As an instructor/facilitator for the Reliabilityweb.com Certified Maintenance Manager (CMM) workshops, I often get asked about what is most important to study, or the best way to study the CMM Body of Knowledge (BoK) to enable passing the CMM examination. The first qualifier to my advice is that I am not aware of the content of the CMM examination and am not allowed to participate in the exam question development process. The examination is completely managed by the Association of Asset Management Professionals (AMP) and they do not reveal the content of the examinations at all in order to ensure the credibility of the certification. I do know what is in the BoK and the course content I deliver several times a year.
There is a lot of material in the BoK including the three Strategic Maintenance Management series books and three additional books that provide some supplemental material alongside the online Workshop Study System. The most comprehensive of the three additional books is “The 10 Rights of Asset Management” by Ramesh Gulati and Terrence O’Hanlon. It deserves a look as it represents the foundation of the Reliabilityweb.com philosophy towards asset management in many ways and is a great primer on asset lifecycle management. Given the amount of material in the BoK, I have developed what I think is my “best answer” to this question of how to study the BoK in preparation for the course and/or the exam.
The best method of studying for this course and exam is to focus on what you don’t know. Most of the people attending this course have at least some background in maintenance, MRO, planning and scheduling, or some other asset-management related position, maybe even an IT support position that focuses on the CMMS the maintenance team uses. In all these cases, the individuals attending the course have some knowledge of the topics covered in the 18 modules of the course. Identify what knowledge you already have and block those areas out to take a “pass” on initially. Focus your attention on the areas that you have very little to no knowledge of to help “round out” your awareness to the broader base required of a maintenance manager.
Once you have broadened your base knowledge, you can then focus on areas that may be specifically applicable to your current skillset to gain mastery. You can also focus on additional areas to master depending on how well your study goes, and how much time you have available and allocate to studying. In a time crunch, focus on what you don’t know first to broaden that base.
If you allocate your time effectively and focus your studies to first broaden, and later deepen your base of knowledge, you should be quite successful in learning and applying the concepts encapsulated in the 18 modules of the CMM training course. If you have questions, please reach out to me on LinkedIn to connect at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmeehancmrpcrl.
