I'm speaking at the SAP for Asset + Service Management conference in Houston, TX, March 25–26, 2026. Don't miss my keynote entitled "From Asset Performance to Enterprise Value – The Economics and Human Systems of Reliable Operations."
On 18 March 2026, I’ll be back in Perth for the Mainstream Summit at the Perth Convention Centre. For me, this isn’t just another speaking engagement. It’s a return to a professional home of sorts.
My association with the Mainstream Community and The Eventful Group spans more than 25 years. Over that time, I’ve watched Mainstream grow into one of the premier gatherings for reliability, maintenance, and asset management professionals—not just in Australia, but globally. What makes it special isn’t just the agenda. It’s the people. Mainstream has always attracted serious practitioners – leaders who operate large, complex assets in industries where reliability is not theoretical. It’s operational. It’s financial. And often, it’s existential.
Australia has also played an outsized role in my professional journey. I’ve had the privilege of working with Chevron on Gorgon, with Visy, with Newcrest Mining, and many others across the country. More recently, my time as Global Head of Asset Management for Anglo American and Rio Tinto brought me to Perth repeatedly.
Western Australia sits at the epicenter of some of the world’s most capital-intensive, technically sophisticated mining operations. The scale is breathtaking. The operational challenges are real. And the opportunity to create value through intelligent asset management is enormous.
That’s what I’ll be speaking about at Mainstream.
Plant Reliability in Dollars & $ense
My presentation is titled “Plant Reliability in Dollars & $ense.”
The core premise is straightforward:
- Asset performance is the most controllable driver of value in asset-intensive businesses.
- In mining, we don’t control the geology. If the ore body is poor, we don’t mine.
We don’t control the market. We’re price takers. - What we do control is asset performance.
Figure 1 – Asset performance is the controllable lever of enterprise value.
In the presentation, I walk through the financial mechanics of how asset management affects EBITDA, RONA, EVA, and ultimately share price. On page 4 of the deck, I illustrate how upper-quartile asset managers dramatically outperform lower-quartile peers – not just operationally, but financially.
Reliability isn’t a maintenance metric. It’s a capital markets metric (Figure 2).
Figure 2 – Operational reliability scales financially — from OEE to EBITDA to enterprise value.
We’ll also examine the “stick” – what happens when reliability fails. Major industrial incidents don’t just create operational disruption; they destroy enterprise value and reputation for years.
But reliability isn’t only about profit. It’s about safety.
A reliable asset is a safe asset. The data consistently shows that as OEE improves, recordable injuries decline. Fewer catastrophic failures. Fewer emergency repairs under duress. Less exposure to arc flash, vibration, noise, and hazardous emissions.
Figure 3 – As asset performance improves, injury exposure declines — reliability and safety move together.
And it’s about sustainability.
Energy efficiency, precision alignment, lubrication excellence, electrical balance, minimizing friction and thermal losses – these are not separate ESG programs. They are core asset management disciplines. The U.S. DOE bandwidth analysis cited in the deck shows a 21% practical energy opportunity in mining through best practice alone.
Reliability delivers:
- Profit
- Safety
- Delighted customers
- ESG performance
- Reputation
That is the thesis.
When Innovation Meets the Maintenance Floor
I’m also looking forward to participating in the panel discussion: “When Asset Management Innovation Meets the Maintenance Floor.”
This topic is close to my heart. I’ve spent decades working at the intersection of strategy and execution. It’s easy to talk about ISO 55000, digital twins, AI-enabled analytics, and enterprise dashboards. It’s much harder to make innovation real for the craft professional turning a wrench at 2:00 a.m.
Innovation that doesn’t improve wrench time, safety, job clarity, and execution quality is theater.
True asset management excellence lives at the interface between:
- Leadership intent
- System design
- Work management
- Precision execution
That’s where value is created – or destroyed.
Precision Maintenance School: 16–17 March
Before the Summit, on 16–17 March, I’ll be conducting a two-day Precision Maintenance School centered on my FLAB principles:
- Fastening
- Lubrication
- Alignment
- Balance
FLAB is deceptively simple. But if you examine root causes across heavy industry – mining, oil & gas, manufacturing – you’ll find that a disproportionate share of chronic failures trace back to one of those four domains.
Precision is not about perfection. It’s about disciplined control of failure drivers.
Figure 4 – FLAB defines the primary controllable electro-mechanical failure drivers in asset-intensive operations.
We will dive deeply into fastening integrity, lubrication strategy, alignment, balance, and the electro-mechanical physics that govern energy loss and failure propagation. When these fundamentals are controlled with discipline, chronic failure declines and variability is reduced.
Precision maintenance is among the highest-return interventions available in asset-intensive operations. It improves OEE, reduces energy waste, extends asset life, lowers risk exposure, and strengthens safety performance – not through complexity, but through control of controllable failure drivers.
For organizations serious about moving beyond reactive maintenance, this workshop is foundational.
Why Perth, Why Mainstream
Perth has always been a unique convergence point for me – professionally and personally. I have many colleagues and friends across Australia. Some I first met decades ago. Others I worked with during my time at Rio Tinto and Anglo American. The conversations at Mainstream often feel less like networking and more like reunion – except everyone is still pushing the profession forward.
The mining industry is under enormous pressure:
- Cost volatility
- ESG scrutiny
- Energy transition
- Capital discipline
- Workforce capability challenges
Asset management sits at the center of all of it.
If geology and markets are givens, then performance excellence is the lever.
And that lever is controlled by people – leaders, planners, supervisors, operators, craftspeople – who care enough to continuously improve how work is defined, planned, executed, and learned from.
Mainstream has always been a place where that conversation happens seriously.
Join Us
If you’re in mining, oil & gas, heavy manufacturing, utilities – or any asset-intensive industry – and you care about connecting reliability to enterprise value, I encourage you to attend.
Come for the Summit on 18 March 2026.
Join the panel discussion.
Or spend two days with me in the Precision Maintenance School on 16–17 March.
You can find full details at: www.mainstreamcommunity.com
I’m looking forward to returning to Perth. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. And I’m looking forward to advancing the conversation around reliability – not as a cost center – but as a driver of dollars, safety, sustainability, and reputation.
Join me in Perth in March!
