For mine sites
Business Process Review - on your site
Five days on your site - three late in one week, two early in the next - working through how workforce compliance and site access actually run: every system, spreadsheet and piece of paper they touch, and what would make them easier. You get a written record you can act on, with or without PIAGO.
Run by PIAGO's ownerCarl Snowling
- 20 years in Australian mining
- Ran a major miner's compliance system for 9 years
- Australian owned, in Brisbane
What it is
A Business Process Review is a short, fixed-fee engagement done on your site. Carl Snowling, PIAGO's owner, works with the people who run compliance day to day - safety, training, contractor management, maintenance, HR and IT - to document how it is done today and where it could be made easier. It covers your people and your contracting companies, their equipment, and site access from the gate inwards, and it takes the spreadsheets, registers and paper forms as seriously as the software. The review runs against any mine-site process, but workforce compliance and site access is where PIAGO's experience runs deepest, so that is where most reviews start.
What it covers
- Your people
- Your contracting companies
- Their equipment
- Site access from the gate inwards
Spreadsheets, registers and paper forms, as seriously as the software.
Carl talks to the whole operation
- Safety
- Training
- Contractor management
- Maintenance
- HR
- IT
Where the process lives
We do it on site rather than over a screen because that is where the process lives - the gatehouse, the induction desk, the sticker point, the register on someone's second monitor. The mines that chose PIAGO have told us that whether a vendor would come to site was a deciding requirement for them, and that not every vendor they spoke to would. We think it is a must for this kind of work, and the right way to start what may become a long partnership: during the review, through implementation, and in the years after it.
- The gatehouse
- The induction desk
- The sticker point
- The register on someone's second monitor
Why pay for one
That record is what a review buys.
Most compliance teams already know where the work hurts. What they rarely have is the time to write it down end to end - who does what, in which system, how long it takes, and what has to carry over if anything changes. That record is what a review buys. It is also the thing a leadership team asks for before it will fund a change, and the thing a new superintendent wishes existed on day one.
That experience, and the shortcuts it brings, is part of what you are paying for.
Every site is run its own way, and the review treats it that way. But most of what it finds is not unique to one site. Carl has seen the same handful of challenges at mine after mine over many years, and some of what feels like a local headache turns out to be a problem already solved elsewhere. That experience, and the shortcuts it brings, is part of what you are paying for.
If at the end either side says no, that is a good outcome at a small cost.
The review is also the lowest-risk way to find out what working with PIAGO is like. For five days you see how we listen, how we document, and whether the team across the table understands your site. The person running the review is the person who would run the implementation, and who runs the business, so what is said during the review has to be delivered after it. If at the end either side says no, that is a good outcome at a small cost.
The output is yours whatever you decide to do next.
The output is yours whatever you decide to do next. If the finding is that your process is sound and three things need fixing, that is a successful review. PIAGO sells the review on its own merits, and we say so at the start, because a review that is quietly a sales pitch wastes your week and ours.
Two ways to run it
The review comes in two forms, and we will be clear with you about which one is on the table.
Standalone
- A process you have chosen
- No PIAGO software required, no product on the agenda
- A report: how it runs today, where the surplus and the re-keying sit, and what we would change, in order
As a standalone review, it looks at a process you have chosen and reports on it. No PIAGO software is required and no product is on the agenda. The report sets out how the process runs today, where the surplus and the re-keying sit, and what we would change, in the order we would change it.
Scoped to GO! Site Approved
- The same review of how compliance runs today
- What you would need from a replacement system
- A Statement of Work, in stages, with our view of the pros and cons
- Act on it now, later, or not at all
Scoped to GO! Site Approved, the same review becomes the low-commitment way to find out whether PIAGO and its platform fit your site before anyone commits to it. Alongside the review of how compliance runs today, we record what you would need from a replacement system and what you would change if you could. The output grows to a Statement of Work - what a move would involve, in stages, what each stage delivers, and where to start for the most gain - with our view of the pros and cons of making the move against what you do today. Whether it is worth it is your judgement; we give you what you need to make it. You can act on it now, later, or not at all. A "not now" still leaves you a record worth having, and it leaves us knowing your site properly if the conversation reopens.
Either way, the review is not only about the software you have. It looks for the direct and indirect challenges in how the work gets done - the chase for documents, the re-keying between systems, the report someone builds by hand every month - and for the opportunities to make the business better, not just compliant. Where the answer is something PIAGO's software does not do yet, we say so, and it goes into the Statement of Work as a feature we would build with you. We do not ask a site to change how it works to fit our software.
How the week runs
Day 1
Week 1
Day 2
Week 1
Day 3
Week 1
Weekend
Day 4
Week 2
Day 5
Read-back
A review takes five days on site, usually three late in one week and two early in the next, with the weekend between. Split that way, the right people can be in the room without clearing a straight week, and a site issue on one day does not sink the review. Each day runs in four working blocks with breaks between, following site hours.
Why split it this way
- The right people in the room without clearing a straight week
- A site issue on one day does not sink the review
Working sessions, not demonstrations
Sessions are working sessions, not demonstrations. Carl asks, listens and draws the process as the people who run it describe it. Screens appear only where they help a discussion along.
Recorded, so nobody takes minutes
Every session is recorded so nobody in the room is taking minutes, and the recordings stay between your site and PIAGO.
A read-back on the last day
The last day is a read-back: Carl plays back what he has understood and your people correct it in the room, before a word of the report is written.
The sessions move through
- How your contracting companies are approved and monitored
- How a worker or visitor gets from engagement to first swipe
- Training records, authorisations and expiries
- Site access and fitness for duty
- The forms your people fill in and where the data lands
- The systems around compliance and the information that flows between them
- The reports and alerts the site relies on
- The line from your safety and health management system through to what each contracting company must hold
- How equipment gets onto site and stays compliant
What it asks of you
A sponsor
A sponsor for five minutes at the start, to set the tone.
The people who do the work
The people who do the work, in the room for the sessions that cover their work - described by what they do, not by title, so you decide who.
What you already have
Existing material as it stands: forms, registers, checklists, the reports you receive today. Nothing needs reformatting.
About ten working days before
A short note for each session, and a little homework
Fifteen minutes beforehand
Pulling the forms, noting where the process stalls
On the day
The session starts at pace
About ten working days before the review, each attendee receives a short note for their session: what it is for, who else is in it, and a little homework. The sessions are short and everyone in them has a day job, so fifteen minutes spent beforehand - pulling the forms, noting where the process stalls, thinking about what you would change - lets the session start at pace and gets more out of it.
What you get
Business Process Review
1.How your compliance runs today
2.What your people confirmed in the read-back
3.The challenges
4.Where we would focus first
A written record of how your compliance runs today and what your people confirmed in the read-back; the challenges, and where we would focus first for the most gain for the effort. For a review scoped to GO! Site Approved, a Statement of Work alongside it, with our view of the pros and cons of making the move. Carl presents the findings in person or by video on a date agreed before the review starts. That presentation is a go/no-go for both sides, and the risk it takes out of the decision is the main thing you are paying for: you decide with your own processes documented and a week's experience of how PIAGO works, not on the strength of a demonstration.
Who runs it
Carl Snowling, PIAGO's owner. Twenty years in and around Australian mining, building and running workforce compliance and site access systems for mining companies, from smaller operators through to some of Australia's largest - including the central compliance system for one of Australia's largest mining companies for nine years. He has run on-site reviews like this since before PIAGO existed. You deal with the person who runs the business before, during and after the review, and the same people come to site for the implementation and the regular visits that follow. A PIAGO technical analyst joins remotely for the sessions where systems, data and integrations come up.
- 20 years
- in and around Australian mining
- 9 years
- running the central compliance system for one of Australia's largest mining companies
- Before PIAGO
- running on-site reviews like this
Where the review fits if you are weighing GO! Site Approved
Step 1 of 6
Conversation and demonstrations
It starts with a conversation, usually with Carl, about what is not working and what you would change if you could. Most mines then want to see the product: a demonstration or two, sometimes a look at it running at another PIAGO client, sometimes because someone they trust pointed them at it. A couple of requirement sessions usually follow, until you are comfortable that this is the team and the software you would consider.
Step 2 of 6
Agreeing the review
The review comes next, usually after the second demonstration. It is a commitment of time and money, and whoever requests it internally has to justify both. By that point you know enough about PIAGO and the product to make the case, and the review turns that confidence into a documented decision. If a review makes sense, we agree which one, what it covers and who needs to be in the room, and we put a fixed fee in writing.
Step 3 of 6
The review
The review is the next step, and for most mines it is the first thing they pay PIAGO for. It gives you the record described above, and it gives us a proper understanding of your site before we propose anything.
Step 4 of 6
You decide
Then you decide. The Statement of Work sets out what a move to GO! Site Approved would involve, in stages you can take one at a time, what each stage delivers and what it would cost, with our view of the pros and cons against how you work today. You can proceed, hold it for the next budget cycle, or stop there with the record in hand. Nothing in the review obliges you to go further.
Step 5 of 6
Configured with your people
If you proceed, the system is configured with your people, not at them. The compliance core - approvals, inductions, access, expiries - stays intact; how it looks and runs follows how your site already works, which is what we mean by managing compliance your way. Your own people test it against the processes mapped in the review, and your contracting companies are told what will change and when. Your data sits in your own independent, siloed infrastructure, separate from every other operator's.
Step 6 of 6
Go-live and after
Go-live is a date you set, with PIAGO on site for the first days. After that the relationship is ongoing and it is not run only from a distance: the same people you met in the review come back to site at a regular cadence to look at what gets improved next, and your contracting companies can be brought onto a simpler way of supplying the compliance information you already ask them for.
Next step
A conversation.
What it costs
A fixed fee, quoted before you commit, with travel and accommodation agreed up front. We put the number in writing after a conversation about which review you need and what it should cover.