Mark Kraeling with Wabtec Corporation

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

freight, talk, train, move, scott, industrial, mark, data, great, transportation, trucks, greenhouse gasses, podcast, put, mile, conversation, products, favela, cars, freight trains

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Scott, welcome to the Industrial Talk Podcast with Scott. MacKenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting-edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots, and let's go all right once again. Thank

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you very much for joining Industrial Talk, and thank you for your continued support of this platform, this platform that celebrates industry professionals all around the world. You are bold, brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you solve problems, and therefore you are making the world a better place. Thank you very much for definitely joining and your continued support. We are broadcasting at IoT solutions World Congress here in beautiful Barcelona. Put that on your bucket list for next year. If you're not here today or tomorrow or this year, make it a priority. Make IoT solutions World Congress a priority. It's also got cyber stuff too. It's all it's all here, all right, in the heart city. He's been in on the show before. His name is Mark Kraeling, right? They

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like Kraeling, that's right. I've heard it pronounced a variety of ways,

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currently laugh. Tech is the company we're going to be talking a lot about what's the latest and greatest taking place within his world, because we need to have an update. So let's get cracking. So Captain,

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how you doing? Scott, it's great to see you again. It's

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great to be seeing I gotta tell you, man, it's great

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to see your show at conferences like this. And I know, I know, if Industrial Talk is here, it must be something worth going to so I appreciate seeing you

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again. It's awesome. Yeah, there it is. Back at you on that one. Has it been a good one? Yes. Conference, excellent.

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Conference, very good content. I like that. I really like that. We're now starting to branch out a little bit and talk more about sustainability, doing what's right for the environment. I think that's been missing in years past. I think it was all about, hey, let's collect some data and look for quote, unquote, insights. But I think it's important to do something give back to the environment. And I think it's great that we're talking about sustainability causes at the show. It's

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excellent. It has expanded. I mean, I've been, I've been coming here for what, six years or so, give or take a few and just in that short period of time, it has changed dramatically from the conversations we were having versus what we're talking about today, and and how fast and rapid the technology and the innovations happening and, and from my perspective, I don't even see how humans can keep up with it. It's just, it's, I just don't, it's just, and how to leverage it for, you know, your organization.

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No, it's, it's been a absolutely great experience. So it's a, it's good to move finally, move from, let's just talk about IoT and collecting data to actually doing something positively. Yeah, so I think that's, that's the excellent part of this whole, this whole conference. You're

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spot on for the listeners out there, Mark, give us just a little background on who you are and explain a little bit about Wabtech. Sure,

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as was introduced. My name is Mark Kraeling. I work at Wabtech. I reside in Melbourne, Florida, United States, and I work for Wabtech train performance group. So I am a solutions architect responsible for putting together various products, solutions, a lot of design integration, directly for our customers. So my job is to make our customers happy as best as I can. So Wabtech is 27,000 employees in over 50 countries worldwide. So it's a big presence, but it's probably the one you know, maybe the one company that you haven't really heard of. We're kind of in the background getting things done. So,

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yeah, when we first had this conversation, I think it was a couple years back, and I can't remember who's Wabtech, right? It's like, SG, ah,

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that's correct. Yeah. Wabtech has acquired favela Corporation, which was a big, very large transit company in France. Actually, they still go by the favela name. And then, as you referenced, Wabtech also acquired GE transportation, so that entire locomotive division and everything they do there is now underneath Wabtech. So it's a big company,

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big time. So in our last conversations, we were talking about how you you're using devices and and allowing those devices to send you data to make, make it better, make, make the operations safer, whatever it might be. What has changed since the last conversation?

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So I, I believe, Scott, the biggest thing that's changed is that we are more than ever working very closely with our customers to meet sustainability in green causes they want to save fuel. Now, obviously, saving fuel means you're saving money. If you're not using as much fuel to move freight. Yes, you save money, but think about the impact that has in the environment. So. Just to give you an idea, Scott, and I don't think I used this data last time in the United States, rail moves around 40% of the freight, and obviously trucks and ships do some of that too. But for the United States, trains move 40% of the freight, yet we are responsible for less than 2% of the transportation related greenhouse gasses. So it's a much better way, oh, much better way to move freight. So instead of having a truck, which is going to obviously can be congestion on the highway, stop, go, stop, go. Not as efficient for every one ton of freight, one ton of freight that's moved on a rail car in a train, it takes about one gallon of fuel to move that ton of freight, about 500 miles. So we're not using because we have such great, big, long, heavy trains that don't necessarily need to stop if they're going straight through, we save a tremendous amount of fuel. So it for us, it's working with our customers, having their customers realize that it's a very efficient way to move freight, as opposed to using trucks, but

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you still need to use whatever that last mile is. You're still going to have to offload and use that last mile, but then moving it across country. I didn't know that that's that's mind boggling. Yeah,

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because I'm ignorant to this whole the train business, I get it. I understand the efficiency that is gained as a result of the train, but if I'm from the West Coast and I got to go to the east coast and I load up a train, not everything is going to that one destination. It has to that, to me, is just an amazing coordination of how to get things from A to B. You can load it all up in the west coast, but it's got to get to B, whatever that is. So

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yeah. So Wabtech is instrumental in a lot of that. Okay, so one, one product we have is called port optimizer, which actually helps ports figure out which ships should come in when, based on which trains are available to move the freight, or which docks are full, because they haven't quite moved those shipping containers out. So again, Port optimizer looks at an entire plan over the course of days to help them figure out exactly what ships should come in, first, second, third, which where they should be positioned, which docks, etc. So Wabtech is integral to that. And then as the freight moves. I would probably Scott for you. I would probably call it like a airport terminal. Yeah, you land in Chicago. Now you're playing, you have to go to Des Moines, Iowa, so you're over. You got to go to that gate. So freight cars in much the same way we got the trains pull into yards, and they have switching, where cars go into basically different tracks, and then once that track has the right amount of cars in it, it says, Okay, now let's make a train that goes from here to the next destination. So it's very similar to logistics wise. It's similar to moving people. Obviously, there's a lot more to it, right? Well, of course, because then you have to have all these things stored and sectioned and sometimes, again, with Wabtech automation products. We're helping them figure out what's the best way to move that freight, you know, from point A, from to point B, through rail yards, as you said, and as you as you said. We're also looking at various projects for the last mile to come up with various efficiencies for that as well, as far as loading and unloading

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ghost yards, I'm dumbfounded, speechless. I I've never really had that thought around how to move. We talk supply chain. We talk about, you know, sourcing and all of the stuff associated with it, but and, and we always have conversations around trucks, and we lacked a conversation around trains. I just freight trains

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are extremely important, not only the United States, but obviously mining operations, Australia, South Africa. So Wabtech has present. The reason why we have presence in over 50 countries is because we have railroad operations and a lot of these places. But Wabtech also does do mining. We've got mining products as well. So we're, we're not only just looking strictly at freight trains, we're also doing transit passengers and, of course, mining as well. So how

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are you using the IIoT, IoT, the the analytics, to be able to maintain all of these assets?

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Yeah, it's as you as you suggest. It's.

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Are keeping our control systems and the way the methods that we know how to do things, maybe call them bumper guards or something, to make sure AI isn't going completely, quote, unquote, off the rails, right? But it's definitely a technology Wabtech is taking advantage of, as long as we make sure that AI, when we're doing it, isn't just to do it, it's actually delivering something for our

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customers. You never disappoint. I got to tell you that that whole data, that wow factor, the 40% of freight, 2% of the fuel,

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2% of greenhouse gasses, that's,

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that's, that's mind boggling. I didn't know that great

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scene again. Scott, yeah,

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how do people get a hold of you out on LinkedIn? Yes, I

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am. Mark Kraeling, you're gonna have the information, I'm sure, on your podcast when it gets published. See,

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he's already going right about, yeah, all right, Mark, you were great.

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I appreciate Thank you, Scott. Thank

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you very much for joining Industrial Talk. We're gonna have all the contact information, as he said, out on Industrial Talk. So if you're not, reach out to him. We just scratched the service and Mark's knowledge of what's taking place. It's always really unique. All right, we're broadcasting here in Broward, Barcelona. IoT solutions, World Congress put this on your calendar for next year. It is a must. It's a beautiful venue, beautiful place, but more importantly, just great bunch of people wanting to solve problems and challenges that you're dealing with. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

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You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

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Again, that's Mark. Wabtech is the company IoT solutions World Congress was the event, and boy, is there a lot of happening. Happen at Wabtech in the world of transportation. Of course, it's a GE transportation company too, as well. So, a lot of connections, and they're doing a lot in the world of sustainability, as you can tell, data, data, data, making things more efficient. A lot of information, check it out again, on how what they're doing is truly spectacular. All right, you have a podcast, you have technology. You want to be on a podcast. You need to just go. It's simple. Go out to Industrial Talk. It is the central location. You want to find individuals that are talking about transportation marks out there. But if you have a podcast, you're thinking about doing a podcast. You want to promote it on Industrial Talk. It's all there. Go out, reach out to me, have a chat. We'll make it happen. We'll make it happen. All right, be bold, be brave. There greatly. Hang out with Mark, and you will change the world. We're gonna have another great conversation shortly. So stay tuned. You.