A pump has an assumed life expectancy of 20 years. Should a facility replace it at 18, or keep it running until 24?
At the recent Gulf Coast Industry Forum (GCIF) 2026, that pump became a practical example in a fireside conversation between Ryan Sitton, Pinnacle’s founder and CEO, and Peter Huntsman, Chairman, President and CEO at Huntsman Corporation.
Huntsman questioned whether AI could help teams account for the weather, operating conditions, and utilization behind a maintenance decision. The discussion also explored how leadership affects the work inside industrial facilities.
For maintenance and reliability leaders, three takeaways stood out.
1. Use AI to Examine the Maintenance Decision
Huntsman illustrated AI’s potential with a hypothetical pump. If its assumed life expectancy is 20 years, how should weather, salinity, operating rates, and utilization affect its replacement timing?
He wasn’t recommending a longer or shorter service life. He was asking whether technology could help teams examine the conditions behind that decision.
An equipment age alone leaves important questions unanswered. For reliability teams, the next step is to connect those conditions to the equipment’s role in the facility and what failure would mean for production.
That gives analysis a practical purpose: understanding uncertainty and helping engineers assess whether to continue operating, gather more evidence, or plan an intervention.
The recommendation still needs engineering review and people to carry out the work.
Peter Huntsman and Ryan Sitton discuss AI and industrial leadership at GCIF 2026.
2. Understand the Work You’re Asking People to Do
Huntsman encouraged employees across functions, including finance and human resources, to spend time in facilities. Understanding how products are made helps people understand the support manufacturing teams need.
He also challenged the tendency to place responsibility for failures entirely on individuals:
“We fail as companies. We fail to fund properly. We fail to train properly.”
— Peter Huntsman
For reliability leaders, that raises a practical question: does the team have what it needs to carry out the recommendation?
Before committing to a maintenance plan, check:
- Whether the required skills and training are available
- Whether the budget and schedule support the work
- Whether facility teams have raised constraints that need resolving
A technically sound recommendation becomes more useful when leaders understand what execution requires and build a reliability culture across the organization.
3. Keep Questioning the Routine
Sitton described a concern from his work with industrial customers: formal systems can narrow people’s attention to completing a process, allowing important issues to pass unnoticed.
Huntsman emphasized the need for people to communicate and challenge ideas:
“Take ideas, rip them apart, and put them back together.”
— Peter Huntsman
Applied to reliability, that means giving engineers, operators, and maintenance teams room to question a recommendation. New inspection findings or concerns from the field should prompt teams to revisit their assumptions.
Use the evidence to test whether the current approach still makes sense. Data and analysis give teams a basis for deciding what should continue, what needs to change, and where to focus next.
Make the Next Investment Count
These themes align closely with Pinnacle’s approach to Data-Driven Reliability: use data to establish priorities, evaluate decisions in the context of the facility, and support the work that follows.
Newton, Pinnacle’s Reliability Decision Platform, helps teams forecast availability, quantify business impact, and prioritize what to do next. Engineering expertise and execution support help teams carry those decisions forward.
Newton displays projected facility availability and the equipment contributing most to downtime.
Before your next reliability investment, identify the decision it should improve and how your team will act on the answer. Its value becomes clearer when you can explain what the facility will do differently.
Ready to work through your facility’s priorities? Let’s build a practical plan together.