Training and capability
Learning programs from general managers to planners and execution teams. The aim is to change how people think about defects, not only what procedures they follow.
Proactive Asset Management Solutions · Dr Nik Nikolovski
Find the defect before it becomes the failure.
Every machine leaves the factory with a reliability code built in. It loses that code through four gates: how it is operated, how it is maintained, the environment it runs in, and the systems connected to it. For 45 years my work has been about closing those gates early, while it is still cheap to do so.
45years in physical asset management across Europe, Australia, Asia and the Americas
1M+assets with improved performance
3,072root causes analysed in published Gateway studies
10+patents from strip casting R&D
The philosophy
Proactive Defect Elimination is a way of thinking, not a procedure.
Most improvement work starts after something has broken. We find the failure, repair the symptom, and add another inspection. The plant gets a little better and the maintenance load keeps growing.
The best maintenance is the maintenance you never need to do.
A defect is the root cause that, left alone, will lead to loss. It is not the failure and it is not the symptom. Defect elimination means finding and removing those causes before they show up on any monitoring trend.
The Gateway Process turns that thinking into an asset strategy. It underpins every training program, investigation and strategy I deliver.
Gate 1
Operating / Producing
Equipment run without due care, or driven outside its design limits.
e.g. overloading, rapid starts, running past alarmsGate 2
Maintaining
Poor planning, imprecise work, the wrong tools or procedures.
e.g. misalignment, wrong lubricant, rushed reassemblyGate 3
Environment
The conditions the asset lives in, inside and around it.
e.g. dust ingress, moisture, heat, contaminationGate 4
External linkages
Defects arriving from outside the owner's direct control.
e.g. design, spares quality, power, air and fluid supply
What the data showed
Most root causes do not start in maintenance.
Across Gateway projects, asset owners expected the maintainers to own the problem. The analysis said otherwise: two thirds of root causes came through the external and operating gates. Only a holistic strategy closes all four.
Where it started
A few lines in blue pen, June 2004.
The whole method fit on one page before it had a name. Two decades later the loop is the same.
- Build the business caseLink business objectives to asset performance and prioritise.
- Recognise defectsMap how defects enter through each of the four gates.
- Detect earlyMonitor asset health so anything that slips through is caught near P.
- Develop the strategyRethink operating, maintenance and design actions to close the gates.
- Monitor effectiveness and improveMeasure the result and feed it back into the business case.
↺ then back to step 01
Services
An adviser and mentor at your side, not another consultant on site.
I work mostly remotely with short site visits, alongside your maintenance, reliability and operational readiness teams.
The approach behind training and capability
Each role learns where it acts on the curve.
Stop failuresBefore D. Recognise defects and their causes, eliminate them, and extend asset life.
Act in timeFrom D to F. Identify symptoms, diagnose and trend, and win the time to plan.
Decide with dataAround F. Use failure data and failure behaviour models to make optimised decisions.
Managers, reliability engineers, planners and execution teams each see how their work fits, so the most value is drawn from the asset across its whole life.
Asset strategy development
Gateway-based strategies for greenfield and brownfield sites, built with operators, maintainers and engineers in one team and recorded in eGateway.
Reliability improvement
Focused reliability improvement on what matters most: critical assets and systemic problems. Discover, rectify and make it common practice.
Asset health assessment
Condition monitoring program design and review, vibration analysis and data analytics to show where your fleet really stands, with the CM strategy implemented in VibCloud.
Technical investigation
Solving complex, tough, sporadic or chronic problems on critical equipment and processes, including field testing, when the obvious answers have run out.
Root cause analysis
Structured investigation that removes the cause rather than the symptom, so the same defect does not return somewhere else in the plant. RCA.Cloud makes it a sustainable everyday practice.
Digital tools
The method, built into software teams use every day.
I designed the processes. With iTnnovate, the company I co-founded, we turned them into web tools now supported for clients around the world.
Strategy
eGateway
Build Gateway asset strategies, keep the decision trail when people change, and maintain one live strategy document aligned with your ERP.
Visit iTnnovate ↗Asset health
VibCloud
Vibration analysis and inspection management that scales from a single site to a global fleet, with advanced diagnostic features in active development.
Visit VibCloud ↗Investigation
RCA.Cloud
Guides teams through structured root cause analysis and tracks actions until the defect is gone for good.
Visit iTnnovate ↗Not sure which tool fits? Describe the problem and I will point you to the right one, or tell you if a tool is not the answer yet.
Results
Outcomes from the field.
Client names are kept confidential. These are measured results from real projects. Case studies are in the library.
Mining93%
Fewer unplanned pulley failures
Defect elimination on conveyor drive pulleys cut uncredited failures by 93%.
Manufacturing90%
Fewer warranty claims
Workshop quality checks for new and overhauled gearboxes reduced warranty claims by 90%.
Aluminium rollingSustained
Downtime down, MTBF up
After Gateway actions on a scalper line, the gains held even after the project team left site.
Across industries10–40%
Better critical asset performance
Typical improvement range on critical assets once defects are addressed across all four gates.
Organisations I have worked with
- BHP
- BlueScope Steel
- Rio Tinto
- South32
- Orica
- Alcoa
- Sydney Water
- Icon Water
- Voith Group
- Jemena
- Andritz
- Oceaneering
- Nucor · Castrip LLC
- Hatch
- Williams F1
- Port Waratah Coal Terminal
- David Brown Gear
- CS Energy
- ESSO Australia
- Sydney City Rail
- Hong Kong Electrical & Mechanical Services
- Comalco
- BHP Petroleum
- UNSW SMaRT Centre
Journey
Four decades, one question: why did it fail?
From turbine diagnostics in Macedonia to global asset management practice, R&D and university commercialisation.
- 1981 – 1989
Power generation, Bitola
Chief Engineer for efficiency monitoring, analysis and diagnostics. Equipment and process performance testing and improvement, dynamic balancing and early predictive maintenance.
- 1989 – 1999
BHP Engineering, Wollongong
Built and led the condition monitoring and diagnostics team, serving BHP operations in Australia and abroad.
- 1999 – 2008
Hatch · Strategic Asset Management Support
Built and led the global SAMS practice. Invented the Gateway Process in 2004, co-wrote the Gateway book in 2006 and later received Hatch's Global Innovation Award for it.
- Hatch years
Williams F1 collaboration
Two years delivering defect elimination training with the Williams F1 team, linking race car performance to maintenance performance in heavy industry.
Fig. 5In the Williams F1 garage. A pit stop is precision maintenance under time pressure, and the same principles apply in a plant shutdown. - Parallel R&D · PhD 2007
Castrip strip casting technology
Machine dynamics lead on thin strip casting for Nucor and BSL. More than ten patents as inventor and a PhD from the University of Wollongong, completed at 50.
- 2008 – 2017
Hatch · Global Director
Led operational services in asset management, then innovation and technology for operational performance, worldwide.
- 2013 – now
Co-founder and technical leadership, iTnnovate
Turned the Gateway Process, asset health monitoring best practices and the RCA process into eGateway, VibCloud and RCA.Cloud tools for sustainable deployment.
Fig. 6On site, where the tools are put to work. - 2017 – now
BHP · Data analytics consultant, Value Engineering
Part-time role in the Value Engineering team, applying data analytics to asset and engineering decisions.
- 2018 – now
Founder, ProactAMS
Capability development and mentoring, maintenance academies, reliability programs and technical investigations for mining, utilities and heavy industry.
- Now
UNSW · Head of Technologies, SMaRT Centre
Helping take award-winning Sustainable Materials Research & Technology from the lab into operation and commercialisation.
Learning series · free
Two learning tracks, one lesson at a time.
Short lessons from 45 years of field practice. Each one gives you an idea you can use on site this week.
Defect elimination · the Gateway method
Lesson 01 · book excerptOctober 2026
A defect is not a failure
A defect is a lack of something, or an imperfection, that will lead to a failure. It is not the onset of the failure, and it is not the failure itself. It is often invisible at first and it is not the symptom a vibration trend picks up.
So when we talk about defect elimination, we mean finding and removing potential and actual root causes before they become problems and lead to loss. Fixing what has already broken is problem solving. That matters too, but it is a different job.
From Gateway Asset Strategy for Defect Elimination, updated edition in progress.
Lesson 01 · maintenance tipOctober 2026
Get the repair right before adding inspections
When a failure repeats, the usual reaction is a new inspection. In Gateway projects, a large share of root causes were removed simply by getting the scope and quality of repair work right: correct fits, clean assembly, proper alignment, the right parts.
Before you add another check to the route, ask how the last repair was done. Inspection finds defects after they are in. Precision work stops them getting in.
From Tips for Better Maintenance.
Book excerpts
- 01A defect is not a failureOpen now
Maintenance tips
- 01Get the repair right before adding inspectionsOpen now
Asset health · condition monitoring and vibration analysis
Start here · Part 115-page guide
Vibration Analysis 101
A simple guide to understanding vibration. Part 1 answers three questions: what is vibration, what is a time waveform, and what is a spectrum?
- Amplitude and frequencyPeak, peak-to-peak and RMS, and what each tells you.
- From waveform to spectrumHow a complex vibration pattern from a real machine becomes a simple spectrum you can read.
I designed VibCloud and its signal processing and analytics. These lessons share the thinking behind it.
Between lessonsFree tools
Practise on real fault patterns
Try what you learn with the free tools I wrote for the VibCloud Knowledge Hub: the diagnostic chart, fault visualisation, fault frequency calculator and ISO severity checker.
Vibration analysis lessons
- 01Vibration Analysis 101, Part 1: vibration, waveform and spectrumOpen now
- 02How to diagnose a bearing problemComing
- 03How to tell if resonance is presentComing
Paper · ICOMS 2011
Asset Strategy Development Using Defect Elimination Principles
The four gates, why RCM alone is not enough, and results from Gateway projects across seven industries. With Franc Spinelli.
Book · updated edition in progress
Gateway Asset Strategy for Defect Elimination
The 2006 book with Richard Blayden, being revised for today's maintenance teams and digital tools.
Library
Links, tools and case studies worth your time.
Things I use or recommend, each with a short comment and a topic tag. Pick a topic to narrow the list.
GuideDiagnostics · Condition monitoring
Vibration Analysis 101, Part 1 ↗
My beginner's guide to vibration, time waveform and spectrum. Free to download from the VibCloud page.
PaperDefect elimination · Strategy
Asset Strategy Development Using Defect Elimination Principles
The ICOMS 2011 paper that sets out the four gates and the results from Gateway projects in seven industries.
Case studyDefect elimination · Reliability
Conveyor drive pulleys, mining
How defect elimination cut uncredited pulley failures by 93%.
Case studyDefect elimination · Reliability
Gearbox workshop quality checks, manufacturing
Quality checks on new and overhauled gearboxes that reduced warranty claims by 90%.
Case studyDefect elimination · Strategy · Reliability
Scalper line, aluminium rolling
Gateway actions that lowered downtime and raised MTBF, and held after the project team left.
Case studiesCondition monitoring
VibCloud case studies ↗
Condition monitoring results from sites using VibCloud.
ToolDiagnostics · Condition monitoring
Vibration diagnostic chart ↗
Match vibration symptoms to likely machine faults. A good first stop for new analysts.
ToolDiagnostics · Condition monitoring
Fault visualisation tool ↗
See how common faults appear in an interactive spectrum.
ToolDiagnostics
Fault frequency calculator ↗
Work out bearing defect frequencies for your machine.
ToolStandards · Condition monitoring
ISO 20816 tool ↗
Understand the standard and its evaluation zones.
ToolStandards · Diagnostics
ISO severity checker ↗
Check a measured vibration level against ISO severity limits.
ToolDiagnostics
Units converter ↗
Convert between displacement, velocity and acceleration units.
Quick answers
Common questions.
What is the Gateway Process?
The Gateway Process is a method for developing asset strategy from defect elimination principles. It maps how defects enter equipment through four gates, then sets operating, maintenance and design actions to close them. Dr Nik Nikolovski invented it at Hatch in 2004.
What are the four gates where defects enter equipment?
Operating and producing, maintaining, the environment the asset works in, and external linkages such as design, spare parts quality and supplied power, air or fluids.
What is the difference between a defect and a failure?
A defect is a root cause that will lead to a failure if left alone. It is not the failure and it is not the symptom. Defect elimination removes those causes before they become problems and lead to loss.
What does ProactAMS do?
ProactAMS provides training and mentoring, asset strategy development, reliability improvement, asset health assessment, technical investigation and root cause analysis. Dr Nikolovski works as an adviser and mentor, mostly remotely with short site visits.
Which industries does ProactAMS work with?
The approach is industry agnostic. Most work is in mining, oil and gas, water utilities, power generation and heavy manufacturing, in Australia and internationally.
Which software tools support the method?
eGateway for asset strategy, VibCloud for vibration analysis and asset health, and RCA.Cloud for root cause analysis. All three were developed with iTnnovate, which Dr Nikolovski co-founded.
Contact
Bring me the problem nobody has solved yet.
Training needs, a chronic failure, a strategy that is not working, or a question about the tools. Tell me what is happening and I will reply personally.
nik@proactams.com--:--Sydney time, Wollongong NSW
Prefer to talk it through over nine holes? For the right project, the first meeting can happen on a golf course.