25 articles in vlog.
On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, I talk with Richard Horn, a production supervisor at Ford Motor Company, about keeping high-volume automotive lines running — how producing 1,200 extra parts one day bought his team a day and a half when a stamping die broke, why cleanliness speeds up troubleshooting, and the growing shortage of skilled tradespeople.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, I talk with Richard Kaczmarek — with experience from Briggs & Stratton, Gulfstream, and GE Aviation — about why maintenance should never be the first budget cut, what happens when technology outpaces training, and how 3D scanning and printing let him recreate a custom aircraft wingtip for a fraction of the usual cost.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Jay Olivo — an engineering and reliability manager, leadership trainer, and author — shares how he cut reactive maintenance to under 20% and hit ~93% on-time preventive maintenance by pairing a CMMS with leadership his team actually bought into.
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I'm back in the guest seat on Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights — talking about a strong year in manufacturing, the year-end budget slowdown, Centerline's three legs, how we cross-train our techs, and the biggest problem in the trades: not enough people who want to work with their hands.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Miguel 'Mike' Escobedo — Manufacturing Fabrication Manager at Jackrabbit Manufacturing, who started by sweeping floors in 1999 — shares why great operators truly know their machines, how data (not assumptions) finds the real problem, and why manufacturing is a team effort.
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This month the tables are turned on Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights. Instead of interviewing someone else, I take the guest seat to talk about what I'm seeing in manufacturing, how Centerline works in microns, why OEM parts matter, and a current repair on a spindle that weighs more than 4,000 pounds.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Dan Walker — Plant Manager at Mako International with 40+ years in manufacturing — shares how his 331,000 sq ft plant runs on skilled people, why maintenance and automation talent is so hard to find, and how an apprenticeship with Macomb Community College is growing it.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Kenneth Welch — a manufacturing supervisor with 23 years at Michelin, now at SendCutSend — shares the simple ideas that keep production moving: running a 'pre-mortem' before equipment fails, keeping the right spare part at the machine, and listening to the people closest to the process.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Matthew Edwards — Plant Facilities Manager and Maintenance Manager at First Solar — shares the maintenance strategy behind a highly automated plant working toward 21,000 solar panels a day: predictive and preventive maintenance driven by data, and why great maintenance is as much about building people as maintaining machines.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Varadarajan 'V' Balaraman — a site plant manager at Standex International building a startup operation inside an established company — shares how he turns failures into teachable moments, knows when technology hits its limit and process takes over, and gives operators a real voice in solving problems.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Ivan Getov — Maintenance Excellence Manager at Eastman Chemical Company — explains why AI and predictive tools can't replace good maintenance fundamentals: moving past the reactive 'hero' mentality, building systems for the full work cycle, and remembering that maintenance is ultimately about people working together.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Reinhardt de Jager — a reliability and maintenance management pro — shares how teams move from reactive to proactive: building real failure modes into the maintenance plan, letting condition data buy them time, eliminating root causes instead of re-repairing them, and remembering that the job is to move steel through the door.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Tony Ingram — Senior Maintenance Supervisor at Daikin Applied — shares how his team keeps equipment ranging from decades old to nearly new running: moving toward predictive maintenance, managing thousands of spare parts, finding skilled technicians, and one failure that left roughly two tons of steel 30 feet in the air.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Trevor Kennedy — Plant Manager for Parker Hannifin's HELAC hydraulic actuator operation — shares how a team of eight keeps 280+ assets running: moving toward predictive maintenance, staging critical spare parts and spindles, and treating maintenance as problem-solving, not just repair.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Sean Archer — a maintenance manager in heavy steel manufacturing leading a team of 13 — shares how preventive and predictive maintenance, root cause analysis, and modern controls like Allen-Bradley and Rockwell are reshaping the skills the plant floor demands.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Joshua Kroll — Facilities Maintenance Supervisor at Trinchero Family Estates and a former Marine Corps and Navy nuclear submarine officer — shares how he prepares a winery for harvest season, grows technicians internally, troubleshoots by challenging assumptions, and puts AI to practical use in maintenance.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Nathan Santiago, Facilities Engineer at C&H/New Holland, shares how large manufacturing operations reduce downtime — tailoring preventive maintenance to real operating conditions, positioning tools near critical equipment, and using data-driven process improvements to eliminate hundreds of hours of lost production.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Gabe Little — a maintenance leader whose career spans Jacobson Logistics, Amazon, ThredUP, and Ross Stores — shares how reliability goes beyond preventive maintenance: asset lifecycle management, CMMS documentation, spare-parts strategy, and the growing role of AI in maintenance analytics.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Cory James, Plant Manager at Zeus Industrial Products, reveals the precision medical-grade tubing behind catheters and stents — and how Zeus balances growth with reliability, rebuilds equipment in-house, and trains the next generation of manufacturing talent.
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On Maintenance & Manufacturing Insights, Josiah Peterson of Oldcastle Building Envelope shares a career journey from a rural dairy farm to leading maintenance in glass manufacturing — and the strategies that keep specialized equipment running.
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On the Adapt and Overcome Podcast, Martin Engster shares a story spanning continents, military service, and more than 60 years of family legacy in the CNC manufacturing industry.
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Korey Mertz of Advanced Machine Engineering explains why preventive maintenance is a culture, not a checklist — from monitoring drawbar pull force to preserving tribal knowledge and avoiding costly downtime.
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Maintenance Manager Todd Gibbs shares how lessons from the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program shape reliability-centered maintenance, vibration analysis, and planned shutdowns in modern manufacturing.
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James Brett of Carbon Aerospace on maintaining 1,200+ assets across a 650,000 sq ft facility — proactive maintenance, CMMS-driven decisions, and preparing for equipment obsolescence in aerospace manufacturing.
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Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages supervisor Ian Long on running can lines at 1,300 cans per minute, handling a 2 a.m. Code Red filler failure, and why leadership and people matter most in high-speed manufacturing.
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