Engineering Insights from the Field

  1. Revenue, Contracts & Capability

  • The business suffers from variable revenue due to inconsistent workload and reactive work patterns.

  • We need contracts and long-term agreements, but we currently lack the staffing depth to deliver them confidently.

  • The solution isn’t “more brochures” — it’s a clear value proposition backed by consistent delivery capability.

  • Asset managers need packaged, predictable services; we must bundle and articulate what we sell, not offer disconnected tests or one-offs.

2. The Value Proposition Problem

  • Our challenge: customers (e.g., Chevron) want quantifiable numbers, but we often can’t know the hypothetical loss of production avoided.

  • The value is not the number of hours spent onsite — it’s the prevention, insight, and assurance we deliver.

  • We need to articulate outcomes, not tasks:

    • Cost avoidance

    • Downtime reduction

    • Failure risk mitigation

    • Safety improvements

    • Extended asset life

Case studies can demonstrate this better than any brochure:

  • Snowy Hydro – potential case study

  • Rio Tinto Mongolia – strong international example of value creation

  • WA industrial sites – our best evidence base is already available

3. Intelligence Gathering & Curiosity

  • To define the value proposition well, engineers need a high level of curiosity:

    • Ask customers what hurts

    • Understand how their maintenance system works

    • Identify failure modes that matter

    • Capture intelligence and feed it back internally

  • Conversation is our biggest tool — understanding customers’ reality, constraints, and risks.

4. The Silo Problem

  • Large organisations (e.g., Rio Tinto) are extremely siloed, making it difficult to find the right engineering contact.

  • We need strategies to navigate complex organisations:

    • Map stakeholders

    • Share contacts internally

    • Follow value chains, not job titles

Ongoing frustration: even Rob struggles to find the “right” internal person.

5. Internal Communication & Knowledge Sharing

We identified three levels of communication that need structure:

1. Sharing between engineers

  • Field insights

  • Failure modes

  • What worked

  • What customers are saying

  • What problems we solved

2. Sharing between engineering and COOs

  • So leadership can prioritise, price, and improve offerings

  • Ensures operational alignment with commercial strategy

3. Sharing with the outside world

  • Customers

  • Asset managers

  • EPCs

  • OEMs

  • Regulators
    This is where strong value propositions, stories, and examples matter.

Dependencies

  • 80% of knowledge sits in 20% of people.

  • Ron currently trains new staff — but this knowledge must be codified, not held in one head.

6. What We Should Communicate Externally

  • How we technically know what we’re doing

  • How we solve customer problems

  • How we create value that isn’t measured in hours

  • Where we protected or restored production

  • How we embedded reliability, safety, and insights

  • Regular case studies demonstrating this

Our external story must match what we actually deliver internally.

7. Case Studies & “Buckets of Value”

  • Case studies already exist in the engineering drive — we must organise and use them.

  • At each monthly operations meeting, engineers should bring one example of how we added a bucket of value for a customer.

  • These examples should feed:

    • Internal newsletter

    • Marketing

    • BD presentations

    • Proposals

    • Website

    • LinkedIn posts

    • Sales collateral

This closes the loop between delivery → understanding → marketing → new revenue.

8. Overall Themes

machinemonitor® needs to:

  • Package services into consistent, sellable offerings

  • Turn engineering stories into commercial stories

  • Improve communication at all levels

  • Capture and demonstrate value, not hours

  • Train engineers to be curious, observant, and articulate

  • Build a system to share intelligence across the business

  • Use case studies to support BD, marketing, and leadership

  • Build confidence in winning and delivering contracts

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