Heather Lovero and Chris Becker with AssetWatch

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

vibration, oil, industrial, talk, facilities, data, people, collaborate, chris, bearing, platform, ai, viscosity, analysis, heather, gearbox, asset, work, issue, program

00:04

Welcome to podcast with Scott. 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 go Alright,

00:21

once again, welcome to Industrial Talk a platform dedicated to industrial professionals all around the world. And as you I'm pointing at you at the video camera, you are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly you innovate, you collaborate, you solve problems, you are making the world a better place. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk. And we are broadcasting here at SMRP 31st Annual Conference. Yes, next year is going to be 32. And if you're not here at 31, you need to put 32 on your calendar because it is a collection of individuals, professionals who are in reliability, asset management and maintenance all dedicated to you solving problems. And if you're in that world, you need to be here you need to go out to SMRP.org SMRP.org should be your first stop. Because they have symposiums they have other conferences. They have not got it. They have affiliates. You name it. SME s m rp.org. SME, that's another one. That's mrp.org. And you get to meet people like Heather and Mark. They're in the hearts of Chris, Chris. You're Chris. Take to now we're gonna roll with Alan. Chris. I thought it was I thought it was boring. What a bozo. It's okay. You know? It's out of just respect. Yeah, it's all right. It's not a gloss over. I look like you do? I look like a Steve. Everybody used to call me Steve. Chris. Let me get rid of this mark, Chris. Mark it off. Mark it off. Get rid of million mark. guys having a good conference. Awesome. Yeah, that's what makes it awesome.

02:05

All the different people here collaborating to make things better in the industrial world of things? Yeah.

02:10

You agree with that? They're crispy. Say Chris, Chris. Chris.

02:15

Yes. Meeting meeting all the different, you know, different people on the different different worlds about, you know, the reliability world. So

02:22

how long have you been with us? With acid watch?

02:25

We both been with the company about a little over two years. Still. You're still young? The company has been around for 10 years, though. Yeah. Yeah,

02:33

actually. So it's been around for 10 years, it just rebranded. This year rebranded, formerly known as Nikola labs. And, and you know, it started off as a different technology and then went into the wireless vibration sensor technology. So that's kind of where we're at now. And it actually the first application wasn't actually out in the field itself. 2018. So it's, it's actually very new. isn't really, yeah,

02:59

you guys, were right at the beginning of it.

03:01

Yeah. The beginning, the company is growing super fast. You know, coming out with new technology for the company, under onto the asset watch logo. So we currently we offer continuous monitoring. And then we just implemented an oil analysis program that ties into our software, and then a collect application for your list. Less credit. There's

03:23

not a test on this. Is there a test? No, no,

03:25

there's no test. We want to cover all the bases with the facilities and make sure that we accomplish their lives. All

03:32

right, before we get into the conversation, just Heather, we're gonna start with you. Give us a little background on who you are.

03:37

I'm Heather libero. I'm from Chicago and I started in industrial manufacturing actually in the steel industry. And so I went from working in the plants to then finding a way to you know, help the plants go from that preventative to more predictive state utilizing the newest technology out there today. So now I'm on the other side of things working with facilities I worked with

03:57

in the past still, do you still go into Vasco Did you ever go up there?

04:01

No, I didn't know I was but Hamilton I know ya know. It's awesome to be get to work with all of you know, people I used to work with and help them improve their processes at Aster watch

04:13

there you go. All right, Chris, formerly known as Mark Mark.

04:18

So yeah, my name is Chris Becker I'm the actual title as a senior condition monitoring engineer and fancy name for vibration analyst but I'm Cat three certified by version three. I

04:28

was just getting ready well cat Are you get 30? Yeah, I've got about 31 Mark you would be cared for?

04:37

Yeah, I got about 1313 years in the reliability industry. Most of my experience been has been in the vibration field. Before I came to ask the watch, I worked as a service provider where I went out and did a lot of route data collection. I was a certified laser shaft alignment trainer for the last company I worked for. Ton a ton of experience feel balanced and rotors already I motion Thank you Easton tomography so

05:01

that's Look at you. You're just the walking conference. Yeah, he just got a lot about it off a bunch of things that are trade here. Yeah. You just spouted off a bunch of things like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know that. I know that. Yeah. I've

05:14

been fortunate fortunate to learn a lot of different things. So clearly, yeah.

05:19

No, I feel so inadequate. So, give us now we're talking primarily about vibration. But you guys do a lot more than that. Right? We

05:30

were mainly in the vibration, industry, vibration and temperature. And then as of recently getting into oil analysis, we, we hired a lubrication manager, and he's really a lubrication expert and develop this oil program. So I'm actually really excited about that. But yeah, how does it differ?

05:47

How does it differ from all the other oil? What do you see, here's, here's the challenge, you know, you go up and down these, and it's all great. And it's wonderful technology. I because I'm a simpleton. I have, I have difficulty seeing the difference between Hey, that's oil analysis. I get it. Yep. Yep, lube, those bearings? Gotta make sure. Oh, here's another one. All right. Oh,

06:11

yeah. So with oil analysis, and really a lubrication program, and it goes hand in hand with vibration very well. Specifically, we just had a really good one. And it's at a steel facility, where I get another one of my one of the customers that I that I manage that I really, you know, I look at their vibration and data and call out issues that I see, you know, and give them recommendations on things to check. But I was on a it was on a recorder, gearbox, and I call I've seen a gear message, you know, high gear mesh frequency with sidebands, indicating new gear where, you know, and I asked him when the last time that they did done an oil analysis, you know, pull a sample from this gearbox, and it had been two years. So long story short, we went in there and pulled the sample, figured out that the oil was extremely dirty. But that wasn't the the main factor. The main factor was that we found that they were running the wrong viscosity oil for that application. And they couldn't shut the shut the gearbox down for like three months to change oil, because it's, it takes a long time to do that. So Oh, you just said three months to change the oil, they couldn't shut the application down. Oh, the lie. Oh, gotcha. They didn't, they didn't have an outage plan for like another three months to actually do this type of work. And so what they did is they filtered the oil and got the oil much cleaner, and then the gear mesh started to look better, but it was still there. And long story short, once they were able to drain the oil out and change and put in the proper 320, viscosity oil, all the gear mesh frequencies went away. So it was a it was a pretty cool fine for our first time really getting into the oil analysis. So you know, the oil analysis on the PF curve, you know, you talk about oil, oil analysis and catch things before vibration. And that's, that's true in some things, it just depends on the fault of what you're looking at what you're trying to find, you know, vibrational catch certain things before oil, well, depending on whether it's a structural issue, or an alignment issue, but oil is going to catch you know, like bearing potentially bearing or gear problems while before vibration can sometimes.

08:08

So we have a lot of devices, devices out there that vibration devices does that the other thing? Absolutely, will it eventually and this is just a question to you. You know, this question to you? Will it eventually change vibration? And your role in vibrations?

08:30

You know, that's a great question. A lot of people are focused on AI. is me, is that kind of what you're doing? Yeah.

08:37

Because these devices are able to predict or see some vibration? I don't know, it's just because your skills are so unique. Yeah. Can that be translated into something?

08:51

I think it can. And I think it will be eventually I still think that we're we're, you know, years away from it to be to be 100% accurate, but I think we'll get there eventually. I still think that you're going to need vibration analyst to you know, there's always there's always issues out there that that really need deep dive like you really need to go in and do more things and it just being a structural looseness are bearing going out or, you know, like resonance, for example, I mean, resonances. Sometimes it's really easy to take care of a resonance issue, and sometimes it's not, because there could be resonant frequencies and multiple parts of the structure, you know, different resonant frequencies. But, um, I think there's a potential that you know, we could get taken out of the equation, but I think that there's still going to be a need eventually, you know,

09:35

but you've been a cat three, you know, you're pretty safe.

09:39

I would like to think so. Um, you know, a lot of a lot of people really a lot you know, there's a ton of sensor companies yet companies out there and we're one of them. And, you know, all the all the sensor companies are really trying to advertise AI and AI, machine learning. And, you know, we have that as well. But the way it really works on our side of things is we kind of we utilize the AI and machine learning to really help us manage and what we're looking at, you know, that our solution doesn't send an automated alert out to a customer that from Ai, it's actually a cat three or cat four analyst looking at the data and then writing up a prescriptive recommended recommendation.

10:17

All right, so whether we're sitting here that we're, again, collecting information, collecting data, vibration loops, all of that stuff, we're doing what we need to do from from that perspective. Does acid watch have a platform to be able to display ad? What? How do I then I'm pulling all that information? What? Now what now? Yeah,

10:42

we set you up for success is what we do at asset watch. We basically when we did the name change from Nicola labs, as it was just because we're providing you.

10:51

So look, yeah, I can understand it, thank you.

10:54

The reason why is because we want to provide one platform to make it really easy for facilities to see all the different, you know, things that are making their assets have the best health. So we're tying in in one platform for an individual facility, you know, exactly what we're monitoring, we're providing them the vibration, the temperature, the oil results, all the important factors, soon to be, you know, other product offerings as well, that are gonna be one platform that everyone has access to. And it's really user friendly. So then we just basically dedicated team to partner with them and train them on how to use it and keep in touch with them and collaborate and ensure the success of the program and resolving those, you know, acid faults that we find together as quickly as possible, and then have that ROI.

11:35

When we start talking about the monitoring of these assets, and okay, we've got this is there an on an automated approach to your loop program, where you're saying, Hey, I'm seeing some scenes of bad data, let's, let's see if we can remotely.

11:51

So that's definitely how we operate, we do most of everything remotely, unless we go on site for training. And what we do is all of our oil results come right into our platform from our lab. And we're gonna lay out exactly what we're seeing in that oil, you know, oil analysis report, right, we're gonna provide you with a hard copy of the report right on that asset page. But then also the key metrics like the where particle content, the viscosity, the water contamination, and then what we do at acid wash, that makes us different than you were asking earlier, like, what sets us apart? Yeah, there's so many different options out there, today's we're partnering with you and interpreting the data, we're not just providing Threshold Alerts, we're literally going to tell you what's going on how we're going to fix it together and following it through the process. And we do the same thing with the oil program, you have an oil expert, and they're gonna walk with you through it, we found you know, this is this has the, you know, the wrong fluid, right, let's correct. And we're going to work through that together and ensure that every time we pull a sample, it's getting better and better that each and every time.

12:53

Now, Chris, we're talking about the data and collecting the data, how quickly can I get some prescriptive direction from asset watch? Because time is always of the essence. Yeah. And and if you have a, an escalating fault, or failure, potentially, because it's outside of the parameters, or whatever the algorithm might be, how quickly can we turn this stuff around?

13:19

So that's a great question. Um, so typically, how it works with our with our solution is we when we, when we when our our team installs sensors, then we dedicate a CME, like myself, to start looking at the data, you know, and we do a deep dive and all of the data, you know, and try to find faults, you know, whether it might be misalignment, or it looks like you know, you got a bearing defect of this motor, or whatever it might be. And so we write up a maintenance recommendation, and we email those out as necessary. There's obviously also an automated weekly report that goes out every Monday. But then what we typically do is we meet with the customer, and they have the option, once we write up the maintenance alert, their maintenance recommendation, excuse me, they can communicate through the software to us, we also can integrate into their CMMS where they can it automatically creates a work order, they get a work order, they close the work order and put in notes of what they did, and we get a notification on our end. However, just yesterday, you know, with some AI in the software, I got an I got a notification that this huge Fritz of rotary shear, and its shear and steel, and the vibration shot up within the last 24 hours. And so I start looking at the data and it looks like a possible rotating clearance issue and the bearing you know, maybe the Erase spot on the shaft or something. So I wrote up a maintenance recommendation, emailed it out, and you know, since I'm concerned about this, and I think it could fail, I actually called the customer and I spoke with them and they actually went out immediately and address the issue. They actually borescope didn't they found the bearing looked okay. And they moved the sensor and made sure that the sensor was placed in the right right location, but then again today I looked at It's still vibration went down a little bit, but it's still higher, I still think they have an issue. And I'm working with them through email right now to to kind of give them an update. So real time, it's a

15:09

real time we need help. You gotta be there at anytime they need your help. Here's,

15:18

uh, here's, here's the scenarios. It's like, once, once the V condition is on in black and white, right? Then the company needs to do something about it. Right, possibly, or plan or whatever it might be. Do you have anybody that says, I don't want to know,

15:36

you know, there's all different facilities and people out there, there's ways to get them to want to collaborate, give them key metrics to try and, you know, take advantage of and then

15:45

just Yeah, yeah, and, you know, I think one of the challenges too, is that, you know, vibration has been around for a long time, but there's people that, that, leave it, there's people that think it's really, you know, I mean, it just, it just depends on who you're talking to. In a lot of people, you have to earn their trust, you know,

16:03

they, like me, it's squiggly lines.

16:06

Yeah. You know, like, hockey, how do you know what's going on? And, you know, I mean, I just, a lot of people ask me, like, what, you know, what is the baseline, when you when you start monitoring this, this data, and I'm like, the baseline is, whatever it is, you know, I mean, all there's all different types of equipment out there. And there's ISO standards for how equipment should be run, you know, but you can have to have the same type of, you know, two pumps that are right next to each other one might run a little bit rougher than the other one, from a little bit of cavitation, or whatever. And I'm not going to be throwing alarms out there, for a little bit of cavitation, when it's, it can run, like get for a long time, you know, and not have any issues at all. And a lot of people are like, you know, they address some things through like, it's been running like this for years. But the goal is to really try to prevent unplanned downtime, try to make your equipment lot, you know, last as long as possible. And, you know, just collaborate. Communication is really the key.

16:59

Yeah, I always get down to it, it's always people. Yeah, absolutely, really remember the technology to a certain extent, it's always the people and their willingness to, to have that dialogue that and embrace it, right? Embrace the necessity to make sure that but in the world of steel, right, you better have that asset up and running. Right, you know, get those those programs, they must be just solid. Well,

17:27

I mean, it takes it takes, it's definitely a change in culture, depending on what facilities you're going into where they're at, with the different levels of reliability. So you really have to cater to every facilities unique, you know, current set, well, it takes a lot. It takes a lot. But it's, it's worth it in the long run, and everyone's going to be doing it sooner than later. It's just when they're gonna do it. It's the way that we're all to stay on top of things. I hear people all the time talk about going from, you know, preventative, to predictive, but we need to get our pm program in place, and it's got to be better. But really, in the long grand scheme of things, you don't need to wait for that pm program, just implement the new technology, start utilizing it and bring it all together to be successful.

18:08

What I get a sense, and what is exciting for me is that there's a greater I think that people are embracing it a little bit more. They're, you know, I've been around in industry for some time. And he's like, Yeah, we're gonna be a reliability shop and it falls apart, like one hour after somebody says that right. And now we're back to reactive and but I think nowadays, given the challenges that are taking place within the economy, well, I think it's something that is a necessity.

18:34

I agree. That is the

18:36

you said the C word. Change.

18:39

Everybody's got to do a one day. Oh, that's

18:42

one thing that's about life has changed all the time. That's right. All right. How do people get a hold of you?

18:47

Call me Heather. And Asiwaju sy SATCOM. Yeah,

18:53

her email is H Libero at SOS DICOM. Mine is C as in Chris Becker, formerly

18:58

known as Mark Asper. So quickly.

19:02

We have a great sales team here to help you whenever anybody's ready to start saving money and improving uptime. Hello.

19:10

You guys got that down, Pat. All right. We're gonna have all the contact information for Heather and Chris out on Industrial Talk you guys active on LinkedIn? Yes, sir. There it is. We're gonna have their LinkedIn stat card out there too, as well. Go out to Industrial Talk, reach out, boom. You will not be disappointed with these two professionals. All right, we're broadcasting once again from SMRP 30 ones annual conference. It's bigger, better, stronger, faster than it's ever been. And it is time. It is time for you to be engaged. So go out to SMRP.org be a part of the solution and not just listen, be a part of it because they have it all out there at SMRP dot doggone or good. So make it happen. We're going to wrap it up on the other side. Thank you very much for joining us. We will be right back.

19:57

You're listening to the Industrial Talk. Cast network

20:08

I write that together. That's correct. That was acid watch at SMRP 31. Again, if you think if you're in the business of asset management, reliability maintenance, you need to be a part of SMRP Go out to SMRP.org. Alright, Industrial Talk is a platform to amplify your voice, your industrial voice for opportunity and just solving problems and collaborating with other like minded professionals who are truly interested in solving today's industrial challenges. Go out to Industrial Talk, click on Connect with me and connect with me. And let's have a conversation of how you can amplify your voice on this particular platform because you need to succeed. Let's make that happen. Be bold, be brave, dare greatly hang out with Chris and Heather. Change the world we're going to have another great conversation coming from SMRP shortly