558: Maintenance Reimagined, with Samsara
Sean McGee is the VP of Product and Engineering for connected maintenance at Samsara, where he has worked for eight years. He previously led the platform team and worked on the company's telematics product, giving him a deep understanding of the data foundation for maintenance solutions. McGee champions a customer-centric approach, emphasizing the importance of field visits to understand the real-world pain points of shop managers and technicians. He advocates for co-creating flexible, modular technology that adapts to user workflows, rather than forcing users to adapt to a rigid tool. McGee believes this focus on realistic adoption and solving tangible problems is key to driving efficiency and providing a competitive edge for customers.
Today I’m joined by Samsara, a company that is on a mission to improve the safety, efficiency, and sustainability of the operations that power the global economy.
Samsara is the pioneer of the Connected Operations® Platform, which enables organizations that depend on physical operations to harness IoT data to develop actionable insights and improve their operations.
Today Sean McGee, VP of Product and Engineering at Samsara, joins me to talk all about maintenance. We’ll be exploring why it’s historically been one of the most underserved areas in fleet operations, and the biggest pain points teams see day-to-day. We’ll be sharing why Samsara is taking a different approach, and the impact of agentic AI. And we’ll be turning our attention to the future to take a closer look at their vision beyond maintenance.
Guest bio:
Sean McGee has spent eight years at Samsara building products that solve real operational problems—first in telematics, then on Samsara’s platform layer, and now as the leader of Samsara Connected Maintenance.
An introduction to Sean, his role at Samsara, and why their conference, Samsara Beyond , is the highlight of the year.
What the landscape of maintenance has typically looked like, and why Samsara have learned to pay attention to post-it notes.
Why Samsara has gone all-in on maintenance.
The biggest pain points maintenance teams see day-to-day.
How Samsara puts a focus on realistic adoption and usage to meet people where they are.
How Samsara’s ‘Day In The Life’ process helps drive successful change management.
How seeing maintenance differently is a competitive advantage for both Samsara and their customers.
A real-life example exploring how post-it notes on a customer’s shop floor led to the development of a custom Samsara solution to fit their workflows.
The future for maintenance and asset management, and where Samsara are focusing next. “Everything is possible – science fiction is becoming reality right in front of our eyes.”
Resources & Links Mentioned
- Head over to Samsara’s website now to find out more and discover how they could help you too. You can also connect with Samsara and keep up to date with the latest over on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and X (Twitter), or you can connect with Sean on LinkedIn.
- If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more from Samsara, check out:
- 552: Expand Your Visibility and Achieve Asset Tracking at Scale, with Samsara
- 529: Empower The People Who Power The World, with Samsara
- 524: Increase the Safety, Efficiency and Sustainability of Your operations, with Samsara
- Check out our other podcasts HERE.
