Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello, hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Control Alt Manufacturing podcast, Resetting and Rethinking Manufacturing.
This is one of my favorite podcasts we've done, and it's not because I'm flying solo. I kind of miss Stephanie being here on my side. But we are live at the CSIA conference in Baltimore, which means we have guests in the same room as us for this podcast. Even though it doesn't really look like we're in the same room, we can wave to each other from afar. We're in the same room.
Joining us for this podcast again at the CSIA Conference live is Jeremy Anderson, President of Process and Data Automation. Jeremy, thanks for agreeing to join us. Be a victim here in our live podcasting.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Oh, thanks for having me, Gary. I do appreciate it.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we got to see you. You went to work early this morning. We're already on a panel. But any favorite moments so far from the CSIA conference? I know we're still in the early stages.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: You know, I mean, just from the beginning, even the kind of the social gathering yesterday, it's great.
I heard a colleague say it and it's the best thing I can think of to phrase it. It feels like a class reunion, you know, like where you go see people you haven't seen in five, 10 years and you're catching up about family and struggles and stripes and it's just great community.
So that definitely, that's always the highlight of coming here. But no action packed day. Lots of great presenters.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: I always like shows like this where they're a little bit on the smaller side. There's plenty of people here, but you go to those shows where there's 50,000 people and you sort of get lost in the shuffle. And like you said here, if there's somebody you want to talk to, there's a pretty good chance you're going to run into them at some point.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yes. No, it's of the right size, I would say, you know, and smaller than some of the more national conferences that, you know, we've all attended. But yeah, Jen, it's making that personal connection which I think is so much part of this industry is really just really special.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. So you mentioned this morning. So you were in a session this morning, R and D, the new R and D ripoff and duplicate, which I really love the title of. We'll talk about that in a second.
But you, you mentioned that you have basically gone from field service technician to president in your career. What did that journey teach you about leadership in manufacturing and automation in this System integration industry a lot.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: You know, I don't know if I can tell you it wasn't by design, but going from, you know, where you're actually, you know, landing the wires literally to where you're taking the other side, now you're doing the automation of it, selling the product, leading teams that are doing that work.
Just all those different facets provide a unique perspective. And having the fortune to kind of see a lot of those and see how interconnected they are and see the struggles on one side and then being able to try to offer a solution on the other really has been a joy.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Was your intent always to go into system integration or is this kind of a found found career path?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: It was, it was the path that found me. So I talked to Lisa a couple weeks ago and I said, my dad told me when I was young I took everything apart. And then one day I finally got good at putting back together again. And it really was true.
So it's a tinkerer by nature. And so, you know, well, started out in my father's business and had an opportunity to like one day somebody literally just handed me a laptop to troubleshoot and that was my first exposure to a plc. And then finding out that like, wow, there's this magical little device that I can use to not stick my hands in the panel. And so that, that became very empowering. And then trying to bring that knowledge to others really just kind of, that's kind of the one step at a time path that it took.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: That's such an engineer answer. I was a kid that used to take the TV apart and yeah, I
[00:03:59] Speaker B: don't know if anybody else has ever said this, but there was a time where Penn State behrend one of the professors there would ask the kids if they had ever licked a 9 volt battery and a surprising number of hands would go up. And it was because you actually cause a small short is what you do and it feels weird on the tongue.
But yeah, there's a different breed that come into this field for a reason.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And it's, you know, when you look at the industry as it stands right now, what changes are. Obviously the, the, the theme of this whole conference is navigating change. So what changes are most real for system integrators right now? And what do you think is actually getting more hype maybe than it deserves?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: You know, bit conservative in my nature. And so I find myself being a bit resistant to the giant AI push that's out there. It's necessary and is going to be one of those things that transforms this generation, no question about it.
But sometimes some of the other aspects of that I think are not promoted as much. You know, some of the risk that goes with it, the, you know, the countermeasures that you would want to do so moving forward very thoughtfully and with purpose, but still making sure that you have those boundaries up again. This, this trade that we're in, loves innovation. They want to try the next thing, they want to be the next thing. And so that's kind of where I see some of the, you know, for a business leader, you know, kind of, there's, that's where the, the concern comes in is not getting out over your skis as appear says, you know, so that, that's kind of the one that I have my weather eye on.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's by the way, one of my favorite turns of phrase is getting over your skis.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: It's a good one if you've done it, you know.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Exactly. I like that one you're talking about. Change is, is pervasive in this industry. Obviously navigating change is a theme.
From your perspective, what kind of change is the hardest for system integrators to manage? Well, is it technology, workforce, customer expectations, business risk, something else?
[00:05:59] Speaker B: The non engineering aspects of it are ones that, you know, you really benefit more from the outside perspective on. You know, I think embracing technology is a core. It's, it's almost a must for people in our industry.
But again, you know, making sure that the business is taken care of. You know, so operations are thought of, the sales, marketing, you know, the support functions, that those are done well and with purpose. That, that's one that I've seen people struggle with.
And like you said, you mentioned risk. And so again that, that legal aspect of it, you know, a lot of us go in thinking, well if I just do great work, nothing's going to, you know, how could go wrong. But it's when things do go wrong, then that's when you fall back on those, you know, those kind of more operational functions. And that's what I would kind of caution people with is to, you know, keep an eye on those, make sure those are getting built with purposes as well as chasing the technology.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah, somebody one of your colleagues on the panel this morning mentioned, even when it comes down to like insurance, if you're part of the csia, you probably have that sort of risk and preparing for risk seems to be a big part of this industry.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I mean when you go after a certain client base of a certain size or with a certain market segments, they want to know they're protected from that. I mean, if you're literally working on a company that is putting things on store shelves, you know, they cannot take that damage through their reputation, you know, from an automation incident. And so they're now pushing that risk off to those that are working on that. So making sure that your backstop as an organization by the csa, insurance or other, you know, similar structures definitely is something for business continuity. I think people do need to consider. Sure.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: As I mentioned, you were on a panel this morning called the New R and D Ripoff and Duplicate.
I got to ask, why rip off and duplicate? Where did that come from and what were your main takeaways from the session?
[00:07:45] Speaker B: I know it's one of our peers that came up with it, that's his affectionate phrase for it. But it really is kind of how this industry, that the culture of this industry is built is.
It's so interesting. You're in a group full of what on paper look like your competitors, and some of us are.
But the vulnerability that so many of the individuals have here to really share what's gone well, this really helped us move past this point in our growth. What's gone poorly and looking for others to help solve that and finding that openness for or others that again, you might think that you would be competitors to really be willing to offer some measured advice on that is fantastic. And so, yeah, I think that's where the R and D aspect comes kind of try and buy.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: How do you think customer expectations have changed over the last few years when it comes to automation projects and system integration?
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Well, so of course a lot of demographics go into this. We're losing the boomers. The Xers are hitting a certain stage in their lives and then the different generations coming up behind us and overall shrinking population and definitely a higher skill set to that generations coming up. And that's what I think is changing is when you have less people willing to adapt to more technology.
You know, we have to be as an industry ready to embrace that. We have to be able to, you know, offer more complimentary services if that's what you need, more wraparound type of care for those.
And also we do a lot in the food and beverage space. And so again, their customers, us at the store are somewhat fickle. Like we're always looking for a change in flavor, change in size. And so in that space especially you see a lot of variation. And again, that drives very continuous upgrade to the systems.
And again, trying to stay with that client to help them on that journey. And it's less of the. Okay, here's the satisfaction. Thank you very much. Sign here. Good working with you and on to more of a longer relationship with a client. That's what I see.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: One of the reasons we've said this on the podcast before, we always love talking to system integrators is because system integrators are the people who actually know how to make things work.
What do manufacturers most often understand about what it takes to make an automation project actually work in the real world?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: That varies quite a bit by your customers.
Our, our ideal customer, and we had to look at this a number of times, is actually somebody who has a very astute but slightly undersized engineering staff. And it's because we wanted to be able to work with colleagues that could understand our challenges, be able to take the operator perspective, the quality, you know, the end user's perspective, and help us translate that a bit more into the craft that we're bringing in.
Places that don't have that, where their engineering staff is, you know, outsourced completely, that becomes an additional challenge. You know, now we have to become that voice of the operator. And I just was talking to a colleague that did a whole bunch of training, had a fully written RFQ followed by the work breakdown structure, and talked to the lead operator like, well, why are you doing it like that? Well, I was watching football while you guys did your training. And so staying engaged in that is a bit of a battle sometimes. Yeah.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Do you think there can be an over reliance on technology to solve the problems? Obviously technology, huge for everybody in this industry in automation, but it takes more than just dropping a new technology solution into your factory floor or wherever it is you work. But do you think that there are people who have become too reliant on, we will buy this software and it will fix our problems.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Any product bought to be a panacea is kind of on shaky ground. Right.
You know, for previously my career, I was a drive expert for Yaskawa. And we would always say that, like, you can't engineer bad mechanics out of it. Like, you know, you can tune the loop as good as you can, you can do a lot of neat things to like, smooth things out. But if the foundation is built on is shaky, that shakiness is still there. You can mask it, but you're never getting rid of it. So I would say going back to the beginning, making sure you know that the business case for the new shiny thing that you're looking to chase is well thought out and then methodically moving through that. Although that's not the fun part that that leads to. The fun. Right. If everybody's suited up for the game, nobody's going to get hurt.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Everybody in the automation industry talks about the skills gap and you know, the silver tsunami and all these things. With your background, which fairly varied from service to projects, operations, leadership, what skills do you think the next generation of automation talent really needs right now?
[00:12:45] Speaker B: So you're right. I mean the, the tradecraft kind of went through a gap.
We do see that coming back. You know, we've have in our small area two regional colleges have kind of spun up the, we've partnered with the German American Chamber to kind of embrace their apprenticeship program that they have gotten certified here in the States. So we do see that that kind of well recognized and very necessary tradecraft piece of the skill set coming back.
So that one definitely was one that luckily we've all recognized and I do see countermeasures in place to correct that.
The other part would be again, you know, we're relying so much more on technology.
I think those that are more in the business, the users need to make sure that they are well versed into what it can do. You know, not believe that automation is a demon and not to believe that automation is an angel. Right. I mean understand that it is a thing, it has a function and if you use it properly, it will function to that purpose. But expecting much more of it or expecting it to work against you will obviously lead to some severe challenges.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: So we are here live at the CSIA conference Early days here. If you could leave CSIA attendees and manufacturing leaders with one practical piece of advice for the near future, what would it be?
I always like to put people on the spot, give me one piece of advice, solve one piece of problem solving quickly and succinctly.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: I think it was mentioned by one of the peers on the panel and I think bears repeating is just looking to see that all the angles are covered. Again we understand what the primary challenge is. Whatever the scope of work is for that project we're all going to work on or the service interval that we're about to do.
But it's the peripheral vision that's I think what is the differentiator between good companies and great companies.
So working on whatever those may be, again, whether it's the insurance like you mentioned earlier or other kinds of risk mitigation, if it's other parts of the business or the work itself, but just making sure that you've gone in kind of eyes open and looking purposefully for those things that could be a disruptor to what you're about to do.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Last question for you. So you've been coming to this conference for a little while. Why is the CSIA conference so important to you? Why is this one you enjoy going to?
[00:15:11] Speaker B: Well, so now that I'm fortunate enough to be a leader in my company, meeting peers, you know, finding that next strategic topic, you know, to have the team get engaged on is really why I'm here. We've also found it to be enormously helpful for our, our rising talent as well. So get them introduced to their next group of peers that they might see. But also, you know, we certainly try to unlock that kind of strategic thinking within them. And being in a place like this with the kind of the energy of the group really I think sets the ground well for that. And we've always gotten a tremendous return from anybody that's come to this.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Looking at your LinkedIn page and your career path, it's fairly remarkable because it's a career path that doesn't happen as much anymore, which is you've been with one company for a long time and have had various different jobs and worked your way up.
It's something that I think used to happen all the time. But it's unusual to see that kind of longevity and loyalty to a company.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: It's been well earned. So I've tried to give my best to them and they've definitely done that.
Intern to me, give me a lot of great opportunities and not all of them super successful. But what we recognize is myself and a couple others that have had this kind of varied career path within the organization. We knew we had the right people, but maybe we just didn't have that right seat for them yet. And so it was just kind of playing with the parts until we found that right place.
And we've been very proud of that. That's seen as a strength, you know.
And I do, I would encourage, if people have an opportunity not to completely uproot their career, of course, but to sit in that other seat for a period of time and get that perspective of what that group is or is going through really can open up a better conversation and an overall better product and a better process, I think.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. Jeremy Anderson, President of Process and Data Automation, thank you so much for coming in and sitting across the table from us.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Gary. I do appreciate it.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Pleasure talking to you again. We are live at the CSIA conference. At some point after 10 or 12 of these podcasts, I'll learn how to say that without having to stumble over it. As always, you can find our information on the Control Engineering site or any of our other WTWH media suite of engineering brands.
Check us out. Thanks so much for coming back to the podcast. We'll see you next time.
