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Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast

A weekly Maintenance and Reliability podcast covering common industry challenges and what you can learn from them. Each episode dives deeper into critical issues and explains how you can begin correcting theses maintenance flaws today. Sharing new tips and techniques to help you achieve industry best practice and shining a light on widely debated maintenance topics with special guest experts.


Your host and founder of Rooted in Reliability James Kovacevic, will take you on a weekly tour of his 13+ years of shop floor experience, along with special guest that lend an expert look inside your maintenance departments problems and concerns.


Plane, train, or automobile, however you’re traveling to work Rooted In Reliability is compatible for listening on the go.

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316-The Frustrations of Reliability: From Strategy to Synergy with Bob Latino and Ken Latino

316-The Frustrations of Reliability: From Strategy to Synergy with Bob Latino and Ken Latino

The Frustrations of Reliability: From Strategy to Synergy with Bob Latino and Ken Latino

Welcome Bob and Ken Latino to the Podcast. Bob has been to this Podcast before discussing defect elimination and is an author involved with RCA and other reliability items. Briefly, Ken, can you introduce yourself.

I worked with Bob and my other brother at our family businesses called Reliability Centre for about 15 years. I later left for a small start up called Meridian being involved in reliability softwares.  I also worked as a reliability manager at a Paper Mill for 10 years then went to GE. Presently doing consulting work Prelical.

In this episode we covered:

  • There is a lot of frustration in reliability. Where do you see it comin from?
  • What do you think reliability means to any plant manager or operations manager out there?
  • How do we break this cycle of frustrations?

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315 – Prioritizing Initiatives with Paul Daoust

315 – Prioritizing Initiatives with Paul Daoust

Prioritizing Initiatives with Paul Daoust

Welcome Paul to the Podcast. Paul is the founder of Scio Asset Management. Although, briefly, tell us about yourself.

I have almost 30 years experience in engineering reliability maintenance and both strategic and holistic asset management. At Scio we are providing frameworks for leadership in asset management that is based on first principle decision making. Also launching Assetiers that is a platform for leaders to discuss the challenges that we have in asset management.

In this episode we covered:

  • There are challenges in prioritising where to allocate resources in asset management. Have you seen this?
  • How do we prioritise the initiatives that are already in place such as lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, 5S and reliability maintenance?
  • There are diminishing returns in pursuing reliability best practice. Do we always have to be the best in class in these practices?

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314 – Clean Energy with Howard Penrose

314 – Clean Energy with Howard Penrose

Clean Energy with Howard Penrose

Welcome back Howard to the Podcast. Howard is the founder of Motordoc and is heavily involved with IEEE and SMRP. Though, briefly, tell us about yourself.

My entire career has been about electric machines and systems from my time in the Navy. I later had short stints both in repair business and teaching at the University of Illinois. I also ran the energy resources at the University. I later went into the test equipment industry and afterwards started a repair shop named Motordoc. Currently involved in a lot of ESG projects and Utility works in solar energy and wind turbines. Also I am the vice chair of American Clean Power.

In this episode we covered:

  • Do the utilities know what they need to ramp up for?
  • What are the industrial facilities doing especially in degasifying their energy through electrification?
  • How are we to take advantage of this clean power if the infrastructure cannot support it?

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313 – Decarbonization and the Impact on Maintenance with Steven Dobie

313 – Decarbonization and the Impact on Maintenance with Steven Dobie

Decarbonization and the Impact on Maintenance with Steven Dobie

Welcome Steven to the podcast. Steven is a co-host of another podcast called Maintenance Disrupted. However briefly, tell us more about yourself.

I am a maintenance and reliability engineer in the mining industry who has been in tech for a couple of years. Presently working with a centralised maintenance group focused on keeping equipment and trucks running longer.

In this episode we covered:

  • Are you being impacted a lot by sustainability i.e decarbonization, electrification?
  • How does this impact people from a maintenance person’s perspective?
  • What are the other ways to produce power?

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312 – Cost vs Benefit of Inspection with Dane Boers

312 – Cost vs Benefit of Inspection with Dane Boers

Cost vs Benefit of Inspection with Dane Boers

Welcome Dane back to the podcast. We last talked about asset modelling and factors that influence those assets. Today we will talk about optimising strategies; how we determine cost vs benefit of strategies. But first, give a brief introduction of yourself and Modla.

Modla is an asset knowledge and analytic platform. The vision is to capture subject matter expertise and knowledge around an asset and business processes. It then combines that with data for continuous improvement. We have worked in the utility industry; particularly water and electricity.

In this episode we covered:

  • How do we determine the probability of finding a defect to establish inspection frequency?
  • Are organisations looking to optimise inspections to ensure the benefits are worth the costs?
  • Can you borrow a task in an FMEA from another organisation?

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311 – Defect Elimination with Doug Plucknette

311 – Defect Elimination with Doug Plucknette

Defect Elimination with Doug Plucknette

Welcome Doug back to the podcast. Doug is the Author, President and Owner of Reliability Solutions Inc. Though briefly, give an introduction of yourself.

I started my reliability consultancy career back in 1999 after serving in several capacities at different organisations. Although currently semi-retired, I still respond to past clients who need help in streamlining their processes.

In this episode we covered:

  • How do we start moving defect elimination from smaller  to a little more advanced problems?
  • How long does it take to move from simpler problems such as leaks to dealing with more advanced asset problems?
  • How do you prioritise the problems to be worked on?

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309 – Optimizing Energy Efficiency of Rotating Equipment with Simon Jagers

309 – Optimizing Energy Efficiency of Rotating Equipment with Simon Jagers

Optimizing Energy Efficiency of Rotating Equipment with Simon Jagers

It is my pleasure to welcome back Simon Jagers, one of the founders of Samotics, an industrial analytics company that helps clients improve reliability and sustainability, particularly of their rotating equipment.

In this episode we covered:

  • Why is energy efficiency so important for organizations?
  • What can we do to address these problems with energy efficiency?
  • What do we do about all these energy wasting assets?

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307 – The Evil Ways of MTBF with Fred Schenkelberg

307 – The Evil Ways of MTBF with Fred Schenkelberg

The Evil Ways of MTBF with Fred Schenkelberg

It’s my pleasure to welcome Fred Schenkelberg back to the podcast. He is a reliability engineer and management consultant.

In this episode we covered:

  • What is MTBF?
  • Why would people want to calculate what that average time between failure is or where did this come about?
  • What do you think about using MTBF to monitor a complex systems reliability, and using that to pro proactively look at reviewing the maintenance program to it?

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306 – RCM Implementation with Nancy Regan

306 – RCM Implementation with Nancy Regan

RCM Implementation with Nancy Regan

It is my pleasure to welcome back Nancy Regan to the podcast, the founder of RCMtrainingonline.com.

In this episode we covered:

  • What is an RCM implementation?
  • What challenges do you see within organizations as they go to implement the findings from their analysis?
  • What do you believe is the most important outcome from an RCM implementation at the end of it all?

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305 – Balancing Short and Long Term in Change with Shon Isenhour

305 – Balancing Short and Long Term in Change with Shon Isenhour

Balancing Short and Long Term in Change with Shon Isenhour

It’s my pleasure at welcome back, Shon Isenhour to the podcast, the owner of R and D show.

In this episode we covered:

  • How do clients get time to move and to start doing some of these proactive things?
  • How do you manage skill traits? How do we schedule them appropriately?
  • What are some short-term things we can do to create a little bit of breathing room?

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303 – Some Parts are Good, More Must be Better with Andrew Jordan

303 – Some Parts are Good, More Must be Better with Andrew Jordan

Some Parts are Good, More Must be Better with Andrew Jordan

It’s my pleasure to welcome back Andrew Jordan to the podcast, the Managing Director and CEO of Extivity.

In this episode we covered:

  • Do organisations assume that more parts in stock means reduced downtime and reduced risk?
  • How do organisations strike that balance then between unstable supply chains and having the right spares to support their assets?
  • What is the impact on the quality of the storage conditions for these parts?

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302 – What is Asset Performance Management with Paul Daoust

302 – What is Asset Performance Management with Paul Daoust

What is Asset Performance Management with Paul Daoust

It is my pleasure to welcome back Paul Daoust to the podcast.

In this episode we covered:

  • Does value leakage come in a row for variety of different places?
  • What is asset performance management?
  • When organizations decide to adopt APM, do they just buy the software package and put it in or do they need some sort of framework?

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