Who builds DEFECTED?
DEFECTED is built by Tunnel Tracker Pty Ltd, a company based in Sydney. Its founder, Victor, also works night shifts as an injector, on a BBLA crew carrying out defect repairs on Sydney Metro West Portion 1. That crew uses the app, so the person deciding what DEFECTED does next is one of its users, recording packers, product and photos underground on the same shifts as everyone else. The app is offline-first because the work happens where there is no signal, and it is built around rings, clock positions, packers and kits because that is the language of the job. Ideas for it come from real shifts, such as wanting to see the whole crew's work for the night in one place when it is time to send the report.
Why build a defect app for injection crews?
Because the record of rectification work was the weak point. Defect lists were issued as spreadsheets, photos lived on personal phones and were shared over messaging apps, and ring numbers and packer counts were re-typed into a tracker at the end of a shift, sometimes the next morning. Every one of those steps cost time and added a chance to lose or mistype something. Engineers above ground had to wait for that consolidation to know what had been done, and the crew had little to show for its work beyond what someone wrote down later. DEFECTED is aimed at that gap: the record the crew makes of the work, captured once at the defect, and relied on by the engineers who accept it.
How did it get onto Sydney Metro West?
From the crew up. It was not sold into the project from the top. The injectors on Victor's crew at BBLA started using the app for their own work, and the reports it produced began going round on messaging apps. Those reports got noticed, and Gamuda, delivering the Sydney Metro Western Tunnelling Package, asked for DEFECTED to be deployed on Portion 1 for the defect repair phase. A pilot ran through July 2026, refining the defect taxonomy, the work stream split and the reports against real shifts, and official deployment followed on 2 August 2026. Field crews from BBLA and Next Tier work the same register, and Gamuda engineers follow the progress from the surface. The full story is in the Portion 1 case study.
Where is DEFECTED used today?
On two kinds of work. On Sydney Metro West Portion 1 it runs the tunnel defect register across twin tunnel drives, from the issued DLP master defect list to the photos that close each defect out; that work is described on the tunnel defect register page. On a civil construction project, it records joint and hose injection in two caverns, adapted from the tunnel app and running on a phone underground five days after work on it began; see the cavern joint injection case study. The same app runs on iPhone and in the browser, and engineers use it from a desktop. Both jobs share the same sign-in, offline working, photo capture and daily report; what was built new for the caverns was the plan and the injection workflows around it.
How do I get in touch?
Email hello@defected.app. If you are planning defect repairs on a tunnel, the quickest way to see whether DEFECTED fits is to start a 14-day pilot on one heading with your own list.