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Rooted in Reliability: The Plant Performance Podcast

A weekly Maintenance and Reliability podcast covering common industry challenges and what you can learn from them. Each episode dives deeper into critical issues and explains how you can begin correcting theses maintenance flaws today. Sharing new tips and techniques to help you achieve industry best practice and shining a light on widely debated maintenance topics with special guest experts.


Your host and founder of Rooted in Reliability James Kovacevic, will take you on a weekly tour of his 13+ years of shop floor experience, along with special guest that lend an expert look inside your maintenance departments problems and concerns.


Plane, train, or automobile, however you’re traveling to work Rooted In Reliability is compatible for listening on the go.

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195-Supportability with Lucas Marino

195-Supportability with Lucas Marino

Supportability with Lucas Marino

Supportability entails matching the design and logistics requirements of an asset to its operational needs. When buying equipment, decision-makers are usually quick to base their decision on the upfront capital investment without weighing in the effects of continuous operational expenses. Other foregone considerations in valuing an asset can touch on areas like supply chain requirements, equipment obsolescence, personnel training, configuration management and environmental impacts.  Lucas joins us on this episode to help create an understanding of supportability.

Some of the important insights include:

  • Differentiating supportability and reliability
  • Reasons for implementing supportability
  • Challenges and opportunities for supportability

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194-The Importance of Installation with Chris Greene

194-The Importance of Installation with Chris Greene

The Importance of Installation

“How we install the equipment, will dictate how it will operate.”

In this episode, James interviews Chris Greene. Chris helps us to understand how the correct installation of equipment will set the stage for optimal operational quality and longevity.

In this episode we covered:

  • The correct operation of a machine involves installing it correctly.
  • The industry as a whole has used the installation as a place to cut costs.
  • Proper installation makes a big difference in quality, costs, and life-span.
  • Benefits of documentation.
  • Use manufacturer standards.

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193-Empowering RES with Automation

193-Empowering RES with Automation

Empowering RES with Automation

Industry 4.0 is here to stay. Organizations are now getting their feet wet in Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning as a way of increasing their output. However, aa good number of these companies have their projects stuck at the pilot stage, either due to inadequate management support, or simply communicating value to other departments. AJ Alexander walks us through the understanding of why this is a good time to start pilots and stimulate their growth.

Important highlights include:

  • Understanding the type and stage of data for Machine Learning
  • The advantages of successful ML deployments  
  • Why organizations are slow to adapt
  • Hw can you go about increasing the chances of transitioning from pilot to project

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192-DIKDAR with Paul Daoust

192-DIKDAR with Paul Daoust

DIKDAR with Paul Daoust

In maintenance and reliability industry, soft skills are just as important as the hard skills. When you are faced with uncertain and complex situations, it becomes difficult to make good decisions. That’s why it comes in handy if you are good at critical thinking and can perform better under pressure as compared to your peers. Some organizations have competitive environment and they have limited resources to deploy for different programs. In these cases, they need to identify and put certain activities in place that would help their employees make the best use of those scarce resources.

Key highlights of the episode are: 

  • What DIDAR?
  • Why are soft skills just as important as the hard skills?
  • What constitutes smart decision-making?

… and much more!

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191-Effective Maintenance Procedures with Ricky Smith

191-Effective Maintenance Procedures with Ricky Smith

Effective Maintenance Procedures with Ricky Smith

Over the years, maintenance procedures have become a bore for many plant operators. They are likely to be clunky documentation that is choppy with instruction and referring to another document – the manual. Effective maintenance procedures should consider that our attention span today is shorter than ever. They need to be short, clear and to the point. 

Ricky of World Class Maintenance shares tips on how we can implement effective maintenance procedures. Key highlights of the show are: 

  • Why maintenance procedures are necessary
  • The prerequisites for effective maintenance procedures
  • Who writes these maintenance procedures?
  • How can you get started with implementing maintenance procedures?
  • The importance of staff in the implementation

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190-How to Start a Vibe Program with Jesus Sefonte

190-How to Start a Vibe Program with Jesus Sefonte

How to Start a Vibe Program with Jesus Sefonte

Even though the vibration analysis has been around for a long time, there are very few organizations that use it. Machinery vibration is the study of the behavior of rotating machinery for detecting faults based on the monitoring of different machinery components using vibration signals. All the rotating machines vibrate—either in a good or bad way—and vibration analysis is the best way to predict machinery behavior by making it part of your predictive maintenance program. It helps you access machinery health, predict failures, and do corrective actions when needed. So, if you have critical rotating machinery in your facility, vibration analysis is a must.

The episode highlights are:

  • What are the fundamentals of Vibration Analysis
  • What is an Asset Criticality Analysis
  • Why is a plan required to successfully implement vibration analysis

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189-Lubrication with Sanya Mathura

189-Lubrication with Sanya Mathura

Lubrication with Sanya Mathura

In mechanical fields like automotive, oil and gas, power generation and aviation industries, lubricants play a  critical role in maintaining equipment reliability. They consist of both oils and grease. 

In this episode, Sanya Mathura of Sustainable Reliability Solutions shares her thoughts on why and how organizations can foster an active approach to lubrication. 

The episode highlights are:

  • Why organisations should be concerned about lubrication
  • How to identify degradations in lubricants
  • Common types of lubricant degradation
  • The impact of failing lubricants
  • Best practice for storage and testing lubricants

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188-Thermal Growth with Daus Studenberg

188-Thermal Growth with Daus Studenberg

Thermal Growth with Daus Studenberg

When a machine heats up and starts expanding in all the directions is simply called the thermal growth. When it actually comes to understanding it, it means that you are dealing with machinery movement and that can cause misalignment in the machine. Also, your alignment is only as good as your target. If your machine starts moving and you have a bearable misalignment in the off-set condition, you will allow that bear minimum of misalignment in your machine deliberately in that condition. So, before you detect thermal growth, you need to have a correct target in place to measure it against.

In this episode, we focus on the following points:

  • What is thermal growth?
  • What are the standards of thermal growth measurement?
  • What packages are available that come with laser alignment tools?

And much more!

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187-Master Data Management with Scott Taylor

187-Master Data Management with Scott Taylor

Master Data Management with Scott Taylor

For organizations, data that is critical for parties, places, and things is called master data. While conventional strategies are available for manipulating data, this episode places special emphasis on how to make the most out of your master data. 

Scott Taylor, the Data Whisperer, shares his advice on aspects like:

  • Why Master data Management (MDM) has become so important
  • The main pillars of MDM
  • Why organizations go through different implementation cycles
  • Can common software be used for data governance
  • Tips for successful implementation

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SMRP 06 – Motion Amplification with Jeff Hay

SMRP 06 – Motion Amplification with Jeff Hay

Motion Amplification with Jeff Hay

How Motion Amplification Helps Us Learn More About Our Machines

In this episode, James interviews Jeff Hay. Jeff is the CEO and founder of RDI technologies and today helps us to understand motion amplification and how it used in reliability today and how RDI is playing a role in this process.

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186-Third Habit with Peter Horsburgh

186-Third Habit with Peter Horsburgh

Third Habit with Peter Horsburgh

If your machines aren’t running smooth, clean, cool, and dry, there’s no way you will ever be able to get its lifetime out of it. When you are facing such situation where one of these indicators isn’t being met by your machine, it’s time for a change. To make a change in the way you treat your assets, you need to start asking the questions. If you don’t know or understand something, ask someone who can help you make sense of things. If you don’t have the tools for solving a problem, start getting the support of management to invest in the equipment.

In this episode, we covered:

  • What is the Third Habit?
  • How can you get vital support from the management?
  • Why do you need to think out of the box?

And much more!

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SMRP 04 – Getting It Right With Mikeal Terner

SMRP 04 – Getting It Right With Mikeal Terner

Getting It Right With Mikeal Terner

How better tools and installation can reduce downtime and improve functionality

In this episode, James interviews Mikael Terner at SMRP 2019. Mikael currently handles the global sales and marketing for Easy-Laser and talks with us about installation and its importance in reducing downtime and improving the overall longevity of your machinery. Mikael also gives us an insight as to how the precision products from Easy-Laser and their support teams help people in conducting a better installation.
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185-The Impact of Industry 4.0 with Blair Fraser

185-The Impact of Industry 4.0 with Blair Fraser

The Impact of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 has two notable waves. The first constitutes of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data. The second wave is what we’re currently experiencing and constitutes of Artificial Intelligence, Augmented and Virtual Reality.

Blair Fraser of Quartic.ai shares some important insights on the significance of Industry 4.0 as well as:

  • Its benefit in the industry
  • The technologies behind Industry 4.0
  • How Artificial Intelligence Works
  • Considerations before diving into the new wave
  • Pitfalls and ways to avoid a mismatch in the technology fit

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184-HPI and LT with Bob Latino

184-HPI and LT with Bob Latino

HPI and LT with Bob Latino

RCA has been around for a long time and has evolved with time. There are different acronyms associated with it such as HPI and RCFA. There are also different definitions of RCA out there and it really depends on how to perceive RCA. Most of the organizations consider it a linear process that serves the same purpose as a 5-Y would. When companies try to implement RCA with these sorts of limited perceptions, they always fail to get the results that they need. In the end, they either blame the individual carrying out the operations or just face continuous failures with temporary corrective measures.

The focus areas for the episode are:

  • What is the truth behind RCA?
  • Who do these definitions limit the perceptions of engineers?
  • What principles make up HPI?

And much more!

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Bonus Episode-Advancing the Reliability and Maintenance Standards of Electrical Systems with Alan Ross

Bonus Episode-Advancing the Reliability and Maintenance Standards of Electrical Systems with Alan Ross

Advancing the Reliability and Maintenance Standards of Electrical Systems with Alan Ross

In this episode, James interviews Alan Ross, former Vice-President of Reliability at SDMeyers and President of the Electric Power Reliability Alliance. Alan Ross has been involved with electrical systems for roughly 30 years and is now dedicated to transforming the industry by educating the next generation of electrical reliability mentors and leaders. He will do this through the Electric Power Reliability Alliance.

In this episode we covered:

  • The Background and Purpose of the EPRA.
  • The Reliability and Maintenance Standards of Electrical Systems.
  • How Production Quality of Electrical System pieces has changed.
  • How You Can Help the EPRA on their mission

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