5 Questions With Brad Markert, CMRP

MADISON, Wis.—Brad Markert, maintenance planner for Bemis in Appleton, Wis., recently took some time to chat with UW-Madison about what he learned in the Maintenance Management Certificate (MMC) program. Markert is a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP), a designation he earned after completing “Implementing a Reliability Centered Maintenance Program” and an exam at UW-Madison. The exam was created by the course instructor, Ramesh (one of the contributors who developed the test) Gulati, and is part of the course. The designation is recognized by the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals and is recognized worldwide as an indication that individuals earning this certification understand the key pillars of reliability and can implement them. To earn the MMC, students must complete five courses at UW-Madison or online. The MMC helps maintenance professionals streamline their processes and improve their programs. More than 200 professionals have earned the MMC. UW: How has the CMRP (and MMC courses) helped you in your daily work? BM: After each class I have taken, no matter what your experience level, I have always come away with techniques and practices to apply to my company’s needs and situation. I think this would apply to any of the students. For day to day tasks, the classes have helped me schedule work effectively. Doing the little things more efficiently day to day shows in the long term goals and KPIs. UW: What can you do differently on the job now that you’ve received training? BM: I believe I do the same things daily; I just do them better now. Many times there are different ways of doing the same thing and taking the courses have shown me better ways of completing them. Not only through the instructors training but through other students’ examples of what problems they have faced and what they have done differently to resolve them or complete tasks. UW: What was the most important/helpful thing you learned? BM: It would be hard to pick one thing that has helped me the most with all of the different areas I deal with but I guess selling, collaborating and implementing maintenance programs with management and the production side of the business to accomplish their goals through good maintenance programs. I believe everyone now understands the success of the business is a team effort and planned maintenance is necessary to keep things profitable. UW: What’s a day on the job like for you? BM: As a maintenance planner, my day starts early trying to get everything planned and scheduled before everyone else’s day starts. Once that is done there are always changes throughout the day. Sometimes rescheduling for any opportunities to get equipment that wasn’t planned. The rest of the day is spent trying to optimize our PMs whenever there is time. This can be hard to do with many of the daily tasks such as ordering parts and services, receiving in invoiced parts and services, maintaining a CMMS, running reports and reporting KPIs, and communicating with production planning and manager on machine schedules vs preventative maintenance schedules. Much of my time is taken up scheduling contractors and making sure our regulated inspections and testing are done on time. That is a small snapshot of many of the things that come up daily. UW: Where do you see yourself in five years? BM: I would like to continue my education including the maintenance management programs. I would like to pursue a career as a maintenance or facilities manager. For more information about the Maintenance Management Certificate program, fill out the form below.