Pillar Readiness Group supports mining and resources projects across Western Australia and beyond — ensuring the critical readiness work is properly planned, completed, and embedded before operations take hold.
Most projects are delivered with the assumption that operations will take over and make it work. In practice, the transition from project to operations is where significant risk lives — and where performance is won or lost.
Pillar Readiness Group exists to address that risk directly. We provide specialist operational and asset readiness consulting to mining and resources companies, ensuring that the people, systems, processes, and documentation required to run a facility are in place before operations begin.
Whether you need end-to-end readiness management across the full project lifecycle, or targeted advisory support in a specific area — maintenance strategy, SAP master data, operating procedures or readiness assurance — we work alongside your project and operations teams to deliver structured, practical outcomes.
View Our ServicesStructured programs ensuring your operations are capable, resourced, and ready to perform at handover and beyond.
Ensuring all physical assets are fully prepared for operation, including accurate material cataloguing, structured functional locations, complete bills of materials, and fit-for-purpose maintenance and work management systems.
Independent reviews, gap assessments, and structured assurance to give your project and operations leadership confidence.
When a project team hands over to operations, there is often an implicit assumption that both sides are aligned and ready. In practice, gaps in planning, systems, and capability consistently emerge at handover — with consequences that are difficult to recover from.
Delayed ramp-up, unplanned downtime, safety incidents during commissioning and early operations, incomplete maintenance strategies, and work management systems that aren't configured for the realities of the operation — these are not uncommon. They are the predictable results of inadequate readiness planning.
The cost of addressing these gaps after operations start is substantially higher than addressing them during the project. Operational readiness and asset readiness are investments in performance, not administrative overhead.
Project teams deliver scope. Operations are expected to absorb it. No structured readiness program was in place to bridge the two.
Assets arrive in the CMMS with minimal strategy. SAP master data is incomplete or incorrect and statutory compliance checks have not been established. The maintenance team is left to reconstruct what should have been built during the project.
Procedures and work instructions are written to satisfy a deliverable, not to support operators. They may be incomplete, unreviewed, or not matched to the actual plant as built.
Recruitment is behind, training is incomplete, and the operating model hasn't been confirmed. The team inheriting the asset is under-resourced for the task ahead.
PTW and isolation management systems are in place on paper. The competency, documentation, and cultural readiness to operate them safely is not.
Project teams assess their own readiness. There is no structured, independent review confirming that operations can safely and effectively take over.
We provide both end-to-end operational and asset readiness programs and targeted advisory support in specific areas. Engagements are structured to suit the stage, scale, and needs of your project.
Development and management of a structured operational readiness program aligned to your project schedule. Covers scope definition, readiness planning, progress tracking, and delivery accountability across all readiness workstreams.
Delivers targeted asset readiness support to ensure physical assets, materials, and systems are fully configured for operational start-up. Bridges engineering, maintenance, and supply functions to establish complete, reliable, and execution-ready asset data and processes.
Independent, structured assessments of readiness status across key workstreams. Provides leadership with objective, risk-based insight into gaps, progress, and the path to handover readiness.
Support for the organisational and business systems readiness required to operate effectively — including operating model design, workforce planning, role definition, procedure and work instruction documentation updates.
Targeted advisory engagements for organisations that need specific readiness support rather than full program management. Includes facilitated workshops, readiness framework development, and strategic readiness advisory.
We develop clear, practical work instructions and procedures that meet Western Australia's work health and safety laws for mines and quarries and follow recognised Australian standards for safety and risk management.
We don't produce readiness programs for the sake of compliance. We deliver the outcomes that matter — systems embedded, people capable, and operations ready to perform.
Every project has a different risk profile, schedule, team, and operational context. We begin by understanding yours — the project scope, the operational environment, the key stakeholders, and the specific readiness risks that need to be managed.
We work with you to define the readiness scope — what needs to be in place, who owns it, what the schedule requires, and how readiness will be measured and assured. This becomes the foundation of a practical readiness plan.
We embed alongside your project and operations teams, working through the readiness program with clear accountability, regular reporting, and honest progress tracking. We do the work, not just the advice.
As handover approaches, we support structured assurance activities — confirming that readiness criteria are met, gaps are addressed, and the transition to operations is managed with appropriate rigour. We don't leave at handover; we stay to ensure the work is embedded.
For projects requiring full-spectrum operational and asset readiness support from early project phases through to operations handover and ramp-up. We lead or co-lead the readiness program, working across all workstreams.
For organisations that need specialist support in a specific area — maintenance strategy, SAP readiness, PTW implementation, or an independent readiness review. Structured as a defined engagement with clear scope and deliverables.
Independent review and assurance of readiness status for project and operations leadership. Provides an objective view of gaps, risks, and confidence in handover readiness — particularly useful for major milestones, gates, and board reporting.
Pillar Readiness Group was founded by a practitioner with direct operational and advisory experience across refinery process operations, iron ore, maintenance planning, SAP maintenance strategy, control room operations, business improvement, isolations and permit to work, and operational and asset readiness for both sustaining capital and growth projects.
This is not consulting from a distance. Our principal has sat in the control room, lead operations teams, managed complex isolations, built maintenance strategies from scratch, configured SAP work management systems, and led readiness programs for facilities that had to perform from day one. That operational grounding shapes how we work.
We understand the pressure that project directors, operations managers, and maintenance leaders are under. We understand what it takes to get a facility ready for operations, and what it costs when that work isn't done properly. We bring that understanding to every engagement.
The following represents the types of engagements and outcomes Pillar Readiness Group supports. Specific client details are not disclosed without consent.
Developed and led the operational readiness program for a significant iron ore infrastructure expansion, covering multiple readiness workstreams from feasibility through to operations handover. Delivered a structured readiness plan, workstream accountability framework, and pre-handover assurance review.
Delivered maintenance strategy development and SAP PM master data setup for a sustaining capital program from pit to port, inclusive of non process infrastructure. Worked alongside the project team to ensure all new assets were fully documented, maintenance strategies were risk-based and practical, and the CMMS was ready for operations at handover.
Conducted an independent readiness gap assessment for an operations team preparing to take over a newly commissioned facility. Identified key gaps across procedures, training, PTW, and work management, and provided a structured gap closure plan for the handover period.
Pillar Readiness Group is a Western Australian consultancy focused exclusively on operational and asset readiness for the mining and resources sector.
The business was established to address a consistent gap in the resources industry — the space between project teams who deliver capital scope and operations teams who need to run it. That space is where readiness failures happen. It is also where Pillar Readiness Group works.
We work with mining and resources companies on projects where the transition from construction to operations matters — where there is genuine commercial, safety, or performance risk if readiness is not properly managed. Our clients are typically project directors, EPCM companies, operations managers, maintenance managers, and asset leaders who need structured, expert support and want to work with someone who understands the industry from the inside.
We operate as a specialist advisory firm, not a large generalist consultancy. Every engagement receives senior-level attention and direct delivery. We are commercially aware, operationally grounded, and focused on outcomes that stick.
Whether you are in the early stages of a project, approaching handover, or dealing with operational readiness gaps after the fact — we're available to discuss your situation and how we can help.
We work with project directors, EPCM companies, operations managers, maintenance leaders, and general managers across Western Australia and the broader Australian resources sector.