Industry 4.0 Club Live from Manufacturing X.0 Southeast

Hey, welcome, welcome. We're here at the Manufacturing Expo in Southeast Greenville, South Carolina. Uh, we're here, Mike and Anne and myself have been attending. We've been here all day and we're going to be here tomorrow as well.

It's been a really, yeah, it's been a really great conference. So, Anne, I'll put you on the spot. What did you enjoy the most this morning so far?

Well, you know, I'm gonna say Ian. That's not fair. Ian had his session and, you know, I'm just gonna say Ian. I'm biased.

Yeah.

But I thought this session right before the morning break was really good on integrating Industry 4.0 and some use cases on how companies have been successful doing that and breaking down their own processes and kind of figuring that stuff out.

That's been That was pretty cool.

Hi, Grace.

Hey, Grace.

Hey, Grace.

So, Yen, how about yourself? What have you enjoyed so far from the conference?

I enjoyed the Michelin presentation. I thought it was very well done and a good perspective of how to do digital transformation, especially when you have a large organization. What I thought was interesting too is that the speaker, he had his own vocabulary because he's from Michelin. So half of what he's was mentioning from a content perspective was in French, right? That's kind of interesting.

I had no problem with that.

No, I don't have a problem with your point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. But it's interesting coming from Europe, right? You're used to that everybody has their own kind of vocabulary, but most of them are American. But there's some examples where they're not.

I just want to say that his point about putting people at the center of Industry 4.0 integration, It was great. Thank you.

Yeah, I wrote down, you know, what did he say? 85% people, 15% technology. Is that what he said?

Something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

So it really does matter to be focusing on the people. I enjoyed your presentation, actually.

Oh, thank you.

And I didn't know the word servitization. I want to add something to that.

If you put it in Microsoft Word, it won't recognize it. But it was actually introduced in 1988.

Yeah, I was really impressed with what you were sharing about Ingersoll Rand, about the fact that the number of visits to support your sites has dropped. We used to say, what, 50% were 2 visits to fix something?

65% was one trip and 35% was more than one trip.

And now it's down to like 5%? Is, is only 2 trips. And then like how much are now zero trips?

About 50%.

Yeah, that's amazing. And what I was appreciating, the question that was asked of you towards the end, I thought was really cool, and that was, um, did you have to raise your prices to make this happen? And what your answer was really neat, said no, you kept the prices the same because the technology not only helped your customer but it also helped your profitability.

Yes. Our initial business case was based on the retrofit business case. So doing the retrofits for our service as opposed to doing it in the factory. And the initial business case paid off based on that margin increase and improved service. And as I said, our customers like it because they're getting up and running quicker.

Customer service, I think that's just key to like good business. You have so many experiences where you have a poor customer service experience. And it's just like, you know, as a consumer, you're like, what am I paying for? Did I say that? Yeah, what am I paying for here? You know, so customer service is always key to everything.

Yeah, I mean, the whole point of the certification is that you're moving from pure product sale with no service, right, which a lot of consumer stuff is. to a service model where, you know, we had Ralph Rio from ARC on one of our rooms talking about, you know, the complete service model where you can actually get over 10 years 300% of what the value of the asset is compared to a normal model where you only get 100% at day one. and then maybe some services over time. But if you change it to a pure service model, you can change that completely and actually increase your revenue significantly. It's a good rise.

So did you— you know, I think you mentioned earlier the importance of people being at the center of the transformation, and that theme came up like multiple times in presentations this morning.

Yeah, no, it did. I was really pleased to hear that.

In fact, almost every panel talked about the fact that It's really the challenge isn't as much the technology as it is the people.

Definitely. Yeah. And having those conversations, having those change management conversations and really what was said on that first panel. And he said, if you just buy equipment or machinery, robots, whatever, no matter how shiny or whatever it is, and you just give it to your plant staff and you're like, here you go, here it is, then, you know, it, it's just gonna sit there. And they have to know the why. You have to tell people why you're doing things and what the, what the big picture really looks like for them to be open to accepting any type of change or adopting any technology or anything like that.

I'm thinking even you almost got to make it so that The transport people are providing the how. If you can make them first of all tell you what their issues are, but have them actually help identify what the best solution is, that's when you make it work, right? Exactly, yes.

One of the, you know, stemming from or going past, following up on the people side, one of the interesting questions about that I had not thought about, honestly. And it's not a people question, but it was an interesting question, was asked one of the panels at the end, what's the importance of process standardization?

Yeah.

In this journey. And I was really— I guess I hadn't really given it some thought, but everybody, each of the panel members talked about how important process standardization was before you move forward. I don't know, I just found that interesting because I guess I believe that, but also thought that the technology could actually help some with some of that as well.

What are your thoughts? So there's 2 things on that. So first of all, that the comment around that standardization is important, but at the same time you are agile and you can break things, means that you're going to try to be flexible and go outside the standards in some levels as well. So take think about from that perspective. But I also think from a standardization perspective, what you typically find with these processes is that you've got to have your base done right. What I mean by that is you have your business system. So we heard several examples of 40 different ERP systems, 70 different ERP systems, and just trying to make that work in a single system is a tremendous task.

That would be a lot.

Yeah, it is a lot. And so for example, like the Michelin scenario, was we're not going to standardize ERP, but the data layer above, in our data lake and analytics, we're going to try to normalize everything there.

That's what I was thinking about, the use of technology to help you. You don't have to replace everything, but you need to have standard approaches in order to leverage the data.

Grace says people crave context. Exactly.

To that, One of the things that I thought when we were talking about how do you put system in place so that you have people leaving the company and other people taking over. And there's a lot of discussion about how do you get that information transfer done.

Yeah.

And there was an example of just one person was leaving and they put 5 people or 6 people, MBAs from a university in to try to come up with a system to replace his mindset. It's just crazy. And I'm thinking, millennials coming into the factories, what do they do at home when they got to solve a problem?

Google it.

They Google it and find on YouTube.

That's right. We Google.

Why don't we have, like, plant floor video blogging?

Well, what was the company that said that they created their own Wikipedia?

That's a big— but it's still a structure.

Yeah.

Think about having just all the workers on the plant having an engine for videotaping what they're doing.

Yes.

And a system that would then rate, you know, which one is the best explanation of how to do this, like 5 stars, 4 stars, 3 stars. So when you search for this machine, you'll see which video is best to— I mean, there's tons of opportunities in that area too to make it easy. And so there's no structure on it, it just happens automatically.

That's really cool.

Oh yeah, I thought it was interesting. Yeah, it organically just—

Yeah, so people create context, right?

Yeah. But it's interesting, you're talking about replacing that person. I think one of the comments that really hit home, we'll go back to the people side, was, you know, we often reward that person who can get in there at 3 o'clock in the morning. We put that person on a pedestal and call them the hero, when in fact they really aren't, because we, you know, if we have to have them that way, we really don't have a robust System and process in place.

Exactly right. To make sure that you're capturing information. Everybody should be able to fix issues in some way or another.

I think it's really interesting to think about how do we help people like that who they enjoy being the hero, help them make the transition and realize that my job is no longer to be the hero. My job is to help others learn what I have to learn. It's a hard thing to get some people to transition from.

I was just— I think it was on LinkedIn. I just saw a post I thought was interesting. It was supposedly from Ronald Reagan. I don't know, but it was like, leaders can go very far if they don't care to get the credit.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

And so that's kind of the idea, right? You don't need to be the hero. If you can make sure things actually— if you're helping things flow, you're going to get far without having to be the hero, right?

Yeah, that's a good comment. That's a really good comment.

Definitely.

So, but it's interesting because a lot of these, uh, a lot— talking about the guy at 3 in the morning, if we can get him to share his information, a lot of the technology now, um, can facilitate— and going back to your point— the ability to access that information by anybody and everybody when there's an opportunity to or a need to use it.

Yeah, yeah. I was just— the reason I was thinking about this whole YouTube idea was they were showing how they were videotaping people doing their work, and those people are very uncomfortable, you know what I'm saying?

Right, right.

Because we're now going to videotape you doing this whole process so we can document it. If you change that over and says, well, there's— I mean, you see it on YouTube all the time, people love sharing how they do things, right?

Oh yeah, yeah.

And if they could have a vehicle to do that and then just automatically—

that's it. Yeah, turn it around. So yeah, not someone watching them, but Being asked them to share their information.

But don't care about if they spend extra time maybe doing that during their normal work hour, right? I think that would be interesting.

So maybe we should tell our guests. So we're sitting now in the vendor area, vendor and the break area. And there are, looking around, there's about a dozen vendors here, sponsors, if you will, sharing their services and their products with the group. And then next door is where the presentations are occurring. And there are about 225 people who are here, who signed up to be here, and I would say they had to— they had more people than they expected this morning. They had to take out some of the tables.

Yeah, I saw that.

And put in more chairs. So it's been really well attended. It's very exciting. Um, we just finished lunch and everybody's back in presentation. So, and you're going to be talking this afternoon, aren't you?

Yes.

What is your panel about, Anne?

Um, my panel is about Industry 4.0 workforce skill sets.

Your favorite topic?

Yeah, you got it, you know it. And I'm really excited to get up there and answer some of these questions about how we can prepare our workforce better for Industry 4.0. How do we get, you know, people excited about the manufacturing industry as a career sector? How do we build high-performing team cultures and how do we ensure the cross-collaboration of our workforce? I'm stoked. I'm excited.

You know who else is on your panel? Who else is on your panel?

Do you remember?

Eda Stahl. I've met her and Alicia Lopez is on my panel and John Quigley is moderating.

That should be really cool. And then later this afternoon, at the end of the day, we have a thing called the Innovation Den. And the Innovation Den is where we're going to have, um, 3 startup companies present their ideas, their products or their services. And the audience is going to have a chance to— it's going to be kind of like Shark Tank.

Okay.

They got a 10-minute presentation followed then by 5 minutes of questions. So there'll be 3 companies doing that, and then at the end of the day, we're going to be able to vote on which company we think is the best— is the best product or service to offer to the public. So we'll announce that winner in the morning. But I think that's pretty exciting to see what's being— what's new and what's being offered from these young companies.

How fun.

Which reminds me again also to mention that tomorrow you are leading as the main moderator for the entire day.

Yeah, I get to emcee. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, I get to expect dad jokes.

Oh my gosh, no. We get to start off the morning. Don't ruin this. Don't ruin the surprise. We're going to start off the morning. And I get a chance to share a little presentation on change management. You know, we talked about how important people are. And I've got a very simple formula to share about change that, you know, we're engineers, right? So lots of us are anyway. So we can Engineers like to see a formula. We got a formula for change management to help people understand, and maybe a different way about how to handle change and make change happen. Then I have the honor of moderating a panel midday. It's an amazing panel. I'm sorry, I'm really excited about it because we're bringing together 5 leaders from the state of South Carolina. Someone from the Chamber of Commerce, someone from the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, someone from South Carolina Research Authority, someone from the South Carolina Manufacturing Extension, and someone from the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness. We're looking at leaders in each of these organizations to talk about how they can help companies de-risk their Industry 4.0 progress so that they can actually continue to be profitable while putting in place these new These new technologies.

Very cool. Looking forward to that too.

So that's pretty— I was just amazed. It's a lot of horsepower.

Right, right. Yeah.

And then we'll end the day tomorrow. Then we're going to end the day tomorrow. We're going to ask all of the folks in the conference to do a—

We're live.

You guys want to come say hi? Yeah.

All the folks in the conference to do a, what did you learn from the conference? We're doing a LinkedIn Live.

Come say hi.

Say hello.

They're on my panel. I'm excited. Hey, I'm Eda from Bubble Cars. Yes. And this is John Quigley. He's our moderator.

PM Tips.

Yeah.

So what do you guys want to— uh, yeah, I'm gonna say you're gonna talk about, um, the workforce this afternoon.

People.

In all of these, we've had a lot of people this, but mostly technical people this, and mostly technical. This is gonna be people. Mostly, which is, you know, that's how we get things done. Yeah, exactly. That's where the creativity comes from.

And your, your experience is what? What is your background?

Strategy, legal, um, business development. I have many hats.

Excellent. Yeah, well, I'm excited for—

I can't—

I know it'll be pretty exciting. Are you, are you on the panel, or who's— are you— I'm the moderator. You're moderator?

He's the boss.

I don't know that. That's nice.

So we're on a LinkedIn Live. This is the Industry 4.0 Club. If you guys are familiar with it, we, we come together to advance the implementation of Industry 4.0, and our goal is to really connect people with resources and knowledge that they might not get otherwise from really around the world. So we've had some really neat, you know, engagements. We try to have conversations really almost every day of the week. Either on LinkedIn Live or through Clubhouse.

Wow, that's impressive.

That is really cool. So we all are here today and we're glad to be part of the conference and really help promote.

Yeah, I think the Clubhouse had a session from 12:30 to 1:30 on cybersecurity and malware, and then we just jump in with the LinkedIn Live right after that.

We crashed. Yes, I think it's awesome. I invited them.

I wasn't sure what that meant other than it's somewhere down here.

And I walked down, I thought I recognized you. I'm like, you look like you're busy. I'm gonna move on.

Swedish person, if I get an invite, I'll be there. That's awesome. Hey, I was like, come by, say hi.

You get a meeting invite. Super. Well, we're glad that you guys— we're excited to hear about your panels. Yeah, should be a lot of fun.

All right, well, thank you. Thanks, guys. We'll see you here in a few.

See you in a little bit. So I guess any other thoughts before we bring this to a close? Look, I wonder if we can show— you want to try to show the audience the different room, the vendor a little bit? Can we do that?

I don't know. I want to play with the service over here.

All the cameras around here. So we got a session over here, a setup over here. We got a little robotics thing going on over here. I know where the robot went.

Behind you.

Yeah, there it is. The robot is right there. Going around, it's a modified Segway. We've got a couple other booths sitting over here. Oh, we've got technology software.

A lot of connected worker tools, which I'll do more on later.

So we met, we met a lot of folks too. There's a— I didn't, you know, I heard that there are mostly folks from South Carolina here, but I've met I met somebody from Louisiana, someone from Toyota in Kentucky, and someone from Lockheed in Texas— no, I'm sorry, Louisiana. And I was quite amazed how broad the attendance has been from around this part of the country.

Right, yeah. And we even met one of our guests of one of the rooms. Yes, Chris McCurry.

Chris from Bosch was one of the panelists. This morning.

Oh yeah.

And tomorrow we're gonna have— tomorrow Marsha Walker will be, um, talking from— she's from IDC. She'll be talking in the morning as well.

Okay.

So it's really quite amazing. There's a lot of folks we've had a chance to run into, and I'm really hoping— I've had a chance to meet a lot of folks— to bring some more folks on to some of our fireside chats.

Yes, absolutely.

Some of our rooms. It should be quite good.

Yeah, yeah, quite good. Absolutely. Take some business cards.

Yeah, I've been doing that while I've been writing. We have that through the app. We have all their connections anyway.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So my trade, trade show convention hack is I have my name badge and then I put my business cards in the back, and then it's like trade. It's like a card per card. So like, yeah, I don't think I've given you a card, so— okay, and then you give me one, and then your card goes in the back of The stack, and then I keep all of my cards there.

This is my business card.

Do I— what do I do? Do I scan that?

Put your phone on it, and that automatically sends the information to your phone.

No way. All right, that's cool. I'm gonna— I'm gonna have to try that.

All right, yeah, we'll do that after.

So you guys, wait, should we just wrap up? You guys ready to wrap up?

Yeah.

No, cool.

Thanks guys, thanks for tuning in.

So we look forward to Well, our next show is on Thursday, right?

Yes.

Yeah, this week, uh, LinkedIn Live.

Um, Maria, I can't confirm that yet.

Oh, okay.

So we're hopefully at 12:30 on Thursday, if not next Monday at, uh, 12:30 PM Eastern time with Women in Manufacturing. Anyway, you guys, we'll, uh, look for more posts about the conference. We're excited to be here and excited to be able to share a little about Manufacturing X.0 Southeast.

And meet each other in person. This is the first time we've met in person.

And share a little swag.

Yes. Yeah.

Anyway, take care, everybody.

See you guys soon.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.