Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

Larry West is a sales engineer for Perceptive Controls who has been in the engineering and electrical field for industrial use for roughly 25 years, and before that he served in the U.S. Navy as a gunner’s mate and missile tech. In January, Larry touched base with Plant Services Editor in Chief Thomas Wilk for a podcast on how control systems and SCADA can support energy savings and sustainability...

For the past year or so, many manufacturers have struggled to keep up and running, maintain staff, and adjust to the digital changes the pandemic required. Making these changes or funding a new project, like a digitalization effort, for example, can be expensive, but there are grants and funding available to help. In this podcast episode, Amanda Del Buono, Digital Engagement Manager for Control Gl...

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. The second epis...

Aaron Merkin is Chief Technology Officer at Fluke Reliability, and he is responsible for the development and execution of industrial IoT strategies. Aaron is an experienced technology executive with a deep understanding of technology and product strategy, solution architecture, M&A, and organizational transformation. Plant Services Editor in Chief Thomas Wilk recently spoke with Aaron about the ch...

Whether it's a global pandemic, inclement weather conditions, or other unforeseen challenges, being a good leader is key to making it through difficult times. In this podcast episode, Amanda Del Buono, Digital Engagement Manager for Control Global and Control Design, interviews Jay Richards, a member of the founding team and senior consultant at Denison Consulting , to discuss a little bit about l...

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. The first episo...

David Frye, CMRP, CRL, is principal at Legacy TPM Partners, and has more than 45 years of experience with reliability, starting with U.S. Navy weapon systems and then working for 21½ years at Kodak. He then became corporate director for reliability and maintenance excellence at Kaiser Aluminum, and then spent 10 more years at Kimberly-Clark, helping to lead global reliability. Plant Services Edito...

Larry West is a sales engineer for Perceptive Controls who recently gave a compelling presentation at the 2021 RPM Symposium in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Larry's presentation, "Controls ans SCADA – How they support energy savings and sustainability," explored how a well-developed control and SCADA system can identify and solve unnecessary energy usage without affecting output. Plant Services Editor in...

Sam Hoff is the president and CEO of Patti Engineering , a Certified member of the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA). Under Sam’s leadership, Patti Engineering has become a leader in applications of Industry 4.0 and digital twining to improve manufacturing through AI and data science. Plant Service spoke with Sam early last year about how maintenance teams can get their digital program...

Brad Budde leads the Digital Customer Experience Program for Emerson Automation Solutions , working on digitizing workflows both internally and with customers. Recently Plant Services Editor in Chief Thomas Wilk spoke with Brad about how digital technologies are helping organizations build new partnerships and re-think the way traditional on-site maintenance teams are staffed.

In this final episode of The Hidden Costs of Compressed Air series, Matt McCorkle and Neil Mehltretter discuss how system monitoring can help facilities identify and control some of the hidden costs we’ve discussed in previous episodes. Keeping an eye on pressure as well as the status of compressors and dryers are a few examples of how to avoid issues. We talk about how to better manage critical c...

Mike Reed is the Manager of AVEVA’s AI Center for Excellence. He has over 25 years of experience in engineering and operations of electrical power plants, both in the U.S. and globally, and is experienced in mechanical engineering design, construction, startup, and operations. He earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; a M.S. in Systems Management from...

Rick Kaun is VP Solutions at Verve Industrial Protection and has worked in the industrial sector for more than 20 years on a wide variety of IT security projects. Plant Services Editor-in-Chief Thomas Wilk spoke with Rick recently about what plants are doing to safeguard their OT assets in a world where IT and OT infrastructures are increasingly converging.

The Society for Maintenance & Reliability Professionals (SMRP) is a nonprofit professional society formed by practitioners to develop and promote excellence in maintenance, reliability, and physical asset management while creating leaders in the profession. With over 6,250 members worldwide, SMRP provides value for individual practitioners and professionals looking to expand their knowledge and sk...

Per Hong is a partner at Kearney focused on Strategic Operations, and the lead partner for the company’s relationship with the World Economic Forum relationship. He has a 25-year career working with clients across a range of industries to mitigate disruption in their global supply chains and help them build long-term strategic advantage. In July, Kearney and the World Economic Forum released a rep...

With an expected 2.1 million unfilled U.S. manufacturing jobs by 2030, resulting in a potential negative impact to the economy of more than $1 trillion, the industry’s ability to attract and retain younger workers is an urgent issue. All eyes are on Generation Z, the generation of young adults who are just starting to make an impact in the workplace. What might attract them to industrial jobs? Wha...

Based on research conducted this year by Plant Services, it is still a challenge for industrial facilities to recruit skilled workers, although it is getting somewhat easier to retain people once they come on board. Chris Pepin is the founder of Progressive Reliability , a company dedicated to decreasing turnover and simplifying the hiring process. Chris and the Progressive Reliability team specia...

One of the hottest topics on the minds of MRO professionals this past year has been how to add remote asset condition monitoring into their mix of daily maintenance work. Tim White, CMRP, is a Senior Manager at T.A. Cook focused on providing services related to Digital Asset Performance Management. Previously he worked in the industry as a Global Director for Asset Management, responsible for 83 s...

Most plant managers and operators know they need clean, dry compressed air at the point of use at the required pressure to avoid scrap rates and production equipment downtime. But do they know how much is enough? In this episode of The Hidden Costs of Compressed Air series, speakers Justin Aycock and Neil Mehltretter discuss how the problems of over treating air and running at unnecessarily high p...

As the world seemingly shut down due to COVID-19, the teams at Eruditio, Fluke Reliability, RDI Technologies, and UE Systems came together to develop ways to continue to connect, engage and educate the reliability community. What started as a series of webinars quickly morphed into a larger initiative and thus the inaugural Leading Reliability Virtual Conference was created. Now, the Leading Relia...

Manufacturing is currently moving out of the time of COVID crisis, and many plants report that they are increasing their digital/automation budgets. Kevin Starr works in the digital service space within ABB for North America and, in particular, the process industries component, and has been involved with every step of service and reliability for the past 34 years. Plant Services Chief Editor Thoma...

Kevin Price is technical product evangelist and product strategist at Infor , a global company that provides enterprise software products for every aspect of business. In these roles, Kevin is globally responsible for product strategy functions for the Infor EAM, Infor MP2, iProcure, and Energy Performance Management product families. He also is a longtime contributor to Plant Services, having wri...

Operation New Uniform , founded in 2014, has established itself as a trendsetter in the veteran service organization space. The mission of the organization is to ensure all U.S. Veterans have a successful transition after service by treating each Veteran as an individual, serving as many Veterans as possible without reducing quality, and meticulously tracking the results and successes of our Veter...

Floor space in a plant can be precious, and providing your compressed air system with ample room for ventilation and service can be hard. Yet cramming compressed air equipment into a space can cause unexpected costly issues. Whether you are adding equipment to your compressor room, expanding the room, or building new there are several key considerations to promote air system performance, reliabili...

Mark D’Agostino is the Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Hunter Industrial Fans ’ Commercial Division / Industrial Division. Mark studied Business Administration at Lock Haven State University, and has held the position of Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Power-Flo Pumps & Systems; President & CEO of Raven Products; and President & CEO of Wilo USA. Mark recently spoke with Thomas Wi...