Mentorship beats tools. Full stop.

I’ve been on the road with Maintain Reliability across food factories, metal plants and logistics sites, and the pattern is the same everywhere. Companies invest in systems before they invest in judgement. They gather more data before they build the confidence to act on what they already know. Then they wonder why the breakdowns keep coming.

The issue is rarely a lack of information. It’s a lack of guided decision making.

Training gives knowledge. Mentoring builds judgement. There’s a big difference. In a classroom everything makes sense. On a live plant with production breathing down your neck and budgets under pressure, it’s a different game. That’s where experience matters. Someone standing next to the engineer saying, focus here, not there. Fix this first. Leave that for now. Sequence it properly.

Order is everything in reliability.

Before we talk about monitoring strategies, we ask simple questions. Is planning and scheduling tight. Are critical assets clearly defined. Is lubrication consistent. Are work orders closed properly. Do people understand their roles. If those foundations are weak, adding more layers just increases confusion and backlog.

When the basics are strong, performance compounds.

A proper reliability audit is usually the turning point. Not a tick box exercise. A real look at how the plant operates. It exposes gaps in communication, spares, lubrication standards, ownership and accountability. More importantly, it gives leadership clarity. It turns reliability from a cost into a structured improvement plan.

Technology has its place. We use condition monitoring every day. But the team must own the data. They must understand what a trend means, what the risk is, and what action follows. Without that, nothing changes.

I’ve seen engineers with almost no budget transform a site because they closed the loop fast and acted decisively. I’ve also seen sites with serious investment still stuck reactive because culture didn’t support action.

Reliability works when people take ownership. When KPIs drive behaviour. When leaders back decisions. And when mentors hold the rope when pressure hits.

If you want results that last, start with an honest audit. Build a roadmap you can defend. Strengthen the people. Then layer in the systems.

That’s how we do it at Maintain Reliability.

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What if the problem isn’t your data at all but the way you’re trying to use it?

Too many plants are stacked with sensors dashboards and alerts yet they are still fighting the same fires every week. I see it constantly. Technology gets layered on top of a weak maintenance strategy and everyone is surprised when nothing really changes.

In this conversation I speak openly about an uncomfortable truth. Sensors do not fix broken thinking. Structure does. Planning does. Stopping defects before they ever enter the plant does.

We talk honestly about the skills gap and how it quietly drives reactive behaviour. No software will ever replace judgement that is built through training experience and time on the tools. From route based vibration done properly with strong visual observations to acceptance testing that catches motor issues most sites never look for like impedance imbalance these simple disciplines reduce risk and cost when they are done consistently.

We also have a real conversation about wireless versus wired monitoring. No hype. Just reality. Load variation mounting quality battery life signal stability over time. The message is simple. The method has to fit the failure mode and the business need not the trend.

To help decisions stick I walk through modelling that turns engineering sense into numbers leadership can actually trust. When you map functional failures consequences and detectability you can compare strategies clearly. Run to failure redesign handheld condition monitoring or online systems. You can see the cost the risk and the expected failures over time.

What comes through again and again is that reliability improves fastest when we focus on fundamentals. Better design better planning and scheduling precision alignment and strong repair standards. We share real stories including a blower that went red within days despite being monitored to show why reliability has to be built in from the start.

If you are tired of dashboards that look good but change nothing and you want to focus on the actions that actually improve outcomes this conversation is for you.

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Ever wondered how a “high-efficiency” motor can start wasting energy and damaging bearings before it’s even been switched on?

We did too. So we tested it.

Using offline motor circuit analysis alongside online motor current signature analysis, we inspected brand-new IE4 motors still sitting in their crates. What we found changed the conversation completely. Critical impedance imbalance straight out of the box. One motor already showing early winding defects before it ever saw load.

That’s the moment labels stop mattering and evidence takes over.

This episode walks through why pairing de-energised and energised testing matters.

Offline MCA tells us what’s happening in the windings – contamination, resistive imbalance, insulation condition. Online MCSA, sampled at 44 kHz with serious resolution, shows us what vibration often can’t: rotor bar issues, air-gap problems, electrical harmonics, inverter-driven bearing currents.

In difficult environments – noisy plants, submersible pumps, generators, limited access assets – current signature analysis often gives cleaner, more repeatable insight than vibration alone. We’re seeing faults that used to hide in the noise.

And this isn’t theory. Across 750+ motors tested in the field, we see a clear link between impedance imbalance and winding health:

• <5% – normal
• 5–8% – defect initiation
• 8–15% – accelerated damage
• >15% – critical

That gives teams something powerful: defensible alarm limits and a simple acceptance test that stops bad assets entering the plant.

There’s a practical win too. On one motor we reduced resistive imbalance from over 30% down to around 3.8% just by cleaning and correctly torquing the terminations. Test. Fix. Retest. Immediate improvement.

The real gains come when sites take this seriously:
Acceptance testing written into purchase orders.
Evidence required from the factory.
Faults confirmed using at least two technologies.

That’s how you reduce energy loss, prevent shaft currents from destroying bearings, and turn condition monitoring into real reliability improvements – not reports that sit on a shelf.

If uptime matters.
If energy efficiency matters.
If you want better decisions with less noise and less drama.

This episode shows the path: measure what matters, set your own standards, verify the fix, and keep learning.

Enjoy the episode.
If it helps you rethink your motor strategy, subscribe, share it with a teammate, and drop a quick review with your biggest testing win or surprise.

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