Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1148092
38 | July - August 2019 | www . machinerylubrication.com ICML Award Winners to Be Announced at Machinery Lubrication 2019 4 Things to Remember 1. Any company can apply for an ICML award regardless of its involvement with ICML. 2. Nominations must come from the field. 3. The extended submission dead- line for the 2018 awards is Aug. 31, 2019. 4. Winners will be announced at the Machinery Lubri- cation Conference & Exhibition in November. Paul Hiller | ICML TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION Once upon a time, a main- tenance and reliability manager was reviewing reports that showed his plant's recent progress on the production f loor. Machinery downtime was down, and uptime was up. He was fully aware these numbers correlated with practical changes his team had implemented in lubrication methods over the last year or so. Not coincidentally, his mainte- nance expenses were down, too. He thought about his shift crews and how they were looking more relaxed and, frankly, a little more excited about their routines. He leaned back and picked up his coff ee, satisfi ed that it was going to be another good day. At that same moment, his eyes glanced across an industry news feed where a headline about a competing company caught his eye. "What is that?" he wondered aloud, as he leaned in closer. "What is a Battle Award?" As he read more, he realized that he and his competitor were both making gains with their lubrication programs, but there was one notable diff erence: his competitor had been recognized with an industry award while his own plant had not. " at's not right," he thought. "What did we miss?" You Can't Win If You Don't Enter Since 2001, the International Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML) has recognized many plants and programs with two prestigious awards: the Augustus H. Gill Award for oil analysis excellence and the John R. Battle Award for lubrication excellence. ese awards have supported ICML's mission to facilitate growth and develop- ment of machine lubrication as a technical fi eld of endeavor. ey also create a means to share best practices among user organizations on a global scale while recognizing role models for benchmarking of performance standards. However, a company must nomi- nate its own successful plant-level program — or have a consultant or service provider nominate a client — by completing the application form on the ICML website. Because ICML is a vendor-neutral body, it can only encourage plants to partic- ipate but cannot nominate them. Of course, some companies might be hesitant to nominate themselves or their customers unless they understand the positive impacts of competition and success. ere- fore, in 2018 Machinery Lubrication published an article that described the benefits of pursuing and/or winning either award. For instance, at the industry level, competition in the pursuit of excellence in turn can increase overall excellence across the board. At the plant level, winning an industry award can impress customers and prospects, thus improving revenue potential while also communicating to internal teams that management is serious about achieving machine reli- ability through quality lubrication and L u b r i c a t i o n P r o g ra m s