Accendo Reliability

Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site

  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors
    • About Us
    • Colophon
    • Survey
  • Reliability.fm
    • Speaking Of Reliability
    • Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast
    • Quality during Design
    • CMMSradio
    • Way of the Quality Warrior
    • Critical Talks
    • Asset Performance
    • Dare to Know
    • Maintenance Disrupted
    • Metal Conversations
    • The Leadership Connection
    • Practical Reliability Podcast
    • Reliability Hero
    • Reliability Matters
    • Reliability it Matters
    • Maintenance Mavericks Podcast
    • Women in Maintenance
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
  • Articles
    • CRE Preparation Notes
    • NoMTBF
    • on Leadership & Career
      • Advanced Engineering Culture
      • ASQR&R
      • Engineering Leadership
      • Managing in the 2000s
      • Product Development and Process Improvement
    • on Maintenance Reliability
      • Aasan Asset Management
      • AI & Predictive Maintenance
      • Asset Management in the Mining Industry
      • CMMS and Maintenance Management
      • CMMS and Reliability
      • Conscious Asset
      • EAM & CMMS
      • Everyday RCM
      • History of Maintenance Management
      • Life Cycle Asset Management
      • Maintenance and Reliability
      • Maintenance Management
      • Plant Maintenance
      • Process Plant Reliability Engineering
      • RCM Blitz®
      • ReliabilityXperience
      • Rob’s Reliability Project
      • The Intelligent Transformer Blog
      • The People Side of Maintenance
      • The Reliability Mindset
    • on Product Reliability
      • Accelerated Reliability
      • Achieving the Benefits of Reliability
      • Apex Ridge
      • Field Reliability Data Analysis
      • Metals Engineering and Product Reliability
      • Musings on Reliability and Maintenance Topics
      • Product Validation
      • Reliability by Design
      • Reliability Competence
      • Reliability Engineering Insights
      • Reliability in Emerging Technology
      • Reliability Knowledge
    • on Risk & Safety
      • CERM® Risk Insights
      • Equipment Risk and Reliability in Downhole Applications
      • Operational Risk Process Safety
    • on Systems Thinking
      • The RCA
      • Communicating with FINESSE
    • on Tools & Techniques
      • Big Data & Analytics
      • Experimental Design for NPD
      • Innovative Thinking in Reliability and Durability
      • Inside and Beyond HALT
      • Inside FMEA
      • Institute of Quality & Reliability
      • Integral Concepts
      • Learning from Failures
      • Progress in Field Reliability?
      • R for Engineering
      • Reliability Engineering Using Python
      • Reliability Reflections
      • Statistical Methods for Failure-Time Data
      • Testing 1 2 3
      • The Hardware Product Develoment Lifecycle
      • The Manufacturing Academy
  • eBooks
  • Resources
    • Accendo Authors
    • FMEA Resources
    • Glossary
    • Feed Forward Publications
    • Openings
    • Books
    • Webinar Sources
    • Journals
    • Higher Education
    • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Your Courses
    • 14 Ways to Acquire Reliability Engineering Knowledge
    • Live Courses
      • Introduction to Reliability Engineering & Accelerated Testings Course Landing Page
      • Advanced Accelerated Testing Course Landing Page
    • Integral Concepts Courses
      • Reliability Analysis Methods Course Landing Page
      • Applied Reliability Analysis Course Landing Page
      • Statistics, Hypothesis Testing, & Regression Modeling Course Landing Page
      • Measurement System Assessment Course Landing Page
      • SPC & Process Capability Course Landing Page
      • Design of Experiments Course Landing Page
    • The Manufacturing Academy Courses
      • An Introduction to Reliability Engineering
      • Reliability Engineering Statistics
      • An Introduction to Quality Engineering
      • Quality Engineering Statistics
      • FMEA in Practice
      • Process Capability Analysis course
      • Root Cause Analysis and the 8D Corrective Action Process course
      • Return on Investment online course
    • Industrial Metallurgist Courses
    • FMEA courses Powered by The Luminous Group
      • FMEA Introduction
      • AIAG & VDA FMEA Methodology
    • Barringer Process Reliability Introduction
      • Barringer Process Reliability Introduction Course Landing Page
    • Fault Tree Analysis (FTA)
    • Foundations of RCM online course
    • Reliability Engineering for Heavy Industry
    • How to be an Online Student
    • Quondam Courses
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Live Events
    • Accendo Reliability Webinar Series
  • Calendar
    • Call for Papers Listing
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Webinar Calendar
  • Login
    • Member Home
Home » Articles » on Maintenance Reliability » Conscious Asset » Today’s Gremlin – The White Knight

by James Reyes-Picknell Leave a Comment

Today’s Gremlin – The White Knight

Today’s Gremlin – The White Knight

Today’s Gremlin – “The White Knight”, is a day-to-day hero, fixing what’s broken and returning the operation from panic. When things break, you really do need him, and he can be a hero, but couldn’t he be preventing those breakdowns?

The White Knight is the one you call when things have gone wrong. You need things fixed fast, regardless of the time of day, and he’s there for you. He works overtime if needed, he’s there when you need him, and he’s fast. Things do get fixed. But do they stay that way?

Thriving under pressure

Today’s Gremlin – “The White Knight”, thrives under pressure. Delivery promises are at risk, quality has been suffering, lots of workers are idled waiting for the repairs. Some might even call the White Knight an “adrenalin junkie” because he seems to work best with all that pressure. He gives you that quick repair and often gets rewarded for his fast response to urgencies, and his quick resolution times. The White Knight is definitely one of your “go to” people in a pinch, but is he really a hero in today’s highly competitive business environment?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

Today’s Gremlin – The White Knight is your “pound of cure”. While smart enough to fix things and come up with work-arounds, why not put that same energy into preventing the failures and avoiding the downtime and urgency-driving consequences?

Unplanned and urgent repair work is often 3 or more times the cost of doing the work to plan and at a pre-determined proactive time that avoids the downtime altogether. A good proactive maintenance program reduces overtime, contracting and premium costs for parts and deliveries – all saving you money. It also keeps your equipment running so you can meet scheduled deliveries and output quotas. In operations it saves you idle time for a work crew that has to wait for broken down equipment to be repaired. If you are operating a fleet, it means fewer vehicles in reserve saving you capital.

No serious breakdown should be a surprise

Breakdowns with serious consequences to production, safety or environmental risks can be identified before they happen. It only takes a bit of structured thinking to know what could go wrong, and what happens when it does. Most failures can be forecast or detected before they get to that breakdown. You can avoid all those consequences that harm your business and keep your White Knight busy! You need reliability as well as good work management to achieve dependable uptime.

Less urgency saves money and lowers risks

We are experts in eliminating your need for White Knights! Talk to us about how you can save money (easily up to 20% of your maintenance spending) while lowering your risks to safety, environmental compliance, and business continuity.

Filed Under: Articles, Conscious Asset, on Maintenance Reliability

About James Reyes-Picknell

James is the best-selling author of “Uptime – Strategies for Excellence in Maintenance Management”, now in its 3rd edition, co-author of “Reliability Centered Maintenance – Re-engineered”, co-founder and Principal Consultant of Conscious Asset.

He is a Mechanical Engineer, graduate of the University of Toronto and has more than 44 years working in Operations, Maintenance, Reliability and Asset Management.

« The Power of Direction Setting
Higher Education Disruption »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Conscious Asset series

Article by James Reyes-Picknell

Join Accendo

Receive information and updates about articles and many other resources offered by Accendo Reliability by becoming a member.

It’s free and only takes a minute.

Join Today

Recent Posts

  • 7 Proven Strategies to Protect Your Supply Chain
  • Progress in USAF Engine Logistics?
  • MTBF and Mean of Wearout Data
  • The Paradox of the Invisible Discipline
  • Historical Data

© 2025 FMS Reliability · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Cookies Policy

Book the Course with John
  Ask a question or send along a comment. Please login to view and use the contact form.
This site uses cookies to give you a better experience, analyze site traffic, and gain insight to products or offers that may interest you. By continuing, you consent to the use of cookies. Learn how we use cookies, how they work, and how to set your browser preferences by reading our Cookies Policy.