What if you could know a machine was going to fail weeks before it actually happened? Instead of scrambling after a breakdown, your team could order the parts, plan the repair, and choose when to take the equipment offline. In this episode of Maintenance Manufacturing Insights with Martin Engster, Martin sits down with Reinhardt de Jager, a Reliability Area Maintenance Manager whose work includes predictive maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance, lubrication programs, shutdowns, and outages. Reinhardt shares his approach to moving maintenance organizations away from reactive repairs and toward proactive reliability. One of the first places to start is with the preventive maintenance plan itself. A work order that simply tells a technician to “check motor” does not provide much value. Reinhardt explains why maintenance tasks should verify specifications, equipment condition, operating processes, and standards while addressing actual failure modes. The conversation then moves into predictive maintenance and condition-based monitoring. By tracking factors such as vibration, temperature, and current draw, maintenance teams can identify developing problems before they become unexpected failures. That changes the entire maintenance equation. Instead of waiting for equipment to break, teams can order parts, prepare the work, coordinate resources, and schedule downtime when it makes the most sense for production. Reinhardt also explains how better maintenance practices connect directly with spare-parts management. Knowing likely failure modes helps organizations decide what should be kept in the storeroom and where strong vendor relationships and fast turnaround times are needed. Martin and Reinhardt also discuss recurring equipment failures and an important question maintenance teams should ask: Why keep getting better at repairing the same problem when you could determine its root cause and eliminate it? Reinhardt shares a real example of condition monitoring detecting a serious problem inside an induction furnace shortly after a new lining was installed. The team trusted the monitoring system, shut down the furnace, investigated the problem, and discovered a potentially dangerous condition before it could develop into something much worse. The discussion ultimately comes back to a lesson Reinhardt received from one of his mentors. His job wasn't simply to fix equipment. His job was to help “move steel through the door.” Reliability is his function for helping make that happen. It is a perspective that connects maintenance with operations, safety, finance, production, inventory, and the larger goals of the business. About Reinhardt de Jager Reinhardt de Jager works in reliability and maintenance management, with responsibilities covering predictive maintenance, reliability-centered maintenance, lubrication, shutdowns, and outages. His career has given him experience in maintenance, reliability, condition-based monitoring, and manufacturing operations. Outside of work, Reinhardt is also continuing his education while raising a growing family.
