On this week's Industrial Talk we're talking to Erick Bartusek with Apache, Tom Bonny and Nate Clark with Deloitte Consulting about “The Challenges and Value of Digital in Oil and Gas”.  Get the answers to your “Oil and Gas” questions along with their unique insights on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

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ERICK BARTUSEK'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erickbartusek/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/apache-corporation/

Company Website: https://apacorp.com/

TOM BONNY'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bonny-7bab94/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deloitte/

Company Website: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html

Last Barrel Standing:  Upstream Oil and Gas Energy Transition | Deloitte US

NATE CLARK'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanielafclark/

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

digital, people, organization, digital transformation, tom, important, operator, conversation, Erick, industrial, small victories, business, deloitte, operations, solutions, industry, field, apache, trust, strategy

00:00

Hey, Industrial Talk is brought to you by CAP Logistics. You want to minimize downtime. Absolutely. increase reliability, you bet ensure operational profitability. Yes, you do. That means you need 24/7 365 insights into your supply chain, look no further CAP Logistics, go to caplogistics.com Or just call them. They're great people 800-227-2471 Also, AiDash, AiDash is on a mission to create a greener, cleaner, safer planet from space. AiDash helps core industries become more resilient, efficient, and sustainable through the power of satellites and AI. Go out to AiDash.com Find out more

00:56

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.

01:13

And let's get around once again, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk. And definitely thank you for your support of this platform that celebrates industry heroes all around the world. You're bold, brave, and you dare greatly. And it is important that we collaborate more and more each and every day. Industry, technology, innovation is happening so fast, and you need to be a part of it. We're all about education. We're all about collaboration, and definitely all about innovation on this platform, and you got to be a part of it. So go out to Industrial Talk.com. All right, we're talking digital transformation, we're talking about the energy sector, oil and gas, and how that looks, whatever that journey looks like we've got a Apache Corporation, we've got Deloitte, let's get cracking. Yeah. Whether you like it or not, you got to be in the digital game, you got to find trusted people to be in the digital game. Because it's going to it's not going away. And if you want to have a business that's resilient, that has some sort of long term, ability to succeed, you need to be in the digital game. And and that's the decision, you need to be finding somebody a Sherpa of some sort to help you on that journey. And that's why we're having this great conversation with Deloitte and in Apachi and talk about how digital transformation is helping the energy space. And once you got to consider and all of the the wonderful, exciting future had has in us in the energy space. So anyway, this is going to be a great conversation. So you don't it's a paper and pencil. It's definitely a paper and pencil conversation. All right. We've got some conferences, the one conference that we have coming up, I think, well, next week, middle of October, it's the SMRP 30th anniversary, our annual conference. And, and it is about you know, it's a symposium of maintenance and reliability professionals, we're going to be broadcasting live, and getting the latest catch on what's taking place within the reliability and maintenance space, most definitely going to be excited about that. That is in Raleigh, North Carolina 30th Annual Conference go out there, it's all out there, you got to be a participant in that one. The other one that I want to put on your calendar is Fabtech. Now we just did IMTS. But Fabtech is just every bit is just amazing. And that is we're talking about November 8 through the 10th. This is in Atlanta, Georgia. And we're going to be broadcasting live there. And if you're going to be there, if you're going to, you know, pitch a tent there. Come and see me, I'm going to have all the my I'll have the booth number out there most definitely so that you can connect with Connect with us get on the calendar, let's have a conversation. Or better yet, if you have a booth and you want somebody to do a on the spot, technology speed date. Yep. Industrial Talk is where it's at. All right. Let's get cracking with the conversation. Again, digital transformation is here. Whether you like it or not, if you're in the energy, space, you're in it, you got to figure it out. And you got to figure out a plan to be able to do that and walk through that journey and be a success. We need you to be a success. That's what this platform is about. We want you to succeed. Everything that we do on Industrial Talk is geared toward your success, whatever that might be. And it is geared toward the collaboration with professionals that can truly help you succeed. So digital transformation, oil and gas, the energy sector, enjoy this conversation. All right, James, welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for finding time in your busy schedule to talk to the best listeners in the whole wide world if not the universe. How're you guys doing? Great See, I'm pretty geeky about this particular conversation. And I've had the conversation around digital transformation, all that digital journey when it goes to the manufacturing and all this oil and gas listeners, we are going to talk about that digital journey when it applies to oil and gas. All right, before we get into that topic, and then some Erick, I would love for you to share your little 411 on who you are. And then we're just going to go round robin on that. So give us a little background.

05:31

Yeah, sure. Appreciate it's got. My name is Erick Bartusek. Apachi is director of global digital enablement. I've been in that seat for a little under a year now. My previous experience prior to joining Apache was all in the energy industry, mostly either in consulting or the software space. So been doing this stuff for a little bit and excited to chat with the group today.

05:52

And when you say energies just for clarification, we're talking oil and gas, are we talking that that energy as opposed to some people say generation and that's energy and all of that stuff? So yeah, absolutely

06:03

my, so my prior experience kind of covered all aspects of it. But, but the focus here today is oil and gas. And that's what Apache does.

06:11

All right. Thank you, man. All right, Tom, give us a little background on who you are.

06:15

Tom Bonny with Deloitte, I head up our core operations practice for with an upstream, which today, none of that happens without talking about the role of digital improvement, how we work out anywhere from the office to the field.

06:29

A lot of work out there in nature. Next, give us a little background. Nick Clark,

06:34

I'm Deloitte’s lead partner for oil, gas chemicals, digital globally. And so my job is to help us all have the maximum impact on our clients with the all the exciting stuff you can do with digital. So it's fun job.

06:46

So the reality is with this panel, if if we have a digital conversation, that has not been, I guess, invented, it doesn't exist, because these guys are in the thick of it big time. We'll go with that for sure. All right. With that said, this is gonna be to you, Erick, sort of lay out why. And it's a big one. And you and Tom need you can join in to lay out why a digital strategy is important to the oil and gas market. Yeah, sure.

07:19

I think we're I always like to start is like, why are we doing this period, whether it's digital or not. And so, you know, the exciting thing for the oil and gas industry is, you know, producing safe, efficient operations for for an energy producer, it's the most important thing we can do. Right? Be safe, be efficient. And I look at digital as just being, you know, a component of figuring out how can we do that better, faster, cheaper, right? You know, digital transformation is going to cover a lot of different aspects for data process a whole bunch of different ways you can kind of slice and dice this. But you know, the idea behind digital is we're not, we're not here inventing software, you're not an operator, we're here kind of leveraging the best tools and technology we can to go back to that main anchors, safe, efficient operations.

08:11

Yeah, what always pops into my head is where do you start? You know, I just, these are not these are complex. Manufacturing, entities are big, they're complex things are moving. Tom, in the world of Deloitte and others, what do you start? If you come in, and you're saying, hey, let's, let's look, because it's, pretty much everything could be sort of, to a certain extent, digitize, tell us sort of walk us through that a little process.

08:41

But I think that's probably been some of the challenges the industry has faced is not knowing where to start. So they started kind of everywhere. I'd say the good news is, we do this annual digital benchmark survey. And this past one, which I think we released the beginning of the year, what was different from this time from previous times, we always ask this question of, you know, is digital impacting the industry in years past? You'd always have some people go, maybe? No, this time? 100%? Yes, no one, everyone's on board now. So that's been a shift. The other thing, though, that the higher the report highlighted was, everyone's kind of given this big picture vision. But after that, it's maybe I went to production, maybe I went to drilling. So I did a functional focus. Or maybe I took my one asset in the Permian, but didn't focus ever. That's been the challenge. Now, we've gone off piecemeal, there is no real enterprise strategy that brings them together, say, big picture, what are we trying to solve for? And I think that's the challenge now that I see operators in general trying to tackle is create much more holistic picture. We did some some, you know, some goodness, some random acts of digital who got the content that that delivered value, but how do we think about it more strategically? I think that's still an option a proper

09:58

Yeah, because I would imagine how They're there. It's like, hey, hey, this digital things great. Yeah, I can put a device out on this asset and start pulling data. Yeah, I can do that. And it's sort of in the in the conference rooms. Now, one of the challenges also outside of the like, where to start with all of this, Nate. It's trust. If I go out and I Google, like Google, digital transformation, I'm gonna get a gazillion hits. I don't even know. This, like, not only I don't know where to start, but who do I trust? Who is that Sherpa that I'm going to put my arm around? Again, thank you very much for helping us because we know it's important. Tell us a little bit about

10:42

that.

10:43

I mean, I don't even know. Well,

10:45

I think the first thing, Scott is that they're Digital's pretty broad. And so I don't think there's just one Sherpa that can help with anything. And so the first thing I'd emphasize is trusting yourself. If we're certainly in the professional services business, we're here to be the people who get a phone call to help with things. But even with that in mind, I'm telling you, you need to own your own transformation. If you have a bunch of people like Tom and I come in and help and do it for you, or do it to you, it's not going to be as successful as if the leadership team owns it themselves. So who Who do you need to trust, you need to trust yourselves, you also have to make sure this is a leadership team discussion. And then people like Tom and I can help out to focus that conversation and say, where can you get the biggest bang for your book? What should you stay away from what's the fastest path, but you've got to own it yourself. The other piece is that there are different areas to digital. And so to wait those things around process definition, software, acceleration and change management, it's a long list. At the same time, there are hardware companies out there that do things we don't touch me way whatsoever whatsoever, which are also just as important. So you got to be comprehensive, and the partners you bring in to think through this with you. Also, very, it's also the industry too. And so the lines between you where your company starts and ends, and where the next one starts an answer getting grayer, something that we talked about the digital, the digital report that Tom was just referring to, is how the ecosystem plays together. So as an example, for any oil and gas company, they have a very, very healthy partnership with their field service providers, with drillers, with suppliers. And so digital allows you to make those relationships a lot more efficient, and share savings on all sides. They have been part of the conversation too. So no one Sherpa trust yourself.

12:33

So that that brings up the question to you, Erick. I mean, there's that decision. Your company said, Yes, let's go down this road. Are you trusting in yourself? Are you trusting in the people around you saying, Yeah, this is where we need to go? Because to Nate's point, where are we it? You know, what's going on? You know, so he's gonna say, don't go there go over here. This is where we have a problem or a challenge or an opportunity. So take us through that that sort of dialogue that you're having internally?

13:06

Yeah, I think one thing that I've observed a lot of operators is figuring out how can you anchor those digital use cases back to you know, a value proposition, right, or a real problem to solve. Sometimes, if they're done in a silo is sort of that ideation process happens in a vacuum, you know, any of us can go out on Google and read the latest white paper on a really interesting bit of kit that got deployed out in the field, and you start thinking, You know what, maybe we should try that here. Right? It seems like a thing that's been done. And maybe we can find the same value here. And ultimately, that you might find some hits. But you can get a lot of distractions to write because which ID is going to be the one that really adds value for my organization. I think it's always been much more valuable for for an operator to take a look at those strategic objectives for their entire organization, and sort of decompose them down into opportunities for digital to help enable those, right. So if you're, if your organization as a whole is looking at trying to, you know, be better at drilling, increase production, minimize costs, you know, there's some very macro level themes that an organization is trying to support and then work with those asset teams to figure out what are some of the bottlenecks, or maybe it's not even a challenge, maybe it's an opportunity you want to exploit, we already do something well, but we want to do it better. I think that's where a digital partner, whether its internal or external, can really come to the table and say, Okay, I now understand what you're trying to achieve. I have some ideas on either the problems you're facing or the opportunity to exploit. Now, I'm gonna bring either my past experience or if I don't have past experience myself, I can work with partners, vendors to come in and bring some best practices, but then at least you're anchored to that sort of macro problem to solve as opposed to doing it in silos and pockets. And again, I think when it's done that way in pockets, that's where you're at the most risk for not being able to scale it later. Because you may have that initial success. And it may look just like the white paper you read, but it becomes very difficult to figure out if it was ever anchored in something more valuable to the organization. And so I think that's been a big piece of trusting yourself means kind of staying, staying honest with what you're trying to do as an organization and making sure digital is not off doing its own thing that's not in support of those, those macro objectives.

15:31

I might add to that, just quickly, Scott, yeah, no,

15:34

don't go. You know, when

15:35

he asked the question, you know, earlier, when we were having a sidebar was about like, when did these types of roles become more prevalent within an industry? I mean, I can't exactly remember all the time, because COVID make me forget timing of these days. But in the last five years, it seems like this is where you've seen people like Erick much more come into play. And really is it was all about that building the trust? What's the connectivity between the folks who know how to develop and design some of these solutions, but the folks who live and breathe and day in and day out who need these solutions, the core of the business? Well, that's the role of these digital leaders is really about how do I bring that connection together? How do I build better trust between these sides of the business to basically enable and sustain these for the longer run?

16:21

Yeah, you're spot on, I just my mind is, is just sort of juggling a lot of things just because, one, you, you want to do it, right, you want to pull in the right people and white organizations, you know, you want to have that, that dialogue, and tackle the real opportunities that exist in your organization. Nate, is there is there sort of like this necessity to, you know, you define the strategy of saying, Yeah, we're gonna do this, we're, we're embracing this, this digital thing, and then be able to go out and mark it and say, Hey, we're doing it. Now we just need help, is there there's zero necessity, because a lot of people in the field are just saying, Hey, I don't have that. I got it. I got this over here. And I got this over here. And I gotta do this. And I got that they have a lot to do. You're adding you're adding more work to them?

17:13

Well, we're dealing with a lot here is a little bit what is the strategy, but also what you're grounding us on Scott, which is that this is all about getting it done. And so a phrase I frequently use is our clients don't want digital strategies, they want the results of digital getting done. And so let's put that let's use that as the anchor point to this, this this piece of thought, what we want to see when a client works on their digital strategy, and where we try to help them is to start with what their ambitions are, and also what they don't want to do. There's so many things and upstream company could take on, they could say, we're going to be the best producer, we're going to say we're the best, most fast reactive driller, we could say we can handle the most amount of environments, it say that we're the best at being able to scale up and down based on economic conditions. There's a lot of things that all based on their business strategy that are rational ways of picking this up. But they can't do is they can't do it all. They need to make some choices. And so the first step is taking the business, the areas of your business that are unique to you, and it can make you successful, then double click, the double clicks are okay, if we want to be the world's best driller, what does that look like? What would that bestseller look like? And be unconstrained. So really, could we go to completely lights out operations on some of these areas can be completely automated can we can have everything concentrated in one global drilling center, etcetera down? And what happens if you do this? Well, you keep double clicking and saying, Okay, well, we know what that looks like, what are the projects we need to get done to get that done? And spec that out? And then go even deeper? And say, what would that costs who from our organization do we need to take out of the day to day to go make that happen? What partners maybe we need to bring in to help make that happen as well. And only at this stage, we're getting to what you refer to Scott about what you need to bring into this, because I'd rather have a client start with business strategy, all the way down to how we're going to get this done, and that specificity and then bring the partners in. And this is very, very simple reason. When I've talked to clients about this, I used to maintain a slide which had about 400 Digital terms on it, and every one of them was actually quite important. But when you're looking at that mess of all the things that can be important, you get lost and you can't concentrate on what makes sense to do first. And so here's mine doesn't make a decision. That's for doggone. Sure. So that order of how you pick this up can be very important. At least that's how I think about it.

19:36

Again, it just seems daunting, and it does require an organization to sort of be real and candid with the objective, the objective out there their strategy, but I like the fact that that strategic objective is to get done to do it to show results. In light of that, Tom, do you find it important for an organization? You know, for the naysayers out there? Because there probably some naysayers out there to have small victories, small wins?

20:15

A great question, because one of the most interesting things that came out from our last benchmark study was this value. Everyone's like, how are you capturing value? How are you measuring value, and you have different degrees of success. And I want you to keep that word small victories in mind. Because those that score tended to score the lower ranks, were those that were overly methodical, wanted very detailed charters wanted a bunch of give me numbers and date, and I want to be able to point to a line in a p&l and say, show me that value that actually slowed them down. So oil and gas companies love stage gates, you know, maybe not for onshore unconventional, but when I develop offshore, all these stage gates, well, they're applying that methodology, some of them to how I actually deliver digital, so that's actually slowing you down. The ones that scored the best, were the ones who had folks who are focused and working with the core business, the core operations and what's delivering value to me. And it wasn't organizationally, sometimes, you know, there's different org structures, but it's not about where the person sits. But it's how those people work together. And you we had one conversation with an ops manager who was basically like, I completely trust the value. Because I talked to the folks in the field, they say, are you seeing value from these things are saying I get it, it's helping make my job easier. I can then point to those small victories. The reason I say small victories are important that if I do something on improving how my artificial lift performs, I can go to use cases or examples of say, at that point, these analytics, self adjusted, brought up production or warned me that something was happening. So we did we change the behavior. But look, seeing that in a p&l is very difficult. But seeing those cases are very easy to pull out. And those resonated more and better with more senior leadership than the night those organizations scored better than those who tried to be micromanaged to the to the an individual number in a p&l.

22:13

Yeah. And Erick, there's, Tom brings up like, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I

22:18

was, I was thinking about his way he was describing it and sort of thinking about, there's a time and a place for the moonshot digital projects, right, that are very, you know, transformative in nature, multi years to accomplish. Maybe that's what people's minds gravitate to when they think about digital transformation is some of those big broad scope things. But my goodness, there's so much opportunity on call it like the baseball analogy, the singles and the doubles, where you can make real impact in operations. And quickly, right. And at the end of the day, especially if an operator is in a position where they're trying to build some trust, build some credibility for their their digital program, getting this singles and doubles, getting people on base with achievable digital projects that make a material difference, you know, in our in our field operations, or any of those situations, that can be just as valuable, if not more valuable than sort of those those moonshot projects. So I think having an appreciation for where an operator is, and sort of their lifecycle and maturity, would be really important. And just recognizing that there's a, there's a lot of value to be captured in some of those calm, safer bets that you can get something usable in a month or two versus, you know, the six to 12 month projects. Go ahead. And

23:41

Erick, certainly picking that up. And I agree with everything Erick, and Thomas said in terms of you know, you want those small wins, and they're more reliable, they're easier to sell, they build momentum in the organization. But there's another hidden advantage. We don't know what is actually going to transform the organization. And so when you take one of those big bets, it's a very, very big bet. I'd rather see a client, make some progress and improve this and improve this and improve this. And then once they have that higher level of knowledge and capability, then they know where to go next from there. So it's time so when we think about a digital transformation, we're not just thinking about the transformation, but also the transformation machine. What kind of things are we putting in place within the client so they can continuously improve and do it rapidly? It doesn't take two years to do something. It takes months, two weeks?

24:25

Yeah. And I there's there's one side of me that says yeah, and I liked that internal knowledge. You know, this is still new to some Ryan, you're, you're trying to build that internal capability of saying, yeah, now we know what now we're thinking a little bit different. Yeah, that can be digitized. Yeah, whatever it might be, be able to have that embedded in your organization. The question I would have and this is to you, Erick, is is a great got a little victory here got a little victory here. How do you sustain that and sort of make sure that people still see those little victories right and, and they always sort of come together in a much bigger Randers, you know, strategy, right? Just like, yeah, leave that one alone out

25:06

there? Well, sure. And it goes back to we were talking earlier about scaling things and making sure that they're not pocket proof of concept projects that go nowhere later. I think it ties back into the resource dedication, we kind of touched on a little bit earlier, but ensuring that there's there's ownership on the functional side of the business to bring these solutions to life and understand how you're going to take something that may feel like a small victory, but then scale it for the future, in my, my observation from from multiple operators has always been that if you can get those functional resources kind of out of the day to day, and dedicate the time to say, look, I'm going to take, maybe it's a production engineer, out of there, monitoring a specific set of wells in the Permian. But now I'm going to take them and say, Look, you're going to think about just how we monitor wells period, that that whole process and the tools and technology required to do it, then they can help figure out both those immediate near term use cases that may be seen as small victories build up that muscle memory of how we go about solving things digitally, but then they can then carry it forward and scale it right, you can also help them figure out how to go, don't be so heads down on just this one asset. Think of you know, global operations, right. And many operators don't just operate in one area, they may operate internationally, I mean, making sure you have someone whose remit is to think about how you can scale something beyond even just a particular business unit or asset level, you got to have that functional dedication, you got to be able to get them out of the day job, let them focus on identifying those near term wins, but also give them the remit to say you're not just gonna roll straight back into the business. As soon as that one use case is done.

26:53

It's all the time, you know that it's hard time to you in it, no doubt about it. Like it or not, you need to be in the digital game, you need to figure out how to be able to begin that journey. And I agree with it. 100%. But it always gets down to is sort of the challenges. It's always human, right? It's always churn, there's people coming and going and all of this stuff. And I, I liked the fact that if you elevate the digital journey, the transformation and the digitization of your business, and you have an at a high enough level, then there's some stability with the strategy, but how do you deal with this sort of how do you educate, read, you know, re educate whatever the terms are out there? What do we do?

27:42

So the biggest thing that I think we've opportunity, whenever I think about things, is you actually go out to the field, and you work with them hand in hand to deploy and do the change management. It's not about headquarters sending things and just saying, hey, adoption, you have folks who have been working this and I mean, I've done these, it's called you take a ride along out one of these assets and all that and they're like, Well, I've been doing this 20 years, 30 years, that's how we've always done it, why do I need to change it, I get my nice little paper book and I up there and I write numbers on it. And we did work with one client, call it five years ago. And we did a bunch of these ride alongs. And the very first one I did the individual says I was like, alright, you know, let's see a day in the life of what is it like for you out there? And I was like, Hey, if you think about everything that you've got, how can we do things differently? And you know, eventually get straight to the what type of tools or anything like that. And he's like God, nothing. So people, that's all I need more. I'm like, alright, well, that's not, that's not the main way to solve this. But then once you got to other people could think a little differently. Because he was he's an example of the old school mindset. But then we start working with a few other folks who also realized that technology is changing. The ability to capture data and use data is changing. Those folks are the ones same exact folks. But those are the ones you work on and say, Well, what do you need? How could you think differently. And a lot of these are, even if some of them who've been working there for 20 years, or some who have only 10 years, and some of them only five years? It's just a matter of saying, Well, if I do this in my everyday life with Amazon, with Google, all these other tools I have, well how can I apply that same thought to here, those are the individuals you target. Those are the individuals who need to be part of your solution. And then when you go to deploy and all that we created sometimes, like digital champions who did some stuff on an offshore platform for a few of them for an operator and it was like on every platform, we had back to back Digital Champions for the solutions that we're deploying. Make sure that hey, if you need to phone a friend or in this case, you can you tap on the on the platform, there's the person you're gonna go.

29:48

You're almost have to just make it that simple. I don't want friction, right? I'm secure and I'm warm and fuzzy with my little clipboard and piece of paper. I've done it for years and all of that With that said, Nate, how do you? And Tom brought up some good points? But how do you start to take in all of those legacy back of the envelope data points that are so important to that asset, and begin to pull it in to create that analytics that give that picture of that? Right there that one? Because you know that there's, there's file cabinets full of this stuff. What do we do?

30:28

I remember a long time ago, I took a course I worked for General Electric for a long time. And when this course, kind of reflected that it was on negotiating with unions, and I'm going somewhere with this. And the interesting thing is they had a video clip, and it was a union leader who was like, I was talking about working collaboratively with the field and headquarters. And the statement from the union leader was that for 20 years, you've had my back. And if you just come a little further, you could have had my mind as well. And that's, that's how I personally pick it up. Then nobody knows the field better than the field. Nobody knows. The equipment and the person who's worked on it, listen to it knows literally how things are supposed to smell. And so the other piece of it as we think about it, I've rarely met the people who sit there and say, you know, I've got my clipboard, and that's good enough, right, I'm able to go home and border anything in my kitchen, by speaking a few magic words, and Amazon makes it up here. And I think my job shouldn't be like that. So that I find it more helpful. And people know who the people are, who are innovative, who want to change, you're interested in new stuff, this advances their careers, this makes things better, these people wouldn't be in their jobs, watching the most important assets that companies got, if they didn't care, and they didn't want to do good things. It's good point. So I think the easiest thing is you have to talk to them, show them how this works. There'll be some doubts, there'll be some questions and those deservedly so. But those are actually be questions to get, because sometimes half those questions meet lack of knowledge, half this question is going to be like, Oh, we didn't think of that. That's a good point, we really should incorporate that as well.

32:04

I think it has to happen now. And I, you know, I can't speak for the workforce. I can't i All I know is that I've heard the term silver tsunami, right? We're getting ready to retire, there is a movement in that direction. And, and we're trying to backfill it with young professionals and passionate about it. To that extent, Erick, we know it's a human equation. What are the challenges like? Like, what are the roadblocks in that sense? Like, I got it, I'm all in man. I'm all in. But there's always going to be that roadblock?

32:38

Yeah. Me know, play off what Nate said that maybe just a different aspect to it is, I feel like it's a lot easier for somebody in the field to have a new digital solution brought to them by a peer, right? In our own life. How many times have you been sold something by a third party or, you know, somebody who doesn't truly understand your situation, you're always on guard, you don't quite understand if they're really have your best interests at heart, or if there's some angle that they're playing. And, and I think no matter how well intentioned, say, an external consultant or an IT organization can be, there's always a little bit of on guard that someone maybe in a production operations role might might have. But that's where I go back to pulling in, you know, their peers into the process. And whether it's making them, you know, the Digital Champions that Tom talked about, or just having their full dedication to the delivery of the solution. You know, if you see someone who walks, talks, acts like you bring a solution, say, I vouch for this thing, you know, this, this meets our requirements, it's a it's a we as opposed today. And I think that makes a bit of a difference. It's, it's all wrapped up in that change management process. But really having your, your counterpart be part of the process of defining the solution. It definitely accelerates the success probability of anything you're planning to bring out to the field.

34:05

So from my perspective, it's an exciting time. There's just so many interesting, and there's a philosophy there, right? There's a speed at which all of this stuff is happening. Right? And for me, it's hard for me, is that good? Is that is that good? It requires that that that leadership would be saying, Okay, this is where we're going, let's bring some people in, let's get the you know, the victories hear the small victories which let's get it let's start building and the bottom line is that companies need to do this. Just do it's not a it's not a it's not an option. So you do need to do this okay, we're gonna have to wrap it up. Before we depart. Let's say somebody wants to get a hold of you, Erick, how would they do that?

34:49

Yeah, I can share my my work email, but it's Erick.bartuske@apachicorp.com

34:55

Excellent, Tom, how did they get a hold of you?

34:58

Tbonny at all. I've come or you head online and look at any of our articles there on this project here, you'll find my email as well as Nate's from with me share his

35:10

most digital solutions. Just Google, and I'll come up but any corporate

35:14

add your name? Well it's digital solutions

35:18

not that but you know, if you look Tom Bonney digital you're gonna find Tom You can google Erick Apache digital you're gonna find Erick and same for me so and I'm sure the same for you scout we're gonna turn you into Mr. Digital here as well

35:30

Oh yeah, yeah. Yay because I'm telling you I love it I do I love I just love where it's going I love the conversation I you know and and for me personally there's a speed and it's exciting, right? If I was young had more hair I would be all in man I'd be all in. All right you guys were absolutely spectacular. I really appreciate it. All right listeners, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side, we're gonna have all the contact information for Tom, Nate, and definitely Erick, out on Industrial Talk. So stay tuned, we will be right back.

36:06

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

36:12

All right, once again, thank you very much for joining Industrial Talk and for your support. A hearty thank you to Nate, Erick and Tom. And talking about digital transformation in the oil and gas and energy space important you need to be in the digital transformation game. You need Sherpas, you need trusted individuals to help you along with that journey. That's what this platform is about highlighting people like Deloitte and Apache and and making sure that you have everything you need to be successful, at least have a direction of some sort. So thank you to Deloitte thank you to Apache for being on Industrial Talk. Again, next week. This is I want to say October 17, through the 20th. It's a little short turnaround. But this is SMRP 30, of annual conference, and we were going to be broadcasting there. And if you're in the reliability and maintenance space, and you're finding yourself at the SMB RP event, look us up. You can't miss us. We'll have all the lights and the cameras and everything like that. So let's have a conversation. And the other one is of course, Fabtech, which is next month. Let me sort of pull this up. This is in Atlanta, Georgia, November 8 through the 10th. Yeah, November 8, through the 10th. We couldn't be you're going to be in Fabtech. And in fact, we're going to have out on Industrial Talk the booth number and all that good stuff. Look us up. Let's have a conversation. Let's and if anything at a minimum say Hey, Scott, we have a booth. Can you come on by and talk about our tech? Yes, we can. And that'd be a lot of fun too, as well. We'll just get that turned around. All right. Be bold, be brave, daring, greatly hanging out with people like Tom, like Nate, like Erick, and you're going to change the world because we need you. We need you to be a success. You need to collaborate, you need to innovate and definitely you need to educate as much as you possibly can because we need you. That's what this platform is all about. Thank you very much. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So do not go away. We will be right back.

The post The Challenges and Value of Digital in Oil and Gas appeared first on Industrial Talk.

On this week's Industrial Talk we're onsite at Distributech 22 and talking to Jim Thomson, Vice Chair – US Power, Utilities and Renewables at Deloitte about “De-Carbonization, NetZero Efforts and need for a Smarter Grid”.  Get the answers to your “De-Carbonization” questions along with Jim's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2022. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

JIM THOMSON'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-thomson-77796b5/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deloitte/

Company Website: https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en.html

PODCAST VIDEO:

THE STRATEGIC REASON “WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST”:

OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:

NEOM:  https://www.neom.com/en-us

AI Dash: https://www.aidash.com/

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Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/

Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/

We the 15: https://www.wethe15.org/

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

utilities, industry, solutions, industrial, collaborate, decarbonization, power, world, jim, people, Deloitte, utility companies, conference, customers, moving, talking, drive, rates, integrators, pragmatic

00:00

Hey industrial Talk is brought to you by CAP Logistics. You want to minimize downtime. Absolutely. increase reliability, you bet ensure operational profitability. Yes you do. That means you need 24/7 365 insights into your supply chain, look no further CAP Logistics, go to caplogistics.com or just call them. They're great people 800-227-2471 Also, AiDash, AiDash is on a mission to create a greener, cleaner, safer planet from space. AiDash helps core industries become more resilient, efficient, and sustainable through the power of satellites and AI. Go out to AiDash.com Find out more

00:55

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 hardhat, grab your work boots, and let's

01:13

carry on once again, welcome to industrial talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe. It is backed up by data, Jim, so you don't don't even try to. Yeah, data is driving now. And it is a platform that celebrates industry professionals all around the world. Because you're bold, you're brave, you dare greatly. You're solving problems, you're innovating and you are making the world a better place. It is an ever expanding. I'm trying to get all the words there.

01:39

And you're not even reading this. No, I'm

01:40

not well off the top of my head ever expanding industrial ecosystem of problem solvers. How about that one? That's fancy. All right, Deloitte is in the house. Jim is his name Jim Thomson. And we're going to be talking about of course, decarbonization, as well as many other things. So let's get a car wreck. And I like it. Well, you know, I stayed at a Holiday Inn. So I feel like I can be a DJ too.

02:08

Gonna get a conference? Yeah, it's good. Scott, I think the coolest thing after two years of looking at two dimensional people through zoom and all the other technologies, it's just amazing to be back here. I mean, this conference is always a highlight for the industry every year. And it's been tough the last couple years. So it's just wonderful to have this many 1000s of people together again.

02:26

But you know, what's the interesting part? It didn't slow down the innovation? Not at all, everything's continue to move along? We just didn't have the, you know, shaking of the hands. Yeah, that's and it

02:35

has been incredible. Even just looking at the last two years, everything around the decarbonization journey and new technologies, new solutions, government funding and grants that are going to help continue to kickstart things. It's, it's a cool time to be involved in the power space for

02:47

sure. You know, I always think about this utilities will drive the the adoption speed, you know, there tend to be very pragmatic, because they still have to say, I gotta deliver power, it's got to be reliable. It's got it, it's got to have all the components that I'm, I've been living in for the past 7090 years, right, for sure. But what I see out here is our solutions that are just helping achieve, still maintaining reliability, still maintaining all of the things that are driving utilities, but doing it more efficiently, which is pretty doggone cool.

03:26

Yeah, agreed. And I think Scott, it's, it's interesting, because it's probably one of the only industries where they can't pick their target demographic. And so to have a very small, narrow niche, right, you have to be supporting 100% of the customers in your territory. So the solutions they have to come up with need to be flexible, to look at every residential customer class out there to look at large scale industrials to look at small, medium businesses. And so it's amazing to look at all of the breadth of solutions that have to target those different those different demographics. So

03:56

the question I would have is, where do I start? You know, I'm, I still have my obligation over here. But then I have people and companies say this is a decarbonization, this would be driven by Washington, DC, but you got to do that. But you also got to do this. And you got to do that. And I know the utilities, you're saying, like, what, what, what money? Well, I get this rate case here. And that's

04:17

the key thing. So when you look at now that we almost need a compact between regulators, utilities, the federal government and customers, right, and everybody has to be part of this because you cannot do it, if the regulators aren't going to be supportive and they are supportive of doing this. But on the other side of the coin, they obviously have to look at how do they support the needs of resident residential customers in their service territory, keeping rates low so on one hand, you need to invest a lot of capital. On the other hand, usually utilities get that relief relief through rate structures. Yeah. So does that mean rates go up? Hope not because we're trying to keep rates down. Right. So it's so it's it's a fascinating equation right now in our industry.

04:53

It's way above my paygrade because I'm telling you right now you that the market become becomes Really chirpy in a negative way? Once somebody say, is that my power bill, what? That and that my power went out and it just keeps on going, you're pulling on that string and and with that the risk is, if I'm screaming about the fact that you're not doing the job, then the utilities will do what they do. And they'll say, Okay, I hear you, I hear you, we're not going to proceed forward, which impacts a lot of other

05:23

the progress. Yep. 100%. And I think it's, um, you know, when you look at everything going on in, we're all familiar, whether you call it global climate changes, or future of energy, or decarbonization, or ESG, all of those related topics and buzzwords that weren't in our vernacular a few years ago, but they're all in all of our vernacular today. And you look at what all of the good societal good that comes from the broad definition of ESG, and everything, but all of this stuff is, is everybody is wanting to move very, very quickly. But you need to do it in a purposeful, rigorous manner, and not go too far. You don't want to take the two steps forward, and then realize next year, oh, my gosh, we did that too fast. Now we have to go back four steps to start doing it a different way. It's so this, it's so much dynamic change in our industry that again, it's a fascinating time, but a lot of challenges, but tons of opportunities

06:12

you're spot on. And you're absolutely right, there still needs to be that pragmatic approach. Because you don't want to go backwards. Right? You don't want to go backwards. And that the balance that I see is, there's a lot of solutions out here. And in like I said, I can get confused easily. Where do I go in I eat utilities different, you know, this is a priority. That's not but then you go to the next utility, though, that's a priority. And this is not. So it's almost cafeteria style solutions for each utility. And where they're at. Yeah,

06:44

which introduces obviously, from a solution vendor of which we have hundreds and hundreds here on this wonderful floor at the conferences here. But all of these solutions need to be still have some degree of standardization, because if you end up with Yes, the same vendor having 20 different versions of software for 20 different utilities, because of how they need to manipulate and manage the grid in their territory, then you're left in a case where the long term, getting out of standard and having the long term customized solutions. It's just not it's not long term viable to efficiently manage what utilities are doing keeping the lights on with all these systems. Right? So we're we're seeing more and more standardization, we're seeing more and more use of working with industry groups like epi and others that are bringing a true focus to to collaborate and have utilities collaborate on at least the maybe the 80 to 90% of the solution, and then just have some, I'd say configurations maybe locally for them. But other than that, we need that standard approach. Boy.

07:41

Boy, can I agree with you more? No, I can't. Because that is your I was telling somebody I said we need trusted standards. And it's it's sure there's frothiness out there of excitement and great and craquelin of this that and the other thing is solutions. But to your point, standardizing allows us to scale it better to have greater focus on what is truly needed. And yeah, delight does a great job at that sort of trying to create that clear vision.

08:11

Yeah, and we definitely try and we want to be part of it as the most of the large integrators on the planet today. Right. And we all want to collaborate as much as we can to bring the right change for the world. Right. It sounds, you know, it's a little bit of a kumbaya, but it's true, I mean, that what we're facing on the planet is unlike anything, and if you look, you know, what's going to be? What's it going to be like in 2035 2040 2050, we need the time for changes now, right? There's no choice in doing this. But we do have to make sure we do it again, in a very responsible, pragmatic manner, to make sure that things continue forward. And we don't go off the tracks left or right. And I think I love that, and our industry is about this power industry and the utility industry is is unique again, because there's for the most part, not a lot of competition in local geographies, for the for the utility companies themselves, not retail energy providers, but for the utility companies. So you are able to bring together at this conference, all these utility companies sitting in sessions together, and coming up with ideas together working together mutual assistance programs, which are such a big part of our utility ecosystem. All of those are possible because of the collaboration in the industry. And that's why a conference like this as unlike other conferences, it's truly a collaborative event. And networking is just wonderful to

09:19

I love it. Because I think that everybody understands what happened with the, the pandemic and the the, the problems and all that but I think that it pushed people to collaborate more. I don't have all the answers. And I love the fact that you're talking about standardization, and doing what is right. And good. I just that is a conversation. Now. One of the challenges that I see and I think I want you to touch upon it, because a lot of these utilities are being driven and they have to it's going to happen, let's just laid out, you participate. You got to figure out how to play in it, but it's going to happen and that is around decarbonization. What do we do? How do we progress and how do we achieve what we You need to achieve

10:00

Yeah. And I'd say Scott, it's interesting because the decarbonization journey and renewable integration that's not new for our industry right utility companies have been doing that for a couple decades. Yep. And have had plans to do that. This is a you know, use the analogy shot in the arm I guess I different meaning these days with with shots in the arm, but definitely. But, um, but it's definitely a time where we're able to look at now, how do we make sure we're coming together and again, working together for a better world long term. And I think that the solutions here around the conference, and I walked around and talked to solution providers and and other integrators for that matter, and everything everyone has now at a common journey that they're on. And everyone is focused on this. And the industry has, again, been doing this for decades gets a little bit of a bad rap, as we know, because people think, well, it's it's coal production. But no, it's that is some of it. That's the reality what it's been. But that's there's already a systemic progress plan in place to get off that, it's just that we're looking at now pulling the that end data in and planting that flag, maybe somewhere between 2035 2050 depending you know, what utility it is and what you might have, in terms of geography ways you can help that will be unique, and you might have hydro opportunities, but not all utilities have that. So they're gonna be more in, in solar and wind, with wind and areas like that. So it's again, it's a it's an exciting journey, but it's a lot of work to be done. And oh, by the way, it's not cheap. Right. So at the end of the day, that's that's a whole other conversation. Yeah. At the end of the day, you know, this is somebody's paying for this. See? And what's interesting,

11:29

we start talking about evey. Okay, cool. That's cool. Yep. And then I all I can think of these heavy trucks, these boom trucks that go to, you know, respond. And I said, how do you how do you electrify that truck?

11:40

But and you do, though, so fleet electrification, for even all the way up to class eight, vehicles, semis, and everything that's real. And that's happening, and it's moving. Obviously, the supply chain challenges these days, make it make it a little bit tougher for some of the components that are required some of the heavy metals that are in other parts of the world, the horrific stuff going on. In Ukraine, I mean, we sourced a lot of a lot of raw materials from there, obviously, components for renewables. So it's a it's definitely a challenging time. But the industry is pushing forward, man, every everyone's in this together. And it's, it's cool to see that our industry, everyone always comes together. Again, when you think of responding to storms, and the way that utilities have their folks drive across the country and just help get the power back on. This is, this is our industry. And so working together to solve a global situation, such as looking at climate change, and everything and going all in on it. That's not new for utility companies, utility companies have always done that is what makes the industry so so great to work in.

12:32

So a past life, I used to negotiate all the power purchase agreements, right? We were talking about that. And that's been going on for years. And even and even pushing the envelope when we made mistakes by trust me, we made mistakes. There's and they still exist today. But but but it's it's I'm a big fan of just moving forward. If you have to fail, you fail quickly, and then you adjust and you move forward, and you just keep on moving forward, because that's the only way. And a lot of these companies. The challenge I always see is how do you Deloitte, you and others are, are there's a velocity with this innovation, there's a velocity with this movement. But I'm still sort of old school, and I'm going to sort of take my time. And so like, there's like this timing issue. Like you're blazing the trail out here, but I'm where I'm at right here.

13:24

Yep. Yep. And it's and that's reality, right? And then it's the but, again, I think the key difference now is there'll be some things in the past even 20 years ago, and EVS started to come out when we had gas prices going up. Some people looking at him, right. And there's a big demand on certain models of cars, you couldn't get them and then things kind of quieted down and got back to normal. This one's this one is not going to go in reverse. So this No, no, no, no, no, no decarbonization. It's not a fluke. It's not a trend. It's just the way it is. So I think everybody, all the solution providers here, all the utilities that are here, they're all here because everyone's in this together. And they work so well together and they collaborate so well together. It's it's wonderful.

14:00

It is it really is rad, and I agree with you 100%. And yeah, I want I want to own decarbonization as a, I want to own that word so that I can pay for it. Because everybody is doggone talking about it. And they're trying to come up with some pretty major solutions. There you go. Love it. See you live in that world. I just talk in the world, but you live in the world

14:20

of come on back. Come on back has got the waters for climbing up holes again.

14:25

You want to have a heart attack. Anyway, Hey, how did people get a hold of you, Jim?

14:31

So Easiest way is through if you go to deloitte.com that's the easiest way to to reach me. And there's an industry tab there go under energy and look under power and utilities. And there's my smiling face.

14:43

Wow. He's famous. He's chip tons. He's, he's with Deloitte. That was a great

14:48

conversation. Well, thanks for joining.

14:49

Thanks so much. Very cool. All right, listeners. We're gonna have all the contact information for Jim and Deloitte out on industrial talk.com. Thank you very much for joining. Once again, we're broadcasting from distributed Dec 22, Dallas, Texas is the location. Great. But like Jim said, they're collaborating out here. They're solving problems and working together. It's a great time. Thank you very much. We will be right back.

15:15

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

15:20

Once again, thank you for joining me on industrial talk. And as you can tell, we were on side DistribuTECH, Dallas, Texas, put that on your 2023 calendar to attend because you get great people like Jim and others, talking about real solutions, talking about how to collaborate to solve pretty, pretty big problems that exist in the utility and energy space. You do. You need to be on this journey. And you need to be working with companies and individuals that you can trust, Jim, without a doubt, thank you, Jim, for being on industrial talk, sharing your wisdom with the best listeners. And I mean, the best listeners in the universe. It's all backed up by data. All right, go out to industrial talk.com We are building a platform, a platform that is one entertaining, hopefully, and to that provides the education you need in this massive in this fast paced, industrial world, go out to industrial talk, get involved, be a part of the solution, be a part of the community, or the ecosystem because I gotta throw that in there. All right. Be bold, be brave. dare greatly as I always say, hanging out with people like Jim, and you are going to change the world industry does that. Thank you very much for what you're doing. Thank you, that we can celebrate you on industrial talk. We're going to have another great conversation coming from distributor tech shortly so stay tuned.

The post Jim Thomson with Deloitte appeared first on Industrial Talk.

On this week's Industrial Talk we're onsite at DistribuTech 22 and talking to Sabine Erlinghagen, CEO Grid Software with Siemens  about “Grid Modernization and Powerful Solutions “.  Get the answers to your “Utility Grid” questions along with Sabine's unique insight on the “How” on this Industrial Talk interview!

Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2022. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy!

SABINE ERLINGHAGEN'S CONTACT INFORMATION:

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/serlinghagen/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/siemens/

Company Website: https://www.siemens.com/global/en.html

PODCAST VIDEO:

THE STRATEGIC REASON “WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST”:

OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES:

NEOM:  https://www.neom.com/en-us

Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html

Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/

Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/

Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/

We the 15: https://www.wethe15.org/

YOUR INDUSTRIAL DIGITAL TOOLBOX:

LifterLMS: Get One Month Free for $1 – https://lifterlms.com/

Active Campaign: Active Campaign Link

Social Jukebox: https://www.socialjukebox.com/

Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access And One Free License For Future Industrial Leader):

Business Beatitude the Book

Do you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES…The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

TAP INTO YOUR INDUSTRIAL SOUL, RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! BE BOLD. BE BRAVE. DARE GREATLY AND CHANGE THE WORLD. GET THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!

Reserve My Copy and My 25% Discount

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

grid operators, conversation, sabine, industrial, utility, software, people, grid, industry, consumers, absolutely, world, point, charging, solution, ev, logistics, talk, challenges, collaborate

00:04

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 get Hey, once

00:22

again, welcome to industrial talk, thank you very much for joining the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates you and I'm pointing right at you, you industry hero from around the world, you are bold, you are brave, you're daring greatly. You collaborate, you solve problems, you innovate. I think I've pretty much named them all off, and you're making my life and the lives of many from around the world a better place. Thank you very much. All right. Sabine, is in the hot seat, the company is seated. She is the CEO of grid solutions there. And I just have to give you a heads up. We were on site at distributech. And so this is the interview that happened there. Let's get back. Yeah, see this, this platform? I'm telling ya. It's an ever expanding industrial ecosystem of problem solvers and leaders? How about that, put that in your bank? All right. Again, I want to make sure that you understand this is a series. And this is a series that we were very fortunate to be on site at distributech. And it was a great, great event. And if you're in the utility space, or energy space, or digital transformation space, this is a this is an event that you need to put on your calendar for next year. There's a lot to see a lot of collaboration, a lot of people are just, you know, they're, it's, it's a really exciting time. If you're in the utility world, boo. There's a lot of big thinking going on there. Before we get into that interview, we are brought to you industrial Talk is brought to you by capital logistics, and IoT world now capital logistics i i love the conversation that is around supply chain. And you know, as well as I do, that you need a trusted resource company, that person that can help you with your logistics challenges. If it's big, no big deal. If it's not no big deal, Cap logistics, have you covered, go to cap logistics.com Find out more you will not be disappointed in. And I've had the great honor of working with IoT world. And they never disappoint you go on to IoT dash world.com. And they put together some great content. Because we're all about learning. We're all about growing, we're all about educating. And as I'm telling you right now, the way the industry is working or going it is fast, and you need to keep current. And you need to listen to people like like Sabine, who have just the fingers on the pulse of what's taking place, go out to IoT Dash World. Find out more again, great company, great people, all right, on site. This is this was a great extravaganza. And so my background is in utilities. I was a transmission lineman, many of you know that I was, I dealt with a lot of renewables anyway. I was a kid in a candy store. And then when somebody likes a beam comes up, and I get the opportunity to be able to talk to her about the challenges that are happening within the grid like we take it for granted as consumers, we just sort of take it for granted that when I come into a room, I flip a lightbulb that's on and everything's fine. I don't think beyond that. Well, I do just because I was in the utility industry. However, we have some really unique opportunities and challenges that companies like Siemens, and Sabine and her team are really addressing, and really trying to find that solution. That really, in essence, we don't know anything about it, right? We're just consumers. But it's an exciting time. Now you're gonna hear some noise. It's going to be a little noisy back there because we're right on site on the floor, and just having a great conversation about what's happening with Siemens. So enjoy the conversation because I certainly did. I used to be it's been great to be able to run you down. Lucien, who's standing right in front of me. He's the one that has been burning all the calories. Try to find you. Not me.

04:31

It's been busy times and a lot of great conversations here anti tech. So yeah,

04:35

so you had a good conference. Conference? Absolutely. This is your first time here.

04:41

It is. It is I just counted. i It's my 10th Inlet, which is the European equivalent. It's my first tech. Can you believe that? No.

04:49

Well, this is my first time to you know, my background in utilities. It's like a kid in a candy store here because there was a company out there that had a I pulled top switcher and I said, Are you kidding me? Let me go look at it. And I'm touching it. And I'm going, Wow, that's fantastic. stupid stuff. Amazing. All right, so you're here, Siemens is here, got a great presents got a great solution. Talk to us a little bit about that product launch that you mentioned ever. So briefly on May 5, talk to us.

05:20

Absolutely. And it's actually not only a product launch, we reveal our strategy and an entire suite of products. We call that the grid software suite. And that goes from planning to operations and maintenance of grids. And the Tweak to it really is that we think it from A to Z. So plan to operate, maintain.

05:45

What was the sort of that? You know, genesis of that conversation? Because you're one of the challenges that I see here is, I need if I was if I was a utility, if I was just whatever, I'm looking for a trusted resource, a person, something that I know that I need to do this, I need to venture into this new, Brave New World, but I need somebody to be able to sort of bring us through, was that part of the thinking behind it and saying, hey, somebody needs to be getting it. We need we need it all the way through?

06:19

Absolutely, I think what we realized is that, it is a very, very tough challenges that utilities and especially distribution and transmission companies are facing, because that transformation is nothing that anybody has ever seen before. So the that challenge, we feel that by and large, the industry is leaving our customers a little bit too much alone. So we said, we got to embrace the point of view of our customers.

06:51

I gotta interrupt, who's a customer in that conversation.

06:54

And the customer in that conversation? Is any grid operator?

06:57

Got it? Got it go continue. I was struggling. I'm a customer. But I'm not a grid operator.

07:02

Yeah, no. Thanks for asking. So for grid operators, I think we're as an industry not yet doing a good enough job of helping grid operators to maneuver through that transition, which is an exponential growth case of Drs. So facing that as exponential growth, I think the human brain can cope with exalted curves, right? I mean, we've seen that in COVID, you can just lose time, because if you lose time, it's already too late. Yes. So the same situation is the one that we're facing with what the grids need to cope with. And here we go. I mean, we are thinking silos, we're thinking point solutions. Here, you have a planning app, here you have an operations, and here you have that, and then we leave it to the grid operator to stitch that together. And that's really hard work. Because it's overlapping data is not flowing properly. It's hard to connect. And so that's, that's a problem we are solving for them.

08:08

You've touched on a number of points. And I think that I have to be honest, we have to talk about here on industrial talk, you know, modernization of the grid, but you're the first person that actually said, Hey, there's the customer, there's this human component, these are the, the grid operators, the the ISOs, whatever you might have. And they're the ones that have to sort of make it work because we consumer wants to flip on the light. There it is, it works. And we don't want to have the interruptions. And we're pretty binary when it comes to that, like good.

08:46

And we want to have an EV charging, we want to have a solar, we have one, battery storage, we want to have an energy community, we want to know how much we consume what we can contribute to climate, like mitigating climate change. Yeah. And

09:02

my ear bleeds when I have these conversation, because my background is sort of old school. And it was sort of that centralized generation. That's an easy model. And the utilities are very good at that. Because it's been doing it for 100 years, Siemens has been a part of that. It's just that's what it is. So I have generation of transmission. I have substations I have distribution, and so on and so forth. Now we're talking system operators, having to take solar panels, battery, EVs, and be a part of that whole mix, and then be able to do that. And that's a technology conversation to

09:39

mean Did you know it's 7x the growth of the quantity 20 37x that's exponential?

09:47

No. But that's, that's frightening to

09:50

it totally is and I mean, the transmission system operators already have a challenge because it takes that to distribution. I mean, connecting those DVRs and admitting them planning for it getting the flexibility, getting the inertia, right?

10:07

These are really sophisticated conversations. And if you have any appreciation for the love that we as consumers are, we take it for granted that our power is our power. We don't really mean if I'm a customer, I don't think about. I don't think about that. I'm very simplistic, but there is. No, you're absolutely right. It should be invisible. It should be just business as usual. The risk I see is that if we don't get this, right, if we don't, you know, partner with companies like Siemens, to make it right. If we do it wrong, the consumer sort of doesn't like that.

10:54

I mean, you will have to care, then. I mean, that's like going back to the middle age where you get get to know at which point in time you can switch something on. And I mean, middle aged, wasn't switching something on but

11:04

but if you were at that spot on the point, it is, but then we start talking about I look at it, there's a there's a there's a messaging component to it, right? Because there's a lot of incredible things that your company, people in your company others are doing that is just sort of like the unsung heroes. They're having these collaborative conversations. And it's, and they're discussing,

11:33

I would say it's the grid operators are the unsung heroes. I mean, it is really perfect. It's not us.

11:41

Well, I gotta admit, I can appreciate the pragmatic approach, because the grid operators are going to always say, hold it, I still gotta deliver power. And it's got to be reliable, and I can't just incur a bunch of costs. So it's got to be, you know, reasonable and cost. And it's got to be done safely. Right? I got to do that. Because if I don't do that, then I fail. So it's good. But are you finding that the necessity is to strive to collaborate with these, these grid operators and bring them in and say, We're going down that road?

12:18

Absolutely. And I mean, if you close the doors, I mean, grid operators will admit that they're actually not following through with connection requests of key hours. So this is slowing down the energy transition. And that the partnership is about helping to accelerate the energy transition, helping to make it easy helping to be fast and nimble to adapt, or oh, there's EVs coming up here, charging poets coming up here, more solar introduced here, or there's a kind of a big car park with a charging being built there. So God to be much more flexible than we had been in the past. And if you translate that to the technology world, then software has got to be the solution. Because software, yes, things. It does help you to operate grids closer to them limits mean, so far, we have physical limits, where you have this buffer of portion in

13:14

there. Yes, that's right. And overbuilt. Over built.

13:17

Yeah. Because you got to be reliable. Yeah. But I mean, there was somebody in a utility A while ago, who told me like, oh, oh, this is so we can kind of reduce that buffer and capacity. And then a colleague of yours said, like, look, we used to fly planes with four engines in the past. Now we fly them with tools. Right, right. We're still feeling safe. And that software, it's like, the instrumentation, the precision, the transparency about that we are still good enough to fly. And that's what we need to bring to power grids. It's the software that gives you the transparency of how close are you statically and dynamically to your limits? How much more can the power grid take and investing in software's? There's so much better return on the investment than just adding capacity and copper and bigger transport? That's right, right. It's so much faster. So getting the software right, for me is the key to facilitate and accelerating that energy transition integrates.

14:30

How do you have these conversations with the you know, the system operator over here and a system operator in this service territory over there? And each one has a different story. They're in a different place in this journey? I think there's a recognition that, yes, it's going to happen. I hear it. I understand. I talked to other colleagues, it's going to do it. How do we take it across the board like and have some sort of consistent messaging right there and saying, Okay, do this

14:59

and Think you're absolutely right, everybody starts from a different position. So not only the grid topology is different, the D ER or EB charging, status is different. But also the IT and OT topology of every one is totally different. So the art is to. That's what agility is about. Like when we talk about agility, it's about being able to make small steps, make them fast, and iterate. So it's, that's why our software suite is modular. Modularity enables you to go Agile, and to not replace, and total ADMS and derms. In one goal, if your project, please don't risk. And I mean, we've been doing that over the years. But the recipe is, how can I go live was one thing. Next thing,

15:56

I love the incremental approach, it allows the human side, like me, put my, my arms around it, achieve some sort of success, say, I got it. Okay, I'm learning, I'm walking. Now, let's, let's start to scale a little bit, let's talk, let's target this versus that right now. And be able to do it that

16:20

way. The whole I mean, a, it delivers value much faster, because you can do something very fast. So the second thing is, I mean, it's a human transformation, you keep emphasizing. So it's about people with habits of working with a system for so long, now need to change to work with new software. So you want to give those people the chance to get those new habits. So get them touch the software really fast. Get them kind of learned. Like it like we learned something on the smartphone, right? I mean, you you learn it intuitively, instead of five months of training after a five year project, and it's kind of Big Bang, see your it's not how transformations are being done.

17:08

See, you're touching on so many things. I believe that true adoption has to come with simplicity. If if you create friction in this, whatever this journey is, I'm not I'm just naturally going to not want to be a part of it. It's too hard. And you also spoke on that, that cultural, that utility, cultural mindset, that legacy thinking we've done it forever, this is how we've done it, we've perfected this.

17:34

And you know what? It's that's super interesting, because you see, kind of different types of people coming in now. And those conversations are super intriguing. Because I mean, a you have 80 people sitting next to what we would call Ott, right. So they come from different backgrounds. And what we find is, if we discuss our principles and software and how we build our software, how we deploy our software, it actually resonates with both. So it's not the conflict of I win, you win, or I push you out, you push me out. But it's something that serves both needs, and for good reasons. So it's the best of all worlds. Yeah. And it has the advantage of the reliable reliability of OT, but the flexibility of it, and the speed of it.

18:30

See, I think, you know, I point this out, the pandemic did a couple of things. One, we understand the bad stuff, got it bad, bad, bad, bad. But the other thing that I thought was pretty good about the pandemic is that it it quickly identified the necessity for us to collaborate, and to be willing to collaborate and to be insane. I don't have all the answers. I know I need to go down this road. But I don't have it. So I need to collaborate. And that's what you just pointed it out. OT it, that collaboration when when and and that realization that yeah, it just has to happen.

19:07

And then those, those conversations are real fun. I mean, like I can imagine when we bring everybody in the room is like sometimes in the beginning, there's a little bit of the reservation,

19:17

because it never happened before it never happened. And then when people are leaving

19:21

the room, it's like, wow, I mean, like, sometimes we get kind of that those teams afterwards calling their CEOs and said like, yes, this was like, they never experienced that it can actually not be against each other but with it each other and it really to like thinking things entirely new.

19:44

I think it's an exciting time. I really in a positive way. Yes, people are going to skin, their knees and bump their heads and all of that stuff and it's going to happen however, I still think that there's this momentum that's happening. then it is going to happen. And either you participate, either you'll part of the solution, or because of the velocity of this, you're going to be left behind and you don't want to be in that room. You don't we won't. You Oh, that's what you guys do. You do it all the time. I enjoyed this conversation. You know what it was well worth the wait. Thank you. Yes. How do people get a hold of you? Just got to? I mean, if they want to get some more information, where do they go?

20:30

Just ping me on LinkedIn.

20:32

I mean, that's the way to do it. This is

20:34

where it is man, I will have all of Sabines contact information out on industrial talks have been your fantastic. Thank you very much for joining industrial talk. Once again, we are broadcasting from distributech 22. And as you can tell by Sabine it is a, I don't know a collaborative environment that solving problems, excellent, excellent environment, please put this on your bucket list because you will not be disappointed to get to meet people like to be alright. Thank you. Once again, we will be right back.

21:03

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

21:11

All right, once again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk, remember, go out to industrial talk.com And you need to connect with somebody and you will not be disappointed. This was an incredible conversation. And, and I mean, there's more there's so much activity happening within the utility, energy space. And it requires people like Sabine team seems to be able to navigate those waters trusted individuals to navigate those waters because it's important stuff. So go out to industrial talk.com. Remember, we were on site distributech 22. And we're going to have some more incredible conversations coming to you from this event. It again, put it on your bucket list, you will not be disappointed. Join us. We are creating this ecosystem, expanding ecosystem of leaders like you. So please reach out to me go to industrial talk.com You will not be disappointed. All right. Be bold, be brave, daring, greatly. Hanging out with people like Sabine team Siemens, be bold, be brave. They are greatly you know what you're going to do? Change the world. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So stay tuned.

The post Sabine Erlinghagen: CEO Grid Software with Siemens appeared first on Industrial Talk.