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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 High Performance 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.

by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

171-Decision Making with Rob

171-Decision Making with Rob

Decision Making with Rob

Decision making is a major part of maintenance and reliability. The engineers have to make decisions all the time regarding assets, budgets, and risk analysis. There are some decisions that don’t really have serious consequences but when it comes to asset management, every decision is important. They need to be economical and there should be a good balance between cost, risk, and asset performance. Most of the time, the managers are making all the decisions and they either do it based on their experience or they just go with their gut feeling.

In this episode, we covered:

Find out why every decision is important
How can you make a sound decision?
Why should organizations need to always be thinking long-term?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic

170-PMO with Rick Clonan

170-PMO with Rick Clonan

PMO with Rick Clonan

PMO is a process where you make efficient use of your PMs to understand the operating context of your assets in a better way. Once you have identified your critical assets, you can plan your PMs accordingly. These routine PMs should be designed in a way that they serve the purpose that you want from your assets. It is not just about reducing number of PMs, it is about finding failures and mitigating them. Our primary focus should be to make the PMs, more effective and then we can focus on the efficiency as well.

In this episode, we covered:

What is PMO?
Learn how you can define your critical assets so you can eliminate the bad factors!
Why should there be a team dedicated to carry out PMO activities?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic

169-RCA Trends with Chris Eckert

169-RCA Trends with Chris Eckert

RCA Trends with Chris Eckert

RCA is a process where you get to the root cause of the problem and then solve it by using a systemic approach. To get started with RCA, you need to gather your data first. Once you set your data points to gather meaningful and useful data, then, you can perform RCA to prevent a failure or find a solution to fix it. There are four basic steps for a good RCA. In the first step, you should be able to gather fresh data the minute a failure occurs. In the second step, you have to determine the impact of that incident. You should know what you are looking for?

In this episode, we covered:

What is RCA?
Learn the four basic steps for a good RCA!
How have Millennials improved how RCA is done?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic

168-What are Functions with Nancy Regan

168-What are Functions with Nancy Regan

What are Functions with Nancy Regan

Reliability Centered Maintenance or RCM is a philosophy that is rooted in the fundamentals of the reliability and maintenance. There are seven steps or principles of RCM that can really help you do RCM correctly. The first four steps of RCM make up FMEA and when you combine the next two with these, it gives you a FMECA baseline. With these seven steps, you can do all the wonderful things that make up a successful reliability program. In RCM, functions are where you start your journey. A function can be defined as what you need from a piece of equipment.

In this episode, we covered:

What is Reliability Centered Maintenance?
Learn the 7 principles of RCM!
How can you apply RCM effectively?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic

167-Greatest Manufacturing Challenges with Calvin Williams

167-Greatest Manufacturing Challenges with Calvin Williams

Greatest Manufacturing Challenges with Calvin Williams

Every organization’s end goal is to have continuous improvement. There are tools out there that can help you with it. One of such tools is the Impruver. It helps you keep your performance up-to-date and notifies you when you miss something and gets you on your way towards what need to be done. Another tool that helps you make continuous improvement is digital action board. It places an accountability process in place where you can see the results for yourself, improve the area that needs it, and keep tracking individual and overall performance. Having those checks brings a sense of responsibility in everyone that directly impacts manufacturing of your facility.

In this episode, we covered:

How can you achieve continuous improvement?
Find out which organizational tool is right for you!
Why is it getting more difficult for big companies to stay current with market trends?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic

166-2nd Habit with Peter Horsburgh

166-2nd Habit with Peter Horsburgh

2nd Habit with Peter Horsburgh

Whenever there’s a problem in the plant, it always comes to finding the root cause if you are looking to solve it and stop it from reappearing later on. To successfully do that, you need to have what’s going on with your plant. You should have the complete understanding of the processes and the events that might have led to that issue in the first place. It isn’t always a single root causes that results into a failure. It can be a number of small things that contribute to that problem and result in a failure. So, there can be multiple causes for a single problem.

In this episode, we covered:

What is Root Cause Analysis?
Learn about 5Y!
How can you apply RCA effectively?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

165-Reliability Catch Up with Fred

165-Reliability Catch Up with Fred

Reliability Catch Up with Fred

Reliability and Maintenance industry changes very fast. The organization always enlist the help of consultants when their assets are failing. The reason why it doesn’t work sometimes is because the companies don’t know what they are looking for. Before you go about hiring some consulting firm, you need to have some certain information for them to begin with. Once you know what the problem is and what is it that you are trying to accomplish, it becomes easier for consultants to help you with overcoming failures and stopping them in the first place. You have to understand where you are at? What kind of problems are you facing?

In this episode, we covered:

Reliability and Maintenance industry
How do you select the right tools?
Do you need a consultant?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

164 Unsung Heros with Ryan

164 Unsung Heros with Ryan

Unsung Heros with Ryan

With the kind of data that technicians collect in the field on a daily basis, it is very hard to note down everything. What they usually do is they go into the shop, perform some routine repairs and then come back to their desks to note everything they have encountered. Even if they manage to note down every single thing into their notebook or whatever paperwork they have available to them, they have to move around a lot and hassle through data every time they leave their position to go into the shop and then, come back.

In this episode, we covered:

Reliability and Maintenance industry
How do you select the right tools?
Do you need a consultant?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

163-FRACAS with Brandon Weil

163-FRACAS with Brandon Weil

FRACAS with Brandon Weil

With changing technology in the reliability and maintenance industry, the best practices are always changing in order to improve the overall reliability for the long term. Failure reporting analysis and corrective action system or FRACAS is one of the best tools towards just achieving that goal. It is a process for collecting failure history, analyzing it for patterns, getting to root causes, implementing the corrective actions and then, monitoring the results of those actions. So, it is basically the collection of all the other reliability processes merged into one. In order for this to work, you can’t just rely on the PMs.

In this episode, we covered:

What is FRACAS?
How can you use FRACAS effectively?
How do you start with a FRACAS process?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

162-Bearing Isolators with Chris and Woody

162-Bearing Isolators with Chris and Woody

Bearing Isolators with Chris and Woody

One of the major reasons of bearing failure is the operating conditions of the machine. That’s why bearing isolators are used to keep the bearing separate from the external environment. It is a type of seal that helps keep bearing and the oil free from contamination. There are several different types of bearing isolators. The major categories are contacting or mechanical—which have been used for rotating equipment for a long time—and non-contacting seals that are used for dynamic purposes and consistent performance. The latter type has a long life because those are not making contact with the equipment.

In this episode, we covered:

An overview of Bearing Isolators
The types of bearing isolators
Other factors you need to focus on aside from analysis
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

161-PdM Survey with Tom Wilk

161-PdM Survey with Tom Wilk

PdM Survey with Tom Wilk

Predictive maintenance is a continuous activity and it is really hard to drive PdM program success without having a clear set of goals and a vision that everyone understands. The industry trends for reliability and maintenance are changing fast and so are the organizations that want to keep up with the new technology. The results of PdM Survey from 2017 to 2018 show that the type of technology that a company uses effects its reliability program on a larger scale. In this survey, the participants were asked questions about the type of technology being used in their organizations and how satisfied they were with them.

In this episode, we covered:

Why you need goals and a vision in your PdM program!
The obstacles that get in the way!
What departments should be involved?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

160 Transition on the road to Asset Management with Susan Lubell

160 Transition on the road to Asset Management with Susan Lubell

Transition on the road to Asset Management with Susan Lubell

Asset management means to get the best value from your assets in a collaborative way. It helps you manage your assets safely and in a cost-effective manner. The organizations need to understand the risks involved in introducing unsafe practices into the field. These unhealthy practices can put the lives of your engineers at risk and cost you heavily in terms of asset damage and equipment repairs. Asset management is a journey and even though your organization might already be doing asset management, there’s always room to improve.

In this episode, we covered:

The first steps of Asset Management
Asset Management isn’t a crash diet!
What departments should be involved?
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

159 Maintenance Metrics with Stuart Fergusson

159 Maintenance Metrics with Stuart Fergusson

Maintenance Metrics with Stuart Fergusson

Maintenance metrics is a very important part of a maintenance and reliability program because you can’t improve what you can’t measure. Performance measurement is necessary to derive those improvements that will help you carry out your maintenance activities the best way possible. It is a cycle that can be divided into three steps. First you have to enable you team members, then you have to train them, and in the end you have to measure their performance on a consistent basis using some standard KIPs. It is repetitive process and you have to perform these three steps often to make sure everything is going according to the plan.

In this episode, we covered:

What steps to take?
The differance between KPIs and metrics!
Where to start!
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

158 LORA with Lucas Marino

158 LORA with Lucas Marino

Level Of Repair Analysis with Lucas Marino

Most of the organizations in the maintenance and reliability industry have limited resources and they want to make the best use of what they have got. If the maintenance requirements of an organizations don’t match its resources, it is always going to result into an increased cost and decreased employee performance. The type of maintenance that an asset required throughout its life cycle needs to be performed in a balanced way. That’s why it is so important to have a maintenance philosophy when you are planning the life cycle cost of an asset. Level of Repair Analysis or LORA is a framework that helps you manage between maintenance cost and resources.

In this episode, we covered:

What is LORA?
How to start using LORA!
The value of having a maintenance philosophy!
And much more!

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by James Kovacevic Leave a Comment

157 PdM in RCM r with Jesus Sifonte

157 PdM in RCM r with Jesus Sifonte

PdM in RCM R with Jesus Sifonte

Condition monitoring is time-based solution to mitigating and preventing failures and it is a huge part of RCM or RCM R. RCM R is the advanced, updated version of RCM that entails predictive maintenance as the main technique to perform condition-based monitoring to improve asset performance. The reason that RCM and PDM fit together perfectly is because reliability can never be complete without having some sort of predictive maintenance method in place. Condition monitoring is the perfect tool for that. It also incorporates vibration analysis, oil analysis, and the use of infrared from time to time but it’s all a part of running PMs smoothly.

In this episode, we covered:

What is RCM R?
How RCM and PdM fit together!
The best technology out there to help your PdM program!
And much more!

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