Dr. Karl Hoffower with Failure Prevention Associates

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Industrial safety, electrical maintenance, closed panel monitoring, infrared inspection, ultrasonic inspection, asset management, reliability, maintenance, diagnostic tests, vibration analysis, thermal imaging, motor circuit testing, AI limitations, labor participation, skills gap.

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Hey, it's Scott MacKenzie with Industrial Talk. IRISS is the global leader in electrical maintenance safety, delivering technologies that let team inspect energized equipment safely using closed panel condition based monitoring to reduce risk and downtime. Their patented infrared and ultrasonic inspection windows make it possible to detect issues early boosting reliability and protect the people who keep the operations running. If improving safety and avoiding unplanned failures is your mission, IRISS has the solution to get you there. Learn more at IRISS.com

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you 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

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go all right once again. Welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for your continued support of this platform, this number one industry related podcast in the universe that celebrates you industrial professionals all around the world. You are bold, brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate. You're solving problems each and every day. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk, we are broadcasting live here Fort Worth Texas. It is the SMRP conference, 33

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I got that right. It took

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me a little while, Dr Karl, to get the 33 I didn't know what it was.

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I didn't know the math very, very advanced

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And just keep going. Karl, how you doing?

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I'm doing good. Scott, it's,

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it's our annual we didn't get a chance to talk last year because of the hurricane. That's correct. Yeah, bummer. Did you have everything shipped over there and then you had to bring it all back?

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No, we're going to. And then we kind of held off and thought, all right, we'll just see. And the probability that, out of an abundance of caution, they were going to cancel it was pretty high, so it wasn't in

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Tallahassee on my way. Oh, you were, oh yeah, because I always get there

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a little early, yes, because I know set up and

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all that kind of Yeah, yeah. Well, you're a professional, so back.

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You got a little fold back. Why? Yeah.

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Well, yeah, much better. Thank you. Now you're gonna let you.

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I am a slave to fashion Absolutely.

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Honestly. Look at you dapper. Dan, look who's talking. You got an Italian jacket on. Don't give me.

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We're gonna be going, man. All right. So for the listeners, you've been on the show a number of times, but we still need to level set

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for the new people. Give us a little background

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on who you are. Okay, well, my official title is Dr Karl Hoffower. I'm the former chief of Physical Medicine rehab for a medical group in Silicon Valley. I did was a doctor for 18 years, and then I decided to leave healthcare. And if you want to know the five main reasons why healthcare is an unhealthy business in America, buy me a beer. So I left healthcare, got a little time in nonprofit and decided to get into asset condition monitoring from the viewpoint of we do blood tests, we do EKG, MRIs, all that type of stuff, and I saw that great parallel between that type of diagnostic test and what we have here that you see all over the place here at SMRP right now are raising diagnostic tests to render an opinion about the health of equipment before it blows up.

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I think it was you that drove that point on home that the individuals, the professionals here are truly sort of those doctors. They're trying to assess the condition of a of the patient, which might be a pump, and then be able to to affect whatever, some some strategy to help get them better, exactly. And it's really, it's a, it's an interesting analogy. I like it, and I agree with you 100%

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All right, let's get into the conversation well. So then I

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Oh, I've been selling tools

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the entire time, Scott, I didn't know that.

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Oh, I always thought you were just the company that did

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the work on in the field.

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Oh, well, then my apologies for not advocating on the depth and breadth of what we probably glossed over. It, quite frankly, we were probably laughing once. Yeah. So, yeah. Started selling tools, and then people said, Hey, what are the squiggly lines? Mean, this is hilarious. Yeah, I had a guy, and he goes, what are these lines? Mean, listen, you're not a vibration analyst. He goes, No, I feel like I sold you an EKG machine. A month later, you go, I'm not a cardiologist. I don't know what these way, so, yeah. So, yeah, by the way, that's lake. And, hey lake. And, oh well, she's getting called by. She's fantastic. So she is just, she's been with us for, let's see, since beginning of the year, so about not eight or nine months. Yeah, yeah. So she's fantastic. She's a solution. You're Not

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You got, clearly, you're not as more important than coffee. Clearly, clearly,

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we all have our value at different times of the day.

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All right, so now, now, what tools

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do you sell? So we help people understand the depth and breadth of their needs for vibration analysis, thermal imaging, motor circuit testing. We're the number one rep for PDMA in the world, which is the best right over there? Yeah. Electric motor testing with online, offline, 24/7 Luneta oil lubrication monitoring devices, SDT ultrasound, yeah, yeah. And CTC vibration sensors. We also help with wireless. We've got a number of different companies that we've vetted for us. The top company around is kcF tech. They've got a sensor that nobody can meet when it comes to you.

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You want to know something in my studio, I ran into kcF, right? You gave Oh, is she taking a picture? Yes, yeah, she's bad. She's got her coffee. So you introduced me to kcF, yeah, over years ago. Who's the guy?

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Jeremy Frank Jeremy Franks,

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so they gave me one of their little vibration device.

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It's not one of their cutting edge ones. Whatever it was. It was, you know, first generation, whatever it might be, right? But anyway, it had a great magnet on it, because you just stick it over there.

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It was, man, oh, they gave you a real one. I thought they gave you one

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of the foam. So legit, real

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Yeah, gave you and I stuck it on one of piece of metal that's in my studio. Is like, yeah, right there, baby. Oh, yeah, that's vibration.

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And I'll, I'll use it as a it's like, Hey, check this out. This is the device.

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Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I'll have to look at the videos. I digress. I digress. No problem at all. So, and then, you know, like, blue deck, a laser shaft alignment. Yeah, greatest product that has been put on the market in a number of years. So we are partnered with ludeca laser alignment, so lots of different companies that we work with, yeah, you know, our thing is just, let's look at your situation. What vertical Are you in? What sort of manufacturing are you doing, or process that you have, yeah, and then implement which strategy. Because I can sell you toys. We got tons of toys. Yeah, here's the thing that I want to talk about, like IOT, all the wireless sensors.

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There's tons. You better throw

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AI in there. Oh, yeah, yeah. The thing about AI as proven to have some real advantages, but, but when you actually look at it with from a subject matter expert. Right now, there's a lot of AI that's kicking out answers Yeah, and they're not always correct, so you need people who actually understand yes and value, understand the value that it's trying to generate, but then balance that with reality, because AI is just what's AI doing as collecting the opinions of other people that it can find on the internet and summarizing for you. So it's really good at summarizing data. However, I've asked it questions, and I and I've used chat, GBT and grok and what was the Microsoft one, copilot, copilot, those, just to name a few, right? We've, we've asked the same question to a number of them, gotten similar answers, and then asked, Why did you give this answer? And it was fascinating that they're like, Oh, well, we found this, and we found this. Yeah, this, yeah. So it's just who plays the better game at putting yourself in the

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here's my beef with AI. I I think one AI is good. It's a good it's a good tool. Yeah. Secondly, I don't see how you can decouple the human interaction with it. It's like, okay, I'm going to use AI. I'm going to use that AI to determine the health of that asset. But there still is the point to say AI. Might say, hey, raise up the hand and say, there's something going on here. You still need that human element, correct? Right there, yes, here's my here's my thing, and you can pull on it if you so choose one, as we continue to evolve as a society, and the use of AI, right, right?

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AI is only as

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successful as you continue to feed that large language model with a. Unique perspectives, insights, studies, right, correct. But as

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we continue to evolve, we continue to

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just use AI and just sort of hope that it pulls back information. It's starving itself because, because we don't have new content, because it's just too easy to go to get some information. Yeah, but we don't feed the law large language model with unique content, so it starves itself. That's why these platforms like what we do here, and have these conversations and then transcribe it helps feed and keeps feeding that model, because you bring that perspective that that's

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no that's fantastic. Oh, right there

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no head. The cranium was just throbbing on that. I agree

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with you 100% in fact, for a number of years, I've been saying I believe we need to really validate, solidify and codify h i human intelligence, yes, before we go to the AI, yes. So, and that's the point I was trying to make. You know, I wanted to talk about some controversial about why wireless sensors are going to be a failure for you. And the reason being is because, if you don't, it doesn't matter how many sensors you have or how often you're taking your data, if you're do not have the strength of leadership to implement change in your organization to take advantage of it, then it's just a waste of

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money that you bring up one of the very important topics from my perspective, and that is that's that culture, that's that that human element, because I don't care how much you automate, but if you don't have that, that that that culture to be able to support it. Long term, it falls apart. Correct? It just does. There's, there's

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no way. How do you, how do you address?

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How do you? Karl, with your company, failure prevention. What's a it's a big, long name, failure prevention. Associates. Yeah, could remember associates. How about that?

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You talk to a lot of people. Scott, so it failure prevention associates, otherwise known as FPA. How do we address this?

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How do you Yeah, how do you

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inspire the next generation? How do you bring them on board?

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Well, our thing that I've advocated and spoke about this a lot, so please just Google Dr Karl Hoffa, and you'll find Scott MacKenzie's fantastic Industrial Talk videos, so talking about the skills gap and how to close those gaps. So our perspective is, do you have a labor force that has been educated well enough that they understand what to do and what not to do?

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And I have to say, nine times out of 10 that's a no.

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It's sadly, bro, I think it is, yeah. So I did another discussion on the labor participation, participation rates, yeah. And you can, I wish I had the graphic here. It's pretty cool, but it was rising, rising, rising as women entered the workforce in the 70s and then in the 80s, that kind of peaked in the 80s, 90s, and it's our decline. Of course, we had a massive drop in participation after covid, yeah, but it's never quite recovered, nope. So we're hovering around 63% of the potential labor force that's actually participating, whereas before you spend the 80% time.

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So we're at

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63% no way, yes, yeah, you can go to Federal Reserve. Donnie, yeah, it's amazing.

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It was at 80,

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yeah, so it's slowly coming back, yeah. So I, you know, I'm gonna get political for a little bit every time we talk about immigration, legal or illegal, yeah, we do not have the funding to our immigration people, for them to be able to get these cases through quickly, right? Right? And the thing about it is, there's always this thing of, well, we have to be slow, because we don't know who's a danger, who's a terrorist, right? The only thing is, is you can't prove a negative. That's why, in the United States and other intelligent nations, you're innocent until proven guilty, because you can't prove a negative, prove you're not insane. Scott, well, I can't exactly, but I can prove you are crazy. That's easy. That's low hanging fruit, exactly. So, so you can't prove negatives. So my grandfather was a border patrol agent for 32 years.

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Wow, yeah, wow. So I'll bet you he has some stories, he is

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wild stories. Wild stories. Him and his partner were busting so many illegals in Chicago in the 50s that and this is while the Congress member for Chicago and and the mayor were saying, we don't have an illegal labor problem here. And him and his partner were bringing in 100 people a day, and so they gave him a plaque, promoted him, and they moved him from Chicago, Illinois to Kingsville, Texas. Wow, yeah. Was not a promotion. Wow, not a promotion, wow. So that kind of cooled the agent. So if you think that the agents are the agents have always been trying to do their job. It's always been pulled. Medical and until they change how that labor participation has been allowed to come about with a cheap labor source, it's not going to go away. So my point is, though, is the solution would be, we need to do better funding to get people through the immigration court so

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they I agree with that, because

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here's here's here's what I hear.

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You know, we've got this, I believe, this renaissance.

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We're trying to take this market here

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in the United States

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and bring in, re shore, near shore, whatever, more manufacturing, more opportunities, build this economy. Oh, it's fantastic. It's great. It's off the charts. All I can see is that's great.

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There's a people

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we don't have the people how, and we're not we're not inspiring the next generation. We're just not I, and it's such a long tail strategy, we've done such a great job. You're an anomaly, Karl, you're an anomaly, that you were a doctor, and then you just decided that, well, I'm not doing that anymore.

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I'm going over here to industry.

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Well, that's a hell of a move. Thank you. That's a hell of a move, but we in this country have done a great job of discouraging the pursuit of industrial professions, correct? Yeah, and we've, we've, we were successful, yeah? Now we're trying to say, hey, let's bring all of manufacturing back in, but

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we don't have the people. We don't have the people. Yeah? I mean, certain places like Alabama does a great job partnering and paying their community colleges to create the crafts training, you know, mechanical, electrical, right? We do that at San Jac San Jacinto Community College has this

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a heck of a college, yeah?

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Lionel center. And it's, it's not just Lionel. There's, there's hundreds of companies. There's a conica has done a good job. Kara has done a good job. They've all funded the most beautiful labs I've ever seen around, not being used to the degree that you would think so. See again, I it's, you know, Mike Rowe does a fantastic job evangelizing this.

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He follows me. Oh, get fantastic.

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I just wanted to sort of fly out. Well, Mike, if you are looking for another person to tell the rest of the story, you should talk to Scott MacKenzie. There's a little police All right, there we go. So, but I just saw Mike present at the CARDONE growth conference, yes, a few months ago, and he used to talk about 4 million jobs. Now he's up to 6 million. So that was a significant change for me over that, and he's been talking about this for years and years, right? Of giving work scholarships for people to go learn a trade, and it's fantastic. But where I'm working towards is I have heard no I've heard that Tiktok in China pushes sciences and learning and education, while the algorithm that they throw the United States is just let me dance with my pants are on my car is, you know, rolling with no driver, right? Right? Now, there's stupid, goofy things. So just like AI, has some advantages. There's also some some disadvantages. Same thing with social media, and I think social media can be some great stuff. I just had a reunion a couple weeks ago in California with a bunch of my swim and water polo team members. Yeah, unfortunately, we got together because one of my my roommate when I was on the swim team, he passed away from pancreatic cancer. Rapid, yeah. So terrible reason to get together, but still a great celebration of his life and and getting to see people I haven't seen in decades that all came about from social media that probably wouldn't have happened without it. So there are pros and cons. My thing about when it comes to IoT and wireless sensors, like you're getting all this data. And I used to think, Oh, something failed. More sensors, more data. That's not it. It's when you are presented with some information about something's failing. Are you taking the next step to understand why did it fail that you're not usually doing that? No, like a bearing fault, are you? Are you find out, did that bearing fault start out as an inner race? Fault, an outer race, fault, a rolling element. Fault, was it a lubrication issue, right? So we have a recommendation, and if you want go to failure prevention, Comm, slash, ruin, r, u, I N, ruin, and just say you want the the bearing life study just put in the word bearing in the Contact page, but we have a strategy to stop people from having outer race faults of their bearings because they are sitting still for too long, and vibration is constantly happening, and it ends up denting the outside of The outer race, and then they finally put it into use. It gets hot, that dent that came over time, then swells up with thermal growth. And then you shut it down, and it goes down. It goes a couple of cycles of thermal cycling, and you flick a piece of metallock, and suddenly a bearing failed in three months of use. And you're like, How could that be? It's a brand new motor we've just. Put it into play. Yeah, so if you guys want more information on how to get around that, but it never ends.

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Karl, I mean, everything just like a tsunami of of just I've always been an advocate for educating and collaborating with right people, trusted individuals to be able to answer your problem or challenges in any way and innovating. But this whole education, it's, it's a tsunami.

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Well, we've talked about before, right? The silver tsunami of gray hair retirement is washing away knowledge, know how, and skills, right? So, and part of it comes from things like, we, you know, like you used to have to jump a car batteries. You had to know electricity when you're 14, right, right, to help your parents get the car crossing. Yeah, exactly. Don't cross it. I mean, I did, I remember I did that one time. Never forget that. Yeah. So, you know, not to blow my horn too much, but I make my kids learn how to jump a car battery. Yeah. I mean, I remember a couple years ago, the dryer went out. It wasn't, it wasn't heating. So I had my daughter behind the dryer with a multimeter testing all the connections, yeah, and she's crying. She's like, No, Dad makes their daughter doing this like, big, quiet, kPa. And then she found the fault, and all of a sudden, meter went, and I go see what? And she's like, Oh my gosh, yeah, okay, I go, so let's take that part off. And then she found the coils in the heater were broken, and she was like, oh, it's amazing. I wasn't this great. She goes, No, I still don't like it, Dad, but I do understand why he made me do this. No other father's making their daughter use a Fluke multimeter behind the dryer.

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Yes, classic Fluke

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So, but yeah, wanted to give those guys a shout out. Oh, that's good stuff.

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How do people get a hold of you? Karl, go

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to failure prevention, calm. Or they can just google. Dr Karl, with a K, Dr Karl, Hoffman, but you're on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook, but LinkedIn failure prevention. Look up failure or again, last thing, failure, pension.com/ruin, and that'll be a landing page in game contact, don't

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worry about it. It'll all be out on Industrial Talk.

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Well, I do want to talk more some other time about the depth and breadth of where wireless can fail. What? Yeah, well, we got more time next time.

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Yeah, well, you can do another one.

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Okay, we got just look on my calendar right there. Figured out, then we'll do and we won't.

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Yeah, but good to see you. Thank you again. Always great to have you.

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Always great to have you. All right, once again, we're gonna have all the contact information for Karl out on Industrial Talk, so reach out to him, make sure that that is a connection, that you make a priority. Yes, there you go. We are, once again, broadcasting on site SMRP, and it is a collection of a bunch of Karl's that have solutions in their noggin, and they're just constantly just popping out. They're solving problems right here. So if you are in the world of asset management, maintenance or reliability, this is a must attend event. Put it on your 26th calendar. All right, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

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You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

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There it is, right there. His staff card. Dr Karl, half hour, right there, right there. All his contact information will be out on Industrial Talk. So you need to reach out to this gent, because he does not disappoint. He truly has all heart for your success. And it's great, always, absolutely, always great to be able to have him on Industrial Talk. Yeah, check out his other conversation. Always a delight, always lively and always insightful. That's Dr Karl right there. Make it happen. Failure prevention associates, is the organization? All right? You in the world of asset management? Are you? Are you in the world of maintenance, yeah, reliability, yeah. And you're not attending SMRP, you got a problem. You need to be there. You need to be there because they are the leader in all things reliable. They just are. They're just an amazing organization, and it's led by amazing individuals who have just really given their hearts and soul for this industry. It is. It's one of my favorite conferences, and the reason it is is because everybody's just wanting to help solve challenges and and I think specifically, personally, as I continue to sort of be in this world, I've seen it evolve from whatever, it's not a big deal, whatever, to where it is today. Because I think companies, well, I know companies are really interested. In, you know, optimization, and that is a Asset Management reliability, you know, equation. You want to optimize your organization. You want to optimize your your operations. Yeah, it is SMRP. Check them out. Industrial Talk is here for you. You again. We need to inspire the next generation of, you know, industrial leaders, specifically in the world of reliability and asset management. We need to, you know how we do that, we tell our story, we show our personality, we put ourselves out there, and be able to say, Yes, this is an important industry to be involved in. We need to do that. You need to do that. Industrial Talk is here for you. Just go out to Industrial Talk.com. Click Connect. Talk to me. Let's tell your story. Let's get you the attention you so deserve. All right. Be bold, be brave. Derek greatly.

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Hang out with Karl.

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Change all the world. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So stay tuned.