Navigating Digital: Transportation & Manufacturing Perspectives

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so welcome everybody and uh thank you for joining us for today’s webinar uh
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we’re going to get started in a minute or so and while we wait uh just to get familiar with uh with the zoom platform
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you should be able to see a uh chat or a question box uh at the bottom and
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usually uh you know you should be able to pop in any questions you have there um and of course today’s webinar is
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being recorded and we’ll send all the attendees a link to the recording uh over the next couple of days the session
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should last about 30 minutes and unless we have a lot of fun and it just keeps going on which is fine too and um so
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feel free to post any questions as I said throughout the presentation and in the chat box so um let’s give ourselves maybe
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another 30 seconds and then we’ll get started okay
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all right so let’s get going now um Everybody first a a quick round of
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introductions my name is G Satish I am the CEO and co-founder at conx and I’m
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joined by two very distinguished guests here both of them are practitioners in the industry uh they spend a lot of time
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I like to say on all sides of the table in the Enterprise word uh and they’re uniquely qualified to provide a lot of
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perspective here I’m going to let them introduce themselves uh first Dave yeah thanks s Dave Jackson I’m a
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senior it program manager at Jacobs Engineering I’ve been in transit for 25
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plus years um just a few things started developing cavl systems or computer data
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dispatch uh did a lot of Consulting with all kinds of Transit technology with boel and ch2m Hill and then ran the
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company transr for the last five years before I joined Jacobs so lots of technology and having fun deploying it
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in this new era thank you Dave Johnny yeah thanks adui my name is
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Johnny bilios look forward to this conversation today um um right now I’m working as a sales capture manager with
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Accenture in what we call our industry X practice which is you know uh research design engineering all all encompasses
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all aspects of operations and maintenance and reliability and Technology um been in uh doing this for
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since uh it’s been a while I won’t say how many years so but uh I started my career in the Enterprise
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Asset Management space uh was you know with a CMM e and then got into
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reliability analytics and decision- making so I’m looking forward to contributing some thoughts here for
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youit team thank you hey thank you so much Johnny and so let’s get started now
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so uh a quick view of the agenda these are sort of the broad areas for
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discussion today um our goal really is to explore what we saw happen this year
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uh and what we expect to see happen as we enter 2024 and um you know it would be
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interesting for you gentleman also to talk a little bit about what you thought may happen in 23 and what actually did
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and so on so that should be interesting and uh one other area that I’m
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particularly interested in is sustainability uh something that we’re seeing an increasing emphasis on with a
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lot of our customers and we’ll cover that further in the session too um so that said uh let’s just set
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the ground here right so the three primary axes for enterprise software this hasn’t changed in decades uh people
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process and technology and uh in the interest of just setting ground here as I said so first first uh on the people
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front globally there remains a shortage of qualified people across Industries uh
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we’ve all heard of the driver shortage in transportation for example less talked about but equally true is the
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technician shortage and uh related to process uh if you run a maintenance
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organization you’re essentially running a Services business within your manufacturing or Transportation or
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energy business so the question then is how do you capture and transmit the
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knowledge that is accumulated by your employees and get it ready for the next bunch of employees and I like to call
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this institutional IP right and all that IP is lost every time your team composition changes so that’s another
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aspect to this and again standardizing business processes helps in in capturing
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this IP and the last bit certainly is technology uh and as we see it at least
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from our perspective the focus is Shifting uh more towards user adoption
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than simply deploying software and this has been a big part of the focus since we started at least at conx but we
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wouldd love to hear your thoughts Dave and Johnny in general about this yeah you know you look at
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technology in the public sector it’s been it’s been slow to come and and it’s
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just part of the nature of our Contracting cycles and everything else you know but I’m starting to see more
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acceleration finally in transit moving core systems into Innovative PL cloud-based platforms and not just
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moving Legacy to Cloud but now actually getting into some Cloud native platforms which is allowing a lot of you know more
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more highly um Innovative tools to start coming into our Market as you were
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talking Sati you you look at the knowledge management or the IP you know leaving you know starting to see some
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tools that are you know having some AI where the average Joe technician or the
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average Joe person in a back office can can you know ask the tool of questions for hey I I need to figure I can’t
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remember how I go adjust this widget so what are those you know here’s here’s
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the procedure for it here’s a user’s manual here’s the reference material being tossed at them you know to help
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them succeed so I I we’re starting to see some of that I think I think we’re going to start seeing a lot more of that
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both with AI built in as well as some of the augmented reality tools as well yeah Johnny any thoughts there
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anything you’d like to add yeah I think um it’s and you know
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they’ve touched on it you touched on it and a lot of folks probably listening on this pod on this uh webinar have to have
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there’s a lot of um issues with uh work Workforce constraints you know lack of
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resources um and then you have you know things that you know things that are happening out there you got supply chain
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issues you’ve got you know you’ve got you know you got exter external factors and for me technology uh allows us to
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make de faster better uh decisions right so that so we can do with you know you
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want to do you know uh we we have to do so much work but we have to how can we
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not how can we do it better and faster technology is what the what’s the key here right so digitizing so you I know
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Transportation has it looks seems like it’s you know it’s it’s taken a while to mature but they also have you know
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especially large Transportation organizations they have a lot of infrastructure how do you digitize all that right how do you get that stuff
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into in in a place where you can make decisions and with technology today things have changed and improved and
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we’ll talk some more about some of those things but you know I think you know you we all have to change we’re going to
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adapt it whether we want to or not and I don’t think I think Now’s the Time
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so I mean and just to add to that a recent conversation I had uh with one of
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our customers they were actually saying that the life of that asset
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spans perhaps uh two to three generations of their of their crew and
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we know what we’re talking about you know rail cars and and so on and so forth so I mean the goal is the more you
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digitize the easier it is to standardize and and the easier it becomes then to capture information and transmit it
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across the organization so I add one more thing and I know we’ll jump to another question I’ll be and and but the
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one thing I want to say is it’s all about change too right um if you can make it easier if I don’t have to click
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too many buttons and and I can walk and things are collected and I can get and I
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can minimize that also creates um user adoption and and allows me to do my job
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minimizing the the amount of information I got to put in so that’s another key about technology right and like I said
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maybe we’ll cover it somewhere else but I wanted to highlight that as well no it’s it’s it’s true and actually when it comes to the people I think that also
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becomes a critical part right I mean this is how we run our personal lives you know how we buy things and how we
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sell things and and so on and so forth how we rent so yes I I I
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agree um so that sort of uh leads us to what we all enjoy talking about which is
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digitization digital transformation and so on so I guess the the basic question
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is uh what kind of progress have you seen in these areas in 23 within the
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industries you work in um and actually a related question then is what are the
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biggest impacts that you’ve observed in other words actual results do those tally with the expected results and the
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promise you know I mean from my perspective there’s been a number of aspects where you know um updates of the
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tool in the back office and or automating automating getting all the
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data out of these systems and making information out of them that’s usable I you know I’ve seen a number of successes
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in that in that part of the business where you know you’re starting to get Business Leaders having timely
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information at their fingertips rather than having to wait two three weeks for useful information to find out if the
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changes that you’re making are making a positive or A negative impact in the business so I I do see a fair amount of
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that happening and I think we’re going to see more as we start getting uh some of like natural language processing
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built into the back office of these these tools where you know where not only where it can help somebody be you
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know an expert per se versus just the average showe but also on on H things
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that are customer facing too you know basically helping to to make our our systems easier to use um I’ve seen some
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of the things in augmented reality with wayfinding tools for both you know just
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the the normal person going down the street as well as those that have you know physical and cognitive disabilities
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as well so I think there’s a lot of things that you know are creeping into the environment and I think that’s going
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to just continue to grow I think the biggest Trend to me is
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the AI right I mean from a digitization you know you have Enterprise Erp systems or
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enterprise resource PL systems you have Enterprise Asset Management Systems you have geospatial systems right um but how
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do you bring all that and you know there’s a lot of integration that’s done and bringing it together but how can you
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leverage that data and I think to me the biggest trend is in the biggest impact
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that can especially in transportation which is if it’s if it’s Transit reduce
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on time perform improve ontime performance or u mean distance between failures or you know whatever it is you
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know you have all this data how do you make sense of it and how do you organize it so if I had to say my my top
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digitization Trend would be and what would have the mo what’s going to have the biggest impact is going to be AI I
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don’t know if you agree with that s dis or not and and Mobility AI right not just AI on a computer you got to have it
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on a mobile device to help you do your job I think that’s uh that really makes
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sense and and actually the our learning really and when we uh started out with KX but but even independent of KX right
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if you look at how social and and apps and other things actually evolved it all
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started with b2c right with the consumer side of the business you know it actually uh you know took Roots there
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and then migrated towards businesses and B2B and so on we’re seeing the same thing here so you know uh folks can use
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AI to write their thesis to answer questions more importantly though the questions really we have to ask or hey
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the last five times my own organization encountered this issue how did we tackle it or how did my uh you know the the the
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branch that is halfway across the country tackle the same issue and it goes back to the same question of can we
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make it easy for the consumer right U you know user adoption and so on and uh one related aspect to this we talked
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about transportation we talked about uh you know adoption of Technology right
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one of the interesting things that we’re seeing is that a lot of the industry we work in right you know transportation is
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one but we also do work in the utility industry energy oil and gas in the past it always used to be a
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heavy focus on reliability right and that in the past simply meant that you
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know we’re not bleeding Ed Innovation adopters we really want to wait and I
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think that dividing line is fading now they’re still heavily focused on reliability and but they still see this
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technology and Innovation as helping them get there a bit faster right because end of the day it is still being delivered by individuals by the by the
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folks that are actually delivering work on the field so and again there there is a little bit more discussion further on
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about Ai and I I do want to cover this a bit more there um so uh so here’s the big
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question right what is the business impact of all of this right and uh to set the ground my view has always been
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there uh there are two primary reasons businesses buy software you know one is Roi and the other is
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compliance it’s either making money or avoiding penalties these are two big
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reasons and we can all agree that uh digitization and automation efforts
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yield results and efficiencies compliance and safety we know that intuitively we’re seeing examples of
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that but then why is or what are the stumbling blocks if any that you see in
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in adoption is it just inertia or there or are there other priorities that come up perhaps is just security concerns
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what are your thoughts there yeah let me start with a couple of things I see you know in transportation many of our
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clients are facing a huge funding shortfall right now and we’ve got agencies that are seeing uh you know
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$750 million budget deficits in the next year or the year after and as as um as
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Baby Boomers continue into retirement we’re also facing Staffing shortages across the entire business as you
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mentioned so tools that are going to help automate these processes and or
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make average staff as capable as an expert experienced staff that they’re losing are going to be beneficial you
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know the the funding shortfall things we can do to help agencies be more effective and more efficient um but also
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on the people side it’s kind of a two-edged store you know you mentioned the Knowledge Management the people walking out the door with all the
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experience but on the other hand i’ I’ve recently experienced some positive sides of that as well where some of these new
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you know very Savvy and smart kids that are coming in and young people coming in are questioning the status quo and yeah
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we’ve done it that way for years but is there a bit better way so they’re open to the story of hey you know let’s look
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at how we can improve and do this better so I there’s the the the bad part and
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the good part driving uh where we go in the business but I think both have
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opportunities Johnny your thoughts sure yeah
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so user adoption has always been m in Asset Management has been hard it’s a
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because you know you’ll hear this I just I’m turning a rent or I’m fixing an asset I don’t have time to key in
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information right and you know we’ve Advanced we’ve come a long way since
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that but it’s still it’s still a big issue because especially in in a
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resource constrained environment because we’re fighting fires and I don’t have enough time to to adopt technology right
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I think going to sound like a broken record that kind of goes back to my original thing is is how can we make it
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easy for the end user to do it right so and and I think if if it you know you
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see it now I mean you’ll see you know that people do track inspections or they go out and do you know um surveys or
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whatever they do right you you don’t want to ride piece of paper and go and key it in right so a lot of that is you
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know that that that’s that’s the things that are things that are changing right
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but I believe you know from a I guess you could say the impact I mean it it’s
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the business impact I think the the biggest thing I’ve seen that’s helps with when you when you go this route of
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digitization and Mobility is you reduce human error right you know and that’s a
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big thing right um then for example I’ll give you an example you know computer vision everybody knows computer vision
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everyone sees you know you know we have it on our phones we can you can detect what kind of picture it
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is and people use computer vision to to to to to identify defects what if you
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but if you put an an eye component on top of it and then and and and it finds it for you it gives you a much better
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reduces that human error and gives you so allow so then when you talk about in user adoption you talk about business
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value and all that now you start you know they they they get they get more excited I don’t know just some of my
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thoughts so um so a couple of things I can certainly add there this aspect of
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user adoption and those of us that have been doing Enter enterprise software for long know this that um you know
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enterprise software is sold in the boardrooms but uh you know and three years later somebody out on the field
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gets to use you know the product that comes out of that decision most cases
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I’ve I’ve rarely met end users whove been happy with software that they’ve
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been given and it’s not because of feature functionality let me be clear I mean that there is some outstanding work
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already done over the decades the problem is really they don’t want to become technologists I mean there is a
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an inherent fear to uh to actually sitting on a green screen and remembering which key to press where and
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what order to do it in we still see this by the way when we go to retail outlets and and you know they’re saying how do I
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process a return you know this this this and this and somebody has to come and occasionally guide a new employee there
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and this is this is a problem especially if you have a skill shortage you have limited talent you have limited time uh
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you want to give them the tools that actually make their life easier if you have a 10% crew and if you can actually
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accomplish a 20% efficiency gain you just increase your crew size without actually having to add bodies there
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without having to transfer knowledge I mean this is a big part of what we’re doing um I think the second one one thing one
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thing to note there if you could if you could come up in maybe one of your versions of your solution when you could
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barode some when you could put a CHP in someone’s head and transfer the thoughts that would be that you would be you got
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it I’m just kidding we’re getting close so here’s something else right here’s two interesting things that we’ve
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actually seen um broadly uh I I think the the mistake at least in the world we
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live in which is cloud and mobile and so on I think one of the big questions businesses start asking is hey how can I
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do all these things on the mobile the things I’ve been doing at my at my kiosk or at my laptop which is fine but that’s
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the wrong question to ask because when is the last time you took a laptop out there to take a photograph to annotate
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something and added to a field it’s not it’s a different word there is a lot more that can be accomplished but but
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interestingly right uh for instance a few years ago one of the uh the mobile
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operating systems there’s only two in the world so I mean so one of them announced that there is lighter capabilities now available on the phone
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for the first time we actually saw a feature that really has not all that much of a great interest for the
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consumer but in business it’s a big deal if I can take a photograph and if I can
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go literally a couple of layers further below and then annotate that it instantly adds value right there on the
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field so this is a big part of it the second aspect right speech to text we’ve
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taken it for Grant it today right when we send out emails I mean I do it all the time text messages use speech to
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text interestingly when we use that feature and it is multilingual these days when we use that feature uh for the
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customers they are actually capturing more comments more information because
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they are not now constrained by having to write and struggle through you know whatever language or grammar or other
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limitations and if your hands are basically you know greasy right now how much interest you have in actually
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keying something in we’re actually capturing more information because of the technology and this is interesting
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we’re not simply making things more efficient we’re actually capturing more data this is truly enriching information
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from the field so I mean we’re seeing I mean that this is an interesting world I think
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we’re already seeing and it should get more interesting as we go forward um so one thing I do uh want to
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talk about right we’ve I’ve already talked about Roi and compliance right make money or save F save you know save
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me from penalties we’re now seeing a new factor of sustainability and there has been a
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shift in consumer preference because the customers of our clients actually are
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looking for sustainable practices which in turn can drive companies to adopt more practices that have a smaller
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footprint for example I want to use lesser paper I want to reduce windshield time so the question is do these
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Technologies we talk about have any impact on achieving sustainability goals
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you know I think so you know many of the tools we’re looking at are helping us do more with less um whether it’s vehicles
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on the street whether it’s Manpower or planning and managing our operations to be the most effective you know there’s I
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think there’s just lots of opportunities I mean here at Jacobs I we have a plan Beyond initiative and that’s you know we
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are always looking at how do we look at not just what the customers objectives are now but you know where should we be
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looking 10 20 years down the road mode so how do we help design tools that are going to make them more effective help
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their assets last longer help them plan to maintain those assets better you I
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think there’s uh in sustainability a lot of tools looking at asset life cycles
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and it’s not just you know it’s a 20-year vehicle but what are all the subsystems on that vehicle that we need
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to plan for the the life cycles on and it’s not just you know I’m going to do a midlife overhaul but I probably have
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systems at every three to five five years I need to look at how we maintain so tools that can help manage those
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systems and manage that whole asset life cycle I think are going to become more and more
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important I was just thinking here one of the things that uh Co has done for us
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is change the uh paper right reduce the amount of paper that we use by no more menus you have the QR code even though
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it annoys me I have to use it right so same thing goes into Mobility right
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reduces the amount of information and paper that you need but outside of that
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um I was just thinking like you know from a from a transportation is is maybe
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say Rolling Stock or Fleet is how do you you know reducing the cost per mile or
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reducing the the the the the vehicle um you know from you know run you know
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putting too much mileage on it or whatever but say with Mobility now and with digitization of technology I can
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dispatch the closest Tech versus you know the one that’s 30 miles away Y and
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you know there and then there’s one one mile away right so I just from sustainability standpoint I’m you know
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reducing fuel which which has a direct impact back to carbon emissions right um
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unless it’s a electric vehicle but but there’s not lot of those yet and and then the other thing and I think Dave
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touched on a little bit is there’s a direct correlation when you’re when you’re maintaining your assets at
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Optimal Performance they redu they consume less energy you look at Motors
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and pumps and things and and engines and right so if you’re can somehow
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especially in Fleet if you know from a telematic standpoint how it’s running and you know that information you can
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take action before things get worse again if you do that is reducing the fuel energy Fuel and you
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know some type maybe some other type of uh you know ancillary U scope of
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emissions yeah just I’m gonna s just add on to that I mean you look at some of
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the ITX PT Type U initiatives on bus and and same on ra where we’re putting Edge
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Computers on and instead of putting a cavl system on and an APC system and a
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camera system you’re really putting One processor one set of communications one GPS having everything plug into that
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with the peripherals and just host the the applications on those devices I mean it saves not only all the the effort to
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make all those devices and maintain them but it also saves all that energy as well having just one CPU running on the
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vehicle rather than you know five or six yeah I I I actually think um these are
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great points and they actually lead toward something else right I started off saying that you know there is efficiency and then there is compliance
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and the nice thing at least about sustainability and and the things we’ve talked about here are they add to both
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of those factors they do make things more efficient you know if you’re buying lesser paper you’re printing lesser
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paper uh one of uh I mean our last count our customer save something like about
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56,000 sheets of paper a month this is just based on the number of transactions that we are going through and what they
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would otherwise have done and it it actually goes beyond the obvious right
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um if you can make up dates and instructions available directly on the field you know the the the OEM has or
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the manufacturer has proposed an additional uh checklist item when you go
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for maintenance and rather than bring everybody back to the office and train them or give them printed manuals if
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this can be made available on the field and literally as they fire up they’re able to see that on their mobile device
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then you’ve essentially saved time but it also increased compliance you’ve reduced windshield time which goes
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towards safety so overall I think uh this is one area that has a lot going for it uh above and beyond the obvious
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benefits and certainly it’s a lot more than Optics I mean that much I can I can certainly
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see um so again um as we sort of went towards the end and we have the one
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other area we will touch on which is our AI but as we look at this what emerging
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Technologies uh can we talk about as game changers in the near future we’ve one talked about Ai and we’ll have a
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couple of more minutes on that but other than that what else do you see from the perspective of people process and
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technology and one of the one of the people aspects you know job insecurity
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of the people that are controlling a lot of the data you know that that often
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often stifles Automation in a lot of applications I I can’t tell you talking to customers how many times I walked
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into somebody who’s got a 20 tab spreadsheet that they build from data they pull every week or every month and
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they’ve got 20 or 30 different pivot tables and and basically it’s all siloed into one person um I I was talking to
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one gentleman that was managing uh some rail cars that are being deployed and
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you know he’s like well I’m the only one that really uses this data and but he’s got all the data there that’s
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identifying you know what are the trends for items failing how often are they failing and it’s not being fully
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captured and used in the system so it’s just sitting on his desk and you just sit and look at it and say come on if if
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I could get that into something that’s that’s in the cloud it’s usable build
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the tool so that you could extend it to the people that could actually use the data in the field you know you could sit
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there and start building a tool of you know I’ve got a system that won’t go what are the top 10 me reasons that that
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that vehicle won’t move well it’s a door sensor that’s wrong or it’s you know some little $ five part but you know
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until you’ve got unless you’ve got tons of experience that you know exactly which spot to tap on on to get it to
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move uh you know you’re waiting for somebody to help help you diagnose the problem so I I think if we could stifle
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some of the people part of that and or not stifle but unstifled and uh you know
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get people to to say you know what let’s pull that into something that is make it more usable make it more available to
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staff out there um the other thing you you look at the automated vehicle space
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and automa there’s lots of Pilots out there but not a lot of of production
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going and a lot of that we’ve got you know we need to codify what the limits of liability and indemnification with
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those Technologies I mean those are the sexiest AI technologies that are out there today but you know with the the
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safety impact to them as well you until we get through those hurdles I don’t think we’re going to see you know huge
31:01
deployments uh you know moving very fast Johnny your your
31:08
thoughts sure I mean you know the key I guess is going to be AI used in in in a
31:16
in unique ways but I think uh some to me from a technology standpoint it’s a it’s
31:22
a you know decision making tools that help us whether it’s an AI tool or
31:28
whether it’s a software like you know that they can help me identify risk in my organization right because from from
31:35
a standpoint of Transportation risk is you know we try to mitigate as much risk as possible
31:41
right and whether it’s safety risk environmental risk you know reliability
31:46
you know whatever that risk is and so it’s there’s and you see and I see it
31:52
every day like for example work I’m working on a a solution right now where you know we you know PE in people have
32:00
to do certain inspections whether it’s inspect a bus or whether it’s inspect a track you know and how do we know that
32:06
those inspections are being done and we’re compliant and we’re not going to go back and have you know some type of
32:12
violation so to me there’s Technologies now we’re using these kind of beacons
32:17
where it knows when i’ entered the track and then when I you know you know and when I exited the track and it says okay
32:24
I’m in compliance right again I don’t go back to my change aspect but I don’t have that person doesn’t have to do
32:30
anything right but I’m also using that technology to do other things like knowing that hey we’re there capture my
32:36
time uh maybe you know these sensors also have some vibration sensors they can sense vibration all kind so so to so
32:43
I right is is a Beyond is going to get much better it’s getting cheaper right
32:49
and so we can get more of it out there the having you know the AI and then having the mobility right and the
32:56
mobility is the key right you’re just being able to capture that information in the field so I don’t have to go back
33:03
and do it and it’s done right then and there and you know I think you look at like capital projects right there’s you
33:10
know we work on this thing called connected worker you know you probably we’ve talked about this s where in cap
33:17
when I’m doing when I’m doing my cap everybody thinks of Maintenance and reliability nobody thinks about hey when
33:23
I’m building a when we we’re using Park you know we’re building we building a building the hours we’re
33:28
putting the materials we’re using all that captur in real time that’s another Trend that I see that’s going to be big
33:35
that connected project worker so um interestingly right I mean it all still goes back to of people
33:41
process and Technology I guess there’s a reason that people is right on top right adoption it goes back to that uh one of
33:47
kind of the downstream effects we are seeing of this it’s it’s an unexpected benefit so to speak especially in
33:53
Industries like um you know the utility industry are literally these are life and death decisions um you know they
34:00
make when they’re you know handling high voltage equipment for example right and if they’re not familiar with it for the
34:05
newer employees as long as that information is made available to them right there on the field they don’t have
34:12
to hesitate about going about asking a more experienced colleague or a supervisor saying hey I don’t know how
34:17
this works and they should ask that but this helps at least in overcoming this you know if you can provide in context
34:23
guides and videos and in fact if you can get your master technician to record those videos and say hey when you see
34:28
this don’t touch this call me you that’s fine but at least you know there’s no shame in saying that I don’t know and
34:34
I’m following instructions I’m calling somebody to fix this so I think it it still boils down to the people and I I
34:41
agree I think it needs to be easy to consume which kind of leads us to the
34:46
the most interesting and you know Johnny you’ve talked a couple of times about AI being the game changer um any kind of uh
34:53
as we sort of uh move towards the end any concluding thoughts on on this on on the uh AI aspect of of what we’re
35:00
dealing with I mean on on AI I think the back office is going to be a real game Cher
35:06
over the next few years I mean it’s not the sexiest deployments of Technology
35:12
but the impact there you know whether you’re you’re like you said helping the average Joe be an expert helping it be
35:19
more effective but also helping you just standardize the way you do business so
35:24
that you’re doing business consistently and that not only helps you as a business but your customer they know
35:30
what to expect the vendors and suppliers that Supply you they know what to expect so you you you’re not having a fluid
35:39
engagement because you know everybody does something a little bit different because it’s the the human nature and
35:45
the different biases you have that are natural so I think a lot of that’s going to help us tremendously I think also
35:53
you’re going to see some of the augmented reality applications whether um you know whether it’s training tools
35:59
that are helping you you know visualize what you’re supposed to be doing and and how you’re going to do that what
36:05
whatever you’re maintaining or doing or like I uh I think I mentioned you know
36:10
on the the wayfinding tools so that you can hold your phone up and and the phone saying oh you’re looking at Joe’s Diner
36:17
and what you’re looking for is just down the street from that you know yep so I think there a lot of those tools are
36:23
going to have some awesome impact in in helping not only Us in general as as
36:29
suppliers and Consultants develop tools for our clients but just you know Society in
36:35
general that makes sense Johnny your thoughts sure to me um whatever what’s
36:43
next you have Cloud Ai mobile all this technology it’s the framework you have to have a a framework set correctly um
36:51
because the reason you’re using these you you’re doing this is to automate and fake make better decisions or faster
36:58
decision making right whether it’s from I need to type up a quick email and and
37:04
send a memo or whether it’s I’m predicting some maintenance failure or
37:09
I’m M I’m looking at risk right you know if you bring it all together right and
37:16
but Divine because I mean at the end of the day AI is not going to solve all the world’s problems it just gets us to a
37:22
decision and we still got like you said earlier you still got to act on it right y and and you still got to make a human
37:28
judgment that okay is this the right thing or not CU not going to be perfect but if I could get me there faster like
37:34
if I can just type a couple things and you or say something and it completes the whole thought process for me and
37:40
gets it out fast that those are the types of things that I think is next we’re going to see and and it’s not I
37:46
mean a lot of it is driven by our constraints like the transportation industry is labor it’s constrained when
37:52
with it’s labor force and you have to do you know more with less and how and this is what’s next pretty
37:59
much so so the one thing I do want to add our own perspective you know as as
38:05
Conex in this right so one of the key components of our philosophy has to been to not jump into technology because
38:11
we’re fascinated by it I mean this is something we we’ve we’ve resisted long and hard we work hard to avoid jumping
38:18
too early into AI but we did announce our own AI initiative and the point is
38:23
not about our initiative alone but the key was you know we announced after we
38:28
worked with our customers to develop use cases that actually made sense to their
38:34
end users to their business and we found some early adopters you know who who actually signed up who are ready to do
38:40
this um to me uh with all of this technology the use cases are the hard
38:45
part the technology itself not so much I mean there is enough available out there and as I think we were talking earlier
38:52
the cost of the technology is dropping by the day so the question is really uh
38:57
what are the use cases that these Technologies can make the most impact on and I think for instance we’ve talked about predictive maintenance for decades
39:04
Now with an asset maintenance and I think there is a real case to be made there um so as we uh kind of went
39:12
towards you know uh the the end of this uh presentation I want to kind of take a
39:17
moment to summarize what we what we’ve uh talked about so far I think clearly
39:23
we’ve used the word game changer a few times uh AI is one of them uh and for us
39:29
at least we truly believe the best use cases are still evolving and we’re still seeing more examples um and clearly I think the the
39:39
the technologies that work for the largest and the most Innovative bleeding adapters are there but they also need to
39:47
work for the average organization and when I say average it’s not a pejorative statement I mean these are organizations
39:53
that just want to run their business efficiently so when that jump happen happens from innovators to you know
39:58
regular organizations I think that’s when Technologies are mainstream and from that point of view I think
40:05
digitization has made the jump and AI I think is is helping us get there and you
40:10
know probably getting there faster so any concluding thoughts from you Dave and Johnny uh and we have a few
40:16
questions we can address right afterwards yeah I mean the one thing I
40:21
think going back to the beginning is people process and technology and you know one of the things you look at the
40:28
the cyber security environment we’re in in transportation today where not only are our clients targets but you know we
40:34
as vendors and Consultants are also targets as well and the technology is often the easiest part and I you said it
40:42
with you guys jumping into AI it’s the business case that drives needs to drive it not the technology driving it and
40:49
Technology should enable it but we’ve got to all get to the right business case but you know coming back to people
40:55
you know you can’t forget about about people um one of the one of my prior companies I worked with did the fishing
41:02
test and the first time we did a fishing test 35% of the the staff hit the button
41:09
and without that proper training that proper reinforcement program I we got it
41:14
down to about 2% touching the button but you know it really comes down to technologies’s often the easiest part
41:20
it’s the enabler then you’ve got process and technology so whatever we do AI
41:25
augmented reality or or any new technology we’ve really got to remember to focus on all three of those
41:34
aspects right um Johnny your thoughts yeah so I
41:41
mean we keep talking it’s all about empowering our people right to use the
41:47
technology to make better smarter faster decisions right it’s also about
41:54
the time time the value we can say you know it’s all about the money too right
41:59
it’s about the revenue we got to if we improve ontime performance we get you know we don’t we you know we get more
42:05
happier customers we get happier customers you know they keep coming in paying for our for the service right for
42:10
the trans you know um and and and it’s to me so those when I look at this I
42:17
think about the the the the how do I make you know the the people their job
42:24
easier right our job is to make everyone job make them Heroes make them you know we’re the guides and their Heroes and we
42:29
got to give them and Empower them you know if I’m if I’m if I’m working on an asset and you said earlier and I can
42:36
pull up all this information about that asset and things have been done in the past and what you know and maybe who who
42:42
can I ask that’s worked on it before that’s a lot you know that saves a lot of time and then I guess the final one
42:48
would be sustainability I think sustainability place of key everybody talks about it when you know environmental safety sustainab safety
42:56
and governance and all that stuff you know it’s key you want to use it it makes good sense and I think uh as as we
43:05
progress especially with now that we’re getting more electric vehicles electric transportation type stock it you know
43:12
there’s mobility and technology is going to play a big key there and and we got
43:17
to you’re going to have to have the technology to make those things you know to to know how to work on them so um so
43:23
that’s another part of sustainability right maybe not the mobile device but it’s the asset and the asset has to be
43:30
now I great points there um the last sort of my parting thought on this
43:36
before we in we we move to questions is this uh almost four years ago we said
43:41
hey uh you know if your crew is out there executing work and you have a backend system that is saying that hey
43:47
you know go and repair this asset go and inspect the other asset um we truly believe uh we we’re seeing examples of
43:54
that now where we are actually saying the backend system shouldn’t actually tell you that your asset should call for
44:00
maintenance your asset should basically tell you hey this is you know my temperature is out and or or my my uh
44:08
you know the pressure is above the tolerance level I need you to come and take a look or hey I see that you’re you
44:13
know less than a mile away from where I’m located so come by and check me out because I’m due for an inspection in 3
44:20
days and I think we’re moving that direction you know patent recognition and and so on I mean I think there is a lot going on on that
44:26
front um so I we have a a few questions
44:32
that have come in we probably have time for about two or three of these uh so so the first one um you know what do you
44:41
see as the main challenges uh in adopting new technologies and I think
44:46
related to that is also this question uh when it comes to technology applications
44:51
do these companies prefer in-house off the-shelf plug onpl what do you see going on there your
44:58
thoughts yeah you know first on on some of the challenges I mean job security is one I mean people in our industry need
45:05
to understand that you know the tools are there to help them grow not replace them or their knowledge and part of that
45:11
is we need management to be the sponsors to really help promote people and growth and get people to you know empowered to
45:18
want to grow rather than build you know proprietary kingdoms that they run um
45:23
and looking at in-house versus you know make or buy type applications it really depends on how
45:30
much funding agencies have to be autonomous and how much they have for Staffing that can actually build and
45:35
maintain these systems you know I’ve always I’ve always told clients you know
45:40
hey you can build it you can have a consultant build it or you can buy it regardless of what you do you need to
45:46
make sure number one it’s documented and number two is you’ve got to make sure you’ve got somebody in the background
45:52
that can maintain it I’ve seen and we’re replacing placing systems today where you know they they’re
45:58
obsolete because the guy that designed it and wrote it he retired and it’s you
46:03
know it’s an old PHP application it’s not documented and and oh by the way it only runs on three operating systems ago
46:11
you know this not the world you want to live in you want to live in a world where things grow and the way technolog
46:17
is evolving now what used to be a 10-year technology is now a you know a one-year technology or less so that’s
46:25
another thing you look at make byy decisions is you know how portable do you need your end products to be and can
46:33
you survive those obsolescence Cycles or do you need something that can flow with technology and have a growth path
46:39
towards the future so you know that’s one of the things is are you buying a product for the next year or are you
46:45
buying something that you want to last a lifetime or at least have a a lifetime growth path
46:52
yep three points Johnny uh anything yeah so when it comes to adoption of
47:00
anything right you know that’s always like it’s Al it’s the maturity of your program you know so if you took Asset
47:06
Management right you know the more that your asset management program matures then the more your your
47:13
technology should mature right you should go from you know siloed systems
47:18
and data into more Consolidated integrated and then but you know so I
47:25
think those to go hand inand so to me it’s the maturity of the asset
47:31
management program can be um a a challenge right in the industry and you
47:38
know we’re all reactive you know you know we we because we don’t have a lot
47:43
of resources because our assets are three generations old we’re fighting to save them to keep them running and and
47:50
when we do that how much time do we have to concentrate on you know adopting the
47:56
Technologies right so it’s somehow the I know management can say hey we need to
48:02
do it but if the people don’t have the time to put the stuff learn it train it and get it in so that’s why you know
48:10
organizations like you know I work for and like Dave works for and you we exist to help with that adoption and the other
48:18
thing is when it comes to in-house versus developing I mean I’m not a
48:24
developer so there’s you know I I could I you know if I need something I need to go I’ll go to the App Store and get it
48:29
because for me to develop it it’ll take me you know a three years right so time
48:34
to De you know sometimes that is also an issue with adoption I might want to develop something for my end user to be
48:41
you know that that basically works the way we work but then how long does it take us and how and how much do we we
48:48
invest into that versus going out there and finding something and someone that’s already done it built it can bring it
48:54
into to your organization much faster so um and I I think we have time for just
48:59
one more question and to all the other other folks that have popped in questions we will respond to you uh
49:05
going forward we’ve had a few come in on LinkedIn and elsewhere um so this is uh
49:11
the last one that we’ll take uh how do you view this question of best of breed
49:16
versus a single enterprise system so I’ve got my obvious bias on this so i’
49:22
like one of you gentlemen to respond to this I mean when I look at Enterprise
49:27
applications there’s very few that are good at everything you know they all started in one aspect maybe they’ve
49:33
acquired or or grown organically you know many of the other functions you need but the bottom line is is you need
49:40
to do what’s best for your business and you also need to look at it long term um the other aspect is you want tools that
49:48
are modular and are easy to integrate with um I mean the especially with AI
49:55
augmented reality and everything else we’ve got migrating for technology in this industry you want to be able to
50:01
take advantage of of new things as they come along to be able to apply them into your business so you want to make sure
50:07
wherever you’re at you’re not in a tool that’s so rigid that you can’t adopt uh
50:12
and improve and make yourself more effective or
50:17
efficient I my background was for one one of one best of breed system that I
50:23
in my career started my career and then and then you know and I was I would say
50:29
at that time I was biased and I would say oh there’s no other better system than that and then there’s a couple other ones out there we can’t mention
50:34
names here but recently some the big players the top two big players Erp they
50:41
made some especially the one big one has made some significant strides when it comes
50:46
to bringing you know if you’re to if you’re going to do Enterprise ass of management I mean they’re they’re
50:53
changing the the game and they’re they’re it’s become I I believe it’s
50:58
going to be better than these best of breed and the best of breed hopefully they’re paying attention because you
51:04
know they’ll be they’ll be left behind just like these big ones were left behind right and so to me you know I
51:11
used to be biased now I’m like huh I see a lot of changes but also in the world
51:16
that I am you know we focus on those those large ones so I kind of kind of have to
51:23
understood more look I’ll say this I know I said I have an obvious bias but let me let me just say
51:29
this at a minimum and it probably satisfies everyone out here and everyone out there at a minimum you know you as a
51:36
customer deserve choice I mean you don’t want to walk into the only restaurant in town and assume that’s the best food
51:42
you’re ever going to get I mean I think that it it finally comes down to that that you know it’s got to work for the business for the users and whatever
51:49
works I mean there’s no one single rigid rule that we can talk through so that um sort of uh
51:55
the the time we have today I know we went a little over but this was fun I I enjoyed the conversation with you gentlemen um and to all the participants
52:04
thank you for your time and participation today and for everyone watching we will send you a recording of the webinar via email as well as we will
52:11
be hosted on uh youtube.com/ conix our Channel and certainly follow us on LinkedIn uh And subscribe to our
52:17
newsletter but with that I really want to thank you Dave and Johnny I truly appreciate it and if you don’t talk
52:23
before then have a wonderful holidays and very happy New Year