Fifty-nine members of the reliability and maintenance community became Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (CMRP) last month when they passed the comprehensive examination given by the SMRP Certifying Organization at the Ninth Annual Conference of the Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP).

The examination is designed to validate the examinee's skills and knowledge in five interrelated work processes: Equipment reliability, manufacturing process reliability, work management, business and management, and people.

Individuals who pass the test and agree to abide by certain guidelines for professional conduct become certified and can proudly add the initials CMRP after their names. They have the right to a large measure of personal pride because their proficiency in maintenance and reliability management is at a professional level certified by their peers as represented by SMRPCO.

Because I participated in the development of the examination, I was not eligible to obtain certification by examination. However, through SMRPCO "grandfather" provisions, I can use CMRP in my byline, and I am proud to do so. Not having sat for the examination, my sense of pride is different from those who did. I feel proud to have the privilege of working with SMRPCO in the development of the CMRP process.

In my estimation, the person deserving the greatest sense of pride in CMRP is Brad Peterson, a fellow founding member of SMRP. Without his vision, leadership, sense of purpose, and years of hard work as chairman of the committee, there would be no CMRP. His insistence on rigorous process development and excellence of execution was essential to making CMRP unique in several ways:

• Independence: SMRPCO is a practitioner-based organization without ties to any commercial venture.
• Body of knowledge: SMRPCO recognizes management and manufacturing skills as well as the technical aspects of maintenance and reliability.
• Validation: SMRPCO validated each step of the process with input from a broad cross section of the maintenance and reliability community.
• Certified process: SMRPCO work was conducted according to National Organization of Competency Assurance guidelines with the intent to have the process certified by that organization.
• Continued enhancement: SMRPCO has a plan to continue to enhance the value of certification to practitioners who have become certified.

I believe SMRPCO's CMRP is a profession milestone in which all present and future participants can take pride. MT