Meet the Plant Services Authors

Our roster of columnists, bloggers, and regular contributors have the skills, insight and expertise you need to improve your facility.

Authors

David Berger - Asset Manager

David Berger, P.Eng. (AB), MBA, is president of The Lamus Group Inc., a consulting firm that provides advice and training to extract maximum performance, quality and value from your physical assets, processes, information systems and organizational design. Based in Toronto, Berger has held senior positions in industry, including for two large manufacturers, and senior roles in consulting. Read David's column

Alex Ferrari - Reliability Reboot

Alex Ferrari, CMRP, is a Maintenance Manager of a specialty cosmetics manufacturer in Charlotte, NC. He has worked in the chemical and nuclear industries both in the U.S. and abroad in Argentina. As a blogger and as a maintenance professional, Alex aims to explore the challenges faced by small and mid-sized facilities without the budget for by-the-book reliability programs. Read Alex's blog

Joe Kuhn - Leadership in Action

Joe Kuhn, CMRP, former plant manager, engineer, and global reliability consultant, is now president of Lean Driven Reliability LLC. He is the author of the book “Zero to Hero: How to Jumpstart Your Reliability Journey Given Today’s Business Challenges” and the creator of the Joe Kuhn YouTube Channel, which offers content on creating a reliability culture as well as financial independence to help you retire early. Read Joe's Column

Sheila Kennedy - Technology Toolbox

Sheila Kennedy, CMRP, is a professional freelance writer specializing in industrial and technical topics. She established Additive Communications in 2003 to serve software, technology, and service providers in industries such as manufacturing and utilities, and became a contributing editor and Technology Toolbox columnist for Plant Services in 2004. Prior to Additive Communications, she had 11 years of experience implementing industrial information systems. Read Sheila's column

Adrian Messer - Industry Pulse

Adrian Messer has worked in the maintenance and reliability field for nearly 20 years. During that time, he has worked with manufacturing and distribution facilities across multiple industries helping to improve their plant’s asset reliability through improved condition monitoring. As Vice President of Executive Services at Progressive Reliability, Adrian has a focus on working with companies to help them find and place high level maintenance and reliability professionals with jobs that are the right fit based off of their needs, wants, and qualifications. Read Adrian's column

Doc Palmer - Palmer's Planning Corner

Doc Palmer, PE, MBA, CMRP is the author of McGraw-Hill’s Maintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbook and as managing partner of Richard Palmer and Associates helps companies worldwide with planning and scheduling success. For more information including online help and currently scheduled public workshops, visit www.palmerplanning.com. Read Doc's column

Jeff Shiver - From the Plant Floor

Jeff Shiver CMRP is a founder and managing principal at People and Processes, Inc. Jeff guides people to achieve success in maintenance and reliability practices using common sense approaches. Read Jeff's column

Anna Townshend - Reliable Reading

Anna Townshend has been a journalist and editor for almost 20 years. She joined Control Design and Plant Services as managing editor in June 2020. Previously, for more than 10 years, she was the editor of Marina Dock Age and International Dredging Review. In addition to writing and editing thousands of articles in her career, she has been an active speaker on industry panels and presentations. Read Anna's column

Thomas Wilk - From the Editor

Thomas Wilk joined Plant Services as editor in chief in 2014. Previously, Wilk was content strategist / mobile media manager at Panduit. Prior to Panduit, Tom was lead editor for Battelle Memorial Institute's Environmental Restoration team, and taught business and technical writing at Ohio State University for eight years. Tom holds a BA from the University of Illinois and an MA from Ohio State University. Read Tom's column

Blogs

Captain Unreliability

Captain Unreliability is a satire of the state of the manufacturing industry in ’Merica, USA, and is written by an industry professional known for using humor to get the point across. Read the Captain Unreliability blog

Today’s Optimized Facility

Advancements in plant and manufacturing facilities offer managers an array of solutions for top performance. Optimizing facility operations requires keeping up with smart storage concepts, productive lift trucks, enhanced data collection, operator proficiency and best practices for material flow. It’s all about how to run better and manage smarter. This blog explores dynamic solutions and unique challenges facing today’s facilities managers. Read the Today’s Optimized Facility blog