Most suppliers to marine and power OEMs wait for a drawing to land on their desk. By then the design is done. The engine builder has chosen the architecture, the supplier list is half written and you are quoting against a drawing someone else shaped.
The design in happens earlier. It happens when the engine changes. If you want to be on a marine or genset platform for the next ten years, you need to be in the room when the engine gets redesigned, not when the parts list gets priced.
Engine builders do not redesign for fun. A redesign is expensive, slow and risky. It happens when something forces it. An emissions rule changes. A power density target moves. A new customer segment demands a different duty cycle.
At Gilkes, that is exactly where the growth came from. I spotted a change in emissions regulation and worked out that engine manufacturers would be forced to update their engines. That meant the pumps would have to be redesigned for the new builds. So I went round most of the engine manufacturers globally and opened the conversation on the regulation, not on the pump.
Nobody takes a meeting to hear about your product. They take a meeting to solve the problem a regulation just handed them.
That bought early access to the redesign work. Marine engines first, then rail, then some larger truck engines. Most of the growth from £2.5M to £15.2M came from that approach. The pump was not the pitch. The pitch was helping the engine builder get through the change.
A design in is a technical sale before it is a commercial one. The people who decide are the engineers living with the redesign. Purchasing comes later, and mostly ratifies what engineering already wants.
So you map the stakeholders properly. Who owns the cooling system. Who signs off the validation plan. Who gets blamed if the new engine runs hot in the field. Then you meet them face to face, repeatedly, and you follow up on everything. Deal control is not glamorous. It is a list of names, a calendar and the discipline to keep every thread alive.
Doing that cut our cycle from eighteen to twenty four months down to around twelve. Same product, same market, half the wait. Long cycles are not fixed. They are mostly gaps in contact.
Marine and power OEMs run serious quality gateways. Caterpillar was a good example. We started with their technical team on marine engines. When I pushed to get into their engine build programme, they asked for an open book review of our supply chain.
I pushed back. Eventually I yielded, because refusing would have ended the conversation. But I presented the information in a format that suited us. That is the skill. You do not fight every gateway and you do not hand over everything raw. You decide the shape of what you give.
Then there is GE. We picked that one up at an exhibition, where they were looking at a pump on a Caterpillar engine. It started in marine and later moved into locomotives. GE sold few marine engines a year. Big engines, low volume. That changes the economics completely. You cannot recover design effort across thousands of units.
So we charged for the design work. It was the first time in Gilkes' long history they had ever charged for pump design. I closed it. If the volume is low and the engineering is real, free design work is a subsidy you are giving a customer who has not asked for one.
The pattern repeats on gensets. I have sold into names like GE, Jenbacher, Waukesha, Cummins and MTU. The platform changes, the buyer changes, but the logic holds. Find the event that forces a redesign. Get close to the technical team early. Know the quality gateway before you meet it. Price the engineering honestly.
Being specified in at design stage is the biggest lever you have. It tilts the odds hard. But it is not the only way in. Plenty of suppliers win from the approved list through aftermarket strength, service reach and a sharp commercial case. The design in just makes everything after it easier, including the aftermarket you keep for years.
Pick three engine builders you want. Find the next regulation, efficiency target or duty cycle shift that touches their platform. Work out which part of your product that change forces them to rethink. Then request the technical meeting on that subject, not on your catalogue.
If you want a straight view on whether a design in strategy fits your product and your target OEMs, that is what Ground Truth is for. It is a paid go or no go call, direct with me. A $250 refundable deposit, credited in full against Commercial Launchpad or the Fractional retainer if you proceed, and refunded if I decide it is not the right fit. Book it at https://cal.com/scott-robinson-hn8vga/ground-truth or take a 20 minute call at https://cal.com/scott-robinson-hn8vga/20-minute-strategy-session
Ground Truth is a paid call that gives you an honest go or no-go on your market, direct with Scott. The $250 deposit is credited if you go ahead, and refunded if we are not the right fit.