The reliability landscape is rapidly transforming, but are organizations truly ready for this evolution? In this thought-provoking episode, we reunite after our individual "side quests" working with different customers to discover we've both encountered the same concerning pattern across manufacturing facilities.

While technology advances at breakneck speed—from pixelated camera phones to sophisticated AI systems in just a few decades—the cultural foundations of reliability and maintenance strategies are evolving at a glacial pace. This creates a dangerous disconnect: companies eagerly investing in IoT sensors, machine learning algorithms, and data historians while neglecting fundamental reliability practices that would make these investments worthwhile.

We share a sobering case study of a critical cooling tower failure that cost over £100,000 in emergency measures, despite previous recommendations for a £2,000 monitoring solution. This exemplifies how organizations often pursue technological silver bullets while overlooking basic maintenance fundamentals. The cooling tower had never received lubrication despite being a lubrication-dependent motor—a simple practice that could have prevented catastrophic failure.

The episode explores why AI and machine learning belong at the top of the reliability maturity assessment, not as shortcuts to excellence. While these technologies show tremendous promise, they require clean historical data, established maintenance practices, and experienced professionals who understand failure modes to interpret their findings. Without these foundations, organizations risk drowning in information while suffocating for wisdom.

Whether you're a maintenance professional navigating digital transformation or a leader making technology investment decisions, this episode offers crucial perspective on balancing innovation with reliability fundamentals. The future belongs to those who master both.

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What does it really take to keep 81 manufacturing sites around the world running at world-class reliability standards?

In this episode, I sat down with Pablo, the Reliability Champion at SKF, the world’s leading bearing manufacturer, to find out. And this chat was packed with gold.

Pablo opened up about how SKF have built something seriously special. Their Maintenance Excellence system brings together the best of Japanese TPM and reliability-centered maintenance to create a global standard that actually works, site to site, culture to culture.

But here’s the standout bit for me. It’s not just about the systems or tools. It’s about the people. SKF have cultivated a real community of over 400 maintenance professionals across the globe. They’re not just clocking in and out. They’re sharing wins, solving problems together, and raising the bar as a unit.

We also talked about their week-long Maintenance Excellence Bootcamps run across three continents, combining deep-dive training with hands-on work to embed excellence into their culture. Add in their push towards smarter CMMS rollouts and the integration of AI for predictive maintenance, and it’s clear these guys aren’t just keeping up. They’re leading the way.

The part that stuck with me most was this quote from Pablo:

"You can have the most perfect system in the world, but if the people aren’t on board, it’s worthless."

That hits home. It’s not the tech. It’s the trust. It’s the culture. It’s the belief that people make reliability real.

Whether you’re running one site or a global operation, there’s something in this conversation for everyone who believes in better maintenance. Tune in and see how SKF keep evolving while staying true to what matters most: people, purpose, and precision.

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In this episode, I sat down with Joseph Anderson from Reliability X for one of the most honest and refreshing conversations I’ve had on reliability. We didn’t just talk tools, data, and KPIs… we talked about what really matters: people.

Joseph shares his own journey, from what he calls being a “defect initiator” (yep, he says he would’ve fired himself back then!) to becoming a leader who changed plant performance by focusing first on the people behind the machines. What really hit me was when he mentioned that maintenance departments have an 80–85% divorce rate. It stopped me in my tracks. That stat alone says it all: reliability is about more than machines. It’s about creating workplaces that don’t destroy home lives.

What I love about Joseph is he breaks down reliability into simple human truths. Relationships between operators and maintenance, leaders who actually listen, collaboration over blame. He even draws lessons from his time running restaurants to show how these principles go beyond manufacturing—they’re about how we treat people, full stop.

We also got real about why companies trip themselves up: blaming individuals instead of fixing broken systems, chasing completion rates instead of real results, buying the latest tech without teaching people how to use it properly, and cutting costs today only to pay big later.

Through it all, Joseph keeps coming back to the same truth: when people know you care, they’ll care for the equipment. It’s that simple.

If you lead a maintenance team, run a plant, or just want to get better at building a strong, reliable culture, this one’s for you. As Joseph says:
"Maintenance is simple. Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be."

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