71st Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium
Hilton Sandestin Beach Resort | Miramar Beach | FL, USA
January 27-30, 2025
As the General Chair of RAMS 2025, it is my honor to welcome you to the 71st Annual Reliability and Maintainability Symposium. RAMS® is proudly sponsored by eight professional societies dedicated to advancing reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety. This symposium is entirely managed and organized by a passionate team of volunteers from the sponsoring societies. Throughout the year, these volunteers work tirelessly to create a symposium that provides a unique and enriching experience across the entire spectrum of the RAMS body of knowledge. Attendees will benefit from engaging tutorials, insightful technical papers, expert panel discussions, inspiring keynote and banquet speakers, and ample opportunities for networking and collaboration with other professionals.
This year’s theme, “R&M in the Era of AI,” highlights the critical role of R&M in ensuring the seamless integration and sustained functionality of AI systems. By employing rigorous testing methodologies, predictive analytics, and continuous monitoring, reliability practices mitigate risks associated with AI system failures, fostering trust and dependability. Maintainability efforts focus on developing robust frameworks to identify and resolve issues efficiently, enhancing the longevity and adaptability of AI technologies. As AI evolves rapidly, R&M becomes indispensable in addressing the challenges of deployment and contributes to creating resilient, efficient, and sustainable AI ecosystems.
Dr. Mirela Gavrilas is the Executive Director for Operations of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The EDO position is the highest-ranking NRC career position with responsibilities for overseeing the agency’s operational and administrative functions and serving as the chief operating officer.
While at the NRC, she has led efforts to review the construction permit for a first of a kind medical isotope production facility, develop the Agency’s accident tolerant fuel plan, modernize workload management processes and metrics, and address risks and hazards associated with complex regulatory topics. Dr. Gavrilas also has experience in international cooperation in severe accident phenomenology, risk assessment, and fuels and safety analysis methods. Before she moved to her current role in 2024, she was the director of the NRC’s office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response.
Dr. Gavrilas has been the head of NSIR since 2020, where she has been responsible for developing and implementing security and emergency preparedness policy. Since becoming a senior executive in 2014, she has held management positions for research and test reactors, risk assessment and reactor systems in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
Until his recent retirement, Dr. Thomas Wellock was the historian at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). He is the author of Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk (March 2021) published by the University of California Press. He has published two other books, as well as numerous articles on the history of nuclear power and environmentalism.
Prior to joining the NRC, he was a professor of U.S. history at Central Washington University, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He also worked as a reactor test engineer at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, CT and a systems engineer at the Davis-Besse nuclear power station near Toledo, OH.
Program Matrix
Why RAMS?
Expertise
RAMS brings together top Reliability and Maintainability experts from industry, academia, and the U.S. Government to discuss a wide range of R&M topics.
Collaboration
RAMS fosters stronger partnerships between government and industry leaders by uniting producers and consumers of reliable and maintainable products to discuss key R&M topics.
Improvement
RAMS provides training tutorials, certification exams, and networking opportunities to enhance the skills and credentials of reliability engineers.
RAMS CLASSROOM
This full-day course is designed for reliability engineers and professionals looking to enhance their skills with cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence tools. The course will cover key machine learning concepts and focus on two main techniques: tree-based methods (including decision trees and random forests) and neural network-based methods (such as CNNs, RNNs, and LSTMs). Attendees will learn how to apply these techniques using no-code tools like Tabula, making it accessible even for those without formal programming training.
This training session, brought to you by IEST and RAMS, delves into environmental stress testing methodologies and the fundamentals of reliability engineering. Participants will explore how to design and execute tests to simulate real-world operating conditions (i.e. vibration, temperature and humidity), accelerate life tests, and predict product failures. This course aims to equip engineers and quality professionals with essential knowledge and practical skills in understanding, planning, and executing various types of environmental tests to meet reliability targets.
RAMS 2024 Corporate Patron
