2023, SMRP members met with legislators and their staff in Washington, D.C., to advocate for investment in workforce training programs specific to physical asset management. By encouraging the government to prioritize funding for programs that educate future maintenance and reliability professionals, SMRP hopes to help support the next generation of America’s physical asset management workforce.
More work remains to be done on this issue. SMRP offers opportunities such as free webinars and discounted membership to help maintenance, reliability and physical asset management students achieve their professional goals. We have also created the SMRP Foundation to provide students with financial support via scholarships.