STLE’s 2020-2023 Strategic Plan
Paul Hetherington | TLT President's Report October 2020
The society adopts new vision to support strategic goals for the next three years.
Under each domain, we have established several objectives and specific strategies to accomplish the particular goals.
In early August, the STLE Board of Directors approved the revised STLE Strategic Plan for 2020-2023. This was a culmination of many months of hard work by the Board of Directors and Executive Committee that was initiated by Immediate Past President Mike Duncan during his term last year. Developing good solid strategic plans for any organization is no easy task, and this process was not much different. In the end, though, I am proud of the work that everyone put into this, and I think we have a fantastic document to guide us on our journey for the next three years. The momentum that we gained as an organization from the previous two strategic plans was definitely the motivation that we needed to ensure that we set up the society for the best path forward.
First, I think it is important to state that not everything changed from previous versions. As much as we tried sometimes to fiddle with the mission statement (normal human nature, of course), we ultimately found ourselves satisfied with the previous one. And the truth is, the society’s mission shouldn’t be changing every three years either.
Mission Statement: To advance the science of tribology and the practice of lubrication engineering in order to foster innovation, improve the performance of equipment and products, conserve resources and protect the environment.
Note: This mission statement dates back about 20 years. STLE recognized its connection to sustainability at that time and continues to support our members’ work toward that goal.
However, after quite a bit of debating, soul searching and discussion, one item that did change significantly was our vision. Our old vision was actually quite lengthy.
Old Vision: To be a leader in the global network of individuals, institutions, societies and corporate entities with a common interest in advancing the science of tribology and the practice of lubrication engineering.
It wasn’t necessarily a bad vision, but it actually felt like a bit of a repeat of the mission statement but just in different words. As I said after a lot of soul searching, we actually landed on a very short, sweet but relatively all-inclusive vision of the society as a whole.
New Vision: Perfecting Motion.
Kind of a funny story on how that evolved. After a lengthy Executive Committee meeting, where we were again regurgitating several wordy vision statements, STLE Executive Director Ed Salek asked STLE Secretary Ryan Evans to summarize what he was saying in one word. Ryan responded with the term “motion,” which eventually led us to the phrase “Perfecting Motion.” In the end, we believe this is a fairly all-inclusive representation of what our members are focusing on. Whether we are talking about tribology in hip joints or lubrication of all components in the family car, it is generally all about perfecting motion.
The 2020-2023 STLE Strategic Plan is laid out with the following key areas:
Purpose, Mission, Vision, Domains (four) and Key Goals, Objectives, Strategies and finally
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track our progress.
The key pillars of our strategic plan focus around the four domains: (1.) Professional Development, (2.) Technology and Innovation, (3.) Communications and Advocacy and (4.) Organizational Excellence.
For
Professional Development, it is all about preparing the profession for the future. This is highlighted by the need to train a new generation of technical staff to replace the large number of skilled and experienced individuals on track to retire in the next few years.
Technology and Innovation highlights our role as a forum for global collaboration recognizing the enormous economic and commercial impact that improvements in tribology can have on the future and sustainability of the world.
Communications and Advocacy focuses on promoting our profession to a wider global audience so that others can recognize and provide research funding that reflect the value that tribology and lubrication engineering brings to advancements in technology.
And, of course, last but not least,
Organizational Excellence is about ensuring that we continue to build a stronger society for our members, which we can only accomplish if we operate effectively, efficiently and intentionally.
Under each domain, we have established several objectives and specific strategies to accomplish the particular goals. Although the goals and domains should be fairly set for the life of the STLE Strategic Plan, it doesn’t mean that the objectives and strategies won’t need some refining as time goes on. The first half of 2020 is a good example of where outside events might require a need to revise and/or create a new objective or strategy at some point in the future.
In the end, I am proud of our organization for developing this latest version of our strategic plan and personally look forward to seeing where we can take our amazing society. If you are interested in reading the entire plan, you can find it on STLE’s website at
www.stle.org/strategicplan.
Paul Hetherington is manager technical services for Petro-Canada Lubricants in Peachland, British Columbia, Canada. You can reach him at paul.hetherington@hollyfrontier.com.