Forever young

It's Bob Dylan's birthday today. He's 70 years old. Holy Son of Man! That's quite a few decades ago when Robert Zimmerman entered this world in Duluth, Minnesota, while World War II raged.

Around 20 years later, he moved to New York City and began one of the most prolific careers in music history. That's 50 years of recording and touring. Fifty. And even now he still travels the world on his Never Ending Tour, which has spanned continents for almost 25 years. Talk about reduced downtime and increased reliability.

In a way, Dylan has used his own form of total productive maintenance to remain operational and productive. He is constantly assessing and reevaluating his music, almost as if he’s holding 100 Kaizen events around the world each year. As his band continues to change around him, he is constantly refreshing and repainting himself. Predictive maintenance of his music and his career has become so refined that he seems to have reached a point where MTBF can no longer be quantified because there are no failures.

More than any other musical artist, Dylan has enlisted the opinions and the talents of his line operators, the members of his band, and created a culture of longevity that transcends the musical styles of a decade or a genre. Just like an effective TPM program, he is the tortoise that always outlasts the hare.

May the flat portion of your bathtub curve be long, and may you stay forever young.

Happy birthday, Bob.