Reliability Gang Podcast
Welcome the #Reliabilitygang Podcast! I would like to welcome you all to my reliability journey. I am passionate about reliability and I want to share as much as I can with everyone with my experiences. Stories are powerful and my aim of this outlet is to gather as many insights and experiences and share them with the world. Thanks for joining the #reliabilitygang.
Reliability Gang Podcast
COMBINING HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND TECH EFFICIENCY
Curious about where condition monitoring is headed and how it’s changing the way we approach maintenance? In this episode, we dive into the strategic decisions shaping our industry and explore how adapting to new technologies can elevate operations. Broadcasting from our brand-new podcast studio, we’ll talk about how spontaneous conversations often lead to our best ideas—and how systems like Acoem are driving efficiency in exciting ways. We’ll also discuss the increasing demand for asset reliability training and how it’s reshaping the way clients think about maintenance.
How do you find the balance between spontaneity and strategy in content creation? We’ll share our approach to planning podcasts and videos to deliver high-quality content, including ideas for listener polls and covering multiple topics in a single episode. You’ll also hear about our new office in Wakefield, a key part of our UK expansion, and the importance of hands-on data collection in today’s world of AI and wireless sensors. Plus, we’ll give you a glimpse into how our video strategy is fueling growth and amplifying our message.
This episode is packed with innovative ideas around condition monitoring and the rise of the “hybrid engineer.” We’ll talk about why engineers remain critical in this tech-driven revolution, highlighting the balance between cutting-edge systems and human expertise. Companies like Acoem are leading the way with solutions that improve plant reliability, while data analysis turns raw numbers into actionable steps to optimize operations. Join us as we explore the game-changing impact of embracing new technologies, with insights on accountability, reliability, and the exciting products and workflows that are redefining the future.
Hello, welcome back to a new and improved version of the Reliability Gang podcast. Welcome back in the new podcast studio. I'm here with my right-hand man, will Crane. How are we keeping buddy? Very well, thank you very much. What do you think?
Speaker 2:It's exciting.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, isn't it? It is such a nice environment. To be fair, we've noticed it's a little bit more echoey, so quality will improve. But we've not got all of the studio foam in yet, no. So we've got half of it in, but not all. We need to put the bass wraps in. We've got a few other. We've got to get a rug and make it all nice and holy, but it's looking lovely already, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is looking very nice. It's nice at the office that we can go to whenever we want, and just do you know what it is.
Speaker 1:We often in there, when we're working together, we're talking about reliability probably that's a great idea for a podcast, and we're just but not even that. It's like we should be recording this. This would be great when we're getting into them conversations, but that's I. That's what I think the podcast needs to bring out of people. It needs to be in a natural environment where they feel in that comfort zone, and almost what we want to capture is two really good engineers having a good discussion. But that's like what it is, though, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, and that always happens, though, like you always get the best ideas for a podcast, or we should capture this moment, like when we're in there doing something not like, or like early in the morning, should we just quickly nip in and do a podcast?
Speaker 1:I, I know, I know and I think obviously I've got a podcast studio at home. We've kind of shifted the gear over into here. But I think when we're in our HQ we're in maintain mode, aren't we? Whereas my studio is more kind of like, kind of just a studio environment, which is lovely, don't get me wrong. But I think what we wanted to do and what we wanted to capture and everyone's seen the little linkedin post I'll put up with a little tour of what we've done we'll see that we've just made it more maintained but more homely hq kind of vibe for us here when we're here into engineering, but also feeling nice and comfortable like yeah, I'm having a cup of tea, having a conversation about you know, I don't know gearbox or you know what I mean, I'm over. So it's been a.
Speaker 1:Guys, I hope everyone had a great new year. I hope everyone had a nice recharge over christmas. I know that time can be nice sometimes to just shut off a little bit, but I mean, I've got itchy feet, I'm straight back in the mix. I really wanted to come back as much I love my time off, but as well. Obviously we've not really actually managed to give you guys an update on everything. So this podcast is going to be a bit of a mixture of updates and we're going to actually have a few conversational points as we go through it, but that'll also kind of come off the back of some of the things that we're doing and why it's important to be able to do some of these things as well some of the big projects we've been working on um that are really important for, like, the future.
Speaker 2:I think of condition monitoring in general, really, yeah, 100, how we as a business are now adapting to that. We've had to kind of start thinking of that nice and early. So we've been working on these projects since probably June, july and they make a big impact on the business so they take their time, but we're almost there for that and it's it's.
Speaker 1:I'm getting excited too, because these are projects I've been working quite heavily on well obviously everyone knows we'll move more into technical role and I think this was a perfect move for us. It was chess move because we always knew will thrives there. But it's obviously when you start a business and you've got multiple hats, you're doing things you know you have to. It's just the way you have to be until you get to that stage where you've got resource, but again with the technical abilities as well. It also allows us to be able to say, well, how do we work on our business, like we're very good right at being really efficient for other people. And it's weird, isn't it? It's like that saying is that what you do really well for others, you don't necessarily do the best for yourself.
Speaker 1:So what I feel like we've done we've really kind of will's gone introspect and had a look at our own per you know processes and with me obviously looking from above, and we've been like, actually that could do with some refinement. And then what we're trying to find, just like a good kind of online system, is one platform that's able to do multiple things to the most of their ability, and that kind of almost transpires into what Acoem is for us when it comes to condition monitoring. Because what we're trying to do, and this is another thing. There's always a push and pull, there's always a pro and con with going with a system that can do a lot of things or provide you a lot of things under one umbrella. But when you can get a system that does a lot of things, very well, that's the game-changing element, because we don't like having 10 different software programs to be able to do trying things like consolidate as much as you can, but you then don't want to limit yourself on its capabilities.
Speaker 2:Yes, but then one of the big things I think we found this year was, you know, we've done a lot. Last year we did a lot of asset reliability training. That's become really, you know, popular amongst many customers wanting to change the way that they do their maintenance practices. And we're teaching all the different things root cause analysis, workflow management, how to a customer manage the jobs coming in that they need to do with their engineers team. And then we're like we need to do this for our business. So how do we manage, I know, coming in and how do we?
Speaker 1:how ironic though you know, it is like we even said we're doing a whole Femeka on our processes, yeah, and it's like this is what real reliability is, though, because I was having a great conversation with you know a guy that we're setting up a contract with. He's really looking for some good reliability as well with the CM inside of stuff, and we've kind of done a CM strategy and it's been really good. Actually, it's been a great start to a really promising, flourishing relationship moving forward, which is great, and that's what we always want to do when we first come into a new customer. But we're just having the chats and we're just talking about some new things, a new plant they're getting, and we spoke about design and how important it is with the implementation of Reliability Den, and we had a good chat and it was really good. It was over the phone on the way back when I was coming back from the northern offices, but we were just talking. It was just refreshing as well, because he got and he understood that if we spend a bit time now, how much more can we save for the future, and I think to be in that position is very.
Speaker 1:You know, you've got to be quite privileged to be in that you know position anyway, and it's generally usually new plants when they're not already re-aged. They're new, that you know. This plant is only what? Four or five years old, so it's very new in what it is.
Speaker 1:But what is really nice is they're not forgetting about the fundamental things now that's going to cause them problems 10, 20 years down the line, which we're now seeing with some plants that have done that or built that time ago and haven't had that design understanding and and and re kind of fit to be able to make sure the reliability is in tip top shape. And we just had a great conversation about it and it was just. It was great because when you apply that to our own business, we will, we'll run into problems, but it's like, well, that could have been prevented if we would have known that it could have actually happened. But that's what failure mode analysis is. It's like let's find out how this could fail so we can then mitigate proactive maintenance now in the PMs and everything that we're building, rather than just taking the OEM manual saying this is what we need to do.
Speaker 2:But it's the same with our processes. This is a process of creating a report, of quality, checking that report. How could this system not work, fail? How could we under deliver in any way? And then we put all the things in place, love it mate love it, and I mean you absolutely love that anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but now we're starting to apply the same techniques to our business. We're now being proactive, we're ahead of the and do you know how much nicer it is to feel that way? That's how much how these plants must feel when they are in that proactive situation. They've got the time to be able to then do proper for me, because when new equipment comes in and do that study, they've got the time to be able to do a proper root cause analysis, because they're not getting 20 failures a day, it's one of, and then once in a while, and they're right, let's get sort of real the time, with the right implementation and the right mindset and the right culture, you know. So, yeah, really good.
Speaker 1:It's another thing that we're thinking about within our business, but I just thought it'd be a nice little correlation to tie what we're doing right now internally with the process, as to what you know I mean reliability looks like when we're doing these things for other customers as well, do you know, which we thoroughly enjoy as well. So, moving on, new podcast studio, obviously you, we're going to give you a little bit of a view of this and kind of how it looks and everything's not 100% finished yet and I don't really like giving a much away until it is. But I know this year I have to be a little bit more releasing the content and showing the journey in the process rather than oh, it's perfect, now I can film it. You know I mean perfection sometimes not always the best way to go.
Speaker 1:Don't let perfect, get in the way of better and this guy here he says it, but I want him to practice what he preaches this year, because he does strive sometimes for impossible perfection but hopefully once at the minute.
Speaker 2:You know, we've got a podcast that we're recording now, but we're going to keep improving it. We want to get another camera, don't we?
Speaker 1:that's yeah, shot for us both, and not only that, we're going to start to set our schedule. So what the thing? Is what I do me and will, very good off the cuff, spontaneous, let's make an idea, let's throw it out, and I do like that, and we still want to have elements of that, but we do want to be a bit more planned this year. I have a bit more strategy.
Speaker 1:Same with the podcast. So what we're going to do is going to probably brainstorm, get some good ideas, but we also want some ideas from yourself. So I don't know how we're going to do this. Maybe we'll have a chat, and I really want to be able to maybe put some polls out and maybe once a month, you guys pick what we talk about. We're going to have a schedule and we've got so much to talk about and only X amount of podcasts to fit them in. So what we may start doing as well is maybe having some podcasts where we cover two kind of subjects in one, Because you know we're aiming to put two podcasts out a month, but they're going to be high quality. That's what we want to do now. We don't want to. You know what I mean and that's going to be right. That's going to be it. But for these podcasts as well, there's so much content we can draw out and teach people, the short form stuff, and this is what I love about this as well. It's our teaching, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a conversation we have talking about the things that we really enjoy, talking about those that like to listen to the whole podcast. Like, on your way to work you get to learn something. You might just get to have something to listen to. I like to listen just to have people talk.
Speaker 1:It makes the journeys less lonely, but we can, then. It's weird, though, because I think if you're an engineering, like if, if we're hearing this type of stuff, it's just intriguing, it's just like, just love it, don't you like?
Speaker 2:I think you just get drawn into them conversations we can then take from that, though there's so many little clips that you're able to take. Yeah, that podcast. That then, for those that maybe don't aren't on the long journeys or that just want a real quick 10 seconds how to improve reliability or whatever, we get to take that and share that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's not micro content for people, it's just to be able to bite-size content that people can take in as well in terms of reliability. So, yeah, the new podcast studio was a big one for us and a lot more video content coming this year as well. We want to really try to tie into the market and a little bit more. We want to be able to do the things that we know you guys love as well. We know you guys you love seeing content and more videos and stuff like that, and if we can offer some of that and have a space to do it, we're going to do more of it. You know what I mean. New offices have changed around a little bit. We've kind of moved this into the other place. You know we've got a few we have. Oh, of course, that's crazy. I was there Monday, tuesday this is how fast life goes. Yeah, in the north on Monday and Tuesday new offices. I literally drived there, nearly got stuck. It was the most stressful day ever. The weather was absolutely horrendous, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our new offices. They're based at Wakefield. We're in between Jamie and Tom, so we've had some really good growth in the North. Now we really need to bring those two together so they can start working in a more centralized way.
Speaker 1:And we need a base as well when we go up there, because we've got a lot of you know, a lot of new contracts actually coming up North and we also want to be closer to the action but also work with Tom and Jamie to be able to be delivering them with the top, top, top quality in terms of us being present and the training and having an office and a base is so important for that. So really happy that we've done that and we've made that move. And that also goes to show that we do want to expand into the UK. We do want to be able to cover areas. I mean, currently now we cover pretty much nationwide and places that are far away. We make sure we make happen pretty much nationwide and places that are far away. We make sure we make happen. But it's all part of the plan to have locality in every area, because that's where we, that's where that's what people need.
Speaker 1:Remember, I know that um online systems are becoming more popular and they will, they'll, they'll, continue to, but it's still so very important to be able to, especially part of a cm strategy, to implement monthly va data collection, do you know? I mean, and that needs to be done as well by someone who understands what they're looking at and what they're seeing. So you know, that's still very much needed, and it all depends on where people are at with their, their, their culture as well, because some people haven't even started this yet, which is, which is true. This is, this is the reality, isn't it will yep, it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a balance still at the moment and we're now going into a new. I think we're transitioning quicker into a new way that we do condition monitoring and it's it's a transitional effort. I think everyone thought you know ai and wireless sensors.
Speaker 2:You know, one day a factory's got handheld data collection, the next day they have 500 sensors and it's all being done wirelessly I know yeah we don't see that happening, but what we do see happening is more businesses are now thinking about the way that they maintain their plant, they're thinking about reliability and they're thinking about how they can prevent those failure modes and what the best method and technology is and what the best data acquisition method is exactly.
Speaker 1:And that does point me on to my next kind of thought point as well, because you know recently in in terms of the way that maintains being operating an rcm strategy approach, especially with really difficult equipment.
Speaker 1:You know, equipment that doesn't run normally, doesn't run the kind of all the time it's not, the frequency of is very different, the lows can be different, the speeds can be different. It could be a system that has different kind of axle movement or short form moves very quick and slow and quick and slow. This type of stuff inherently is not very easy to monitor and this is the thing as well. This is where you know vibration analysis. It starts to have more complexity because we're not just looking at standard rotate machinery that has same patterns within vibration spectra that we can see and repeat and we can look at, but not even that ai models are able to look at that day a lot more easier than other things because it's repeatable and what it's doing is looking for change under circumstances. That should be the same and remember that's also so important when we do monitoring but that's all we're doing when we do condition we are looking for a change and from a vibration analysis as a main condition monitoring technology.
Speaker 2:We are wanting to have repeatable data collection from the right test location every single month so we can build good trend history and if that trend then changes we should be in a position to confidently say the machine condition has changed 100%, but we know that ain't the reality.
Speaker 1:And certain machines, it's certain machinery yeah, I mean, let's be honest, a high percent of machinery will be operating that way. Yeah, but in some plants you know, ppg for example 80% of the machinery doesn't operate that way. It starts high speed, loads, loads inverter driven and you've got all of these parameters that make it very difficult to be able to make that stability there. So this is also, you know, moving on to the point of saying, well, ok, let's just put an online system on it. Great, we can monitor it all the time. But then the problem is, if you're putting something that is periodic in terms of data collection, or something that's wireless, even if you're taking data once every hour, every time you take that data it's going to be under a different condition, a different load. So now you've just got a lot more of data that is now also still very variant, and that doesn't really necessarily help any kind of AI model either, because it can't learn from the fact there's change. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm sure some models in the future are going to be able to do this, you know. But I just right now, where we're at, we don't have systems like that.
Speaker 1:So also we have to consider also is that when we're even getting a completely wired system, how is that information being interpreted and who is behind understanding the failure mode of that particular machine and how that setup needs to be set up in order to actually capture the defect. And this is important because if you just throw on any kind of machine like what you've got, essentially even with some online systems that are out there at the minute, there's no real person behind the diagnosis. It's all done on algorithmic expression within the software to say, if a few criteria is me, it could be this Okay, them type of systems are not going to look at specific applications that are very unique, because the way that we do it, we actually see if the MVX is capable of of detecting the defect in the first place. If it's not, we won't sell it because it's a complex machine and the whole point of getting a protection device or whatever is to identify when there's a failure that is the nice thing with the mvx, though, is there's not a lot that we can't?
Speaker 1:do, but this is why it's so important and this is why this system is different, and I really just want to make sure people understand the difference of why us being the service provider with knowledge level three knowledge as well and understanding machine failure is so important to couple with a company like aqua web, who've created a device that is so unique it can monitor practically anything.
Speaker 2:I think the key kind of takeaway from it is and we've changed the way that we go into any new customer or existing customers. We're going through it as well is any business that is in the process of looking for condition monitoring, whether that is on a power station with your standard pumps and fans, or whether that's a more complex application with in a car manufacturing where they've got cnc machines that start to go quick move. Yeah, yeah, no matter what equipment that you have, if you may, even if you have an existing condition monitoring in place. Fundamentally, what we do now with all the businesses and every customer we go to is the first thing we set out is we do a condition monitoring strategy and that's a piece of work we've developed over last year where we go into the plant, we assess all the equipment within the plant, we retrieve the criticality information from the customer if they have it, if they don't, we do it.
Speaker 2:Once we've done that, we understand how does the plant operate? How? What is the environmental conditions? What are the assets on the piece of equipment? Are they, you know, standard helical bevel gearboxes? Is it epicyclic?
Speaker 2:All of these things we take into consideration and, using our knowledge, we then review what is the best monitoring method, technology and practice to do this. So if it's quite slow speed and it's got a motor on it, vibration analysis will be more than effective to detect the failure modes on the on the motor. They might struggle a little bit on the gearbox, particularly if it's maybe five, six rpm, and we take all of this into consideration. We then develop what we would recommend as the best condition monitoring plan in order to monitor that plant, and then we can sit with the customer, look at what their budget is and then it is up to them to decide what the balance is between cost and risk.
Speaker 2:It's all a risk assessment, isn't it? And from that we will truly understand what we need to do to monitor what method, what data acquisition, whether it is wireless, whether it's the mvx system, and even after completing that piece of work, sometimes particularly on the customer will has been talking about there, where you know it is quite complex, we may need to do a further Femeka, we may need to understand further how the failure modes work. And on real, complex applications, what we will always do is, if the customer is trying to detect a particular failure mode, that is quite difficult, then we will always come and trial and demo the system until we are confident that it can detect the issue, because there's no point in throwing a system on without knowing it can actually do what it's meant to do, because a lot of applications that are going to require MVX monitoring are not going to just be standard rotating machinery.
Speaker 1:It's going to be a lot of different, unique machines, especially in the factories and plants. But that's the next level of condition monitoring. It's not just a fact of saying, well, we can monitor these pumps and motors. There might be a whole axle system or whatever, or a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 2:We've been there in the past.
Speaker 1:In the future, the MVX will be able to, though, look at all of the failure modes within that, not just the rotating machinery, and somehow have some form of monitoring on this as well. And this is where the future is going. Yeah, but that has to be also driven by people-driven decisions as well, and risk in terms of how it can actually fail. So this particular trial that we actually did, we had to set the mvx system to do a long time waveform over a very long period of time, and we picked out the information from that to determine whether it was a failure or not. Okay, this is the difference. We will get an alarm to notify us when we need to do analysis.
Speaker 1:But the analysis is done by the engineer through looking at that specific application, understanding how it works, understanding how it can fail, but also reading the patterns themselves to understand. Well, is, is that modulation? Is that slightly higher that way from compared to the next thing? And when we did this particular trial, it was a clear, evident problem. But we had to use our own analysis techniques to identify the action, the actual information that they actually needed to do something, and that's the whole reason to have a system on. So we also need to consider are we putting a system on that is also using really great tech, but is it backed by an engineer who understands the application and understands how it can fail? Or are we just using something that's just gathering information and spitting out a response depending on a set of criteria?
Speaker 2:We're not in a position fully yet for that capability.
Speaker 1:We're not, because we know that so many things can fail in this, and this is the. This is the the thing with machines that are very easy to monitor. Yes, we probably can, but then why do we? Machines are stable and they're easy to monitor. Why would we need to have such a complex piece of device? We don't know, and that's where the same strategy is identified at, and we can come in and do handheld va on that. We don't have to oversee something that doesn't require it, but what we do need to.
Speaker 1:And this is where I see the future going right. I see the future going with a, with a real emphasis on the very critical stuff very difficult, hard stuff to monitor, but based on failing, with very smart systems that are also backed by very good engineers. Okay, are we able to scale that? Yes, because we don't need so many people collecting that information. It's all coming in, but do we still need to analyze it and make decisions? Yes, we do, and this is the thing as well. Don't get me wrong. We are moving to a very good tech revolution, but that's still revolutionary in the sense that, okay, some of these critical machines, we can actually now get a proper diagnosis on them, whereas before you're doing handheld on this stuff, it's pretty much we're taking data. Yeah, but how are you ever able to make a decision if you don't have enough of repeatable information to actually make that call on something that's so important? It's almost futile until you can do it in a way that is effective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think ultimately, you know machine learning, ai, everything like that. That is all encompassed in many systems. It's there to aid the engineer. Yes, what it is is. It's there to screen the data, assess what needs to be focused on and, looked at, this looks different. Now you need to cast your eyes on, have a look at it.
Speaker 1:It's like yeah, 100, and that's what I want to promote as well. Like the industry still needs experts that I understand vibration analysis at a deep level, right but also understands how things can fail mechanically, and this is this is the new engineer now okay, the hybrid engineer that is able to really understand failure mode and understand mechanical principles and precision maintenance yeah, that's so important, right, cause that a lot. We've got a lot of great maintenance guys, but they just haven't had that precision maintenance training, which means they've got so knowledgeable, though these guys don't know exactly how how these things work and how many bearings are in there, and, like you know how how these things work and how many bearings are in there, and like you know how these things operate. It's just that extra, but this is where the new revolution of engineers coming in. The new alignment tools are coming in. All the rest of it now, naturally.
Speaker 1:Like even us, with Tommy, for example, our apprentice, this is just normal to him. He's coming as, oh, we're just aligned, and that, for him, though, is now becoming his culture, right. So, when he goes, why are you not doing that? Why are they doing it that way? So he's, he's all, but this is the new generation, you see. So when this starts to take effect, everyone's going to have a slightly different viewpoint and mindset on how we that we do it. But with that precision maintenance as well, and the vibration analysis knowledge and the theory side of understanding how the vibration data from a machine, movement or whatever presents itself visually as vibrational or whatever metric we want to monitor with them, two things combined, that's what we need more of. But that's.
Speaker 2:That's why it's so important now for these, for us to do the condition monitoring strategies. Because, yeah, if we don't do them and we don't understand the cost implication the cost that it is for us to go collect the data, or the cost for a wireless system, or the cost for a continuous monitoring, that is, on a real specialist application if we don't do that piece of work and we don't understand what is the best way to monitor the asset for the failing mode, we will limit the value on the program. The value won't be there, it won't be demonstrated Fact, absolute fact, and it won't be seen off the get-go. No, it will be a year, months later down the line. We've been there in the past before we started doing this.
Speaker 1:We've been there for me, mate. We've been there.
Speaker 2:We're collecting vibration data, we're doing a great job, we're putting reports out, and then we get a failure. Customer calls up guys, we've had a failure and we're looking through the data and we've mentioned in the past this and and you end up in a difficult situation because you're doing your best with what you've got.
Speaker 1:The customer doesn't fully understand the expectation.
Speaker 2:that's the main thing, isn't it? Yeah, and so, and you sit and then you're like, well, you know, this machine, you know, doesn't go very often or changes load all the time, and and you, you can't really give them an answer other than saying that you know we missed it, maybe it was the wrong technology. And this is where the condition monitoring strategy is so key now. For us, it's so pinpointed Before we even start the monthly data collection. We fully understand, and so does the customer, what their risks are, what their best monitoring methods are, but mate.
Speaker 1:this will bring the faith back in condition monitoring. Best monitoring methods are, but mate. This will bring the faith back in condition monitoring. Because if you do this right, okay, if you do this really well and you really focus on it from the get-go, then when you start the program, the expectation has been fully understood.
Speaker 2:It's targeted condition monitoring instead of a blanket approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%, but it's targeted. And the thing is it might sound quite simple, but it's not, because what you target requires a lot of knowledge and understanding how the machines work, how they can fail and what is the best. There's a lot of knowledge. The value is not in the time of a CM strategy. The value is in the knowledge of the engineer Completing it, completing it, drawing it out using his brain. And that's what we at Maintain Reliability are incredibly good at, and that's one thing I will shout about because we're passionate about it. And when you're passionate about something, you are going to do it.
Speaker 2:We don't want it to fail. We don't want the assets to fail. We've picked it up before it's happened. We care more oh.
Speaker 1:I love it, but no, it's true. But you know also, we don't talk about CM strategy enough. I put a few posts on about it, but I think people really need to understand. Maybe Will Crane will do a nice little video taking you through. That will be good. And what I want to see from you is a new tech series from Will. I'm going to put it out there now and see if he actually follows it. He's said it now.
Speaker 2:This is accountability, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Accountability. So maybe do like some screenshot. You know, when you've got the little video of you in the corner like doing your thing, that's what we need. You go in there so they can see your excited facial expressions when you're showing people CM strategies and go through it. But also, it does also really show the thought process behind an Excel spreadsheet, because, remember, an Excel spreadsheet is just a spreadsheet. It's what's put in it and what's drawn out of it adds to value. So it'd be great to show people that as well. New tech series what do we call it? I don't know. We'll think about it, I don't know. That's a bit off the cuff anyway. So what's next? What is next on the agenda? Nest, vision and measurements as well.
Speaker 2:So obviously we've spoken about condition monitoring strategies. Um. A big part obviously within that is we're seeing more and more customers interested in wireless systems and sparrows and the mvx system. What's really important for us is we know that that is the direction that people are going in. People are more and more interested. We, as a business, we need to start being prepared for that and and at the minute all of our database is held in our Amazon web server and we are now joining more closer forces in our partnership with Aquem and we're moving all that database into the Aquem cloud, which just allows us a lot more quicker flexibility. To demonstrate, nest Vision put trial systems on, like, if a customer calls up and wants a trial system on at the moment and they're in with our amazon web server, we have to move them out, move them into the aqua and then we can do it, whereas now we can just turn up to site.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not even that. It's also the evolution of reporting, and I think this is that too, the innovative way that we now receive information. Data has to cross over into every industry. Of course it does, because what we, what we primarily looking for when we're doing, you know, engineering and we're trying to make it better. We're looking for efficiency, we're looking for time saving information that's driven, that's easier to understand and actually make it impact or difference.
Speaker 1:Actionable data yeah, actual, but data is only data. It needs to be converted into action, and this has always been an inherent problem within the industry, where sometimes the data is good and it does identify issues, but it's how is that converted into actual solution? Do you know what I mean? And this is where maintain have kind of almost been driven. We'll solve this for you. Well, yeah, but that's what we want to do.
Speaker 1:It's not just the fact that we want to find the information. We want to be able to say there's the value, we want to extract the value, but we know that value is only driven when you've gone through the process. Yeah, so this is where the tech solving proof was born from initially, but what nest vision allows us also to. And don't get me wrong, it's really nice to have a dashboard and see the grass there, it looks pretty, I get all that but that doesn't necessarily hold the value. Okay, it looks good, don't get me't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:And I think some people would find that really valuable. But the reality is, does that have the impact on the actual actionable information that gets done within your plant? And the idea is, if you've got a good culture and you do receive a vibration report and you put that into your systems and you allow that to be able to then be driven to the value, and it's valuable, but it's just. How do we make that process more efficient? But not only that how do we make sure and ensure the feedback is traceable and accountable?
Speaker 2:that is where the value is in this vision and also the value in this vision is, yes, you can put the feedback in, the engineers can put that detail, but there's a lot of value in this vision as well and being able to demonstrate at all levels, all stakeholders, your boss, the manager, the factory manager, all at once. You can demonstrate very easily what are you doing within your program in order to mitigate the risk of failure. Because with nest vision yes, it's a lovely, pretty dashboard we also obviously do our pdf report, which has all of our analysis details, spectral data, everything that accompanies every report that we deliver, as well as the logins that they have to nest vision. What that means is is no matter at what technical level that wants to see what. What are you doing about your condition monitoring program?
Speaker 1:yeah, if you want the detail.
Speaker 2:You want to see the spectral data. You can view the report. If you want a real quick overview of your plant where you're at, you can go into Nest Vision. If you want to be able to demonstrate to the general manager, the factory manager, how is the plant, what are you doing about it? You can very quickly show all my assets are green.
Speaker 1:Not even that. You can. Also, if you do want to take this in-house and you do want to be able to then do a bit of an analysis through the platform, you can do that. You can actually do that as well. This is the beautiful thing, and this is where echo m are just genius. I love that. I love echo m, right, because I see their vision, I see what they're trying to do, I see how they're leaning into solution by having the platforms available, dependent on what the customer actually wants. And that's not easy to do, and I'll tell you why. Right, and this is why we and aqua m align so well.
Speaker 1:Okay, we don't go the easy route, right, and neither do aqua m. Okay, aqua m have thought about what is what is the, what is a solution for every everyone, right? Okay, it might be data collection. Let's really think about vibration data collection as well. Let's think about a service provider like us that does the service Falcon Expert Very powerful, what it can do for us. But also, let's think about the factory that is learning to do it. So they put AccuRx inside of it, right, brilliant. So what they've done there. They've got one product and they've thought about, well, who's going to use it?
Speaker 1:Well, service providers and maybe potentially sites that don't really have the experience right same with this vision. Yeah, service provider us, we provide it out and we have the kind of the maintain, you know analysis hub, which is the service as well as the software, as well as our diagnosis. Then that's what you have to also remember. Right, when you get a maintained service, you get our diagnosis with incredible hardware behind it. That's the value you're getting. You're getting service provider and very good product combined. But also, aquamim have thought about every option, even if you want to go out and have a machine defender on site on lesser critical assets that are obviously very easy to monitor, you know, same speed, same load and stuff and they're able to have that and have that root-based collection and send it over to us as well where we are, or send it to, you know, other experts. It's just the way that they've thought about it and the way that we've able to lean into it allows us to offer so many solutions to so many customers.
Speaker 2:The nice thing with the Aqua and stuff, and we really understood this more and more when we went to France last year and it's the reason why, as Will says, it's really integrated in what we do as a vision in Maintain as well. We love condition monitoring, we love reliability and we want to help everyone as much as we can. That's why we do the podcast as well. We doesn't matter whether you want to collect the data and you want to improve reliability for your plant, or you want us to collect the data or us to come in and do the reliability. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:And the nice thing about what aquem does is they think about that for all of their products. Whether you're a junior analyst that hasn't got a lot of understanding and might want to make use of AccuRx, or whether you're developing and you want to analyze but have a service provider's support on the end of the phone, or whether you want to do it all yourself, you can do all of that because when we we were in France and I remember we would go over there and we're like guys, we want this, we want it to do this, and we want it to do that, and it's all these really great technical things we would love it to do. As you know, cat three, vibration analyst engineers and I remember having the conversations with pascal, one of the engineers that works at aqua in france. He was like that's a great idea will, but it's too open to potentially have problems for those that don't understand it as well as you do, I know.
Speaker 1:And how enlightening was that? Because the problem is, whenever we're looking at the product, we're looking at it as experts and then, when you do understand, you'll be like, well, why not this, why not that? Then, when you get the answers back, to be able to say, well, actually, no, this is, this is open for more than just you. But that's also beautiful, because, if you really think about it, what are most companies trying to do right now? They're trying to sell one product. Yeah, that's cheap as possible. That doesn't require time. Of course it is. It's a business. We have to understand this as well. How do people make money? And how do we? How do we be scalable without having expenses and overhead? We'll lose this people. So they're trying to leverage into that, try to create a product that's easy to deploy, cheap as possible. That's easy to deploy, cheap as possible. Do you know what I mean? Little sensors, little sensors that go out right to replace the people and whatever. And they're trying to scale that as big as possible to sell to as many people as possible, and they only have to focus on one thing Subscription as well. Subscription models tied in, no other options. That's all. That's all. That's all that. That's all it is. Imagine we live in a world. That's all, that's all there is to offer, and there's no other, like cool products, that can lean into a solution.
Speaker 1:So this is the reason why, though, aqua and us align so well, because the visions and this is this is what people don't see, I don't think and understand behind it, but also it goes to show that they actually care about reliability, because it ain't just about selling a product and scaling it and trying to get as much money as possible. It's actually the mission. The vision is how do we help as many people as possible? Because, I promise you, it'll cost more money, because you need more expertise. It'll cost you more money in r&d, because you need to be able to go out and find these products, make them, them and do the rest of it.
Speaker 1:It's a long game. You've got to look at companies. Are they in it for the long game? Are they in it for the right reasons? Are they not? And if you look at the vision of what some of the products are, that will point you to what the vision is of that company and who they actually really care about. And this is the reason why we love AcoM so much, because it's deeper than just a product. It's deeper than just a solution. It's deeper than just more tech. It's the actually ingrained passion for reliability that we see in it and that we can relate to.
Speaker 2:They care about what they're doing, like the conversations we've had previously with Bertrand and the guys that are developing the products. They care about what they're doing and their delivery just as much as we care about the industry isn't it beautiful?
Speaker 1:because now we're really seeing because you know, we're now using a lot of the product range, not just the falcons or whatever and we are now transitioning to this, this, this world, but we're seeing the value of what it can bring and it's bigger than we ever could imagine. Honestly, it's like the capability now of what we can do is actually quite scary. It is it's like wow, we are here. You know, I remember years ago we're talking about these systems and what they can potentially do, and they just went there and it was well, we've got mbms and stuff now that you know 10 years ago cost hundreds of.
Speaker 2:I know now cost 10.
Speaker 1:It's just. It's incredible where we're at, it's incredible what we can do. So, yeah, we're excited for that. We're excited to be able to, you know, have that relationship's only going to flourish in terms of the projects that we have.
Speaker 2:We've just got to be able to manage all of those workflows yeah, exactly, and manage the project we've got systems now that let us do that exactly and that's what the efficiencies as well will's been.
Speaker 1:Uh, looking at big change and how it can really you know, refine processes, how can it also really benefit customers as well with like reports that's, in on the day, and observation reports, and having that clarity of where engineers are and how long they're spending on jobs also gives big data so we've got a whole new system that's going in in at the end of this month.
Speaker 2:That is gonna that. When we talk about reliability and how customers manage their work orders or their jobs coming in, we now have the same with big change. So any jobs that we schedule out now, everything's all scheduled the customer, we have workflows that we complete. It's beautiful, isn't it? It's so good.
Speaker 1:I think anyone who knows me and Will we are a little bit chaotic, you know, and the thing is we've also had to have a look at, like, what software is out there that can help us. We love tech. So the thing is, me and Will, we love tech, but we are a bit erratic, and we as well. This is another problem at Maintain. We've tried too much things Because we love tech.
Speaker 2:We almost want to try it. Let's try that, let's try this.
Speaker 1:But fail fast is a good way to learn as well. So we've also learned what systems We've definitely failed fast, but it has helped us massively, mate. Massively, isn't it? Because with these systems as well, you don't know until you try it, and this is also why we're trying an mvx system for customers. We'll you know if there's an application, and even if we're not showing, we'll say well, let's give it a go.
Speaker 2:That's what I remember conversations with the guys up in nrs dunry. They came down and they did their irp training and they're looking for an application on the cranes and they're using another provider that they're already integrated with. So it makes sense to stay with them and I said to alex at the time I said ask for them to come and demonstrate the product, ask for them to come and demonstrate that it can do what they're telling you it can do, because if they can, then go for it, but if they can't, red flag I know, but like you've got to be able to as well, put your money where your mouth is like if you're a provider and you're selling these things, you've got the confidence that you understand the failure modes and it can detect it.
Speaker 2:But even just those demonstrations and going to customers, this is what now, for us, the big change is going to be able to deliver. It manages all of our vehicles. It's going to manage all of our stock. We've done this big office upgrade down here. We now have a stock room upstairs where we keep sparrows on stock sensors on stock. So all the vehicles have stock and oil samples on them and we need to be able to track all of that.
Speaker 2:So when an engineer goes to the job, that customer may not necessarily be having a regular oil sampling schedule, but if we see something in the data, we can sample it. While we're there, we can manage those samples with our oil lab so that we know we've always got them available on hand. The customer is getting regular communication with the system and when an engineer goes to site, we've got a worksheet that is completed risk assessment. So the engineers now do their risk assessments each day, because everyone knows that we do. They do your rams for your whole service for the year. But we want to make sure the guys are safe and they're assessing yeah, and 100, it's always.
Speaker 1:Should be vigilant every day. You know we all have to. It's. It's the habitual notions we go through life, like when you drive to work on the same route, the same, you go to the same site and do the same things.
Speaker 2:You've got to be, you've got to be, you know there's really important questions in there as well that we're really leaning into this year that are holding. You know customers want. We want the customers to hold us accountable, but we need to hold them accountable as well. So each visit you, what have you guys done that we've advised and recommended, that we asked you to do last month. Have you done anything?
Speaker 1:Have we done anything? And this is why Nest Vision is so important, because when they have a login and we integrate them, it's a change though, isn't it? It's like right, we're now watching everything, we're putting things in, and I think that also within our SLas is changing as well, because we're like right, you know, we, we need to drive this, the value, because what is the point otherwise? So, also, there's accountability in all sides, and don't get me wrong the size, of course they want to do it, but it's accountability. There's things that we want to do in life, but do we do it all the time? No, we don't. But when you're being held accountable, are you more likely to? Yes, you are. We know that's a fact, that a fact that's a human trait. So accountability is really driven effectively through Nest Vision.
Speaker 2:And that's what big change gives us as well. It gives us accountability to make sure you know when the job's complete. We get a note report needs doing. We've got five days to action that report to make sure the customer information is delivered on time and it's there so they can do something with it. We've all been there, not even that as well.
Speaker 1:What big change allows us to do is any criticals on the day, a report in the day, a pdf. Yeah, it's amazing like this is exactly how we want to communicate and, um, obviously we've always done it verbally anyway, but it's like it's just more of a structured way and it's just. It just keeps you know. When you've got big operations, you've got a lot of engineers and all the rest of it is really important to make sure that it's harder to obviously have a scope on what's going on because you've got bigger process, but you've got to have systems that allow your quality to be driven through, and this these systems, are a massive improvement on quality, because I'm not saying the quality is bad anyway, but what allows us to measure it and make sure it is done to the standard that we believe in? Even simple?
Speaker 2:things. You know. We've got quality documents that tell all the engineers you know how to do the reports, what they need to check for. But now, in big change, when that report is marked as complete, it's going to come up and it's going to ask those things, it's going to take them. Have you done this? Have you checked for this? Have you checked for that?
Speaker 1:and there's just these little prompts that also remind people sometimes that attention to detail, you know, is very important and that's what we're trying to do is just make sure that we're doing all we can to ensure people are accountable and have number one for us that we want to always strive to be and we said it last year multiple times in the trainings is we always want to.
Speaker 2:We don't want to be the biggest, we want to be the best and we want to make sure every opportunity. Where, where could we fail, even like grammatical and spellers? Well, we'd add it as a check have we checked the grammar and spelling before we send the report? That's how we be the best. And you know there's loads more that I can talk about big change, because, yeah, he's going to geek out on it. That will have to be part of the tech series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that tech series? We'll lean into that, but yeah, it's great. Thank you so much for tuning into the first one. We went over 15 minutes. Oh my God, it's fine, it's the first one.
Speaker 2:It's the first one we're allowed.
Speaker 1:Usually, podcasts are half an hour. We try to keep them to that because it's a nice distance, not too short, not too long, but today was a lot to catch up on anyway. So we love all of you to tune into this. Stay tuned, guys, we're going.
