Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

David Brown, vice president and CTO of Transportation Solutions at TE Connectivity, shares how AI is driving faster product design, smarter factories, and a better-trained workforce. From generative design to predictive maintenance, learn how TE's AI strategy keeps them ahead in a rapidly evolving industry. Visit te.com for more information. Read TE’s 2025 Industrial Technology Index here.

Joe Kuhn, CMRP, former plant manager, engineer, and global reliability consultant, is now president of Lean Driven Reliability LLC. He is the author of the book “Zero to Hero: How to Jumpstart Your Reliability Journey Given Today’s Business Challenges” and the creator of the Joe Kuhn YouTube Channel, which offers content on starting your reliability journey and achieving financial independence. In our monthly podcast miniseries, Ask a Plant Manager, Joe considers a commonplace scenario facing the industry and offers his advice, as well as actions that you can take to get on track tomorrow. This episode explains some of the problems that can go wrong when you are starting your reliability journey, and what folks should be on the lookout for along the way.
Key takeaways
Prioritize reliability by choosing where to excel—get a C on less critical tasks to focus on what truly drives plant performance.
Reliability success demands active operations ownership—learn failures, engage on the floor, and earn credibility.
Promote small wins visibly—selling reliability outcomes prevents loss of sponsorship and ensures long-term buy-in.
Without structured problem-solving, best practices fall short—embed it into your process to triple reliability results.

In this episode, American Machinist editor in chief Robert Brooks analyzes the current state of the additive manufacturing (AM) sector, after several years of organizational turmoil among the top suppliers of AM systems. Brooks argues that this turmoil had virtually nothing to do with AM processes or technology developments, arguing that investors have been impatient with the rate of worldwide AM adoption. 

Chris Williams, executive director of the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (VPPPA), offers a preview of the upcoming Safety+ Symposium, to be held August 11-14 in St. Louis. This annual event provides attendees with the opportunity to see safety from all angles and better understand its role in the modern workplace.
EHS Today's Safety Leadership Conference is an official media sponsor of this event.

In this sponsored episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Thomas Wilk, chief editor of Plant Services, is joined by Maureen Gribble, North American sales enablement leader for UE Systems, and John Gould, director for global business development for condition monitoring at Flir. Ultrasound and infrared thermography tools are increasingly used together by maintenance teams that want to get a fuller picture of asset health. In this podcast episode, sponsored by UE Systems, Tom talks with Maureen and John about the ways these tools are being used in the field, including hybrid tools like acoustic imagers, as well as what the future hold for the partnership between Flir and UE Systems.

Fluid sealing is critical to the safe, reliable, and efficient operation of industrial equipment across industries like oil and gas, petrochemical, power generation, and manufacturing. In this podcast, we’ll explore how fluid sealing practices have evolved to meet modern demands for environmental compliance, equipment longevity, and cost-effectiveness. We’ll discuss the latest material advancements, emission-reduction technologies, and digital monitoring tools that are reshaping the landscape. Listeners will gain insights into how companies are balancing traditional reliability practices with the push for sustainable solutions, such as low-emission mechanical seals, advanced gaskets, and innovative air seal designs. We'll also touch on common challenges end users face today — from supply chain constraints to skills gaps — and how industry leaders are adapting their approaches. Whether you're an engineer, maintenance manager, or reliability professional, this episode offers a practical look at the future of fluid sealing.

Cam Mackey, president & CEO of the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA), explains why every heat-related death in the workplace is preventable, and offers some tips on how to best protect workers from heat stress. 
 
https://www.osha.gov/emergency-preparedness/guides/heat-stress

The Eastern half of the United States is experiencing record high temperatures. It's summer and all, so some heat is to be expected, but that doesn't make it any easier for the workers in factories or the people trying to maintain the national power grid.
Discussing worker safety and power availability in the hot summer are:
Dave Blanchard, editor-in-chief of EHS Today
Robert Schoenberger, editor-in-chief of IndustryWeek
Jeff Postelwait, managing editor of T&D World
We discussed how to spot signs of heat stress and how the nation's obsession with ChatGPT may lead to blackouts.

The company’s chief engineer and transformation leader Bradly Walker joins Smart Industry’s Scott Achelpohl and IndustryWeek’s Dennis Scimeca to chat about Texas Pride’s technology renaissance and how it’s helped the manufacturer evolve its sales, warranty, and production processes from legacy Excel spreadsheets and paper-based systems.

In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, Thomas Wilk, chief editor of Plant Services, is joined by Brian Hronchek, principal trainer and consultant with Eruditio, to discuss a topic in the air these days: PM optimization. These efforts start with the question, “What is the outcome that you want?” And that outcome is for the seasoned technician and the new technician to be able to return exactly the same results when they do the same inspection on a mechanical asset.
Key takeaways
PM optimization starts with clear goals: inspections should yield identical results from both seasoned and new technicians.
Many PMs lack value—use metrics like PM/PdM yield to identify and improve or eliminate ineffective tasks.
Aligning maintenance with planning and scheduling reduces downtime and prevents reactive repair chaos.
Trimming bloated PMs and focusing on useful inspections can boost uptime, cut stress, and streamline production.