Max Cundiff with Chevron

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Industrial Talk podcast, marketing and sales, leadership virtues, cyber security, asset management, reliability, maintenance, Chevron lubricants, industrial products, lubricant technology, varnish, energy efficiency, fluid analysis, sustainability goals.

00:00

All right, industry professionals, I want to put this on your your radar. We have as a part of the Industrial Talk Podcast Network. It's a network. We have three new podcasts. They are one ask Molly, very marketing and sales centric. Because industry, you have to succeed. You have to stay current. You have to know exactly what is happening in the world of marketing, in the world of sales, from a from an industrial perspective, no jargon. Just straight to the point. I don't like jargon. There's no jargon. So that's one ask Molly. I asked Molly. You can ask Molly, and you will not be disappointed. The second one is the business beatitudes that's going to be rolling within a couple of weeks, and that is specifically around leadership, but a unique point of leadership, and that's from the heart, and it's the virtues of generosity, of humility, all just a number of things that that I like to discuss and how they help business succeed. That is the business Beatitudes. And finally, because we're going to continue to expand, don't get me wrong, but the third one is called the human patch. I'm working with those wonderful people at Farah, Barcelona, and we have come to the conclusion that real cyber security is a human equation, and as we continue to connect all our assets, we want you to also hear from leaders that are right around Cyber Security. Those are the three Be on the lookout now enjoy the conversation.

01:50

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

02:08

go all right, once again. Welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for joining the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates you industry professionals all around the world. You're both brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you are solving problems each and every day. That's why we celebrate you. You are the heroes in this story. If you look at it on video, you'll notice we're on the floor. We're at SMRP Fort Worth Texas is the location, and I got to tell you, if you're in the world of asset management, reliability or maintenance, or everything in between, whatever that might be, you need to be here. You will get great attention, and you will find individuals that are absolutely stellar in what they do. That's bar none. You will not be disappointed. And because I wasn't prepared, and I've got back to back conversations, I forgot the name of this guy in the hot seat. What's your name?

03:04

All right. My name is Max Cundiff. I'm with Chevron lubricants.

03:06

Max, yeah, see, there you go. I got the chevron lubricants. Hey, I got that all night. Dialed in 50% right? Yeah. Sort of if I were to do an asset criticality rating, I think your name would be a little bit higher than the chevron loop. Thank you, Max. I appreciate that. Yeah, you having a good conference.

03:30

We are. We are. We've seen a lot of current customers, a lot of met, a lot of prospects out there, and the manufacturing, power, Gen mining segments, which are some of the core segments that we focus on with Chevron lubricants.

03:44

So I'm jumping again because I'm all into lubricants. Let's just, let's just stop. Give us a little background on who Max is,

03:53

yeah, so I've been with Chevron for 14 years.

03:56

Oh, what do you start when you were what 10? Give me a break.

04:05

Yes, I've been with them for 14 years, and all within our finished lubricants department spent about 10 years of that customer facing so working every day with all the professionals that we're meeting here this week, understanding their operations problems and challenges that they're facing, and then how do we solve them? Currently, I'm the industrial sector manager, kind of in charge of developing our go to market strategy for our industrial products and services.

04:31

How? How do you manufacture lubricants? What's, what's that process?

04:37

Yeah, well, so, so there's different components of it, right? So Chevron is actually the only fully integrated oil company in the world, which means that we actually refine our crude oil into base oil, which is the main ingredient in the lubricant. The other secondary ingredient would be our additives that are in different lubricants. And we actually have our own additive company internally at chef. Iran called Chevron, or a knight. So we have a lot of that process controlled in house, which gives us significant advantages.

05:08

And again, I'm gonna, because I'm all, I'm all into the product right now, I should, I should expand a little bit about your background, but I'm already in the product. How do you constantly push the envelope on providing that technology, that lubrication technology, be coming out with new products and new, you know, solutions, and

05:34

fascinates me.

05:35

Yeah, we're consistently coming out with new products. We spend a lot on research and development. We may test technology for 10 years before we commercialize it. But first, it's important to understand what's the problem we're trying to solve, and not just coming out with another product, right? Another SKU to carry. So we are in a number of different industry committees to work with customers, OEMs, other suppliers, to understand, hey, what are the challenges this industry in the segments facing, and maybe, what can Chevron's involvement be, and what can Chevron solution be to those challenges?

06:11

What are those challenges? Well,

06:13

this week, we're talking a lot about varnish. So Whoa, whoa, whoa, varnish. Varnish. Yeah, so, varnish is pretty typical in your circulating oil systems. It's basically a byproduct of degraded lubricant. Sometimes they call it sludge. Weird sludge.

06:31

Yeah, I know that varnish. I was thinking, oh, people talking about wood.

06:37

So I was, I was in the wood world,

06:40

yeah, yeah, so, so barns is pretty typical. And what folks don't realize is there's, there's actually a pretty easy way to you to get rid of that, right? So typically, customers, what they've done is they've either had to completely disassemble their equipment, so maybe their hydraulic systems, to clean those individually, or it's a very manual process. Sometimes they may use a solvent and actually introduce that into their lubricant. The problem with that is it can mess with the chemistry within the lubricant, lowering the flash point, which that'd be a bad day. It also typically requires you to drain that fluid right away, which causes downtime, which I think is probably everybody in this room's main thing they're trying to avoid with our product bar tech ISC. They can actually introduce that product into their lubricant and leave that system running anywhere between seven days up to eight months, in some cases, so they don't have that immediate downtime impact right away

07:42

back to varnish. Yeah, your products say, I buy a tank of your products. I get some I got some lubes right there. I got that's what I'm that's what I bought. I stick it into my process. Yep, does what it needs to do. When does varnish begin to become a problem,

08:02

variety of temperature. So the answer, nobody likes the pens, right? So typically, the more you're introducing higher heat, you're going to start to get more varnish, right? Maybe some more water could impact in your system. That could impact again, the chemistry of lubricant causing varnish deposits. So it's really depends on a variety of factors. The good news is we can actually do we can test your oil to detect what level of varnish you have in that society

08:32

and and I don't want to just buy another drum, whatever your product, so you're able to extend the life of that, that lubricant, yes, yes, because of the products that I can introduce and get rid of the varnish and ensure that, because I don't want to, I don't want to failure, yeah, no.

08:51

I mean, we even use this stuff in Chevron's off offshore platforms, right? So in these large turbines, that's street credit, yeah. And so we've actually tripled the life of the turbine oil, because again, you think about what it would take to change the oil on some of those offshore platforms. It's a big undertaking. It's very expensive, and so by being able to triple the life, it's a huge advantage

09:18

when I have to replace that oil does Chevron step up also to just ensure that the system itself is properly flushed or cleaned, or whatever you want, ready to receive a new batch

09:33

of lubricant. Yeah, yeah. So we have a pretty detailed process outlined. We'll also stick you with one of our lubrication engineers, who's there to hold your hand every step of the way, walk you through it, visit your site and help you, help you through that process as well. Then once we get all that varnish out, we'll help you pick the right product to put back in that application, because it's important to remove varnish. But you can also help prevent varnish. And so we've started using technology and things like hydraulic fluids, turbines. Fluids, compressor oils, to help prevent that varnish from happening.

10:05

Does Chevron outside of the fact that I provide the product that oil here at SMRP, we also talk about devices, IoT devices, or whatever these, these monitoring devices, does Chevron also provide the devices to to measure that varnish. Or is that still sort of one of those events that I have to go, take a sample, run it to the lab and and, you know, figure out what the varnish challenge is.

10:35

Yeah, yeah. So we actually have our own sampling program called lube watch fluid analysis. So we can, we can help you set, get a customer set up to take the right test, the frequency of the test, how you're actually pulling the sample, because that that can make a huge difference in the results that you get. So yeah, we have a program designed to help measure those type of things like varnish, like the the particle count of the fluid, like the oxidation, nitration, the viscosity, a number of different tests that we look at determine not just the health of the oil, but the health of the machine. Taking oil samples kind of like, yeah, giving blood at the doctor, right? Yeah, determine what your your health looks like.

11:18

In general, how long can your lubes? I understand you've got a, you got a, you know, a warehouse full of different lubes. I got it. But life expectancy, yeah, it varies. I know depends, right? Yeah, so in general,

11:38

11:48

okay, but then there's, there's just a plethora of glue. I mean, it's not just our draw, yeah? I mean, it's just like, like, your portfolio must be just

11:59

12:40

Where do you see it going? I mean, Where's, where's the where's the future, yeah.

12:47

So, I mean, everyone's looking to extend drains, like we're talking about now. Everyone's looking for better protection. I think the next step, especially in manufacturing, is energy efficiency, right? Oh, talk to us about that. Yeah. So we one of the products that we just launched, clarity elites, and, Aw, it's a it's a synthetic product. And we've done several studies, and folks can find this research on Chevron lubricants.com but they've actually been able to improve the efficiency by near four to 5% within their plants, and, let's say different hydraulic applications.

13:24

See, that's money to the bottom line, yeah. If you're, if you're able to achieve that level of efficiency and sustain it, yeah, that's bottom line, yeah.

13:32

And you say sustain, it brings up sustainability goals of some companies, right? You lower your your energy consumption, and it falls right in mind, yeah, speak,

13:43

do you recycle

13:46

the oils from the drain? You're just saying, Okay, we got to. We can recycle that, yeah.

13:50

So we don't personally use any recycled oil in any of our products. Currently, we also are not an oil recycler, so we don't currently do that. I will say that we do. We have started introducing some bio products into our portfolio, some some renewable base stocks into our portfolio, specifically on the hydraulic line that helps with biodegradability. Which can be important depending on which segment you're in,

14:23

see that, that, that, to me, is, it's sort of interesting. It's one of those topics that is, it really sexy? No, it's not, you know, you look at all of the stuff that's going on, but boy, is it necessary. It is, oh, it's off the charts.

14:43

Yeah, it's, it's typically with our customers. It represents 2% or maybe less of their maintenance spend. So, so sometimes it's an afterthought, right? What they don't realize, though, is it impacts drastically the rest of their budget.

14:57

I'll give you one. Do you also consult? On how they store their drones 100% Yeah? Because sometimes you like, do you really have to start it's outside in the sun, you know? Why are you doing that? Yeah?

15:09

Yeah. You're introducing all kinds of different elements, like water, right? Yeah, yeah, things that can be very harmful.

15:16

How do people get a hold of you? They're saying, I want to know more about Chevron

15:21

lubrication, yeah, the best way is just to visit our website, Chevron lubricants.com find a lot of resources and a way to contact us on there. What about you? Are you on LinkedIn? I'm on LinkedIn. Yes, I am. MacKenzie, yeah, there

15:34

you go. I'm going to have his contact information out on Industrial Talk. That's why I wanted his LinkedIn stat card out there. Makes it easier for me to say, go there, connect with that. You were great. That is such a cool topic. I always get dazzled by the amount of things that are just that, that happened out there that we just don't know anything about. Yeah, just an afterthought. Have a conversation with somebody that manages water. Nobody, nobody talks about that, but they did. We take advantage. I go over there. Water is happening. All right, you are wonderful. All right, we're gonna have all the contact information for max out on Industrial Talk. So fear not. Reach out to him. You will not be disappointed. We are broadcasting once again from SMRP, if you're in the asset management, maintenance and reliability profession and everything in between. This is the event for you. Do not do not put it off any longer. Be here next year. It's not here in Fort Worth be here. Go to SMRP. You will not be disappointed. All right, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

16:36

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network. You

16:44