Asset Reliability Practitioner® [ARP-L]: Reliability Program Leader

We offer the ultimate flexibility:

• PUBLIC: You can take the public, instructor-led course with other people like you. You can find a public course here.
• VIRTUAL: You take the course from the comfort and safety of your computer, with an instructor guiding you through the course. You can find a virtual course here.
• ON-SITE: You can invite the instructor to your site and save yourself the cost, hassle, and risk. You can find partners who can deliver the course here.
• VIDEO: You can have the ultimate in safety and flexibility by watching a video of the course. You can watch it multiple times! You can place your order here.

Duration:

• 32 hours minimum: Typically delivered over 5 days

Format:

• Live public course
• On-site course
• Virtual online course
• Video distance learning online course

Compliance:

• Training: modeled on 18436-2 and ISO 18436-3, but there is no ISO standard for reliability personnel certification.
• Certification: according to ISO/IEC 17024 and modeled on ISO 18436-1
• Training: ISO 18436-3

Exam:

• Three-hours
• 100 multiple-choice questions
• 70% passing grade
• Can be taken online or in-person at the course

Certification requirements:

• Training course completed
• 48-months of work experience, verified by an independent person
• Pass the exam
• Valid for 3 years

Pre-study:

• Access to the “Learning zone” upon registration and payment
• Complete set of videos covering every topic
• An excellent way to be prepared and get the most from the course

Post-study:

• Continue to access the Learning zone for 6-months after the course
• Continue learning, without charge, on Mobius CONNECT® via www.mobiusconnect.com

In brief, we will explain the implementation process, educate you about the economics of reliability, and then explain how to establish a new program or reinvigorate an existing program. By the end of this process, you will have the support of senior management which is so critically important.

Next, we will focus on how to develop an engaged, educated, and qualified workforce. We will start with a discussion of the psychology of reliability, discuss human error and human error management, and then take a very close look at the culture change process. As part of that process, we will discuss how to ensure everyone buys-in and contributes to the program.

One of the most common reasons for programs to fail is they cannot break out of the “reactive maintenance cycle of doom”. So that’s the next major topic we will discuss; a step-by-step guide to greatly reducing the volume of breakdown maintenance work.

By this stage, we will have senior management support, a detailed strategy, an educated and skilled workforce that is developing a reliability mindset, and a maintenance group that is no longer frustrated by endless breakdowns. Now we can step it up a gear and work towards “world-class” performance.

While the technical details will be handled by your reliability engineers and people in the maintenance, engineering, and operations/production departments, you must understand how to drive the organization towards best practices.

We will begin with a discussion of defect elimination in the area of project management, design, procurement, and contractor management. Everything the organization acquires must be fit for purpose.

Next, we will focus on how to establish discipline in the way we perform all maintenance tasks, manage our spares, and the way we operate the equipment. A disciplined approach will set up your equipment for a successful operation. One of the requirements is to have an effective asset strategy (strategic maintenance plan) so we will discuss the outline of that development process.

To keep the equipment operating smoothly with trouble-free operation, we must care for those assets. We need the equipment to remain in a healthy condition, and we must operate them with standard operating procedures. This section will also cover precision lubrication and 5S.

And finally, in order to improve everything we are doing, from the maintenance decisions we make with condition monitoring to the changes we make in our program, we must make data-driven decisions, we must learn from failures, and we must continually optimize everything we do.

If you would like to know more about the topics covered on the course, you may enjoy reading the pages on our site related to the Asset Reliability Transformation [ART] process. We will be following that process, step-by-step.

Early in the course, we include detailed modules on the “Economics of reliability”, the “Psychology of reliability”, “Human error and human error management”, and “Culture change” in order to build the knowledge necessary to excel in the VALUE, STRATEGY, and PEOPLE phases, but from that point on we will basically summarize the core elements of the ART roadmap with a little less detail (because the reliability engineers are the team members who must understand the details).

The following will give you a very good idea of how the course flows.

Start with the big picture

Early in the course, we will introduce the Asset Reliability Transformation [ART] process. While it is not required for you to follow the strategy that we have defined, there is absolutely no doubt that if your strategy contains all the key elements that we outline, and you deliver them in the right order, you will have success.

We will summarize the ART process, and then go back over it in a little more detail so that you have a clear picture of what we are trying to achieve.

Establish the economic value of the program

The first phase of the ART process is to establish the VALUE of the program.

This is critically important.

You won’t achieve senior management support or sustain that support unless you can express the value of the program in terms that appeal to the senior executive: safety, the environment, production output, quality, and economic value. You must, therefore, be able to speak the language of finance.

We will take you through a detailed discussion of the economics of reliability and explain a wide range of financial terms including ROI, NPV, DCF, IRR, EVA, and measures such as RONA, EBITA, and others. If you are not familiar with these terms, then this course is perfect for you.

It is essential that every resource applied to improve reliability is aligned with the goals of the business. We then explain how you can perform a “business process review” to understand the organization’s goals, constraints, risks, and opportunities.

Establish the business case

With the groundwork laid, we will begin discussing the concrete steps you can take to establish a new program or reinforce the foundations of an existing program. We will explain how to assess the current state to determine the strengths and weaknesses, evaluate the gap between current and desired performance, establish a means to measure progress, and establish the business case.

Gain credibility and start making progress

Before we present our business case we need to establish our credentials. It is also important that we begin making improvements as early as possible which has obvious benefits including that it begins the culture change process.

While assessing the current state, you can identify opportunities for improvements. We will turn those into pilot projects that will get the ball rolling and greatly assist

The following lists the topics covered on the ARP-L Reliability Program Leader training class.

• GETTING STARTED
  • The goals of “reliability improvement”
• IMPLEMENTATION
  • Why do programs fail?
  • The Asset Reliability Transformation (ART) process
• THE ECONOMICS OF RELIABILITY
  • Speaking the language of “finance”
  • Basic financial analysis techniques
• PHASE ONE: VALUE
  • Performance
    • Safety incident reductions, improving quality, profit maximization etc
  • Constraints
    • Capital, regulation, raw material availability etc
  • Risk
    • Pareto analysis
    • Asset Criticality Ranking
  • Opportunities
    • Achieving peak business performance
    • Total Effective Equipment Performance (TEEP) and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
  • Winning the support of management
• PHASE TWO: STRATEGY
  • Implementation strategy
  • Asset strategy
• THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIABILITY
  • How do people make decisions?
  • Changing behavior
• HUMAN ERROR AND HUMAN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
  • What causes human error
  • Managing human error
• CULTURE CHANGE
  • Why do we need to change the culture?
  • How do you change the culture?
• PHASE THREE: PEOPLE
  • Leadership – a key ingredient to success
  • Buying in to reliability improvement
  • Training and certification
• PHASE FOUR: CONTROL
  • Breaking out of the “reactive maintenance cycle of doom”
• PHASE FIVE: ACQUIRE
  • Project management
  • Designing for reliability
  • Acceptance testing
• PHASE SIX: DISCIPLINE
  • The CMMS/EAM
  • Documenting procedures
  • Shutdowns, turnarounds and outages
  • 5S and the visual workplace
• PHASE SEVEN: CARE
  • Basic care – lubrication and cleanliness
  • Operator-driven reliability
• PHASE EIGHT: ANALYTICS
  • Review and improve financial performance
  • Monitor KPIs
  • Condition-Based Maintenance
  • Predictive analytics
• PHASE NINE: END OF LIFE (EOL)
  • Root Cause Failure Analysis
  • Recording failure data
• PHASE TEN: OPTIMIZE
  • Continuous improvement
  • Re-assess the risks, goals, constraints and opportunities

In order to be certified you must:

• Complete a MIBoC approved training course (click here for a list of approved courses).
• Achieve 70% or higher on the exam (100 multiple choice questions, duration 3 hours).
• You must have a minimum of forty-eight (48) months of experience in the industry involved in some way with reliability improvement (including direct involvement in the reliability improvement process either as a reliability engineer or a program manager/leader), verified by an independent person.

Certification is valid for 3 years.

You can learn more about the certification process here or download our ARP Certification Guide here.

In short, you will be capable of successfully leading a reliability improvement program.

You will understand:

• How to develop the economic justification,
• How to develop and implement a strategy,
• How to build a culture of reliability and performance improvement,
• How to ensure that everyone is trained, motivated, and qualified to play their role,
• How to break out of reactive maintenance, and
• How to lead a team that will establish discipline in everything it does, which includes:
  • Caring for the equipment so their life is maximized,
  • Learning from a range of data so the best decisions can be made, and
  • Continuously improving everything that is done.

Let’s take a closer look.

The economics of reliability

Economics drives business decisions. You must be able to translate the “common-sense advantages” of reliability and performance improvement into the language and financial benefits that senior management understands. We will start the course with a detailed module that explains the language of finance, and then we will explore how you can assess how the program will add value to your business, assess your current state, develop a business case, establish pilot programs that will prove your credibility, and finally, gain support from the senior executive.

You will be able to do all of that, on your own, if this is a brand-new program. You will be able to lead this process if you need to circle back and prove the value of your existing program.

Develop the reliability improvement strategy

The Asset Reliability Transformation process provides a blueprint that will guide you through the entire process. You are therefore welcome to learn from this blueprint or adopt the blueprint. Either way, it is essential that you follow a strategy.

This course will provide sufficient detail so that you understand the core elements of a successful reliability improvement initiative and the order in which you should implement those elements. It is fair to say that there is considerable detail underlying the ART process. Not all of that detail (i.e. all of the details of the recommended practices that make up the steps that make up the phases) will be revealed during the course – we only have time to provide detailed summaries – additional training is available if you are interested.

But again, there is no doubt that you will be able to return to your facility after this course and understand what you must do to implement a successful program.

Develop the reliability culture

The most common reason why programs fail is that the reliability group attempts to control all aspects of reliability improvement with little involvement or support from others in the plant. You will learn why this will be fatal for your program. You will learn how to engage with everyone in the organization to ensure that you have complete support and that you gain their contribution.

This part of the program is supported by a module on the “Psychology of reliability”, a module called “Human error and human error management”, and a module on “Culture change”. Those modules, and the detailed module on the PEOPLE phase, will enable you to successfully gain the support of the entire organization.

Break out of the “reactive maintenance cycle of doom”

Although it is a dramatic name, the reactive maintenance cycle of doom is a major roadblock that many reliability improvement programs are unable to pass. This course will set you up with the knowledge and strategy to lead your organization, with the assistance of the maintenance manager and the management of operations/production, out of the costly and dangerous cycle where every attempt to improve reliability is thwarted by the next breakdown.

Lead the journey to “world-class” reliability improvement

While it can be difficult to define “world-class”, you will be provided with the knowledge and strategy that will enable your organization to achieve the highest level of performance thanks to improved reliability, less waste, reduced maintenance costs, and optimization of production output (or the provision of the service your organization provides).

You will know what good looks like. You will know how to achieve the highest standards in maintenance, performance, project management, procurement, and other key areas.

Prerequisites – what do I need to know before I attend?

There are no formal prerequisites for this course, and there is no requirement to complete a lower level of certification before seeking to achieve the ARP-L “Reliability Program Leader” level of certification.

Don’t I need the ARP-E Reliability Engineering training?

Many ask why it is not required to complete the ARP-E “Reliability Engineer” course before completing this course. In our opinion, there are two paths to the role of Reliability Program Leader: the traditional “technical” path and the leadership path.

The traditional technical path

The “traditional” path is to be involved with maintenance, reliability, and/or condition monitoring for some years before being promoted into the Reliability Program Leader role.

One might argue that this is the best path because the leader would have detailed knowledge about those subject areas. If that is your path, it would be expected that you have previously taken the ARP-E Reliability Engineer course when you were in the reliability engineering role.

Having said that, sometimes people who take the “technical” path to become the Reliability Program Leader can struggle to make the transition to the leadership role because they continue to focus on the technical aspects of reliability. It is absolutely essential that the Reliability Program Leader understands leadership skills, the business case, the need to develop and follow a strategy, and the need to build a reliability culture and engage with the entire workforce.

The management/leadership path

The Reliability Program Leader is expected to be a leader. This may mean that the Reliability Program Leader’s previous role would have been in another management/leadership/project management role. In that role, it is hoped they would appreciate the importance of leadership skills, economics, strategy, and culture. Therefore, they will make the transition to this role more easily.

The reliability program leader needs the support of reliability engineers

The bottom line is this, while the Reliability Program Leader will greatly benefit from having detailed reliability engineering knowledge and expertise, if they are supported by qualified reliability engineers, then they can lead this program if they have adequate knowledge of the technical aspects of maintenance, reliability engineering, and condition monitoring. The last third of this course provides that knowledge.

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We have developed a long list of Frequently Asked Questions on the ARP “Home page”. Please click the button below and scroll to the bottom of the page.

ARP Frequently Asked Questions