Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights

The Power of Planning Ahead: Lessons from Ford's Production Floor Guest: Richard Horn | Production Supervisor, Ford Motor Company What does it take to keep thousands of automotive parts moving through production every day? And how can a little planning prevent a major manufacturing headache? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, host Martin Engster welcomes Richard Horn, a product...

In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, host Martin Engster welcomes Richard Kaczmarek, an experienced manufacturing professional and aviation enthusiast, for a conversation about preventive maintenance, workforce challenges, and the technologies changing modern manufacturing. With experience at Briggs & Stratton, Gulfstream, and GE Aviation, Richard brings a unique perspective...

What does it take to turn a maintenance team that is always fixing broken machines into a team that prevents problems before they happen? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, host Martin Engster talks with Jay Olivo, an engineering and reliability manager, leadership trainer, and author. Jay shares how he helped change a reactive maintenance operation into a more proactive and or...

What does it take to run a manufacturing plant producing around 50,000 parts every day? For Dan Walker, one of the biggest challenges isn’t production capacity. It’s finding and developing skilled people. In this episode of Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster talks with Dan Walker, Plant Manager for Mako International in Shelby Township, Michigan. Dan oversees a 331,000-square...

What makes a great manufacturing operator? For Miguel “Mike” Escobedo, it starts with knowing your machine. In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Mike Escobedo, Manufacturing Fabrication Manager at Jackrabbit Manufacturing, to talk about the connection between manufacturing, maintenance, leadership, and problem-solving on the shop floor. Mike has work...

This month, the tables are turned on Maintenance and Manufacturing Insights. Instead of interviewing someone else in the industry, Martin Engster takes the guest seat and gives us a look at what he is seeing in manufacturing and what is happening inside Centreline. Martin shares what he heard while speaking with manufacturers, machine builders, and vendors at recent machine tool shows in Chicago....

What if your maintenance team knew what to do before a machine ever went down? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Kenneth Welch to talk about practical maintenance, manufacturing experience, and the value of preparing for problems before they happen. Kenneth spent 23 years working at Michelin in Ardmore, Oklahoma, before moving into his current rol...

What does it take to keep a highly automated manufacturing plant running while working toward production of 21,000 solar panels a day? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster talks with Mathew Edwards, Plant Facilities Manager and Maintenance Manager for First Solar in Gaffney, South Carolina. Mathew shares what goes into building and leading a maintenance operation a...

What does it take to build a manufacturing operation from the ground up while also building the maintenance systems that keep it running? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster talks with Varadarajan “V” Balaraman, a site plant manager helping build a startup manufacturing operation within an established company. V shares why starting with new equipment does not mean...

What happens when a company invests in predictive maintenance, AI, and new technology before fixing its basic maintenance processes? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster talks with Ivan Getov, Maintenance Excellence Manager at Eastman Chemical Company, about why strong maintenance starts with the fundamentals. Ivan began his career as a chemical engineer and worked...

What if you could know a machine was going to fail weeks before it actually happened? Instead of scrambling after a breakdown, your team could order the parts, plan the repair, and choose when to take the equipment offline. In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights with Martin Engster, Martin sits down with Reinhardt de Jager, a Reliability Area Maintenance Manager whose work includes...

What does it take to keep a manufacturing plant running when some machines date back decades and others are brand new? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights with Martin Engster, Martin talks with Tony Ingram, Senior Maintenance Supervisor at Daikin Applied in Faribault, Minnesota. Tony shares what maintenance really looks like inside a facility producing large air-conditioning syst...

What does it take to keep more than 280 manufacturing assets running with a small maintenance team? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster talks with Trevor Kennedy, Plant Manager for Parker Hannifin's HELAC hydraulic actuator operation. Trevor shares what maintenance looks like inside a busy manufacturing plant producing hydraulic actuators for mining, agriculture,...

In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights with Martin Engster, Martin talks with Sean Archer, a maintenance manager in the steel manufacturing industry. Sean leads a maintenance team responsible for keeping the equipment, systems, and facility operating safely and reliably. Sean explains why good maintenance cannot simply be about waiting for something to break. Preventive and predicti...

In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights with Martin Engster, Martin sits down with Lucas Richards, Associate Manufacturing Supervisor at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, to explore a side of manufacturing that most people never get to see. Lucas works in an environment where teams assemble the panels and systems used to help monitor, control, and protect critical power infrastruc...

From Nuclear Submarines to Napa Valley: Maintenance Leadership, AI, and Continuous Improvement What does it take to lead maintenance teams in one of the world's most demanding production environments? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Joshua Kroll, Facilities Maintenance Supervisor at Trinchero Family Estates, to discuss his journey from serving i...

Building Reliable Maintenance Systems: Gabe Little on Asset Management and Automation What does it take to keep a large distribution center running while preparing for the future of automation? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Gabe Little, a maintenance leader with experience at Jacobson Logistics, Amazon, ThredUP, and Ross Stores. Gabe shares ho...

Every minute of downtime matters in manufacturing. In this episode, Martin Engster sits down with Nathan Santiago, Facilities Engineer at C&H/New Holland, to discuss what it really takes to keep a large manufacturing campus operating efficiently. Nathan shares how preventive maintenance goes far beyond simply following OEM schedules. He explains how maintenance teams adapt service intervals fo...

What does it really take to keep the lights on for thousands of people? In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Helmuth Lara, an experienced mechanical engineer and plant manager whose career has spanned nearly three decades in oil & gas, gas turbines, rotating equipment, and power generation. From his early days working in South American refineries...

Most people never stop to think about where the medical tubing inside catheters, stents, and other life-saving devices actually comes from. In this episode, Martin Engster sits down with Cory James, Plant Manager at Zeus Industrial Products, to pull back the curtain on one of the most important—but least visible—parts of medical manufacturing. Cory shares how Zeus Industrial Products manufactures...

Every building, office, and home depends on glass, but few people ever stop to think about the complex manufacturing process behind it. In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Josiah Peterson, Maintenance Manager at Oldcastle Building Envelope, to discuss what it takes to keep a modern glass manufacturing facility operating efficiently. Josiah shares hi...

Small problems often create the biggest losses. In this episode, James Harris shares how focusing on defects, root causes, and reliability transformed struggling operations and delivered major improvements. Martin Engster sits down with James Harris, a U.S. Army Reserve officer and experienced maintenance and engineering professional. James discusses his journey through manufacturing, process impr...

What does it take to keep thousands of automotive glass components moving through production every day? In this episode, Martin Engster sits down with Todd Gibbs, Maintenance Manager at Carlex Glass, to discuss more than four decades of maintenance experience and the importance of building reliability into manufacturing operations. Todd shares how his time serving in the U.S. Navy's nuclear submar...

In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights, Martin Engster sits down with Korey Mertz of Advanced Machine Engineering to discuss why preventive maintenance is often overlooked and how manufacturers can move from reactive repairs toward a more proactive approach. The show notes follow recommended practices for strong podcast descriptions and listener engagement. Korey shares his journey...

This week, Martin Engster sits down with Army veteran and maintenance leader Chris Skinner to discuss how AI, IoT sensors, and knowledge management are changing the future of maintenance and manufacturing. Chris shares his journey from military aviation to Tesla and eventually to his current role as Facilities and Maintenance Manager at Technetics in South Carolina. Along the way, he developed a p...