Practical Reliability

Tate is an industry veteran, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the world of Reliability and Maintenance. He has been a driving force behind Spudnik's success, leading their maintenance department to new heights and ensuring the smooth and efficient operations of their machinery.

Join us for an incredible new episode of Practical Reliability featuring our special guest, Bryan Bieschke! Bryan is a Maintenance & Reliability Leader at Bowery Farming and the owner of Align Machine Company. He's a true expert when it comes to maximizing machine availability and improving operational efficiency. In this episode, our host George sits down with Bryan to delve into the importance of achieving machine availability and how operational changes can solve a multitude of problems. From electrical troubleshooting to innovative techniques, this conversation is packed with valuable insights! 💡

Join us as we explore the limitless possibilities of AI, AR, and VR, and their transformative impact on making manufacturing processes better and more efficient. Our special guest for this episode is none other than Markus Rimmele, the visionary Founder of DigitalituM.

💡 DigitalituM is a leading provider of cutting-edge digitalization tools for the manufacturing sector. With their expertise and dedication, they empower businesses to embrace the potential of AI, AR, and VR to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and boost overall reliability.

We have a very special guest, Cody Jackson, the owner of EffectivePdM, who will be sharing valuable insights on how to avoid costly unplanned downtime, eliminate electrical hazards, and transform your facilities into streamlined profitability machines through executing PdM inspections. 🛠️ Tune in now to learn more! 

Steve is an experienced Maintenance & Reliability professional with experience in organizational leadership, project development, & change management. He is the host of the podcast "Fire Forged Leader".  Fire Forged Leader serves it's listeners by exploring leadership lessons while talking to successful leaders in all areas of life. Check it out on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fire-forged-leader/id1621708130

Founder & CEO at UptimeAI

Passionate entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in leading cross-functional teams to deliver enterprise software and connected devices with hardware, software, and cloud analytics; Proven track record of developing 4+ ideas from concept to product launch with fail fast philosophy generating $150MM revenues.

Experienced in managing teams in all aspects of the product life-cycle including market analysis, product strategy, R&D initiatives, driving product requirements through rapid prototyping, regulatory compliance, and go-to-market with marketing, sales, and partners.

Currently, a Director of Strategic Asset Management within their Professional Services Division at Brightly Software. Scott has 30+ years of enterprise strategic asset management experience in operational and general management, technology deployment and program management. Throughout his career, Scott has focused on the use of technology and process development to provide real value in multiple industry verticals. That focus means creating an objective, data-driven communication link between the technicians, engineers, facilities management teams, PDC teams, and the C-suite leadership where the capital investment decisions are made.

George Williams and Ramesh Gulati discuss Industry 4.0! 

How do we measure the planning and scheduling process? George Williams and Ramesh Gulati dive deeper into why we do so in the Reliability field. 

Why should we measure maintenance and reliability? George Williams and Ramesh Gulati explore the reasons behind measuring. 

George Williams and Ramesh Gulati discuss who should be a planner and why! 

George Williams and Ramesh Gulati discuss Planned Work! Have any questions for the Reliability Sherpa? Submit them at ask@reliabilityx.com

Ronaldo Sullivan has over 25 years’ experience in the condition monitoring field.  He has focused on precision laser alignments and vibration analysis for most of that time. Mr. Sullivan is the Brand and Distribution Manager for the X-Series™ Shaft Alignment Lasers (Hamar Laser Instruments Inc.). He started his career as a field service engineer with Carrier Air Conditioning. Mr. Sullivan has extensive and varied field service experience such as large HVAC system troubleshooting, vibration analysis, dynamic balancing and laser alignments. He spent 15 years at VibrAlign, inc. serving a diverse customer base with laser alignment equipment and services. Fluent in Spanish (he was born in Panama), as a Regional Manager for Commtest, he traveled extensively throughout Latin America.  While serving as Director of International Sales for Azima DLI, he covered Australia as well as Latin America. Mr. Sullivan received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

George Williams and Ramesh Gulati talk about PM Optimization! Have any questions for the Reliability Sherpa? Submit them at ask@reliabilityx.com

Sunil Kamerkar is the Principal at Asset Analytix Inc.

Site Manager & General Maintenance Manager at Doe Run

Author, Speaker, Coach & Founder: 2 Distinct Leadership Development brands

Associate Director, Maintenance Strategy & Planning University of Delaware CRL, CEFP, CMRP

CEO of Banetti

Reliability Professional at Allied Reliability Group

VP Global EAM Strategy at Hexagon PPM, Technical Product Evangelist

Global Vice President, Product & Industry Marketing at Accruent

Operations Director, Reliability & Asset Management at JLL

CEO at RDI Technologies Inc.

Ed Stanek is the COO of Asset Analytix
Sean Mullen Global Plant Engineering and Operation Effectiveness Leader at 3M 

Principal at Allied Reliability Group

Chris is a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP) through the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) and served as SMRP’s M&RK Body of Knowledge Committee Chair from 2010 through 2014 and is currently serving on the Best Practices Committee. Chris joined Allied Reliability in January of 2006 because he shared Allied’s passion for Maintenance and Reliability. Chris is the co-author of the book “Clean, Green, & Reliable – How equipment reliability delivers low cost, energy efficient assets to plants around the world”. As Director of Operations, he is responsible for continuously improving and expanding Allied’s capabilities and offerings to provide additional value to their customers.

Chris has over 16 years of experience across industries including primary metals, mining, food & beverage, power generation, pulp and paper, automotive, and pharmaceutical. Primarily, his focus has been in engineering, reliability, design, maintainability, and energy management. He understands the challenges that companies face and has a tremendous ability to design innovative solutions that work for them. Besides expert skills and a strong drive to succeed, he makes improving asset health an enjoyable venture. Chris’s exceptional abilities in these areas have set him apart and he is considered among his peers to be a trusted resource in this field.

Beyond Chris’s contributions as a consultant and director, he has taught and spoke at numerous seminars/conferences and written multiple articles to help educate thousands of engineers and maintenance personnel worldwide on Maintenance & Reliability and Energy Management best practices.

Specialties: Management, Reliability Centered Maintenance, Power Quality Analysis, Infrared Thermography, Motor Circuit Analysis, Industrial Controls, and Energy Efficiency.

Blair Fraser is a technology evangelist with a natural curiosity to think differently and challenge current thinking. He is Director of Global IIoT Solutions for UE Systems and the co-founder and advisor to many companies in the technology space.

Blair is a passionate reliability and operational excellence professional with over 20 years of experience in designing, commissioning, maintaining and improving manufacturing equipment and processes for the manufacturing industry. A Certified Reliability Leader (CRL) and Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP), Blair has dedicated his career to combining sound reliability principles and processes with the latest technology to improve asset performance and uptime for customers across the globe

CEO of The Little Potato Company Ltd.

AJ Alexander is the Co-Founder and CRO of SORBA.ai

Dr. Karl Hoffower is an Executive Director delivering Asset Management and Reliability focused solutions using a team approach to improvement and optimization. Reliability is a philosophy, not a department like Maintenance. Focused on helping all facets of a business contribute to a reliability focused philosophy. IOT and PdM solutions architect and program manager with experience in large scale (21 plant) reliability improvement projects. Experienced & certified in most common Predictive Maintenance (PdM) as well as success with an IIOT approach to Condition-based Monitoring (CBM). Over a decade of experience Implementing and managing teams of certified analysts for onsite and remote CBM/PdM programs, PdM tool and system sales. Personally delivered over 70 certification training and a few hundred process improvement projects.

Paul Daoust thinks for a living with over 25 years of international experience in asset management and operational excellence in the energy sector as a team leader and lead practitioner in a corporate center, industrial site and remote work locations.

As the founder of Scio Asset Management, Paul is declaring war on mediocrity and providing supportive leadership to progressive operational leaders to make more, better decisions to stop value leakage in their organizations through learning, coaching, advising services and management platform solutions.

Paul is a leading international advocate for asset management practices for industrial and infrastructure asset-owning organizations.

Specializing in asset management leadership, asset strategy & planning, operational risk management, asset performance management, asset investment planning, maintenance & reliability management, competency management, and organizational change management.

George is a reliability leader who discovered his passion in this realm when he wanted to discover a better way to improve overall operations as a new production supervisor right out of college. Since then he has spent a large portion of his career working for a few large food and beverage organizations where he has driven fundamental improvement in foundational maintenance and reliability practices through connecting people and processes.  With a strong passion to always excel with cross functional teams, he has strived to challenge the status quo to help the organization address gaps through a strategic and organized fashion. George realized early in his career that genuine leadership allows us all to be successful in the day to day work we do, to not only empower ourselves but others to reach the goals of the organization. From implementing CMMS systems to developing technical training programs for new engineers to working with senior leaders in developing reliability strategy, George loves working with people and leading strategic change. George is currently responsible for leading a new the global asset management programs for Facebook data center operations. Outside of work, George loves traveling around the world with his wife Daysi and is a San Francisco Bay Area sports fanatic. George received his Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering from SF State University and a double Masters in Engineering and Business from San Jose State University.

Thomas Wilk is the award-winning chief editor of Plant Services, a Putman Media publication that focuses on smart solutions for maintenance and reliability. Tom joined the Putman editorial team in 2014, and previously was Content Strategist / Mobile Media Manager at Panduit, breaking new ground for that company in the areas of digital content strategy and mobile app development. Tom holds a BA from the University of Illinois and an MA from Ohio State University, and is an avid hiker and runner. He may be reached at twilk@putman.net.

The average age of hundreds of thousands of maintenance people across the globe is over 50 years old.  Many have already started to retire, leaving empty maintenance positions behind. Companies are having a challenge in finding qualified workers to fill vacancies. With no one to fix broken pipes, frayed wires and brittle levies, modern nations are finding themselves in what Joel Leonard has coined, “The Maintenance Crisis.” 

A former vice-president of the Association of Facilities Engineers, he is taking an international lead in identifying, explaining and helping solve the problem. His creative strategies to build awareness have included holding job fairs specific to the maintenance industry, writing articles, addressing major conventions to high school classes, writing songs, developing an on-line TV network and writing books. As a result of his efforts, he has been appointed to the United States Council on Competitiveness, a national think-tank whose purpose is to work with Capitol Hill and the White House to create policy that results in legislation. Internationally, corporate and governmental leaders are seeking his advice. He has been interviewed on National Public Radio and CNBC.

Working with Chicago-based Putman Media, Inc., a publisher of nine trade magazines, Joel has been writing a column for Plant Services Magazine for the past five years. The 80,000 readers have followed Joel’s work onto the Internet, where, in 2007, Joel founded SkillTV.net, the first on-line television network dedicated to helping build awareness of and solve the “Maintenance Crisis.” Programming includes interviews with congressional leaders, Fortune 500 CEOs, educators and governmental leaders. 

In 2008, Joel received the Gold Award for his articles in Plant Services Magazine from the American Society of Business Publications Editors. He has presented and been the keynote speaker of national and international conventions since 1998. In 2008, he was the first American to address the EuroMaintenance Conference in Belgium, a meeting attended by governmental and corporate leaders from 51 nations. His songs, “The Maintenance Crisis” and “Find Me a Maintenance Woman,” have been played on National Public Radio and downloaded more than 40,000 times. They are often played at major conventions. 

For helping set up The Forge, a Greensboro Makerspace that helped set up over 16 new companies, 9 patents applied and over 50 people hired, the City of Greensboro recognized Joel with the Game Changer Award. Also Joel was invited to the Whitehouse to share strategies to grow the makerspaces nation-wide. In 2018 Joel met with over 60 makerspaces and visited over 35 states to grow the Maker Movement. 

He also connected the City of Flint with Unifi Corporation to recycle 24 million water bottles into clothing. .  Joel has trained engineers from manufacturing plants around the world including Goodyear, Goodrich, Michelin and other major manufacturers. Goodyear Fayetteville Plant was able to receive over 3 million in cost saving by implementing suggested predictive maintenance technologies. 

In 2021to address post covid challenges,  Joel launched a mobile makerspace to take education to rural and underserved communities. As a result, the Governor of North Carolina inducted Joel into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine and flew a NC flag over the state capitol. 

Preston Rubottom is the Director of Lubrication Reliability Solutions at Lubrication Engineers, Inc. Experienced maintenance professional with an extensive background in hands on equipment repair, root cause failure analysis and preventive maintenance strategies. Demonstrated history of working in heavy manufacturing of aircraft and aircraft component industry. Skilled in Reliability Centered Maintenance, Engineering, Facilities Maintenance Management, Advanced Hydraulic Technology.

Roy Huff is the VP of The Snell Group. He's an experienced Vice President with a demonstrated history of working in the professional training & consulting industry. Skilled in Aerospace NDT, Power Generation, Petrochemical, CBM, RCM, FMEA. Strong professional with a Bachelor of Science (BS) focused in Electrical Engineering from University of Missouri-Columbia! ASNT Level 3 Certificate #81115 T/IR, CMRP, NAS410 Level 3 TIR.

Suzane Greeman is the President and Principal Asset Management Advisor of Greeman Asset Management Solutions, a firm headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She is a senior asset management consultant and instructor in North America with over 23 years of experience, working with clients who manage assets in excess of $75 Billion in value.

She has worked across several asset management disciplines to implement asset management strategies for cement manufacturing, power generation, wastewater treatment, airport, and maritime transportation assets. Suzane has had an eclectic career journey that includes HR Business Partner, Asset Manager, Capital Project and Program Manager, and Maintenance Manager.

A lifelong learner, Suzane holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree as well as an MBA. She also holds the following certifications: Asset Management Diploma (IAM), Certified Manager of Quality & Organizational Excellence (ASQ-CMQ/OE); Certified Asset Management Assessor (CAMA); Certified Asset Management Professional (CAMP); and Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP).

Suzane is a member of ISO/TC 251 Committee for asset management and the Leader for the Manitoba Branch of the Institute of Asset Management (IAM). Suzane maintains an active blog in the Sustainable Asset Management Newsletter and is a well sought-after keynote speaker. She also volunteers as a professional mentor to young professionals and undergraduate and post graduate university students.

Suzane is the author of “Risk-based Asset Criticality Assessment (R-b ACA©) Handbook”.

A deeper discussion in Operational Performance Strategy 

Jeff Hay, PhD is the founder and CEO of RDI Technologies. He is the inventor and visionary behind Motion Amplification® and the Iris M™, which allows you to amplify and measure motion with the use of video. His products are moving industrial vibration to the visual spectrum. His passion is using his background in applied optical technology to change the way you see and measure motion in industrial applications.

Michelle Ledet Henley is President of TMG Frontline Solutions where she has spent the past 25 years helping hundreds of organizations navigate the difficult waters of organizational change using a game-based simulation.  Her enthusiastic facilitation style along with the innovative workshop design bring the workforce (even the most skeptical among them) energetically onboard with their site's reliability improvement efforts.  Co-authoring  various articles and the book Level 5 - Leadership at Work, the sequel to the popular Don't Just Fix It, Improve It, Michelle has become a thought leader on the emerging and often misunderstood topic of defect elimination.

Thomas J. Moriarty, PE, CMRP is president of Alidade Maintenance Engineering and Reliability, Inc. (Alidade MER). Founded in 2004, its mission is to help others lead full and satisfying lives through organizational reliability and productive leadership; particularly in physical asset management, operations, maintenance and reliability engineering.  

As a consultant, Tom has worked across many communities of practice including oil & gas, chemical, mining, pharmaceutical, food & beverage, research universities, aerospace manufacturing, packaging, power generation, water/wastewater, waterway infrastructure and military. This breadth of experience has contributed to ‘cross-pollination’ of best-practices among these communities.

Tom became a member of the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals in 2002 and is currently the Government Relations Committee Chairman, a Florida Chapter Board Member, the Florida Central East District Director and a CMRP since 2003. He is also an ISO Certified Asset Reliability Practitioner (Associate, Engineer and Leader). He has additional credentials in RCM, Root Cause Analysis and predictive maintenance technologies.  

Since 2008, Tom has been author of a monthly column on leadership in Plant Services Magazine (2010 Gold Award, and 2019 nominee, American Society of Business Publication Editors). He has authored a book titled “The Productive Leadership System; Maximizing Organizational Reliability” available through Amazon and Industrial Press.

Tom earned a Professional M.B.A., from the Florida Institute of Technology (with a concentration in Organizational Development). He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Western New England University (Marston Award, Tau Beta Pi National Engineering Honor Society). He was the American Society of Mechanical Engineers past Chair of the Canaveral, FL Section 2005-2006, and a licensed professional engineer (PE) in Florida. 

Tom was a U.S. Coast Guardsman for 24 years, retiring as a naval engineering Lieutenant Commander in 2003.  Prior to earning his commission, Tom was an enlisted Machinery Technician for over nine years. In 2003 Tom was honored by the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) by being selected U.S. Coast Guard Federal Engineer of the Year for his accomplishments in work management (increased labor effectiveness by 31%) and by implementing a condition monitoring and precision maintenance program.  

Tom can be reached at (321) 773-3356 (ofc), (321) 961-4306 (cell) or tjmpe@alidade-mer.com; Twitter: @AlidadeMer, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alidade-mer, website: www.alidade-mer.com. 

Ryan Chan is CEO and Founder at UpKeep Maintenance Management. He is a Chemical Engineer from UC Berkeley, was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 for Manufacturing in 2018, and is part of the Official Forbes Technology Council. Ryan started UpKeep out of passion and frustration by the lack of mobility in today’s maintenance management software. UpKeep has now been deployed to over 10,000 businesses and is a leader in mobile-first maintenance management software.

-Graduated from Carthage College with a Degree in Biology, with minors in Chemistry and Business 

-Work for Caterpillar, Inc. for 5 Years in a newly developed Asset Management Team focused in the Mining division. Worked with Regional Teams to gather data on major component life cycles and repair standards. This data was used to develop Total Cost of Ownership models to assist with life cycle costing on new and existing equipment. Caterpillar was also where he got his first taste of Continuous Improvement through their Green Belt Certification process. 

-After Caterpillar, Matt spent 5 years at Nestle Purina at a Canning facility in Wisconsin. There he supported the rollout and implementation of a TPM program as Continuous Improvement Manager and eventually Production Manager. In those years we expanded the TPM methodology from one pilot area to most of the Plant, greatly reducing unplanned stoppages and increasing the capacity of the factory. Our factory was eventually selected to be the Reference Factory for TPM Implementation in Canning processes for the North American market.

-Currently, employed at a local clean water utility. Responsible for assisting the organization with the implementation Planning and Scheduling and RCM principles. In addition, he will be the primary project lead for the selection and implementation of a new CMMS system.

Dan Anderson is the Manager of the Life Cycle Institute, the learning, leadership, and change management practice at Life Cycle Engineering (LCE). Dan joined LCE in 2007 as a Learning & Reliability Solutions Consultant. He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master’s degrees in Business Administration from The Citadel. In addition, Dan serves as the Secretary for the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP) where he provides oversight and direction to the SMRP Foundation and Executive Committee. 

Dan is experienced in all areas of manufacturing process and plant operations. He has directed and implemented cost savings initiatives and developed process controls in materials management, planning and scheduling, root cause analysis, and reliability engineering along with several other continuous improvement programs.  

Prior to joining LCE, Dan spent over 20 years working in maintenance as a CMMS Software Implementation Consultant and a Manufacturing Engineer. He is a Prosci© Certified Change Management Professional and understands how effective business process reengineering can be applied with sustainable results.

Paul Dufresne has been president and CEO of Reliability Playbook since 2017, following 31 years of experience in maintenance and reliability roles in the U.S. Military and at Georgia Pacific, Trico Corporation and Koch Industries. After the military, he spent the next several years in the corporate world designing and implementing reliability and maintenance programs focusing on industry best practices and achieving superior results while serving in a variety of roles in maintenance management and reliability leadership. In 2013, he received the Senior VP Award for Reliability from GP.
Since starting his company Paul has worked with his customer base around improving and setting in place a culture of excellence as it pertains to plant lubrication and maintenance and reliability best practice. Through training, coaching and mentoring plant personnel at all levels in the organization, Paul works to create an atmosphere where everyone succeeds. Incorporating knowledge from his military and business careers, Paul uses a hands-on approach to help customers across the globe develop and implement world class maintenance and reliability programs. Paul has experienced many successful results throughout his career and was recently identifed on LinkedIn as one of the Top 100 People in Maintenance and Reliability to follow.
During this time Paul has also been a fetured speaker and keynote presenter at multiple national and international conferences most recently the 2019 CBM Connect Conference’s in Abu Dhabi and Belgium.
Paul is the past chairman of the Society of Maintenance and Reliability Professionals Best Practices Committee. In 2017, Paul was recognized as SMRP’s Volunteer of the Year. He is a member of the Society of Tribologist and Lubrication Engineers and the Industry Council for Machinery Lubrication where he is very active sub-committee work. He holds credentials through STLE as Certified Lubrication Specialist (CLS); through ICML as a Certified Machinery Lubrication Engineer (MLE) and Maintenance Lubrication Technician Level I (MLT I); through Mobius Institute as a Asset Reliability Practitioner (ARP-E); through SMRP as Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP) and Technician (CMRT); through the Association for Facilities Engineering as Certified Plant Maintenance Manager (CPMM); and through the Association of Asset Management Professionals as Certified Reliability Leader (CRL). Paul is certified in predictive maintenance technologies such as vibration analysis and thermography. He has written several articles and technical white papers, and is a frequent presenter and workshop facilitator at industry conferences.
Paul is a Distinguished Military Graduate, and has a bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in military science from the University of Central Florida. He and his wife, April, have four children.

Discussing Leadership with Bryan Bieschke, CMRP, Director, Maintenance & Reliability at T. Parker Host.

S2:E2 of DNAofSuccess Tips is here!  Hear it first with special guest Robert Latino, Principal at Prelical Solutions, LLC. Todays topic? Root Cause Analysis. 

Overview of manufacturing losses. How maintenance can help operations solve reliability issues. 

Do you have a strategy for maintaining your spare parts that require it?  In this episode we discuss setting up PM program for your storeroom.  Everything from turning shafts to calibrating your PdM equipment.