MEETA was created more than 35 years ago, as an amalgamation of the National Maintenance Association (NMA) and the Energy Management Association, as well as incorporating the technology of environment protection. MEETA stands for Maintenance, Energy and Environment Technology Association.
In the 1990s, MEETA engaged with the then Institution of Engineers of Ireland and became a society. This relationship has prospered and now MEETA is an established Engineers Ireland Society.
Drive real improvements
Our operating model is to promote asset management, maintenance and reliability best practices and knowledge; to help drive real improvements in the Irish industrial setting. Our national committee comprises members from various sectors of industry and service providers, each with a unique perspective on asset management.
Our key focus area is improving and sharing best practices. We combine a virtual and face-to-face approach through a series of asset management events, including site visits. Our national conference and awards ceremony are held annually in November each year.
We also promote asset management education and work closely with third level institutions to ensure the next generation of asset managers are catered for, too. At our 2021 AGM, we adopted our name to ‘MEETA Asset Management’, to help with brand recognition and promotion.
As a committee we had big plans for 2020, but these became somewhat derailed by the Covid crisis and some of our initiatives didn’t kick off until Q4. The biggest success for us last year was our virtual national conference and winter series of webinars.
We had to adapt quickly to the current world we find ourselves in. We have started into 2021 with a spring series of reliability webinars – seven to date – with more planned throughout the remainder of the year.
Topics covered
Attendance at these one-hour evening events has been on average about 80 people We are delighted that people are interested in talking about reliability and asset management. The topics we have covered so far are:
- Lubrication and oil sampling;
- Corrosion management;
- Operational excellence and life-cycle management;
- Overall Equipment Effectiveness – OEE;
- Wireless technologies and effective maintenance;
- Biotech soft parts management;
- A day in the life of a maintenance person – coping with and reducing emergencies.
Last year we had a lot of discussion on our identity, our brand recognition and our name. We felt MEETA was not easily recognisable with what we are trying to do – promote and encourage debate in asset management – so we looked at changing the name.
Ultimately though we felt existing members had a real affinity to MEETA as it was a name well known in our own circles; so we decided to adapt the MEETA name to MEETA Asset Management and this proposal was formally adopted by Council at the March 2021 meeting.
National Conference 2021 being held in November
Our flagship event has always been based around our national conference in November, site visits and evening presentations.
To adapt to Covid, we now offer virtual webinars, site visits are suspended and we plan on this year’s 2021 National Conference being virtual. If possible, we would love to have a face-to-face national conference this year, but it is far too early to know how this may evolve.
I would encourage you – even if you have a passing interest in asset management – to select ‘MEETA Asset Management’ in your preferences in your member profile, as you may see some event you wish to attend or join us in our asset management conversations.
We also have an active LinkedIn page and we use it for communications on our activities. I would encourage you to visit it and keep an eye out for upcoming events. Please tag us today. linkedin.com/in/meeta-asset-management-462669168
Author: Jim Kelly, chair, MEETA Asset Management
