The Aging Transformer Fleet: What the 40-Year Claim Really Says
Every grid-crisis story published this year leans on the same sentence: the average US transformer is more than 40 years old. It shows up in congressional testi... Read more.
Turnaround Cost Overrun Statistics: Tracing the 80% Claim
Walk into any turnaround readiness pitch and you'll hear a version of the same statistic: 80% of turnarounds miss their budget or schedule. Sometimes it's 82%. ... Read more.
Does 80% of Downtime Come From 20% of Assets? Tracing the Claim
You've heard it in every reliability pitch deck, bad-actor program kickoff, and CMMS demo: 80% of your downtime comes from 20% of your assets. It sounds like a ... Read more.
MRO and Spare Parts Inventory Statistics: Stockouts, Accuracy, Costs
The short version: We could not locate any government agency or standards body that publishes MRO storeroom inventory as a dedicated benchmark category, so the ... Read more.
Arc Flash Statistics: Incident Frequency, Injury Data, and Costs
TL;DR: No single database counts every arc flash incident in the United States. The most rigorous compilation to date, a Johns Hopkins University analysis of OS... Read more.
Heat Exchanger Fouling: Energy Penalty and Cost Statistics
Last updated: July 2026 | By the editors at Reliable TL;DR: Heat exchanger fouling is one of the most expensive chronic problems in industry, with total cost pe... Read more.
Preventive Maintenance for Electric Motors: What Actually Works
Electric motors drive somewhere around two-thirds of the electricity used in industrial plants. When one fails without warning, you lose production, you scrambl... Read more.
Compressed Air Leak and Energy Waste Statistics: What the DOE Data Says
TL;DR Compressed air leaks waste 20 to 30 percent of a compressor’s output in a poorly maintained plant, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. A wel... Read more.
Electric Motor Failure Statistics: Causes, Failure Rates, and Survey Data
TL;DR: The major public motor reliability surveys most often cited since the early 1980s reach the same ranked order: bearings fail most, windings second, rotor... Read more.
Pump Reliability and MTBF Statistics: Benchmarks, Failure Data, and Costs
The short version: Centrifugal pumps in U.S. refineries and petrochemical plants typically achieve a mean time between failures (MTBF) of roughly 3 to 10 years,... Read more.
OSHA’s Most-Cited Maintenance-Related Violations
The short version: Several of OSHA’s ten most-cited standards are maintenance-relevant, and the clearest one is Lockout/Tagout (Control of Hazardous Energ... Read more.
Prescriptive Maintenance: What’s Real and What’s Marketing
Ask a vendor and prescriptive maintenance is already here: AI that not only sees a failure coming but recommends or triggers an action to prevent it. Ask an eng... Read more.
Reliability Engineer Salary: Which Number Should You Trust
Search “reliability engineer salary” and you'll get a different answer from every tab. Glassdoor says about $144,000. Payscale says about $101,000. The Bure... Read more.
The Cost of Corrosion: Industrial Statistics, Global and U.S. Figures
The short version: The most-cited figure, from the NACE International IMPACT study (2016), puts the global cost of corrosion at US$2.5 trillion a year, about 3.... Read more.
Steam Trap Failure Rate Statistics: Benchmarks, Costs, and What the Data Shows
The short version: In steam systems left unmaintained for three to five years, the U.S. Department of Energy reports that 15–30% of installed steam traps may ... Read more.
The Manufacturing Jobs Multiplier: Sorting Real From Hype
Put the same sentence in five mouths and you get five numbers. “Every manufacturing job creates more jobs,” says the trade association, the governor’s pre... Read more.
Root Cause Analysis Mistakes: Why Blaming Operators Fails
A pump fails. Production stops. Maintenance finds the damage, operations gets questioned and someone writes the conclusion: Root cause: operator should’ve kno... Read more.
The Real Cost of a Workplace Injury, and What It Measures
Search “cost of a workplace injury” and you’ll land on the same two numbers everywhere. A medically consulted injury runs about $48,000. A work-related de... Read more.
Do 70% of Digital Transformations Fail? Tracing the Number
Many digital consultants open with the same slide. “Seventy percent of digital transformations fail,” usually with a McKinsey or BCG logo parked next to it.... Read more.
AI in Manufacturing Adoption Rates: Deploying vs Piloting
Search "AI in manufacturing adoption" and you'll get a wall of confident percentages. One says 77% of manufacturers have implemented AI. Another says 95%. Natio... Read more.
