Allied Reliability has strengthened its leadership position in the predictive maintenance industry with the addition of reliability expert Jack Nicholas.
“Jack holds tremendous respect within the maintenance and reliability community,” says Allied partner
The announcement is the culmination of a long-term relationship.
“I have been observing Allied for many years,” says Nicholas. “And I’ve been impressed by their contributions to the maintenance and reliability industry. Through organizations like SMRP, I’ve become quite familiar with their people and their business approach. It became obvious that we have a common mindset, and ultimately that led to this agreement.”
Because of the highly competitive, global marketplace, companies are searching for ways to become more efficient. And predictive maintenance enables them to do that, according to Nicholas.
“More and more companies will be adopting predictive maintenance and using it as the key element to drive their maintenance programs,” says Nicholas. “It’s the last frontier for wringing out savings and increasing profits, particularly for manufacturers. What we see now is just the tip of the iceberg.”
In addition, predictive maintenance is expected to change radically in the near future. For example, with the development of wireless technologies, less time will be spent time collecting data and much more will be spent analyzing and reporting.
“A lot of the data collection will become wireless,” says Nicholas. “Instead of the individual going out to get the data, the data will come to the individual. That will be a much more efficient, effective way to do it.”
That means an increasing demand for highly-specialized workers who have different skill sets than the average maintenance worker today.
Says Nicholas, “I see predictive maintenance technicians, as we call them now, as the knowledge workers of the maintenance field. They have the knowledge and the tools to do analysis that is highly productive compared to the intuitive way we’ve done maintenance in the past.”
Nicholas brings a unique ability to communicate the economic value of a predictive maintenance program to senior executives, according to Schultz. And that’s going to be very valuable to Allied’s clients.
“Unfortunately, many people who are running companies don’t have the background or the resources to ask the right questions about predictive maintenance and reliability – and how to save money there,” says Schultz. “So when they get into a bind, their approach to saving money is to cut budgets.”
Nicholas brings more than 40 years of experience in predictive maintenance and reliability, including 30 years working as a naval officer and civilian engineer, as the founder and senior vice president of PdMA Corporation and most recently as the CEO of the successful training, publishing and consulting business Maintenance Quality Systems (MQS), LLC. He’s the author or co-author of numerous books and publications, including Motor Electrical Predictive Maintenance and Testing, Predictive Maintenance Management and Advancing Reliability & Maintenance. In addition, Jack is a contributor to other major books in the Maintenance & Reliability field.
With Allied, Nicholas’ primary role will be to serve as a senior technical advisor to coach and mentor Allied’s team. He will provide training, consulting and mentoring on Procedure-Based Maintenance (PBM) and Reliability-Centered Maintenance (RCM) scorecarding.
About Allied Reliability
Founded in 1997, Allied Reliability has quickly grown to become the largest engineering, consulting and service firm focusing on preventive and predictive maintenance. Today, Allied serves more than 200 manufacturing plants and facilities in North America, Latin America and