Kevin Trupin with Weavix

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Industrial communication, Weavix platform, real-time insights, workforce orchestration, data analytics, safety improvements, operational efficiency, multilingual support, API integration, problem-solving, employee engagement, industrial innovation, workforce collaboration, communication technology, asset management.

00:00

Scott, welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott. MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots and let's

00:21

go. All right, industrial professionals, thank you very much for joining me on the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates you. I'm pointing at you on the video. You're both brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate. You are solving problems each and every day this platform celebrates you take it to the bank. You're that important. You are. You're making the world a much better place. Thank you very much. All right in the hot seat. Kevin Turpin, Weavix is the company, and it is. It's right dead center on what makes me passionate about industry. We're talking about better communication, greater insights into your industrial operations, and you do it with speed and focus and clarity, and and it just does everything that you could possibly we've ex go out to weave x.com Cool. Let's get cracking with the conversation. Yeah, he, he brings a lot of pepper. He's pretty passionate about his solution. The company's solution. It's very cool. It's just, here's my beef. Here I have a beef. So we have industry. Industry is happening at a fast, blistering pace, the innovation, the solutions that just, you name it, it's happening. And it's happening so fast. My beef and it deals with information, because I always talk about, you know, educate, collaborate and, of course, innovate, and everything's sort of grounded in speed. That whole education, that whole information component, doesn't happen fast enough. We've ex this their platform. It's real time. It's now, it's, it's insights right now. It's, it's so important. It just sort of feeds that side of me that says, Yeah, I'm all in. I want more. I feed it to me. Don't, don't hold back, you know, we in industry, you in industry. And this, again, my beef, we need to be faster. We need to be faster. And this sort of, sort of, you know, dovetails with with what we're trying to do. I'll give you a case in point. So I do an interview. Somebody interviewed me. It was, what, what? Six months ago, seven months ago, I think I don't know, traditional media takes a tremendous amount of time. I'm just stunned. So it takes time, and so because I see the need for the information, and I see the need and the realities that exist out there in the marketplace, it's not it doesn't work. What the demands of the market need is information today, right now, immediate, so that there is action on their part to be able to do whatever is necessary to make their company better success, whatever it might be. So there, I'm struggling with that. So we're launching the industrial News Network. I n n, yeah, we got it. Industrial news, dot network, and it's, it's so what you would think you would have, individuals, correspondents. Now, let's say, talking about what's taking place in DC and how it impacts, how it impacts you as an industrial professional, as a company, we need to know, I, I mean, it's all fragmented out there. You got to admit, it's all fragmented. So do you know where to go? Do you know where to go? Industrial news network. That's what we're setting up. That's what we're propping up. It takes the the individuals, the people the the the the individuals that are in the know on specific topics. Turn it around, quick, consume it so that you can do things now. Now you can tell I'm passionate about it. You could tell I was really all keyed up and hot hopped up on goofballs about this, because I'm just talking about speed and here, here's, here's, we've ex. They're all about that. They're all about getting that information out there quickly. They're all about solving problems now, which is, which is fantastic. Come on, it's fantastic. Okay, let's get on with the conversation. Now that I've been on my soapbox. Kevin Turpin, we backs. He brings the pepper. Let's get going. All right, Kevin, welcome to industrial talk. Thank you very much for joining. How are you doing

05:27

today? Doing fantastic. And I appreciate Scott, bring me on the bring me on the air. Man,

05:34

I'm looking at your hat. Is that is? Hey, I'm

05:37

supporting it with the brand. Man, it's right there, right we dicks. Love it.

05:42

Let me, let me just, sort of take a just, just, let me take a few moments. Nope, I don't have one of those hats. I don't know where I know that you probably sent it, but it must be some sort of holding pattern, but it would be great. It's

05:59

in the mail. Scott's in the mail.

06:01

It's sharp. It looks good. Yeah, very cool. I have to I digress. No, no, no, Scott, stick with the program. Stick with the flow. Before we get into we mix. Give us a little background on who Kevin is,

06:20

all right, my name is Kevin Turpin. I'm the CEO of Weavix. I've it's my fourth startup, actually, to be honest with you, started coming out of high school and started giving serial Yeah, I guess you know, we don't call ourselves that. We just like to invent and solve problems, right? But, yeah, I mean, I came, came from, from that time, and basically started inventing companies around technology and Frontline workforces, and joined them together, believe it or not, and figured out how to try to help the frontline worker. And so from that moving forward, it really helped me develop companies that grew up pretty, pretty large. Actually, we had a massive service company that we still own today and operate, and that's where we've spun out of. And so from that point, moving forward, Kevin Turpin has been on a mission to connect the disconnected workforce and really make sure we're bringing value to them and also bringing value to companies. So it's just, I wake up every day just loving what I do. There's just no doubt about it.

07:22

Cool. Yeah, well done. You've been on podcast before. You can tell you just a very smooth, if this whole we've actually zoned workouts, you've got a bright future in podcast. Oh,

07:32

I don't know. I, I, you know, I guess Elvis, right? When you're passionate about what you love, this comes to be fun. Yeah,

07:41

I love it, it's, it's, and that's the way I always look at industry in general. It's just the stories, just in general, the macro right are, are exciting. They're cool. Very cool. Hey, why we Becks? Tell me why that name exists, just because I know why industrial talk name exists, sure.

08:06

Well, it all started with, really about, if you think about the workforce, it's about, how do you weave them all together? Because you have contractors, you got executive staff, you have workers, you have all levels of workers, too, ones that just start and ones that have been there a while, which is management, and ones that get it done, right? So one of my beliefs of all of this is, how do we actually build a system that's easy and intuitive, to drive together everybody, to bring data together and orchestrate the communication so we can solve problems faster? So we've came about of like weaving it together, and we're doing it. It's pretty

08:44

awesome. It's pretty like, Yeah, I agree with that nice picture. Let me, let me paint this. Speaking of pictures, let me paint this picture. Yep. Oh, I've been in industry for many years. I've been out in the field. I've understand it, manufacturing all of the stuff that exists out there in the field, been through the radio communications, been through the cell phone communications, been through all of the the efforts to try to be able to, I don't know, create greater, it's a safety related issue, but be able to Create this communication network. How does, how does we mix the technology, the solutions that you come up address that reality?

09:29

It's a great question. You know, traditional radio communication comes from just basic I'd call more analog, or they call it digital, but it's just a communication that's coming through a speaker, right? There's not really any data or anything that we capture. And so the reason for this is obviously because there's a lot of issues when it comes down to networking and sending data, right? So when you think about how the communication works, it really does come off the infrastructure that is built in those facili. Fauci and so it's just stayed stagnant an entire almost 100 years now, right about the size of my right? So again, a ton. And I think everybody's sitting back thinking, is it going to be the phone that we that we use? Well, of course not, right? Why? Because there's loud noises, and we need different technologies to muffle them out to get good translation. You know, there's got to be other ways to do multitude of mashing together, the network availability. When I say network, I mean like cellular, Wi Fi, a lot of things that you need to send data, actual data, pictures, real time, translation, translating in the fly, dictation, things like that. So you really think about, how does this all come together? And you ask the question, well, why we fix Well, we've done that. We've built, actually, a purpose built device that allows us to take all of these problems and mash them together with a lot, with a very, very minimal capex expense to the to the actual manufacturer. And then on top of that, we've built a platform, which is a technology to use information and data to empower the worker. So, you know, how do they actually solve a problem faster? Well, they can send a picture to a center of excellence group that just replies back faster. Or, you know, what about I can't hear you right muffled because I'm doing translation. Well, we have all of our noise cancelation and the chips and the and the all the technology we built inside this thing to do that as well. And then lastly, how do you charge them? How do you log on? How does new employees go from building to building? I mean, I could go on and on, but mastering the art of making sure that we can provide a device in the hand of every worker Weavix has done that.

11:42

So So I, let's say, here's a use case. I'm an asset management professional. I'm out there. I'm looking at these assets, and I'm making sure whatever I'm I'm getting data from whatever device that exists out there today, on that pump, that motor, whatever it might be. This is sort of the in the trenches right now. So I go out there, and then i i have my my radio. I'm looking at it. You're saying I can take this handheld device and be able to sort of interact with my asset management platform too, as well, and be able to pull up schematics or just information on that asset to on a real time basis. Let's start. Let's

12:24

14:53

but that brings out this sort of turned over a question, how does how. How does the platform, how does your solution? Yep, know who to contact. So I'm, I'm I'm the guy. I'm next to the tug. We've been there, by the way. You know, work. That's not a fun thing, and that's not a great conversation to have over the from the captain. Now, we're having a problem

15:17

with Right, right,

15:18

right. But how do I take this solution? Tug is a problem. Know who to contact to get my answer and to get it solved.

15:29

Yep. So the platform, obviously is smart, because whenever you sign on, we know who you are, we know your title, we know your job and duty. And so as you look from the orchestration from the platform of Weavix that orchestrates it. So, for instance, if we want all those channels, we can on the back admin portal, put in a, I want everybody that is a, you know, an equipment operator that's on, hey, we could even, we can even put geofence and say, Hey, equipment operator of terminal two. And we want them to be able to have access to these channels to solve these problems, and so basically, those channels are available to them, and on the other end of that are the people that can solve the problem, or if you are even more open as the platform gets greater, like a bunch of major, major, major major logos are doing today, they allow their own people to create their own channels with their own people. Now I'm going to throw on top of this over what now 30 language translations live on the fly. So I'm not I'm like everything goes along with everything that solves to get better clean communication, to keep all communication equal and clear. So I'm not even put throwing in the details of what we're doing on top of a very diverse workforce. I'm just talking about answering your question of the orchestration and how that works. So as it grows upon itself and who you are in the organization, we're fulfilling those channels on that radio, along with all the technology I talked about to make sure it's clear, it's easy, it's, you know, it's everything under what you're wanting to make sure that it's correct. It's the orchestration magic.

17:04

Okay, back to the use case that you provided with the tug. Yep. So now I'm able to sort of, hey, got a problem with the tug? Then it goes to the right individuals. The individuals say, Do this, twist, this, do that. And then I come back and I'll say, Nope, doesn't work. Yep, there's, there's subsequent actions that are associated with that particular asset. And it just, it's all focused on compressing that time to solution. Got it all of a sudden. Now I need a new tug. Well, go down a concourse C, there's a tug sitting, whatever the process might be,

17:41

right? Yeah. So, yeah. So basically, now you can see, you can start documenting the information, right? Think about it like if that's being called in five, six times, and you start to see this data. So we have data analytics on the backside that's on, obviously taking all of communication. And keep in mind, I want everybody out there to know this. No, technology is not does not care about the individual name. We care about the data to help the worker. And I want to reiterate that we don't care. We're not trying to get people in trouble. We're trying to find out what is the solution to the problem. And that's the very way that we really got to work hard as we mix to say, look, we're here to help, and we want to make sure we help and not hurt. And so when you say, when I say, These things are going, Oh, wow, they're listening to translation and the dictation of the language. No, we're just saying. We're looking for little keywords like tug, not working this. And then we bubble that up in analytical data and show everybody, Hey, you got a tug problem. Your fleet is way too old, right? And it's creating, you X amount of time. I'll give you one more fact is, there's a massive airline that we work for, massive Yeah, and we've talked with the, you know, the head leadership, five minutes of increased time. Five minutes is a $1.5 billion savings that organization, five minutes per pushback, if they can in, if they can basically reduce the time to push back a plane by five minutes, that will be $1.5 billion on the bottom

19:11

line. Staggering.

19:15

I love this

19:16

staggering, yeah, because I remember having a conversation with somebody that was in the airline industry, and it, and it's, it's, it's just real important to turn these assets around, keep them in the air, keep that revenue flowing. That's right, if they're stuck on the ground, they're not earning

19:34

money, nope. And their maintenance program is pristine on the aircraft, but they're don't what they need to orchestrate better. And this is just an example in a terminal solution, right? We do this in manufacturing. Do we do this in construction? We do this in all the areas where it's really a high orchestrated event. But in this case, right there the maintenance, they've got it dialed in. I think one of the podcasters listening to yours was like, Hey, we got this. Out on the equipment. What about all the supporting stuff? It's putting us down, right? And so you can be great at one thing, and yes, that is obviously very important to be safe, and for a plane to be safe, and being a high

20:11

Yes, it is. Thank you very much. Appreciate

20:15

that. But if we're looking at the bottom line, and we're looking at how we're going to improve. Ultimately, how we're going to improve, we have to understand every granular section of data from the very, very front, and we'd appreciate that too, right? And keep this workforce moving, and keep people excelling in their careers and feeling a part of the organization. And it's communication.

20:38

See, now you're talking about data, and you mentioned it a couple of times. One of the challenges that I see with data is the fact, where do you store it? How do you correct How do you sift through it? Right? There's data, and there's a lot of noise in the data, and then there's actionable pieces of data that I want to be able to flip over. Do it like you said, the we've X platform, if I'm talking on it and it's translating, it's doing what it needs to do. Where does all this, this information? Where does it go?

21:10

Yeah, so it goes, it goes to the weaves platform. So basically, you think about traditional radio communication. Yes, it is running through some compute, but it's not running through a platform that's looking at every facet of that data, and it's not organized correctly if you're just putting it into spreadsheets, right? So what we're doing with Weavix is we're driving it back to the main basically cloud based application, and that cloud based application allows this to, what I would call analyze, in the way you want to analyze the information. So there's workflow inside of the product, meaning I can cause action, reaction, right? So if something is happening, or somebody's calling, or we're in a geofence, we're in certain areas, I can actually drive another action, right, which is a workflow or that I can use information and say, Hey, good example be like this. Scott, like we can tell you how many transmissions, which means the push of the button, how many talks are we talking in certain areas. I can tell you if we're talking about a certain problem, whenever it comes to an issue with a piece of equipment, right? And I so all of this information is very valuable. And as I tell CEOs, plant managers, Operation managers, I talk to them all time, saying, hey, it's what you don't know that hurts you, right? And so we need to know everything about anything to try to get all that bubbled up so we can do preventative and make sure we're covering all aspects, and that's from employee morale all the way down to Equipment and safety hazards. See,

22:44

I like, I like the picture of connected workforce and what your platform brings because, and frankly, they're, they're every bit is they're, they're more important assets. Those individuals are greater assets than maybe those physical assets that our field a couple of questions, and I was writing them down. I'm not sharp like you, so I'm a company. I've got an existing whatever, whatever communication platform I have in place. There's something out there, or whatever it might be. I'm trying to communicate, but I'm saying, Hey, I like, I like, what Kevin's saying. I like, I like to know more about we've ex. How long does it How long would it take for me as a company to k, I want to implement this system. What am I talking about? Time wise?

23:40

25:11

is pretty doggone cool. I saw that with a CNC machine, right? Oh, if you had the CNC and you can say, well, I'm having a hard time with this disgrunt or whatever that is. Oh, yeah. And here, here you go.

25:25

25:58

fantastic. Okay, I'm a company, again, using that analogy, I'm a company, and I have legacy systems. I have an ERP, I have a CMS, or an APM, or whatever, whatever that asset does, your solution, your platform, have APIs that will send specific pieces of data to these platforms that are important. I mean, you don't want to miss out saying, hey, here it is, and be able to attach that data to their legacy systems. Does that exist? It does

26:30

exist? Yes, we have a full API, integrated API backend for you can use information to help trigger and act integrate into the entire system. One of the one of the sayings we say at Weavix is, is gate to gate. And why we say that is, is we want to be able to help the worker from the time they walk into the gate until they walk out of the gate that night. So as we're not quite obviously, have all integrations, meaning that we're providing that. That's the vision and roadmap of we VIX is to say, Hey, this is your hub. This is your device. We're here to help you do a really good job, to exceed and excel in your career, right? To show that you are important to this organization. But we also ask them to to work hard, right? And give us what you got, and tell us what the problems are. And let's, let's work together as a team. Let's don't keep this executive staff up in the big building, you know, to say that they have no respect from the workforce. And that's, that's a very true and real thing, yeah, but you're right, yeah. So we're merging that, we're weaving it together, and that's it's happening. It's respect is going all angles, and it's showing efficiencies just unreal. Well,

27:38

I like the fact that it's getting better old. Long ago, when I was doing other deploying systems, we would always have to deal with bad data. Pencil whipping right, not reflective of what's going on out in the field. What I see, correct me, if I'm wrong, is you have a platform that ensures the fact that there's quality data information. You're not pencil whipping, which I love then and and you're ensuring some sort of long term insights into these assets, because you're right there. How? So I'm the company again, and I have this system, what type of bottom line value, what type of value can I expect? I see it, I get it. I like it. You know. What are we talking

28:33

about here? Yeah, well, first off, safety is everything, right? So you can't even put $1 amount to safety. Now, I'm not going to play for everybody that's listening. I'm not going to play that. Play that that game, right? I know that a lot of people want to throw their their hat in that ring and play off the safety piece just because it's, it sells, right? That's that's not what Wex is trying to do. So the savings that we are coming and putting in the market is are solving problems, and the real problems that the customers tell us that need to be solved, and 99% of them are communication because they don't know what information to know to fix the problem. Now that's a tongue twister there, but they don't understand exactly because you made a great comment. It's subjective data. And so one of my past technologies I developed too for one of the service companies was making sure that we were capturing real inspection data in the way to the risk profile of the plant, not the risk profile of the mind, right? So when we say, this is a corroded, you know, pipe, or this is that we were doing picture recognition on that so come back to reality now and think about people. We want accuracy, and we want to know what are some of the issues, because every plan has different issues, and we want that information to come back. We want to solve those problems and fix them and just keep tackling because problems come up every day. So the immense value that you're going to get out of we VIX is not only just first off. Off almost zero incidents. And safety is what we're going for, right? And that's what we're seeing with a lot of people. Second, why is that full translation? Your multilingual companies cannot speak the things about what, what are hazards, and give that,

30:13

that's that's bad technology. That's fantastic,

30:17

yeah. And the last is the efficiency of the operational efficiency that we're going to achieve, and that is all documented. It's easy to calculate. We you can pay for the system first month. We've had people pay for the system in the first day, just because it's very affordable in the way of to implement and put into system. It's just amazing. That's it is

30:39

amazing that's well within then, what are the roadblocks? What? What? What I hear you saying, I'm also if I had a business and I had a manufacturing process, I'd be all over this, Kevin, but I don't. I just have a studio. But what are the sort of these roadblocks? What? What are we talking about here? What can we do to help get people past that.

31:01

Well, it's fear, right? So one of the things that start with that all of us ran mega companies, started them and ran them all the way to the big deal, and still in we mix today, and we always, as managers, fear our employees are going to get upset. We don't explain, we don't explain what we're trying to do. We try to force and so one of the things, when people hear this story, or they hear the Weavix story, they think, oh my gosh, do I want to know that much data? Oh my gosh. Is this a liability? If I knew that much, so, are we turning a blind eye? Would be a question. But on the other hand, they want their cake and eat it too, and say, We got to have efficiency. I'm looking at my PNL, and it's not doing well. And, you know, executive management, or even a corporate management, starting to notice we're having issues and problems. Which one is it right? The one it is, is we have to educate our workforce, we have to show that we care. We have to show that this product is not to hurt you and be for with that. I mean, every, every person that you would think, which I think has just been remarkable to see this, every big brand you can name is using our product is amazing to me. You know why they're a big brand? Because they're innovative. They come out exciting things, they do every time. And so then all the companies that are not, and they complain about it, and don't get me wrong, they might be not the premium brand inside of their in their in their industry or market, but man, if we're trying to do things right, and we are trying to solve a problem and be competitive in our in our space, we're going to have to engage with our workforce, and we're going to have to use tools to listen to them. They have the best answers why their hands are on the goods. I mean, yeah, so see, see

32:46

you. I have a three legged stool. I can increase it to a seven leg stool, but nobody really wants to sit on that. But a three legged stool, I always say, educate, which you're dealing with, collaborate, which, if you can create a collaborative type of environment through this communication platform, evacs. That's fantastic. And the final one, successful companies always innovate. That's true through my conversations that I've had in the past. Those are three drivers that successful companies always achieve. Your platform represents all three, you're outstanding.

33:24

There you go. It's fun, I'd say. And what I love to get out there is, is, hey, you know, it doesn't hurt to ask, like, call us up, ask, get curious. You know, one of the things my dad really taught me my whole life is like, be curious and really ask questions and and also don't take things personal. I mean, people like our lives change, and workers lives change. Don't get me wrong, we have, we have some bad offenders and some things in that. I'm not, I'm not going to say there's a bottom percentage that are but 99% when it comes to work and do a great job.

34:02

Advantage of that. I love it. I love it. Kevin, how do people get a hold of you? They're saying, I want to know more about it. You're going to say, first I'm out on LinkedIn. So

34:10

no, I mean, actually, I'll just start out. We have, we have a hello@ Weavix.com that they can reach out to, or you can go to weavix.com and just reach out on any aspect you can you can put in a form fill and say, Hey, I heard you on the podcast. And also, you can also go to LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn myself.

34:30

Yes,

34:32

for me to link up, because everybody's going to want to know who Kevin is, and if their LinkedIn profile is up to date, then they know what Kevin

34:40

is, there you go, yeah, that's

34:42

a we're here to help answer questions, anything that they have. I mean, even if you're calling to ask, like, who's done what? We fit every industry where it's at. I mean, it's just, we are here to solve problems. Steve, you're doing, you know, I. Guy, you did a great job too. That's what I was. I was one, one thing, and say about that, all that stuff. So

35:05

thank you very much, because nobody, yeah, all right, appreciate that. Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk tall today, because Kevin said I did it

35:12

again. No, I just think it's great. I listen to your podcast all the time, and it's

35:17

not geek out on all these conversations. They

35:20

are amazing. I learned something every day.

35:24

Yes, yeah, I'm living my discovery channel dream, because I get to talk to people like you, leaders like you, who just get it, who sees the future that it and is excited about what's happening. We have got to do that. Come on, you're awesome, man.

35:42

Well, I was glad to meet you in person too. That's why I was just, I mean, it's an honor. I know you're everywhere and all the places, and I hope every I hope everybody really gets involved in it, because you're doing, bringing, bringing all of this awareness to this industry.

35:55

My mission, my purpose, making sure that industry succeeds. I want industry professionals to succeed, companies to succeed. You are absolutely wonderful, Kevin. Thank you very much for being on industrial talk.

36:09

Scott, thank you so much anytime. All right, listeners, we're going to wrap

36:13

it up on the other side, we're going to have all the contact information for Kevin out on industrial talk. This is a must connect. Make it happen. Captain, all right, we're gonna wrap it up. We'll be right back.

36:26

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network,

36:35

doodly, doodly, doodly, doodly, doo Kevin Turpin weevix, yeah. W, E, A, V, I, x.com,

36:46