March 11, 2012 by American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (formerly NPRA)—2012 Reliability and Maintenance Conference and Exhibition in San Antonio, Texas, May 22nd – May 25th, 2012 Bethesda, Maryland, March 2012 — Asset Performance Networks will be exhibiting at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) 2012 Reliability and Maintenance Conference in May 2012. AFPM is a trade association which represents high-tech American manufacturers of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other fuels. AFPM also represents the petrochemicals industry, which produces thousands of vital products used in very day life. For more information, go to www.afpm.org The Reliability and Maintenance Conference focuses on improving reliability in the refining and petrochemical industry. The conference covers topics such as: effective maintenance organization, productivity, equipment reliability, safety and mechanical integrity, training, environmental control, preventive maintenance, maintenance and engineering standards, inspection, procurement, and innovative reliability technology. For more information please click here. At the conference, Houston-based AP-Networks Senior Consultant Pete Shirley will be presenting a paper entitled “Turnaround Excellence Through Organizational Transformation”. In this paper, Pete discusses how organizations with best-practice processes, procedures, tools, and structures often inadvertently undermine their transition toward high performance. Key detractors to turnaround success can involve: implicit goals that directly conflict with explicit goals, hidden dysfunctional reward systems, ambiguous priorities, strict deadlines, ineffective communications, and the inability of site to identify and correct these problems “real time”. Pete’s paper discusses (with real life examples) some of the more subtle cultural conditions which can negatively influence a team’s performance. The paper also provides some examples of tools that have been effectively used to steer teams back to success.