Peter Durrant | Bridging the Generational Gap: Transmitting Knowledge in a Changing Industry

In this episode of the Reliability Hero podcast, host Andrew Daddo speaks with Peter Durant, an adjunct principal education and change management with Covaris, a maintenance practitioner thriving in the Australian industry. 

The podcast features an insightful conversation on the importance of timing when it comes to generating new ideas, how to identify opportunities for improvement, and how to focus on what matters to give a return on investment. Peter shares his exceptional career journey, from starting as an apprentice in the Navy to becoming an electrical engineer and a consultant. 

The conversation is an interesting mix of personal anecdotes and professional insights that is sure to captivate listeners.

Transcript

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Andrew [Host]: [00:00:19] Reliability Hero podcast is brought to you.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:00:21] By the mainstream community. We'll have conversations with maintenance and reliability practitioners just like you. Whether you take iron ore out of the ground, keep power plants running, fix aeroplanes, trains, conveyor belts or turbines. Few things excite you more than making equipment, and machines do more than they were ever designed to do. Faster, safer, longer and more efficiently. Let's just say you keep economies moving. I'm Andrew [Host] Daddo. Welcome to the Reliability heroes. This is reliability hero. And I'm joined today by Peter Durant. He's an adjunct principal education and change management with Covaris, a maintenance practitioner thriving in the Australian industry. He's had an exceptional career that started in the Navy and now to Kouvaras and with the with the desire and want to help people. How has it been for you or for Peter? First of all, welcome. Thanks for for joining me on the podcast.
 
 Peter: [00:01:25] Thank you very much, Andrew [Host]. Looking forward to it.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:01:27] Yeah, look, I think it'll be fun. You've done a lot. Um, can you. Can we just say what you're doing now? Like, what your specific role is now and then? I want to work backwards to the beginning and then work back up to where we are.
 
 Peter: [00:01:41] I'm in that lovely position where after 50 odd years in working, I no longer do things I don't enjoy. So sitting with you and doing this is part of what I enjoy and and I'm off and running. So I do a lot of teaching of maintenance, planning and scheduling. I go to a lot of sites and talk about maintenance improvement programs, asset management. So it's just an absolute delight being connected to people with whom you connect and they love working hard and we like improving the way they do business.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:02:14] Yeah, I quite like your first note on LinkedIn where you say every day is a chance to discover something new, an idea, a person, a love that then can be better understood, and to connect people and ideas for when the time is right, which I think is a really interesting notion. How important is timing when it comes to ideas?
 
 Peter: [00:02:33] Oh, it's critical. You go to all sorts of different conversations and everybody's in a different place at a different time, and you've got to wait for those pieces of gold to drop out so you can be talking to people for a week and a half and not get something, and then suddenly something will come out. And so the trick is to listen a lot and really wait for the the passion that comes out. You know, it comes to work and still doesn't have that first cup of coffee. Not happy. Then by the afternoon, bang, you have a conversation and the magic happens.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:03:05] Okay. So when you talk about the magic happening, what are you actually talking about? Do you mean an idea of how to do something better or differently or. Or. Yeah.
 
 Peter: [00:03:13] So as an introvert, you know, I've just been to a company where there's a whole lot of sites in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Tumut, you know, all over the place. And, and I've gone to speak to nearly all of the maintenance planners and some of the engineers and that sort of thing, just to find out, first of all what they do. Well, too often we go in and ask people what's going wrong and focus on what's going wrong. But when you start focusing on that, the things that are going well, you start to see there's possibly 1 or 2 opportunities for improvement. And that's when you start to move into a place where you can take the gold build on that and then finalise a few steps and you can do a million things overnight. You've you've just got to pick up on the things that really matter, which will give you a return on your investment.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:03:58] Okay. So you obviously you started hands on and obviously you're consulting now, but you started with the Navy. Yeah. And as an electrical engineer went into subs. So just tell us what just sounds. I mean, look, I should read it, but maybe you'll if you leave something out, then I'll, I'll try and remind you. But just how did that work and how did it all begin for you?
 
 Peter: [00:04:23] Well, I started life as an apprentice in the Navy. And so electrical fitter by trade. And then I also did electronics. So I had dual trade and went to sea and finished my apprenticeship. And then there was this an opportunity to to join submarines. And I thought, well, what's that all about? Well, it's eight months in the UK training. Oh, okay. I'm going to join submarines. Yeah, right. So, so there I was in, in the UK for eight months doing my training. Then I come back and then I had to go to sea and I thought, Oh, how did that happen? So.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:05:00] So sea in a submarine.
 
 Peter: [00:05:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only for about 17 years though.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:05:05] Yeah. And so what's that submarine experience like?
 
 Peter: [00:05:08] Oh, it's fabulous. It's. It's a young man's game, of course. Well past it. Now, mind you, if I. If I could go to sea in one of the new nukes, I'd be there pretty quick. But it's. You're really quite professional. There's only a few people that do certain things. And so you have to have your act together. And for me, that was the making of me. I was a bit of a scallywag and I got myself into a bit of trouble here and there. But once I got to the submarine arm and you realized that, Oh, wait a minute, they're depending on you. Yeah. You actually have to get your guano in one little lump.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:05:42] Right? I've. I've never heard it expressed that way. What sort of a scallywag were you?
 
 Peter: [00:05:52] I was just enjoying life. I mean, for me to join the Navy mother, sort of. I was in. Ten and started year 11 badly. And she sidled up to me with a cutting out of the paper and said, Pete, would you like to go and do an apprenticeship in the Navy? And of course, next minute I'm there. I've signed up for 12 years. And I went, What happened? Right? Dear Mum did me log a dinner, right?
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:06:14] It was so so. I don't want to I don't want to jump ahead to to consulting yet and dealing with young people and how you do that. But I definitely want to get there. Just. Just sorry. One last thing on the submarine. Well, not one last thing on the submarines. Do you spend most of your time underwater? When? At sea in a sub?
 
 Peter: [00:06:32] Yes. Yeah. You get out there, you dive, you live listening to the electric and magnetic environment and obviously the acoustic environment, but it's all about not being discovered. So you're out there doing your thing and that's what you do.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:06:48] And so for how long would you be sorry if this is boring for you, but how long would you be? How long would you be underwater for?
 
 Peter: [00:06:54] Well, the longest I've done is away for six weeks of that. You would have been at least 4 or 5 weeks dived. Right. And transit time in and out.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:07:04] Yep. And. And so the feeling in the ship then in the submarine is obviously it's tight and enclosed, but is there a great sense of camaraderie and friendship?
 
 Peter: [00:07:16] And that's indeed part of it. You know, there's there's less you know, what's the word I'm looking for? It's just it's just straightforward. You just do your job. People understand what you have to do. And once you see you've got half the crew asleep at any one time, you're doing six hours on, six hours off, around the clock, and you're operating, you're doing the the tasks that are asked of you and people just get on very well.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:07:44] Okay. Do you look back at it as one of your favorite working experiences?
 
 Peter: [00:07:50] Absolutely. Yeah, it was it was as I said, it was the making of me and my my continuation in my work reflects back on that. You have to get on with people. There's no sense in carrying on like a pork chop. You really have to do the job that's asked of you and respect everybody else around you.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:08:08] All right. So that was actually crucial. And you understanding how to behave in a professional sense as you move forward.
 
 Peter: [00:08:15] Oh, very much so.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:08:17] All right. So how do you then pass that lesson on to the younger people when you work with them? Is there a is there a knack to that or is there.
 
 Peter: [00:08:26] Very much certainly in our world of maintenance and asset management, it's a process. You you understand the process and you follow the process then as you see things. It may be able to improve that continuous improvement process. At the end of that, that feedback loop is where you you really kick the goal. So you follow it as it's designed and you give that a go and you think, Hey, wait a minute, if we did step seven before step 13 and we did that, then before that, we'd probably be a lot more efficient and suddenly somebody goes, Hey, what a great idea. Let's give it a go and bang, you get into it.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:09:04] And so do you think now and as you say, 50 years in the industry, that we're as good at learning new ways to do things as you would have been in the Navy?
 
 Peter: [00:09:16] Look, I think we're better. I think there's a whole lot of things that have improved. Technology is doing a lot of things for us. I'm still connected to a lot of young tradies, ladies and gentlemen, who are just stunningly capable. And I get a buzz out of hearing from them and then saying, Well, let's guide that in a different way. Let's do this, you know, in some other way. And when they're, you know, they're listening, I'm learning a whole lot from them. And be I can transmit a little bit of my knowledge to them. And suddenly you've got a lot of fun happening as well.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:09:53] Okay. And how relevant is your knowledge to them now, if if you know what I mean? Like there's that, you know, like I mean, I don't know. I talk to people and young people and they're like, kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, So like, go on, Grandpa.
 
 Peter: [00:10:12] Yeah, no, exactly right. You've got to pick your stories, you know? And of course when you, when you jump something out. Oh well, when I was at 200ft on this submarine and this happened and we had this flood, you know, I really got my focus really quickly when that happened. You know, this water and the people tanks, not a lot of fun. And so when you sort of turn it around like that, suddenly you got their attention and then you come back to the physics of it, you know, the depth, the pressure, you know, the whole the water's coming in and your buoyancy. And once you start to talk about that, suddenly the technical side comes out in them. They're thinking, gee, that's really interesting. Yeah. And then how do you get out of that? Well, you blow main ballast and suddenly you're on the surface and you're you're dived. Problem is now a surface problem. And, yeah, you're a lot better off. And once you bring all of that together, you've got to make conversations interesting. You know, that's that's your business. You know, you do a lot of that stuff up on the stage. And so when you're sitting in a classroom with 30 planners, you've got some planners who are just starting, you've got some are really quite experienced, and somehow you've got to bring that together and with a few war stories. And I've been privileged enough to work across from food manufacturing, oil and gas, military, all sorts of different places. And from that, you know, the war stories come out and if you get those across and get their interest, you can take them with you.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:11:39] Okay. Do you have do you have one? Do you have a best like your best back pocket story where everything's going to hell in a handbasket and you go, well, hang on a second. Do you have like one man? Maybe, Maybe that's the one you just told about being 200m down and in a people tank.
 
 Peter: [00:11:57] Yeah, well, one of the things is you're dealing with people and everybody knows that some people don't necessarily want to follow process. So we say, well, you tell them once and you have a conversation, you explain that maybe you tell them a second time and explain why you've told them a second time. By the time you get to the third time, you might have to give them a significant emotional experience. And that always gets people thinking because, oh, what do you mean by that? Well, you use imagination. All those with a job take one step forward. Right?
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:12:36] Gotcha. You transitioned into project manager with the Australian Defence Industries in 1992. How is that from being a worker bee to a management bee?
 
 Peter: [00:12:49] That was exciting. I was halfway through an MBA at that stage and I'd had sort of, you know, this military world. I was the engineer on Collins, the first of the new submarines in South Australia in Build and, and suddenly there's this job that comes up to go to North West Cape when the Americans pulled out of the communications station up there. And so my background in submarine communications is a communications site for submarines. And so I got the gig and then suddenly I had to go and recruit 60 people, both operators and maintainers, to to work at the site. And and I was then living on adrenaline and using my learnings out of my MBA in real stuff. And so all of that was, was exciting. And so from that, that transition was made a lot of mistakes, but a lot of good learnings out of that. And from the process then ended up getting into other areas of business.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:13:54] Okay. It's something I've asked a few of the people that we've chatted to in the Reliability Hero podcast. Have you learnt more from your successes or your failures?
 
 Peter: [00:14:05] Are the failures? Absolutely. Pardon me? One of the things I've been made redundant three times. Sometimes it could have been avoided. Me and my mouth got myself into a few problems and scallywag. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of stuck with me. Can't keep.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:14:25] It. Can't keep a good scallywag down. No.
 
 Peter: [00:14:28] But you go and have a look in the mirror and you think, Pete, could you have done that better? Yeah, I reckon I could have. And and then you say, Well, okay. But each of those have taken me to a better place because you've got that experience. And. And the trick is you've got to believe in yourself that can have the reverse effect. It can take people to a horrible place, you know, that they've been, you know, kicked into touch and they're not doing so well. But if you focus on the good points and you believe in yourself, it takes you to a better place. It always does.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:15:07] Okay. You said when you when you started that job that you were really flying by the seat of your pants. Were you were you ready for the job? And is that is that one of the one of the things about doing better and furthering yourself professionally is to take on things that you're possibly not ready for?
 
 Peter: [00:15:26] I think for me, because I was halfway through the MBA, I was sort of on the first ladder of the management world and I'd obviously been commissioned and a naval officer at sea and running a pretty big department. But when you start to deal with the commercial aspects as well as the the military aspects from the past and you go through that, you know an example we had to put in a system defence demands that you have systems that are ISO 9001 accredited and you just read the book, look the standard, put the bits and pieces in place and move as quickly as you can. You know, taking people with you. And, and so once you do that with the right sort of attitude, you you learn you're on that vertical learning curve and you're really taking off.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:16:23] Okay. Is it is the reliability, reliability and maintenance with their thought leaders for you as you went through, did you have any sort of gurus that you really looked up to or who inspired you?
 
 Peter: [00:16:36] Yes. As I was going through the obviously the engineering world and I became a sort of senior non-commissioned officer at sea, I was fairly well in control of my my equipment and maintaining my equipment. But then you have the the engineering process where you might take your submarine into a dockyard and you go through a major turnaround activity and then you're working with the dockyard personnel who are seriously skilled in certain areas. They don't have your operational aspects. Then you can see that these very, very skilled people are doing certain things very, very well. They don't understand the bigger picture, but suddenly you're about to bring the bigger picture together. Why is it important that you do that? Because of this. Then you shift over here to communications. One day you're in a high power battery, the next day, the next day you're a big conversion machinery and you're just assisting people. Put it into context that all how important their work is to bring this submarine back together, go to sea and do it's set to work and and operate again. And that's that comes with you when you get into industry. I've run into a lot of ex-military people in industry who are pretty well served because the discipline is is second nature. You don't think about it. I mean, when you have an evolution in a submarine and you're about to go deep into emergency and do all sorts of things, people just turn on and and it just happens. Everybody knows which valve to turn at what time. And you practice, practice, practice, practice. And and that's the same sort of thing. Why do we in industry do evacuation procedures? Why do we do certain things? It's because you need to get people automatically reacting to be safe.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:18:29] What do you think that being in the military is one of the great ways to to be involved in asset management and really understand how things work?
 
 Peter: [00:18:39] It is from the aspect of the you buy an aircraft, you buy a ship, you buy a submarine, you've got a very clear asset life. So for instance, very broadly speaking, a Collins class submarine was supposed to operate for ten years, two year major refit. Do that three times, 37 years, you know. Bang, bang, bang. And. And off you go. That's your big picture. And then you bring it down to, well, today I've got to go and clean the bilges. And when you understand that this is where it is in its life cycle, and if you think about our F-111 fighter bombers, we had they were used well past their use by date. But their configuration understanding of the how the bits and pieces were put together, it's like grandfather's axe. It's had four handles and three heads over all these years. It's exactly the same aircraft. But, you know, new avionics, new this, that and the other. And same with our submarines. I had one submarine where I was a brand new electronic fit when we first got to take on the MK 48 torpedoes from the Yanks and do all of that. And so, bang, you're in a new world. But the configuration must be exactly documented. You must have the test and trials regimes well constructed. You've then got to do your improvement programs like your capital program, in your asset management, you've got to have your capital improvements coming from a very strong data base of information where there's a return on your investment. If you're going to put some money into this, what's the return? Well, in the Navy, it's it's a bigger, better, faster in in the world of the business, you've got to get a return on your investment internal hurdle rate of 25% that you're going to get more return on on those capital dollars. So is it is.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:20:36] It important for the for the people actually doing the maintenance to to understand where the where things are in the process? Like is that one of the things that you recommend that businesses do is keep everyone actually in the loop so they have a vested interest?
 
 Peter: [00:20:50] Oh, very much so. You've got to understand your life cycle. If you think about the resource sector, you've got some areas which are 40 odd years old in some areas, and then you've got a new piece of kit. You've got to understand the life cycle of every single part that you're playing with and put that into perspective. So if I'm a planner, I've got to know where I am in the life cycle of the area with which I'm working and planning so I can keep it in focus. And we don't spend a lot of time with our tradies or our certainly our supervisors, maybe even our superintendents, to get them to a speed where they understand the bigger picture out of the the world of the military is probably a good example where you you live and breathe the life cycle of your submarine. You know, when it was put down, you know, when it was commissioned, you know, when it's in its next cycle. And so you talk to people. Oh, yeah. I was on the boat for its third commission, you know, and. Okay. And the issues you have because you live and breathe it and you know that there's suddenly going to be buying new nuclear submarines. So I would have seen the Oberons through the Collins all the way through that in a process that's the same as a gold mine. You want to know where is the gold price at this stage and what you're going to do about it?
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:22:14] Okay. How was the transition into mining for you? You said you also worked in the food industry. So do the same rules apply effectively regardless of the industry?
 
 Peter: [00:22:26] Yes, it does. It doesn't matter where you are. You've got an asset. It's there to do a thing. If I was going to make Tim Tams, I have to have a set of gear that makes Tim Tams, but I can only sell so many into the marketplace. So my marketing has got to drive me to where I'm going, okay? And and I've still got to have the right asset, but you've got to be get a return on that money.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:22:48] Okay. Just just back to the submarines for a second. Australia's gone through a really interesting period over the last five years with submarines. Did you have any thoughts while that was all going through with the French and then the rebuilding process of how that was handled and.
 
 Peter: [00:23:06] Um, yeah. I mean, the, the government didn't have a choice because, because of the, the situation, some of the turned around said let's give Australia the opportunity to have a nuclear submarine. So the last time they did that was 50 years ago with the Brits. So suddenly they say, you know, you can you can have the nuclear technology. So we're halfway through building another conventional submarine. It just happened to be a French one. We could have it could have been German, it could have been Japanese, It could have been whatever. They made a decision, you know, good call. Build a submarine, you know, go to sea, do stuff, but then shift target. You know, you can now have a nuclear boat, which can go a lot deeper, a lot faster, do a lot more in our big area of operation. We would have wanted this, you know, 20 years ago before. Collins okay. So great idea. And I want to go to see old.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:24:08] Yeah, right It's yeah, it's it was certainly interesting and it was certainly a big fuss. So I'm sort of curious to see how that's going to play out. Yeah.
 
 Peter: [00:24:18] That was a pivot that just happened and we should just accept that and go for it.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:24:23] All right. You've been with Eventful for over a decade doing work with them and talking about maintenance and planning. What is your feeling with where the industry is at the moment?
 
 Peter: [00:24:35] It's going through a massive change, as I see it, with the way in which people want to work. You know, you standard fly in, fly out process, not a lot of change. But if you think about what's happening at headquarters, people are working from home. Their whole view on spending time with family and looking after the maternal and the paternal side of things. That's just really exciting for me. And when you see a young dad who's taken his paternal leave and looking after the baby and mum's gone to work, you're thinking that is where we should be. That's just fabulous stuff. And so I'm all for the pivot. Yeah. Mr. Kovac, COVID sort of did that to us. But that's what you need. You need a trigger, you need that wake up call. And then there's a lot of people who are not working too well through that. And and I respect that deeply. But there's a lot of people that took it by the bull, by the horns and are now flying. And so how.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:25:40] How difficult is it to make that sort of a change when things have always been done a certain way and they, you know, I'm guessing change slowly in processes? How difficult is it to to sell that message?
 
 Peter: [00:25:54] I think the message is easy to sell. It's the leadership that has got to embrace it and allow it. What we don't do very well in industry is believe in our people. We have supervisors who are spending too much time with the troops. We have superintendents spending too much time in the work of the supervisor. They have maintenance managers spending too much time in the face of the superintendent. We've got to pull them all up out of the mire and get them looking out over their own horizon of decision making and just let the troops have their head. They will fix stuff. You know, 90 odd percent of your problems will be fixed by the team if they're just left alone.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:26:39] Okay. So I mean, you effectively saying that whole hovering parenting style is sort of managed to find its way into business and there's just too much, you know, like careful look, you know, like there's just too much looking out and watching what's going on.
 
 Peter: [00:26:54] Yeah, the risk of decision is passed.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:26:57] Yes. What? So what keeps you awake at night? You know, if you are going to wake up at 3:00 in the morning and start thinking about things, where do you find your mind wandering?
 
 Peter: [00:27:06] Ah, the excitement of the future. You know, whilst I'm coming to the end of my my world, as you say, working with eventful and I run a couple of planner schools, I can now hop in the four wheel drive and sort of get to as far as Cairns and then fly back to Melbourne, teach a couple of courses, then fly back and continue around in the four wheel drive. There's just so much available to us in the future. We can just do so much. If you just let yourself go and have a lot of fun.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:27:40] Yeah, it's interesting you say that. I was talking to Michelle Ash and and we're talking about, you know, that with regards to change, young people are really excited about the change or this is the question I put to her. And then you've got the middle management and sort of older guys, so 40 plus who are quite nervous about the change because they don't necessarily understand their role in it and how they can. They might be nervous that there may not be a role for them. Just listen to you talk. It's it's it's all upside. You know, the older you're going.
 
 Peter: [00:28:11] You want the world, the senior management, Once you've made it to a certain level, you actually get it. You know what's going on. You want to drive the troops who want to just do the work. If they get it, they know what's going on and there's this blancmange in the middle. And your whidbey's, if there could be and you're climbing the corporate ladder and you don't care who you step on and all of that has to be tidied up. And we don't do succession planning very well in industry. We we just suddenly somebody's broken their leg and they're now on light duties. You get them to become a planner and you say, Well, what do you want me to do? So some of that planning stuff and no, no. Set up for them. No, don't care for them. You just do some of that planning stuff. Yeah. And you think about it, there is no qualification in the world or any other big place for a planning maintenance planner you can't go and get a certificate for in maintenance planning. So every business does planning in a certain way. The process hasn't changed. We identify work, we plan it, we schedule it, we then execute the work. We capture what we did with this ubiquitous feedback loop. It's a process. It's simple. Let's and if you're going to use Maximo or Main Plan or SAP or whatever system the Baton baton ology, as I call it with the keyboard, just teach them how to do that and why you do it and then let them innovate and let them fly with doing the right work at the right time. It's not hard that.
 
 Andrew [Host]: [00:29:44] Should there be a broader training platform for maintenance work so they can actually, you know, you can before you go into the industry actually understand how things work? Or is it I think as you know, Chris Carroll always reminds me that, you know, these are these are things that you cannot learn in a textbook. You've got to actually learn on the job. 

Peter:  [30:02] It's great in the I use the term, we don't do succession planning very well, we have the gun fitter who's we just, you are just so good son, I'm gonna make you as a supervisor, then we hang him out to dry, and then we shoot him because he wasn't a good supervisor. Yeah, we play these games. So a young fella comes in just finished his time, what do I want him to do? I want him to learn how to raise a work request and close out a work order. That's all he needs. And obviously, his skill of hand, I'm not telling him how to do his job, I'm just telling him, this is the process. So then goes along and becomes very good at raising good quality work requests, and because that worker orders very in detail, and then we promote into leading hand. Well, we wanted to now do some scoping, we want to do some other work, then we promote him to supervise it we want. So the work management process then gets inculcated into them step by step through their, their processes. Finally, you get to Superintendent or maintenance manager, you actually know what you're talking about. Because you've been trained, but what we do is we zip them in, and we just let them flail. And that's not fair.

Andrew [Host]:  [31:11]  But there's lots of people who want to they get into work, and they want to actually fly the like, oh, okay, I'll do this for a month and go hang on a second. Why am I doing? And so is it a matter of harnessing that enthusiasm until they know exactly what's? 

Peter: [31:28] Well, first of all, you got to create the enthusiasm because what that one that wants to fly is a rarity. Because there's an awful lot of people who have been given such a hard time because they the only time you see the boss is when it comes to deliver pineapples, and then then then disappears. But what we want to do is we want to come down there and talk to them on a regular basis and tell them how good they're doing their work. But then highlight an opportunity because you've done some data analysis and say, Guys, you've done this so well. But there's one thing we can improve on, who's got some ideas for this, then suddenly, they get those easy, just do that? Ah, well done. Bang, you got them involved. You got them growing, okay. And suddenly, you've got everybody coming up wanting to fly, and you just create the environment for them to do.

Andrew [Host]: [32:15] Okay. Is there something that you've seen that you have thought to yourself, gee, I wish I created that? I wish I was part of that. That process. 

Peter: [32:25] I mean, working with Coronavirus is one of those things, you know, Dr. Bob, who you've spoken to, has that ability to just have a look at a problem do the analysis and see that you know, the root cause of this is this. And where did that come from? All right. So I've got this lovely situation where I'm at the front doing other people's stuff, and I'm really enjoying chatting. I've got a team behind me who do some serious analytics. And then outer comes to me, and I look flash, because they've done all the hard work. And but it's it it's down to hard work, it's down to good quality data. It's down to seriously understanding your, your equipment and your bass line of how it works and the design. And from that yourself. If I could have had that sort of analytical head. Yeah, that's fine. But then I probably wouldn't be in the same sort of situation with people stuff I do.

Andrew [Host]: [33:25] Okay, but isn't that isn't that the sign of a really good process that, you know, so as you say, you head out there. And you know, you're the frontman, and you look flush, but, but for all for everyone who looks flash, when you are good at doing something, there is a bucketload of great work that gets done behind them to make them. You know, just you happen to be that guy.

Peter: [33:45] I never had an original thought in my life, you know, the story. You just listened to everybody listening. And then suddenly something comes up. I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Tell me more about that, then then you respect them. And you say, well, Janji told me that this is the way they ought to do business. And I believe in Jantzi. Let's get a bit more out of his head.

Andrew [Host]: [34:09] How important is it to give the credit for a good idea that you've heard because this is not the first this is the second time we've talked about actually listening, talking and listening is critical, critical. And the amount of untapped resource in industry at the moment is huge. Man you've got if you've got your planning and scheduling well done, you actually get twice as much work done by having all the parts and everything ready than you do if you don't do that properly. So without going to get any more people you become more productive. You invent about three or four fitters, half a dozen electricians just because they're not running around redoing stuff that was wasted time. So people will say to me, Oh, we don't have enough resource we need more fitters, we need no electrician, I said, Well, how productive are your electricians or fitters now, so then we waste a bit of time. So let's fix that. First. Let's get them really productive. Then when we do our planning correctly, you can define that I need three fitters to electricians and a boilermaker. Because here's the work that's planned. And I don't have time to Yeah, I don't have those resources.

Peter: [35:25] Okay, no wasted time, just to finish. Have you got a best moment or initiative that you've been involved with something where you really go, that was, I know, there's a lot of good guys behind me. But I played a while I was involved in the nickel industry, where we, new new general manager comes in and he just spent time to to map everything with the GIS in the field out to the mining guys and everybody, what do you do, brought us all into a room worked out that at the interfaces who want the mining, what do you need, metallurgy all these sorts of things. And over three years, you've taken a site from three to 7000 tonnes of nickel in concentrate truck down the road to about 44,000 tons with just process control. So we all looked at our data, we looked at everything that was happening, no matter where you were, and you came to an interface, and you find that the interface was not the best way of doing business. So mining started blending or in the front of the mill and goes on. And that was just by bringing process under control, process control, you know, that is the way you get huge productivity increases, save an awful lot of money and your profits skyrocket.

Andrew [Host]: [36:48] So when one last thing you know, you're excited about the future with technology changing as quickly as it is, does that give you any cause any cause for alarm as well?

Peter: [36:59] Well, it's the how do you handle the volumes of data that are coming through and picking the the gold out of the the thing that's the trick, but it'll be those people who can work with the huge amounts of data that are coming at us and make some sense of it that will make the difference? It's it's the volumes of data coming at us. And that needs to be thought through very very carefully.

Andrew [Host]: [37:26] Alright picked up thanks very much for your time on reliability hero. Thank you so much.