Doug Plucknette — inactive contributor

Author of RCM Blitz® articles and host of The Leadership Connection podcast. This author's archive lists contributions of articles and episodes.

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The 10 Worst Things About Business Travel

Today article is one of those off-topic things I just felt compelled to write about. It also has a bit of the sarcasm us New Yorkers are famous for, but I’m betting the other business travelers will be able to relate!

With my work comes travel and in the last 15 years, I have seen a fair amount of the world.

Let me rephrase that, I have seen a fair amount of the world’s airports, hotels, manufacturing facilities, and restaurants.

Along the way, I have met some very good people, learned a whole lot about how different products are made or produced and discovered for myself that no matter where you live, where you grew up, or what you do, everyone still wants the simple things in life: a secure job, a roof over their head, and to be afforded the time to both provide for and enjoy raising a family. [Read more…]

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Cracks in the Road

“Dave is the guy we call when we need to get the plant up and running again; there really isn’t anything he can’t fix.”

Dave sits back in his chair, he looks down and while he is smiling I can see he is slightly embarrassed by the praise his manager is heaping on him.

It’s clear to me that he is not comfortable sitting in this conference room with a group of people that includes his manager, supervisor, and two engineers who are here to kick off their first RCM analysis. I have just begun asking the group to introduce themselves; Dave followed his manager and the two engineers in the room who each rattled off where they attended college, what their degrees they earned, the areas of the plant they are responsible for, their hobbies outside of work and some banter regarding the upcoming college football season.

Then it was Dave’s turn. [Read more…]

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10 Things a Maintenance Supervisor Can Do to Improve Reliability

A few months back, I wrote a blog resulting from a conversation I had with a group of Maintenance Technicians who were attending the International Maintenance Conference (IMC) in 2011.

While the group was enjoying the conference and learning some new things, the general consensus was that they felt they would not be able to apply the tools and techniques they were learning because “management will say they support reliability, but when it comes right down to it, talk is cheap.” [Read more…]

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RCM Leaders and Followers

Funny how times change.

When I first began speaking at conferences in 1999 some of the statements I made regarding how to most effectively manage a Reliability Centered Maintenance program were publically criticized by practitioners of other methodologies.

Sixteen years later it seems that those who were at first critical of RCM Blitz® seem to have adopted nearly every change I made to make RCM easier to Manage, Facilitate and provide a return on investment (ROI) for the time it takes to train people, perform the analysis, implement the results, and perform the RCM tasks. [Read more…]