When discussing Asset Management with colleagues I often reflect on the reality of life for those people who work in the field at the coal face in the management of assets. For them it is an ongoing challenge of prioritising tasks – ‘do, don’t do, defer’. The choices those individuals make on a daily basis […]

I live in a major German city and commute to work every day. At some point, I stopped following the official train schedule. Why? It’s because you can hardly rely on the schedule — especially at morning and evening rush hours. Unfortunately, delays and train cancellations are more the rules than the exception, and the […]

Is no one interested in the current state of the substructure of our national economy anymore? One can make what they will of Donald Trump, but the American President, and thankfully other heads of state, have indeed understood the point that we have to reinvest more in our infrastructure. That is, not just as a […]

Event-oriented maintenance, risk-based maintenance, condition-based maintenance, predictive maintenance, etc. In this jungle of maintenance strategies, some people easily lose sight of the big picture. What’s the best strategy to use? Is there an optimal maintenance strategy? Is there a Holy Grail of maintenance? Where is Indiana Jones when you need him? We don’t have him, […]

Predictive maintenance is a lot like a menu at a Chinese restaurant. Everyone gets the gist of it, but no one knows exactly what is in it. However, a big difference is already apparent here: with predictive maintenance, you don’t need to know what it contains (and as is the case with many restaurants – […]

“But we have always done it like that!” That is what I recently heard from a maintenance strategist, as we were discussing concepts for optimising maintenance activities. I also often hear the following statement or something similar: “I know the new maintenance strategies. But I already know how to keep my equipment in good condition. […]