Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

Empower and engage employees with honest conversations and servant leadership

Ashleigh Walters earned a chemical engineering degree from Auburn University. Several years later, she found herself taking on the challenge of reviving Onex, a 50-year-old industrial furnace service business based in Erie, PA, which was owned by her husband's family. After she succeeded at Onex, she wrote a book about the experience called Leading With Grit And Grace, that recounts her journey and the lessons she learned along the way. Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk met Ashleigh at the 2023 MARCON Conference, which is run by University of Tennessee, Knoxville's Reliability and Maintainability Center, where she shared her story,. Thomas and Plant Services managing editor Anna Townshend recently spoke with Ashleigh about her experiences in the industrial sector and her unique style of leadership.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
How Ashleigh rebuilt and reimagined her family's company
Why her company adopted a “coach approach” to management instead of a “command and control” leadership style
Why you need to empower your employees to make mistakes
On the record
"I think the other piece of that is we've never thought as leaders that we should be serving. We've always felt like we should be served, right? And when you flip that around and you start serving others, they do serve you, they serve you more because they respect you and they trust you. It's a two-way street, respect and trust, and when they feel that, they know it's OK to make a mistake. You can't ask somebody to try something new to experiment and not allow for failure."
-Ashleigh Walters
Learn more
Visit Ashleigh's websiteEmail Ashleigh

Why facilities need more and better stormwater data to improve disaster preparedness

Zorana Kojic is a regional sales executive for StormSensor, a company that links critical storm, sewer, and coastal infrastructure performance to climate data. StormSensor’s goal is to provide real-time advanced insights on flood and overflow risks across the community, including factories. The company offers advance insights and warnings when there might be a disaster or stormwater event that could impact plant operations. Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk and managing editor Anna Townshend recently spoke with Zorana about how this new technology can help plants make better decisions about disaster preparedness to avoid unplanned downtime.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why it's important to monitor stormwater levels, and how stormwater can impact your facility
How new technologies are making stromwater data easier to obtain and utilize
How smart sensors can help improve disaster preparedness at your plant
On the record
"A lot of plants located near bodies of water and with sea level rise, things like that, changes are needing to be made. So the more data you have of what's going on in your particular area, the better decisions you can make about where to spend your money for those improvements."
-Zorana Kojic
Learn more
StormSensorCase studies

Learn, laugh, and connect at the 2023 Leading Reliability Conference

The Leading Reliability Conference provides participants with an opportunity to learn more about maintenance and reliability by attending live presentations, workshops, and trainings. In addition, attendees are also provided with ample opportunity to socialize and make connections – allowing participants to build relationships with influential professionals in maintenance and reliability from around the country. This year's event happens May 16-18 at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort in Clearwater Beach, Florida. Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk recently spoke with the team behind the Leading Reliability Conference, including Shon Isenhour from Eruditio, Blair Fraser from UE Systems, Mason McNally from RDI Technologies, and Brian Shanovich from ACOEM. The group reminisced about last year’s event and outlined what attendees can look forward to at the 2023 conference.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
What to expect at the 2023 Leading Reliability Conference
Who will be presenting and what new tech will be featured at the event
Which is better, Star Wars or Marvel
On the record
"I think the big thing that you'll see with this conference and I think it's it is that fun environment that we create, it's not so serious. You know, you get to a lot of conferences and I kind of feel like it's so choreographed and you don't really get to talk to people. Everybody's on a schedule and then that sort of thing. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of people will see at this conference is, we're going to have fun. We're going to have a good time, but we're also going to learn a lot of things while we're there. And because of it, we get to spend a lot of times really batting around new ideas like Blair was talking about with the underwater sensor."
-Shon Isenhour
Learn more
Leading ReliabilityRegister now for the conference

Product pulse — Innovative tools and equipment affecting the industry

Laura Davis is the editor in chief of New Equipment Digest (NED), a brand part of the Manufacturing Group at Endeavor Business Media. NED covers all products, equipment, solutions, and technology related to the broad scope of manufacturing, from mops and buckets to robots and automation. Laura has been a manufacturing product writer for six years, knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the industry along with what readers are looking for when wanting to learn about the latest products on the market. Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk recently spoke with Laura to get her perspective on new products and innovations that are affecting the industry, as well as the upcoming partnership between Plant Services and New Equipment Digest.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
Which product categories are seeing the most innovation
How smart technologies are affecting the industry
How Plant Services and New Equipment Digest are partnering to bring up-to-the-minute product information to our audience
On the record
“Now we're at a point where these products are coming out with AI integrated into them. There's a lot less connection steps, and we're really finally getting to that point of the smart connected factory. My machine can actually tell me not just the real time data, but it's smart data, it's doing rolling averages over time of everything that's happened, not just today. I think that's really interesting because we've been talking about these smart factories for years. It's always been like, “oh, we're here now. We're here now.” We're really just starting to get there, and as it becomes more ubiquitous, even smaller companies are going to be able to get in on the action. I just think it's really cool.”
-Laura Davis
Learn more
New Equipment Digest
Laura Davis ldavis@endeavorb2b.com

From mentee to mentor — Why good leaders never stop learning

Jeff Shiver, CMRP, is the Founder and Managing Principal at People and Processes Incorporated. Jeff guides people to achieve success in maintenance and reliability practices using common-sense approaches. He's also a contributing editor for Plant Services, authoring two columns to date. His current department, From The Plant Floor, features reports on what Jeff is seeing and hearing from a practical, hands-on perspective. He also authored a library of columns called Ask Jeff, where he answered readers' questions on a variety of topics, including planning and scheduling, reliability centered maintenance, best practices implementation, leadership, and much more. In the introductory episode of our Meet the PS Experts podcast series, Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk spoke with Jeff about the improtance of mentorship and fostering a culture of continuous learning if you want to developing future leaders.
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:'
Why backlogs should not have birthdays
How to build a network of both formal and informal mentors
How to cultivate a culture around asset reliability and improving reliability
Why employees should be allowed to make and learn from their mistakes
On the record
"How do you become a learning organization where you can make mistakes? We don't want to injure people from those kinds of mistakes, but we want to make sure that we have the opportunity to fail and learn from that. And when we talk about change management, I always say that people buy into what they help create."
-Jeff Shiver
Learn more
People and Processes Incorporated
From the Plant Floor
Maintenance and Reliability for Managers: 4-Part Series

How the IIoT is advancing motor maintenance

Eugene Vogel is a pump and vibration specialist with the Electrical Apparatus Service Association (EASA). Before joining EASA, Eugene operated his own business, General Maintenance Equipment Engineering, Inc., which is a marketing service and training organization for industrial maintenance and related technologies. He also has an extensive background in vibration and dynamic balancing and chaired the St. Louis chapter of the Vibration Institute from 1993 to 2000. Plant Services editor in chief Thomas Wilk and senior content strategist Alexis Gajewski recently spoke with Eugene about how new technologies like IIoT are affecting the industrial motor sector. 
Key takeaways
In this episode, you'll learn:
Where IIoT is heading in the coming months and years
The industry's overall familiarity with new technologies
How these technological changes will affect service centers
The reality of smart motors
On the record
"Changes to the landscape in the machine condition monitoring business will affect your relationship with the customer and why you may or may not get that machine for repair. But when the machine comes in, it doesn’t change the way you do the business, it doesn’t change the way you repair that machine."
-Eugene Vogel
Learn more
Electrical Apparatus Service Association (EASA)
Understanding the potential of IIoT for industrial motor maintenance
3 steps to improve motor reliability
The Big Four factors affecting motor health
Electric motor noise: How to identify the cause and implement a solution

Creating a culture of continuous improvement

Assets Anonymous is a 12-step podcast series designed to help you get grounded in reliability basics and create a culture of continuous improvement with your team. This series will feature interviews with George Williams and Joe Anderson of ReliabilityX. ReliabilityX aims to bridge the gap between operations and maintenance through holistic reliability focused on plant performance. In this episode, George and Joe show us what's possible when you adopt a continuous improvement mindset.

How to help the operations department step up and take responsibility

Assets Anonymous is a 12-step podcast series designed to help you get grounded in reliability basics and create a culture of continuous improvement with your team. This series will feature interviews with George Williams and Joe Anderson of ReliabilityX. ReliabilityX aims to bridge the gap between operations and maintenance through holistic reliability focused on plant performance. In this episode, George and Joe explore how to partner with operations to improve plant efficiency and increase everyone's peace of mind. 

What are the responsibilities and goals of the maintenance department?

Assets Anonymous is a 12-step podcast series designed to help you get grounded in reliability basics and create a culture of continuous improvement with your team. This series will feature interviews with George Williams and Joe Anderson of ReliabilityX. ReliabilityX aims to bridge the gap between operations and maintenance through holistic reliability focused on plant performance. In this episode, George and Joe answer the question “What will maintenance do about it?”

Identifying the failure modes of your plant’s critical assets

Assets Anonymous is a 12-step podcast series designed to help you get grounded in reliability basics and create a culture of continuous improvement with your team. This series will feature interviews with George Williams and Joe Anderson of ReliabilityX. ReliabilityX aims to bridge the gap between operations and maintenance through holistic reliability focused on plant performance. In this episode, George and Joe help you understand how your facility's critical assets fail.