Hear from CBT’s Kelly Ireland and Meghan Petersen as they discuss the Internet of Things (IoT), Refinery of the Future (RotF), Metaverse, Diversity & Inclusion, and more!
Speakers:
Transcript:
Meghan Petersen:
Good morning, I’m Megan Petersen, Enterprise Account Executive at CBT. And joining me is Kelly Ireland, who is the CEO, Founder, and CTO. Before we dive into this, Kelly, can you give us a quick intro to who CBT is?
Kelly Ireland:
Absolutely. Thank you, Megan, Katie, and everybody at the IoT Club. So excited to be giving this podcast to all of you. CBT opened 21 years ago. I have been in tech since the late 70s, and I just saw a different way, a better way. So I opened a company that would allow us to go down a journey of innovation and doing things that were outside the box. It was developing a fertile ground for us to be able to go do what we wanted to do in the fashion that we felt we should do it. And I think, as we go through this talk, you’ll see between Meghan and me, being in that kind of environment allows for a lot of growth that you wouldn’t normally get in other organized corporations and companies and really gives you that ability to go beyond what you think is possible.
MP:
Kelly, tell us about the refinery of the future, how it got started, what it is, and then the technology behind it and how it is reshaping manufacturing, factories, and plants.
KI:
Yeah, and this is all about IoT. And you know, it’s kind of the reason you’re all here. I was approached, just going on six years ago, about coming into a possible project that was wrapped around oil and gas. It was a vertical group from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and they said would you be interested in and I was known as one of those CEOs that was willing to invest. So I took a look at it, I talked to them, I talked to some of the partners they were pulling in, which were different ISPs and OEMs hardware and software manufacturers. And thought this sounds really interesting. And though it was very early on, it still made complete sense to me. So what we did is put together, actually get a company that offered up Texmark Chemicals out in Galina Park, Texas, what they did was brilliant, because their CEO took a whole group of people to HPE labs to see what a smart pump was, you know, so this is a chemical processing plant. And you’re taking a bunch of people that have no idea what a smart pump is to come down to this demo lab and show them what it was. And he said this is awesome. And everybody was really excited about seeing it, but they’re like, where can we see it in production? And the answer was, you can’t, some are protected under NDA, some really haven’t implemented it. It’s very early on. And so Doug said, well, why don’t you use my plant. And so Texmark Chemicals, seven and a half acres of, multiple chemical processing and toll processing. It gave us a living demo lab, where we could try this stuff out. They ended up doing a structured approach of what we use, which is design thinking and bringing in the right parties to gather information on each separate solution. We mapped out five solutions, starting with condition monitoring and predictive maintenance, video as a sensor, worker safety, and security, connected worker, and then asset intelligence, which also embraced the digital twin approach. And so over 20 plus companies joined in, all mostly hardware and software. CBT ended up working through multiple years of trying to get these launched and testing and iterating and doing everything else. It was very important to have an SI that understood that it’s not just putting hardware and software together. This is taking parts and pieces that have never been integrated, sensors on different things and gathering that data, and really understanding how to get all that work together. And like Megan said before we have a thing called the Book of Life, which gathers everything we learned at Refinery of the Future. My team calls it the Book of Hell because it’s basically every hurdle we had to go through. Because this is not simple stuff, don’t think it is. If you approach it that way, you won’t be successful. This takes work. And it takes both sides of IT and OT working together, understanding each other, being respectful of each other, and just having a common goal of achieving what no one thought was possible.
MP:
Right? So it’s been around for five, six years now, why is it still relevant?
KI:
It’s actually even more relevant now. It was slow to be adopted. And if you look at when cloud came out, it promised the world everything and costs you less. When it really came down to brass tacks, it actually cost a lot of corporations a lot more, took control away, wasn’t as good, and cost more money. Everybody adopted it. And they’ve kind of iterated around different ways of approaching cloud. But when I spoke personally to over 60 corporations they said, no we’re not even dipping our toe in, we’re gonna wait until somebody else does it. Because we saw what happened with cloud, we’re not going to get burned. So what we’ve had is what I call toe-dipping. When COVID came about in 2020, that’s when we saw a take a leap because of connected worker. Megan and I’d love to tell you some of our stories of how that really played out, of people jumping in and saying okay, I no longer can stay away from this, this might solve some immediate problems I have. How do we make sure we communicate with lone workers correctly?
MP:
Yeah, it’s funny that you mentioned kind of how it started, Kelly, because one of the first questions that customers asked me today is, where have you done this? The ability to point to something that isn’t a proof of concept, or a mini lab is invaluable. And the use cases truly transcend industries. I mean, it’s everywhere, whether it’s trucking, dental, medical, or manufacturing, it really seems to translate. What we saw during early COVID, and we still continue to see, is reducing the workforce on-site. So how do you troubleshoot remotely, especially if you need the use of your hands? There are situations where we would implement a wearable device so that they could see what the person was seeing in real-time and be able to communicate and give feedback. There’s also a digital workflow, so walking someone through these steps, whereas before, there was maybe a trainer or a manager who had to be present to actually assist them, which gives them a lot more autonomy. And I think it really has been a catalyst for a lot of this digital transformation, and I think it’s great.
KI:
When you think about it, a lot of our mission has been solving problems that customers have. And like you mentioned, there was one client that reached out to us because he had 40 workers not showing up in one day because of COVID. And he’s like, I bring temps on, but I don’t have a workflow, I don’t have a way for them to step through what I need them to do. It’s not extensive. It’s not critical things that they have to be fully trained on. They need to go through the steps. And so it was a way to deliver that to them. And like he did mention on industries, I counted 23 different industries. Even though we’ve tested this all out at Refinery of the Future, it’s really the future for all industries. Because like you mentioned, I was amazed at some of the industries that have approached us saying, we’ve heard about this, we think there’s an application. I know when we tour people, we actually have access to tour people through Texmark and showcase in real life, putting these IoT solutions into production. And I’ve had entertainment, MGM international, go immediately like the light went off and they went we would use this and water management but and I never even thought of the utility side of a hotel. There are so many different things. And it’s really fun to watch them get very creative on how they can use it.
MP:
Absolutely, that’s one of my favorite interactions with customers is just watching this light bulb. And then they start just thinking about all the ways that they could use it or implemented and it is really neat. So you know, you mentioned the book of hell, as we all call it over here, I’m going to touch on that. What have been the biggest obstacles that you have seen, hindering a successful implementation?
KI:
The biggest one off the top of my head is connectivity and security. Because if you don’t have the connectivity you need, this is where you get IT and OT and maybe not the convergence. You’ve got to have that connectivity, whether it’s satellite, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, you need to have it for sensors, wearables, and the workers. In most cases, what we’ve seen, especially on the industrial side, so mining, utilities, electrical, all of that type of stuff, where you’re not in a building, it’s all about, okay, we need something out here. We have new things coming out all the time. Now, we’re testing out private 5G, there are all kinds of things that you can bring in. But you have to have the acceptance and the support of that corporate member and his executive team or management teams to have that be pulled in. Because, you know, immediately if you don’t have connectivity, you don’t have that. The other thing is security. And it’s making sure you have you know, most companies have been diligent about cyber cybersecurity, it’s making sure that we as CBT have a stout practice and that, as we know, we were doing a good job, we got past the nuclear power plant, and we were able to, you know, be blessed by them. I think that was something that I was very happy about. Because we always want to have the best of the best to ensure that cross platforms across the different things that you have to do that we have the right personnel, but I think getting past a nuclear power plant security practices, is really good. So I would say it’s mostly the conductivity. There are other things that we’ve run into in the roadblock, there’s MGM, there’s a lot of things that these manufacturers say, Oh, we got it, it works. And when we actually get down to really diving in, which is one of our Forte’s, we drink our own champagne or eat our own dog food, whatever you want to call it. We test this out, we have full-time staff at Texmark to test this stuff out, because you shouldn’t go sell it to a client if you don’t know that it works, or it doesn’t work. So we test through that. And I think getting through that practice and being able to showcase we did it, we documented it, we know what we’re doing. Not that you’re not going to run into some anomalies. We’ve seen it across the board. Every client is different. And we don’t say we customize it, we tailor it, it’s tailoring. But it’s still something you really have to understand the client, you have to understand their distinct environment, what they’re trying to solve what problem they’re trying to solve or what goal they’re trying to achieve.
MP:
Absolutely. And yeah, the nuclear was certainly a feat but glad that we came out on top of that one, but it was a process. Alright, so the future for technology in the industry. What do you what does this all look like in five years?
KI:
Well, I keep hearing, you know, the industrial metaverse and I’m just like, Guys, we haven’t even gotten to adoption yet. Not that we won’t look at it. And I think a lot of people will look at it and say, you know, this kind of VR, you’re gonna have you know, a metaverse. Universal matters if you don’t have a plant, and that’s kind of stuff we’re already touching on now. But I think we have to see the adoption, and I see 2022 as being much better. I’ve also heard that you know, in AMEA, overseas, especially in European countries, they’re quick to adopt, then I’ve seen in other countries. I’m hoping that in the United States and North and South America that they take more of adoption because I think we are ready for that. We’ve done successful POCs I know for years it was POC purgatory, everybody was like I don’t want to do it because it goes nowhere. We’ve kind of come up with a formula and we don’t mind sharing, crawl, walk, run, even if you have to push your clients back or who you’re working with, push them back to a crawl because of what we’ve seen is the ones that bite off and want to boil the ocean basically don’t get anywhere. They’re so strapped and documentation and plans and everything else that they never get anywhere. We believe the formula is to start small Get focused on one solution and one use case, deliver that provide an ROI. That way, you get the checkmark for the CFO that says, Hey, you did it. There’s an ROI, it’s quantifiable. And now we can go save more money or produce more products, or whatever it is that they’re trying to do. I think that’s the key right now is let’s get the stuff deployed that see how it comes about. We already know that AI ml, you know, machine learning, video analytics drones with video, there is so much that that that is coming or is here, but you hear about it, but you don’t hear about it in particular cases that it’s been used and deployed to us. We want to see it used. We want to see it deployed, we want to see workers working it, and then we believe it. And not that we don’t want to believe that it’s possible. But maybe there are a few more steps to get us there. So I think it’s all going toward what I would call a ton of virtual reality. If you want to call it Metaverse, I think it’s going toward that, because then you can actually throw people into something and train them in a virtual environment and get them more prepared. But I think that is definitely a ways off before, especially the way I’ve seen the adoption over the last five years. And although I think it will ramp, it’s not going to ramp that quickly.
MP:
I agree. All right. Well, Kelly, our time here is coming to an end, is there anything that you’d like to share in closing?
KI:
Oh, boy, what I would say is an is especially as a female in tech, one of the things we’ve talked about is tech has always been a love of mine since I got out of high school. And that was a long time ago. And so I’ve been in times when you know, females weren’t really intact. But I think what we need to do is just jump in just like humans. Get in, let’s work through this, I think I will say the one thing about women is I see we bring a different perspective. And when you go into OT IT, and you go into the convergence, and you look at the industry, in either an industrial internet of things or just Internet of Things, I think there’s a different side, we bring in a different approach we bring. So I think bringing those together, from both sides, from all sides from any science is always what makes it better. You look at Texmark. And the solutions we’ve done, it’s the inputs from frontline workers all the way up to executive management. It’s not one group. It’s all grouped together, having a voice saying what needs to be done, and then being listened to and being respected.
MP:
That’s a great summary. So thank you, Kelly. That’s a wrap for us. I don’t know if we have any questions.
Katie White (Moderator):
Hi, guys, thanks for that. That was brilliant. Yes, we do have questions. So the first question we have is you work with a wide range of clients at CBT, from a broad range of industries, is a particular industry you’re seeing more requirements from, and does this reflect the trends you’re expecting to see in 2022?
KI:
I can tell you exactly what we’re seeing in utilities has been massive. And I think a lot of that was because of COVID and lone workers. So we did see that that alone, we have over 32 opportunities. We’re working right now. It’s just proliferating. And I think, and we started very early with utilities. So it makes sense because I think word of mouth and industries that work together are saying CBT did this for us. And so that is helping grow it. The other thing we’re seeing is service industries, whether it be and that’s kind of broad, but think of trucking repairs, a lot of things in there with service industries, kind of the same thing, maybe a lone worker out in a truck doing something. So we’re seeing that as well. The other thing we’re seeing is manufacturing and oil and gas. And that has to do with refinery of the future or being able to be a plant of the future and bring the 21st century into those because mostly those are quite old in legacy industries with old products, old refineries, old plants, and if they’re going to renew, they might as well jump right into IoT.
KW:
Okay, awesome. Another question we have, and I expect this is quite a hard one to answer or maybe not. And if you had to pinpoint the most instrumental development in tech, or IoT in the last three years has completely changed the way you work. What would it be? Hmm. Well, there might not be one, you can, you know, lengthen the time to maybe five years if you’d like.
KI:
I’m gonna say, for me, it’s about the conductivity because without it, it doesn’t matter if you have a sensor if you can’t connect it, it doesn’t matter if you have a wearable if you can’t connect it, this data can’t go anywhere unless it’s connected. And in it, you know, it was cables and fiber and everything else this it’s your, you know, it’s the spectrum of cellular, it’s people on their smartphones, you know, that’s even considered IoT. So it’s a matter of, I think the connectivity is, it’s what you had to have in order for any of this to happen. Yeah.
KW:
Okay. And I’m going to bring the questions back to a kind of like teams now. And what are the key skills you need from your team to kind of that, that would make for a successful implementation?
KI:
Well, what we’ve seen, and Megan can comment on this as well is, if we’re gonna do IoT, which is OT and IT converging, you better have both sides. So early on, I hired OT personnel, you know, control system engineers, design engineers, things that were on the other side, if you don’t understand that side of it, you can’t really deliver it, and we needed to be able to control that.
MP:
Yeah, I would add to that, and just say that sometimes those two groups don’t necessarily speak the same language. And we find ourselves acting as a translator, oftentimes, which I think brings a lot of value to our customers.
KW:
Yeah,
I understand when those kinds of teams work in tandem, how have you overcome that?
KI:
we’ve actually done presentations to clients, to explain to them the differences between OT and IT culture, because they just went, ooh, we didn’t even think about that. But internally, we’ve actually done a little bit of training with HR, of being respectful of, because if you think about this, and I don’t want anybody to be offended, but it is not perfect, it’s not perfect if you put this stuff together, and you can fine-tune it, or run, in some cases, OT includes perfection, you have to be perfect, or you throw out a batch of whatever you manufactured. So those are the differences. OT sometimes can look and say, Oh, well, they aren’t perfect. They, you know, they kind of don’t do it perfectly well. That’s because that’s the nature of it. Not the nature of OT. So we’ve done some cross-education of what the differences are, why they have to be that way. They don’t think one or the other, don’t think they’re better. They just, you know, have to be within that culture and have to follow that, that guideline. And so be respectful of them. Be open, learn about it and be respectful.
KW:
Okay, cool. And the last question I have is a question that was asked to one of our guest speakers earlier in the day, but we’ve, since then, we’ve asked every single one of our speakers. If you could offer if you could go back and talk to your 20-year-old self? What would you tell them? What advice would you tell them?
MP:
Listen to your mom, stop being a pain in the butt is really what I would go with. Yeah, I honestly just follow your passion, do something that you enjoy doing every single day.
KI:
And I would say be bolder because I was a wallflower. I never in a million years in my 20s. When I give a talk like this, I’d sit in the back against the wall. And I’d listen and observe, which is great to listen and observe. But you know more than you think you do. And especially if you stop and you listen, be willing to offer, you know, comments, be willing to go out there and kind of show yourself in a different light and don’t sit back.
KW:
I’d say that’s a common theme that we’ve heard from a lot of our speakers today, and one that I can definitely agree with. I’m 30. But I feel like how my approach to work in the last six years has completely changed. Back at my 24-year-old self, I didn’t know what I was on about. But now you know, you grow so much. That’s it for the session, guys. And if you have anything else that you’d like to add.
KI:
Welcome, all the women to IoT. We love having you. Keep coming. Keep recruiting.
KW:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for being a part of this initiative. You’ve been fantastic.