In industrial maintenance, the technology is moving fast: online condition monitoring is becoming standard, AI pilots are multiplying, and data is everywhere. Yet one truth remains constant.

Reliability is built by people. Maroua Ouerghemmi, Senior Manager for Great Britain and Nordics at Coca Cola Europacific Partners CCEP, has built her career at the intersection of strategy and shop floor reality. Her message is clear: the future of maintenance will be won not only with smarter tools, but with trust, clarity, and the ability to translate big ambitions into daily habits.
Maroua Ouerghemmi did not enter maintenance by accident. She entered it through numbers.

“I love mathematics,” she says. For her, maintenance was never just about repairing what breaks. It was about understanding why things break, when they are likely to break next, and what decisions can change that outcome.

She graduated as an instrumentation and industrial maintenance engineer, specializing in maintenance management and maintenance engineering. Her studies began in Tunisia, and her graduation took her to Bahrain. From there, she joined APM Terminals as a reliability engineer in a harbor environment, at a time when the concept of reliability was still gaining traction in many organizations. Her role was to help build a reliability function within the maintenance department, shaping a new way of working around data, structure, and prevention.

Then came a defining opportunity. In 2015, APM Terminals built the first fully automated terminal in the Netherlands, and Maroua was asked to move there to implement reliability initiatives in that high-tech environment. In 2016, she relocated as a senior reliability engineer, spending two and a half years translating reliability theory into real-world routines inside an automated operation where the margin for error is thin and the pace is unforgiving.

From the Netherlands, her career continued to Sweden, where she joined Mondelēz at Marabou Chocolate. She started in reliability, then moved into leadership as maintenance manager, leading a team of around 25 people and taking responsibility for additional functions such as the storeroom. Later, she moved to Nynas refinery in Nynäshamn, Sweden, as a reliability and maintenance manager. Six months before the interview, she took on her current role at Coca Cola Europacific Partners CCEP, as Senior Manager for Great Britain and Nordics, supporting multiple sites in their journey from reactive maintenance toward a proactive, reliability-driven way of working.

Across industries and countries, her path has been fast, varied, and unusually rich in perspective. She calls it a privilege. It also shaped the way she sees the gap that often exists between operational reality and strategic ambition.

Over the years, she has worked closely with maintenance teams and leadership groups alike. That dual exposure, she says, gives her a clear understanding of the operational challenges on the shop floor and the strategic gap that can appear higher up. Her job today is to close that gap. Not by writing strategies, but by making them executable.

“My role is really to translate strategy into execution. The mission is to help sites move away from firefighting and into a more structured, proactive approach. That translation work is where many transformations succeed or fail.”

In Maroua’s view, most companies already have strong ambitions. They talk about reliability, performance, and continuous improvement. They may even have clear corporate strategies. But the hardest part is not the vision. The hardest part is turning it into daily behavior for the people who keep the plant running.

“It’s not enough to have a structure, to have the strategy and all the theoretical part,” she says. “What I enjoy is how I can translate that into execution.”

That translation requires patience, and it requires communication that respects the reality of maintenance work. A new process is not a slide deck. It is a new habit. And habits do not change because someone announces them. They change because the people doing the work understand why the change matters, what it means for them, and how it improves their daily life.

Maroua often describes herself as a coach. She enjoys putting structure in place, helping teams become more data-driven, and building processes that make work clearer and more manageable. The satisfaction comes when she can see tangible change, step by step, in how a team plans, prioritizes, and executes.

This is where her leadership philosophy becomes practical. She emphasizes trust, flexibility, and empathy. She believes leaders must invest time in understanding the people they work with, adapting to different behaviors, and building a relationship strong enough to carry change through resistance.

“People are very different,” she says. “It’s important to adapt.”

Empathy is central to her approach, even though she once questioned it. Early in her leadership journey, she worried empathy might be a weakness, something others could take advantage of. She thought she needed to become tougher to be taken seriously. Over time, she realized the opposite. In maintenance, empathy can be a competitive advantage.

It makes a leader approachable. It makes it easier to connect with technicians and engineers. It makes it easier to get honest information from the shop floor, including feedback about what is working and what is not. And without that feedback, reliability programs remain theoretical.

“Whatever strategy you want to implement, if the people on the shop floor don’t adapt it, you won’t get any results,” she says.

Her experience across cultures has reinforced this belief. She has worked in the Middle East and across Europe, and she has learned that maintenance strategies are often universal, but implementation is not. The “what” can be standardized. The “how” must be adapted.

In global organizations, there is a natural desire to standardize. Common KPIs, common systems, common maintenance planning approaches. Maroua supports this. Standards create a reference point, a shared language, and a way to compare progress. But she is equally clear that routines must fit local reality.

Site size matters. Team composition matters. Production communication matters. Organizational maturity matters. A site that is early in its reliability journey cannot absorb the same level of standardization as a mature site without creating frustration and failure. Pushing a standard too rigidly, too fast, can backfire.

“We often push sites to just follow standards, but maybe on terms of maturity they are not there yet,” she says. “And then they fail.”
So, the balance is to keep the standard as the direction, while allowing each site to build its plan based on where it is today. This is not a compromise. It is change management. And change management, in maintenance, is always about people, she says.

That human dimension becomes even more visible when the conversation turns to diversity. Maroua has often been the only woman in maintenance teams across different countries. She acknowledges that the experience can be different. In many environments, a man in a leadership position may receive trust by default. A woman may have to earn it first, sometimes facing skepticism or subtle testing.

Her advice is grounded and direct. Do not overdo it. Do not fall into the trap of trying to prove you know everything. Do not lose yourself by performing a version of leadership you think others expect.

“Be yourself,” she says. “You don’t have to know everything. If you are in the position, you are there for a reason. Trust that. Focus on the job. Work with the team. Let results and consistency build credibility over time.”

When asked about challenges in the maintenance sector, Maroua points to a familiar and persistent issue: maintenance is still too often viewed as a cost center. In many leadership conversations, maintenance appears as a budget line to be reduced, not as a value driver to be strengthened. She believes this mindset must change, and she believes maintenance leaders have a role in changing it.

Maroua thinks that the language needs to evolve.

“Maintenance spending must be framed as investment, linked directly to business outcomes. Reliability is not an abstract technical goal. It affects productivity, quality, safety, and delivery performance. It reduces unplanned downtime and stabilizes operations. It protects assets and extends their life, and it makes planning possible.”

But to make that case convincingly, maintenance must be measured wisely. Here Maroua is critical of two common traps. Some organizations track too many KPIs, creating confusion and diluting focus. Others track the wrong KPIs, leading teams to optimize for metrics that do not drive real improvement.

Her recommendation is to start with a few critical KPIs, with clear baselines and targets, and then link them to daily activities so the team understands what they are doing and why. In her view, the focus should always cover people, process, and cost.

Among the most important reliability measures, she highlights MTBF, mean time between failures, as a core indicator of machine reliability and the effectiveness of maintenance practices. She also emphasizes MTTR, mean time to repair, as a measure of team efficiency, skill levels, and the time it takes to perform tasks, which can guide improvement efforts. And she stresses budget tracking, not as a cost-cutting exercise, but to understand where money is spent and whether it is invested wisely.

From there, the conversation naturally moves to digital transformation. Maintenance is already changing. Online monitoring for vibrations has been in place for years in many sites, though maturity varies widely. Now, AI pilots for predictive maintenance are emerging across industry.

Maroua sees both opportunity and risk. The opportunity is clear. AI can connect data sources that have long been fragmented. It can centralize machine history, OEM recommendations, previous failures, and maintenance actions into one platform. It can accelerate troubleshooting, support root cause analysis, and improve prediction and decision-making.

She mentions a pilot initiative focused on centralizing machine data into a single platform where engineers can quickly access a more complete operational picture. For maintenance teams that have long struggled with missing data, scattered records, and limited visibility, this represents a significant shift.

But she is careful not to oversell it. AI is not yet perfectly accurate. Data must be validated, tools must be trained, and perhaps most importantly, people must be prepared.

“There is data everywhere,” she says. “The challenge is not collecting more. The challenge is integrating it, translating it into actionable decisions, and embedding it into routines.”

She also acknowledges the human fear that comes with rapid technological change. People wonder what it means for their jobs. They worry about being replaced. They feel the pace of change is faster than their ability to adapt. In her view, organizations must address this proactively by planning skill development now, not later.

The future of maintenance, in her eyes, is not a future without people. It is a future where people work differently, with new tools and new competencies, and where the industry must invest in upskills to keep pace with technology.

Looking ahead five to ten years, Maroua hopes to see three shifts. A more diverse maintenance workforce, a more widespread adoption of AI and online monitoring that reduces reactive firefighting, and a broader recognition that maintenance is a value-added contributor to business performance, not a department that simply “drains money.”

Her own ambition is to keep learning and to contribute back to the maintenance and reliability community. Early in her career, platforms and publications helped her understand the field, learn from others, and find direction. Now she wants to be part of that knowledge loop, sharing experience and helping the next generation.

For young engineers entering maintenance, her advice is practical and optimistic. Be open-minded.

“Be patient. Reach out to people and ask questions, try new initiatives and approaches. Do not be afraid to fail, because failure is part of learning in maintenance. And always keep the core goal in focus: improving machine performance.”

Three practical takeaways from Maroua Ouerghemmi

1. Strategy only matters if it becomes a daily habit The success of reliability programs depends on whether maintenance teams can translate them into simple, repeatable actions that make sense in their daily work.

2. Standardize the “what”, adapt the “how” Global KPIs and systems create alignment, but local routines must reflect site maturity, culture, and organizational setup to avoid resistance and failure.

3. Digital transformation is a people project AI and monitoring can unlock huge value, but only if companies invest in skills, validation, and change management so teams can actually use the data to make better decisions.

Text: Mia Heiskanen Photos: Maroua Ouerghemmi archive

When Oskari Tarkkila started at OC Paroc Parainen plant, it was meant to be a summer job. A year later, he is a Maintenance Engineer coordinating daily work, planning longer-term maintenance programs and helping lead people and contractors in a demanding industrial environment.

Tarkkila studied chemical engineering at Åbo Akademi University and graduated this spring. He joined the company the previous May and completed his master’s thesis alongside the job, an applied study on how different parameters affect the performance and adjustment of vibrating stone feeders. “I’m happy with the outcome. I did it alongside work and stayed on the schedule I set for myself,” he says.

The transition from student to full-time engineer was accelerated by the variety of tasks he encountered early on. During the summer he also covered for both the mechanical maintenance supervisor and the electrical supervisor during holidays, giving him a broad view of how maintenance decisions ripple through production, safety and resourcing. “There’s a lot of problem-solving and being in between electrical and mechanical maintenance. Sometimes you have your own projects, and there’s a wide scale of things on your desk,” Tarkkila says.

His role includes daily task prioritisation, long-term planning, onboarding of contractors, running safety moments, and handling people-related topics such as shift coverage and holidays. The biggest challenge, he says, is the unexpected: equipment failures that disrupt plans and require calm, fast decisions. But those moments are also where the job becomes most rewarding. “We’re prepared and we can respond and get the line running again. And it’s really rewarding when you get it fixed,” he says.

For Tarkkila, the steepest learning curve has been mental rather than technical: staying composed while juggling multiple priorities. “It’s been about having many things going on at the same time and staying calm under pressure,” he says.

At OC Paroc, that pressure is balanced by a clear hierarchy of values. Safety is not presented as a separate program; it is embedded in daily routines and reinforced continuously. Tarkkila describes safety culture as something that must be actively built because it does not sustain itself. “Safety is always number one, but it doesn’t happen by itself. It takes constant effort,” he says. “We’re never in such a hurry that we would compromise safety. The priority is that everyone goes home in good condition.”

The environment makes that mindset essential. A stone wool plant with over 100 employees combines heavy traffic and lifting operations with hot surfaces and complex equipment, conditions that require constant situational awareness. Tarkkila notes that many of the risks discussed in generic safety training are present simultaneously in this kind of facility, which makes disciplined behaviour and clear practices critical.

Maintenance capability is built through both internal teamwork and selective use of contractors. The site’s mechanical maintenance team includes day-shift mechanics and plant technicians, supported by roles such as storekeeper, an electrical engineer and maintenance leadership. Contractors are used either as extra capacity or for specialised tasks. For a young engineer, this means learning to lead across different groups early, own employees, shift-based roles and external partners.

Because Paroc is part of a larger international Owens Corning group, knowledge sharing extends beyond the site. Tarkkila says collaboration with other factories is frequent, especially when troubleshooting: if a system is not working well in one location, teams reach out to peers elsewhere to learn how they solved similar issues. The exchange is often case-by-case, but it creates a practical network for spreading good practices.

From the HR perspective, onboarding and early development are designed to be local and hands-on while still aligned with broader company principles. HR Generalist Tuovi Helin says new employees are primarily trained locally because the needs of each site are best understood on the ground. “Onboarding happens mainly locally. Safety is the top priority, and we make sure people understand the site and safe ways of working,” Helin says.

For summer employees, the approach is team-based: a supervisor owns the onboarding, while an experienced colleague acts as a day-to-day mentor. New hires typically shadow for the first weeks and gradually take on tasks independently. Feedback is collected continuously to identify gaps and improve the process. “We gather feedback all the time, from the person being onboarded and from the person doing the onboarding, so we can see what’s working and what needs more support,” Helin says.

Summer recruitment is also a strategic talent pipeline. Helin notes that the Parainen site typically hires over 10 summer employees annually, with one or two roles in maintenance. The company uses its own career channels, LinkedIn and university recruitment events to reach candidates. In her experience, interest has been strong. “We’ve had a good number of applicants, and we’ve been able to reach the target groups we want,” Helin says.

In an industry where reliability and safety are inseparable, the story of a young engineer moving quickly from summer hire to a key coordination role highlights a broader point: maintenance organisations can attract and retain new talent when they offer meaningful responsibility, structured onboarding and a culture that treats safety as a shared daily practice not just a compliance requirement.

When tankers cannot safely navigate the Strait of Hormuz, fuel prices rise and public anxiety grows. This often results in long lines at the fuel pump and fears of shortages quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The reality is that critical infrastructure will always be a target because those seeking to disrupt, cause harm or force change — militarily, economically, politically or socially — understand both its physical and psychological impact.

Regulating for resilience: While headlines focus on political debates over who should keep shipping lanes open, critical infrastructure organisations and governments are moving forward with new physical and cyber safeguards to protect sites closer to home.

Weeks before recent events in the Middle East, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its 2025 review outlining major actions taken to strengthen national cyber and physical defences. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive will take effect across the EU in July, with member states such as Germany advancing early through its KRITIS framework to establish a model for CER compliance.

These initiatives extend to energy supplies, from power stations (gas, electricity and nuclear), refineries and pipelines, substations, water treatment facilities, data centres and food production. And while increased investment in renewable energy may reduce reliance on overseas supply, wind and solar farms remain potential targets as well. Fortunately, the likelihood of missile strikes on critical infrastructure is low in many regions. But the risks of trespassing, espionage, sabotage, terrorism and protest activity are far higher.

Protection and detection: Security levels vary widely across critical infrastructure.  A large power station may employ live-monitored CCTV, video analytics, alarms, sensors, access control, fencing and other heightened defences. In contrast, a rural electrical substation may rely on a single unmonitored camera, a perimeter fence and a basic alarm.

Despite significant annual investment, organisations often lack the ability to connect these systems. Without integrated systems, real-time situational awareness — understanding what happened, how it began, what is occurring now and how to respond — is nearly impossible. Operators typically manage large portfolios of sites spread over vast and often challenging geographies. Only by integrating siloed systems and linking multiple sites into a centralized operation can true enterprise-wide visibility be achieved.

For example, a perimeter breach at a substation might initially appear to be an isolated incident. But combined with a similar incident at another site, it could indicate the start of a coordinated attack.

A centralized insight layer (often referred to as a PSIM — Physical Security Information Management system) ensures incidents are detected using all available resources. A perimeter alarm — triggered by a steel fence sensor or a 3D LiDAR system — initiates an alert and the video management system automatically displays the relevant live camera feed and recent footage. Operators can follow predefined workflows to lock down areas, dispatch first responders or initiate evacuations. Automated actions, such as playing recorded announcements over public address systems, can also occur.

Rapid, effective response is essential for safety, security and ensuring uninterrupted service to customers.

Resilient supply chains require security measures that function from the source to the point of service. Recent geopolitical and environmental events, such as severe flooding, have shown how quickly disruption to one link can trigger widespread consequences. However, critical infrastructure operators can strengthen resilience by leveraging the robust systems they already have, improving their ability to detect and respond to threats.

About Octave

Octave provides mission-critical software that empowers organizations to make informed decisions across every stage of the asset lifecycle — Design, Build, Operate and Protect — where performance, safety, and reliability are non-negotiable and failure is not an option. Turning complex operational data into actionable intelligence, Octave connects expertise, real-world conditions and enterprise-scale insight to improve performance, resilience and incident response where it matters most. Octave has approximately 7,200 employees in 45 countries.

Text and Photo: Andreas Beerbaum