"Managers Are Starting To Loosen Budgets As Optimism Grows.” That is the headline on Carol Hymowitz’s column “In the Lead” in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal. “After a long stretch of gloom, executives at big and small companies are beginning the year with renewed optimism,” she says. “The renewed optimism of executives also is evident in their increased willingness to spend again…,” she continues.

If that is the case, put your bid in now for some of those funds to invest in sending additional people to the Maintenance & Reliability Technology Summit (MARTS) scheduled for May 24-27, 2004 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont (Chicago), IL. The conference, technical exhibits, and workshops will be a worthy investment with fast payback.

The event, being sponsored by Maintenance Technology and ReliabilityWeb.com, will be unique. It has been designed from the ground up to provide a comprehensive training, educational, and professional development opportunity for maintenance and reliability technicians, engineers, supervisors, and managers in all industries and major facilities.

Learning opportunities are being presented in three focus areas: maintenance, reliability, and technology. Sessions, with several speakers each and running from 90 min to more than half a day, will cover a variety of topics, including work management, maintenance metrics, root cause analysis, spare parts management, benchmarking, and reliability centered maintenance and its variants and derivatives.

Leading experts have signed on to conduct day-long pre- and postconference workshops.

One of the highlights of the event is expected to be the Journey To Maintenance and Reliability Excellence bonus track. Three major companies— Bristol Meyer Squibb, Cargill, and the United States Postal Service—will be taking a half-day or more to share their experiences on the never-ending journey of improving maintenance and reliability practices in their plants around the nation and around the world. Each company will bring a number of practitioners to present their hands-on views of the process.

To learn more about the MARTS conference, workshops, and technical exhibits, visit the event web site www.MARTSconference.com. We know you will see the value in this unique event. MT