A critical machine has failed. Production is down, the insurer wants a cause, the supplier says it was operated incorrectly, the operator says it was supplied wrong — and every day the answer is unclear costs money.
This is Massud-led work drawing on his Advanced Diploma in Mechanical Engineering and Associate Membership of Engineers Australia. It covers failure investigation, evidence development and equipment review for mechanical rotating equipment across industrial, mining and agricultural operations.
Equipment scope
- Gearboxes: bevel-helical, planetary, inline-helical and worm-shaft.
- Agitators, mixers and drive assemblies.
- Screens, crushers and mills.
- Pumps, shafts, couplings and bearings.
- Associated drive trains and process equipment.
Typical assignments sit in the 50 kW to 1.5 MW range.
How an investigation is built
The work is organised around what can be evidenced: failure history, operating conditions, maintenance and lubrication records, available drawings and specifications, inspection findings, photographs of the failed components, and the practical requirements of the plant. Where physical evidence still exists, preserving it properly is the single most important early step — components that have been cleaned, cut up or scrapped cannot be re-examined.
What the work supports
- Insurance claims requiring a documented cause of failure.
- Supplier and warranty disputes.
- Repair-versus-replace decisions where the cost difference is material.
- Specification review before a replacement is ordered into the same failure.
- Maintenance and reliability programme changes.
- Regulatory or safety matters where equipment condition is in issue.
Where our work stops
Connect Australia does not provide legal, tax or financial advice and is not a law practice, tax agent or financial adviser. We work with your preferred provider or, with prior disclosure, can introduce an independent partner for you to assess and choose. Formal engineering certification, statutory sign-off and regulated technical opinions are provided only by an appropriately qualified or registered practitioner where required. Where an assignment needs certification, we identify that early and coordinate the practitioner rather than working around the requirement.
Common questions
The equipment has already been dismantled. Is it too late?
Not necessarily, but tell us what has happened to the components before anything else. Photographs, wear surfaces, fracture faces, oil samples and even the failed parts sitting in a skip are often still recoverable. What cannot be recovered is a component that has been cleaned or repaired.
Can you source a replacement as well?
Yes. Sourcing for critical, redundant and no-longer-manufactured gearboxes is a related service and often runs alongside the investigation, because the failure analysis is what tells you whether an identical replacement is the right decision.
Will your report be accepted by our insurer?
Insurers set their own requirements and some require a report from a specific class of practitioner. We establish that requirement at the outset. Where certification is needed, it comes from an appropriately qualified or registered practitioner.
Start with a confidential fit check
The first conversation is short and costs nothing. We want to understand the decision you are facing, the deadline attached to it and whether this is work we should be doing at all. You do not need to send documents at that stage.
If the matter is a fit, the next step is usually the $850 initial strategic consultation, which includes up to one hour of pre-reading and a one-hour meeting.