Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

Understanding asset criticality and assessing the value of your plant’s 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 explore how a criticality assessment can help pivot your plant from reactive to proactive work.

The business case for investing in your employees

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 talk about the importance of training and developing your employees.

Improving performance, reliability and efficiency in multi-compressor air systems

Neil Mehltretter is Technical Director for Kaeser Compressors, and he has conducted and supervised thousands of industrial compressed air studies to help plant teams achieve significant energy savings and operational improvements. Werner Rauer is the Project Manager for Oil Injected and Oil Free Screw Compressors at Kaeser Compressors, and he's an active leader in the Compressed Air and Gas Institute, where he helped develop the widely used CAGI compressor data sheets. In this episode of the Compressed Air Podcast series, Neil and Werner explore control options for systems with multiple compressors. 

By the numbers: ESG data, policies, and practices

Plant Services, in partnership with Augury surveyed readers about Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) policies and practices earlier this year. The survey explored company policies, practices and perceptions about ESG and personal engagement by employees on these issues.
Plant Services Managing Editor Anna Townshend talked with retired Global Chief Engineer and industry executive Dave Penrith about the survey for his real-world perspective on the numbers. Penrith spent his 35-year career at a global consumer goods company. During his tenure there, he oversaw 300 factory units across all parts of the world. Penrith is a champion of digital technology, deploying automation and robotics on thousands of applications, and he is also known for his dedication to collaboration, community, and diversity.

Does compressed air as a utility make financial sense for your plant?

Wayne Perry is Senior Technical Director at Kaeser Compressors, and has more than 40 years of experience in all aspects of the compressed air business. Matt McCorkle is Manager of Branch Operations for Kaeser Compressors and has worked as a Certified Energy Manager through the Association of Energy Engineers. In this episode of the Compressed Air Podcast series, Wayne and Matt explore the concept of compressed air as a service and how to determine if this model is right for your facility.

Digital transformation implementation: Where does your facility stand?

Eric Whitley is director of smart manufacturing for L2L, with a background in lean manufacturing and total productive maintenance. In January, L2L surveyed 125 manufacturing leaders with mid to C-level titles across production, operations, engineering, IT, and management to uncover the state of digital transformation in manufacturing. Highlights from the survey are available at www.L2L.com/blog/digital-transformation-in-manufacturing-industry. Plant Services Editor in Chief Thomas Wilk spoke with Whitley recently about the secret to successful digital transformation.

See Spot inspect assets with condition monitoring tech

Fluke and Boston Dynamics have developed a partnership where the SV600 Fixed Acoustic Imager payload from Fluke Process Instruments is connected with the Boston Dynamics Spot robot, enabling remote and/or automated plant inspection routes. Plant Services Editor in Chief Thomas Wilk spoke about this technology partnership with Martin Budweg, Product Marketing Manager for Fluke Process Instruments, and Tim Dykstra, the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Channel Sales for Boston Dynamics.

Where is your plant going? Setting goals to achieve your vision

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 talk about how to more efficiently get where you're going.

Implementing asset performance management best practices with Accelerators

Tracy Swartzendruber is VP of Marketing for Power Generation and Oil & Gas at GE Digital, connecting industry with software that solves some of industry’s toughest problems. In her own words, “a better run plant is a more efficient plant, which is actually a more sustainable plant.” At the ARC Industry Forum in June, she presented an update on several GE Digital initiatives including the use of “Accelerators” to help plants scale APM across the enterprise.

Lessons learned from Disney: Why creativity is essential to your team’s success

Lee Kitchen has 32 years of experience at the Walt Disney Corporation across multiple roles, including Innovation Catalyst. In that role, Lee trained groups within Disney on the design thinking process, and he conducted many ideas sessions across the company. He branched out from Disney five years ago to found his business, Magical Dude Consulting. Lee delivered the opening keynote at the 2022 Leading Reliability conference in Clearwater, Florida, where he spoke about the elements of success when it comes to new idea development. Lee recently spoke with Editor in Chief Thomas Wilk about how to foster greater creativity with your team.