The live panel discussion held on October 28, 2020 on Software will eat the reliability management world was a huge success.

A lot of interesting perspectives were put forth by our esteemed panelists and some very insightful questions were asked and answered.

Some of the topics touched upon by the panelists were

• The emergence of software as the key driver for improvement in reliability management
• Do’s and don’ts for an organization looking to close reliability gaps
• Difficulties of reliability management under conventional practices
• The best way to tap the investments made to close reliability gaps

Our panel of reliability experts and practitioners consisted of

• Kevin Clark – VP Accelix, Fluke Reliability
• Norman Smith – Executive VP of Engineering, Enchanted Rock
• Rogelio Arreguin Salazar – Global Asset Management Director, Grupo Bimbo
• Blair Fraser – Global Director, IIoT Solutions, UE Systems
• [Moderator] Nikunj Mehta – Founder & CEO, Falkonry

Topic Description:

Reliability management is a strategic operations discipline for increasing output and improving return on invested capital. Reliability management has traditionally relied on high performance sensors and specialized tools for different kinds of analysis. This has often resulted in a high demand for reliability professionals and an insufficient supply of these individuals across manufacturing sectors. 

Just like Tesla leveraged IoT-enabled automobiles and Uber widely available GPS sensors, new IIoT software solutions, such as Operational AI, are leveraging widely available SCADA and DCS instrumentation in manufacturing. This software category is poised to tackle a wide range of reliability management demands and will change its economics, thus forever changing its nature. 

In this panel discussion, the experts discussed the emergence of software as the key driver for improvement in reliability management and considered implications on the growth of this discipline.