Reliability 4.0 · 2026-05-19 · 25 min
The best thing we ever did was just get started. In this episode of Reliability 4.0, Phil White, Chief Maintenance Officer at United Utilities , shares how his team transformed maintenance culture across one of the UK’s largest water and wastewater providers. Over the past six years, United Utilities rebuilt its maintenance strategy from the ground up - reworking hundreds of thousands of PM tasks, investing in technician capability, and creating a culture focused on continuous improvement instead of reactive work. We dig into: Why maintenance excellence is more about people and culture than tools How United Utilities rebuilt its entire PM workbank using reliability principles The role of PM compliance and PM yield in driving accountability How “bad actor” dashboards help identify long-term reliability problems Why Phil believes the hardest part of transformation is simply getting started If your organization is trying to move from reactive maintenance to a proactive reliability culture, this episode offers practical lessons from a large-scale transformation journey. This episode is available on: YouTube Apple Music Or wherever you get your podcasts!
E55: Go Back to the Basics: Reliability Lessons From Fresenius67 / 100E54: How La-Z-Boy Is Standardizing Reliability Across PlantsE52: Building a Reliability Program from the Ground Up at NTT Global Data CentersE51: Why AI Fails Without Good Data - and How to Build a Reliability Foundation FirstE50: Building a Reliability Culture at Sabert with Glenn Simmonds