Engineering Reliability. Leading Performance. Delivering Results.
I’ve been thinking lately about how much time we spend looking at maintenance KPIs in manufacturing. We track preventive maintenance completion, equipment breakdowns, MTBF, MTTR, OEE, maintenance costs, schedule compliance, and just about anything else… Read more about Are We Improving Our KPIs or Actually Improving Performance?
I’ve been thinking lately about human error in root cause analysis (RCA), and whether we sometimes stop our investigations a little too early. There’s a growing argument that it shouldn’t. And I understand why. We’ve… Read more about Is Human Error Really a Root Cause? Maybe We’re Asking the Wrong Question
Have you ever stopped for a moment to watch a bee moving from flower to flower? It’s such an ordinary sight that we rarely give it much thought. But when you think about what goes… Read more about What Bees Can Teach Us About Maintenance and Leadership
A Database Is Only as Smart as the Information We Give It One of the biggest surprises I’ve had over the years is how much money organizations spend collecting maintenance data, only to discover years… Read more about Garbage In, Garbage Out: Why Your Maintenance Database Is Only as Good as Its Data
Every Minute of Production Starts Somewhere Walk through almost any manufacturing plant and ask one simple question: ‘What is the purpose of the maintenance department?’ Most people answer almost immediately. They’ll say it’s there to… Read more about Maintenance Is Not a Cost Center, It’s a Capacity Creator
When Experience Walks Out the Door For decades, factories have depended heavily on human memory. Think about the experienced operator who remembers how the line behaved before a major failure, the electrician who knows which… Read more about The Future Factory Will Remember Everything
The Question That Changes Everything Every time something goes wrong in a plant, the same question usually comes up. Who is responsible? It’s a natural reaction. We want answers. We want accountability. Most importantly, we… Read more about Learn From Failure: The Most Important Question After Any Breakdown
More Than a Repair Department Walk into a great maintenance shop and you’ll notice something interesting almost immediately. Yes, you’ll see tools, work orders, technicians moving between jobs, and teams responding to the daily demands… Read more about Maintenance Learning Culture: Why Great Shops Teach
For many years, maintenance success in manufacturing was measured by one simple question: How fast can you get the machine running again? At one time, that mindset made perfect sense. Production stops were visible, expensive,… Read more about Improving Reliability: Why Fixing Equipment Isn’t Enough
The Repair Was Never the Problem Imagine a simple equipment failure. A sensor fails. A motor overload trips. A conveyor stops moving. None of these issues are particularly complicated. An experienced technician could diagnose and… Read more about The 15-Minute Repair That Cost 8 Hours
