Michael Holloway with SGS

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

industrial, contaminant, people, holloway, mike, galactic, reliability, palo alto networks, sales, wrote, books, great, fail, cited, citations, years, sgs, grain, ot, eating

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Industrial Talk is brought to you by Palo Alto Networks. You've heard me talk about my friends at Palo Alto Networks zero trust OT security delivering a comprehensive security solution for all OT assets, networks and remote operations. But did you know that the Palo Alto Networks solution provides over 1100 app IDs for OT protocols, over 500 profiles for critical OT assets, and over 650 OT specific threat signatures, now that's best in class security delivered, learn more about Palo Alto Networks, zero trust IoT security solutions, and how you can achieve 351% ROI over five years, learn more about the Palo Alto Networks solution by going out to Palo Alto networks.com. That's Palo Alto networks.com.

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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

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Alright, once again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk. And thank you for your continued support of this ecosystem that is dedicated to industrial professionals all around the world. You are bold, you are brave, you dare greatly. you innovate, you solve problems, and you make the world a better place. That's why we celebrate you on industrial talk. You deserve it. I'm pointing at you in the video camera right there that. All right, as you can tell by the buzz in the background, and everybody's eating in front of us. And we're getting all very envious of the eating. Somebody just showed me flash some food. Yeah, we're at SMRP SMRP 31. And if you're not here, you're missing out on the food. But you're missing out on great, great professionals all focused on solving problems. And talking to you about reliability, asset management and maintenance. They're all here. And you need to be a part of SMRP. You do, you need to go out to SMRP.org. Get engaged meet great people like Mike and others who likes on a podcast this time around. But you get to meet Mike and others who are passionate about asset management, reliability and maintenance and everything in between and, and the philosophy behind it. And the technologies and innovations is all happening@SMRP.org Once again, Mike's in the hot seat. Mike Holloway SGS is the company. Let's get cracking. Hi, Mike.

02:39

Hey, thank you very much for inviting me over. Oh, it's

02:42

so cool. I think the last time we saw each other was two minutes spent in Raleigh. It was last year. Yeah, it was in a bar in a bar, and you were pontificating quite a

02:58

lot. It could be the case because I've been fortunate enough to have the ability to take a lot of free time and think. And then you mix a little alcohol in there with great people. Like I never know what the heck's gonna happen?

03:11

Oh, it's all good. It's all fantastic. And I see you got a you have a beer, because it is eating time right now,

03:17

sir is and I'm not eating. And I believe in my liquid bread. Yeah.

03:24

All right. For the listeners out there. Mike, give us a little background little 411 on who you are, because you've been around the block a couple of times, yeah,

03:31

actually not been in the business for about 37 years. Everything from research and development on through to product development, technical marketing, and even sales and really spent several years developing programs to train people in passing these various certifications. I worked for an oil company for 15 years, I worked for one oil analysis company for five now with a new one SGS, Southern Geneva Switzerland. And they made me their global technical manager. So I have provided over 39 of their laboratories brick and mortar and then a whole bunch of other sub labs that we have in various facilities like refineries and caves and mines and things like that

04:11

should have been galactic.

04:12

What we're getting there, we're putting stuff in space. Okay, don't

04:16

I just I just want to make sure that you continue your journey and make it galactic

04:21

I'm kind of put a what to put an ICP up on the on the lunar base. Yeah. The testing microgravity

04:27

is gonna happen. So you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to measure something up there. You got to do some things. Yes, as a leader in that, but most definitely, well,

04:35

we'll test everything from crude oil to cannabis and everything in between. Really? Yeah. It's been around for 140 years. They started in France, but moved over to Geneva, Switzerland, started out as a company that actually would analyze the moisture content and grain back 100 years ago, no way more 140 years ago. Yeah, because people would actually sell grain by the way. And so what was happening was certain farmers would be soaking the grain with water. Well, almost Couldn't get more money for popper per bushel, right? However, it doesn't do well when you ship it across seas and it starts to rot ferment. So they decided there's going to be a certain specification for a certain amount of water content and grain and it couldn't exceed something. So therefore, this dusters gentleman, which I can't pronounce his name, because it's in French, and I just can't do France, I'm not smart enough, he had decided to come up with a way to test the moisture content in green. And he did he built, built this little lab and ran outside of France. And then one thing led to another and then before you know it, we're $12.8 billion in sales were 97,000 employees. We have 2700 labs across the world, and we test everything and you name it, we'll test it.

05:40

You rattled that off? Yeah, they're lucky to have the galactic leader. They're lucky. It's collected every

05:48

day, you'll see fortunate and really, though they they don't, they don't take they take too good care of me. I don't deserve to be taking good care of as they do. They just have fun. They're just a good company. Yeah.

06:00

So let's talk a little bit about the topic you want to talk about. That was that was interesting, he briefly mentioned and then I shut him down just because I want him to start talking about it. And I can participate actively. You

06:11

know, one of them, it really comes about this particular talk that I give on failure, understanding how to do root cause analysis, and really the very genesis of failure modalities. And really, we break it all the way down to something very simple, man method, material and machine. That's what's going to happen. All right, and but there's elements of failure. But the neat thing is, is that we're able to understand much about reality, because we're drawing comparisons and communicating, we're telling stories, and that's how we all are able to develop such a great cranium, right? And my contention is this, when I train on reliability, I say a baron will fail for the same reason a business will fail for the same reason a marriage will fail for the same reason. A material will fail, not just the machine, a man method, whatever, we all fail for the same reasons. Case in point I even proposed the the question today. What's the number one reason why bearings fail? Now? What do you think?

07:07

They just they just let it fail.

07:11

They don't do any maintenance. They don't do any. They don't pay attention to it. Maybe they just let it go. Lack of

07:16

lubrication. Yeah, is not a reason why marriages fail.

07:21

Hey, hey, let's hear till Friday.

07:25

No, so let's Yeah, I mean, truly, I mean, a bearing will fail due to lack. Well, the thing is, is that a lubricant provides a separation enough for two moving surfaces. They have to come in proximity in order to have some sort of relationship, right. However, if they're too close, you got friction, where you got problems, too much separation, and it doesn't get to be able to transfer the energy, it's got to have the right balance. Lubrication provides that, why else will bearing film bearing will fail due to being overstressed overloaded will help? How about a relationship? How about a business same things happen over stress over overload? Another thing, bearings typically fail due to contamination. businesses fail due to contamination, you can have a bad employee that's contaminant it's gonna ruin the work that was gonna ruin the business. But let's face it, we've had relationships with significant others that fail due to a contaminant from the outside, perhaps somebody else becomes more interesting than you are to them. Or maybe it's a sister, maybe it's the best friend, maybe it's a mother that says he's a jerk or she's an ass or whatever like that right? There a contaminant, they ruin the relationship, but dirt, grit, dust, water is contaminant that will ruin and bury a baton employees contaminant, They'll ruin a business. So my contention is that the failure modes that affect the reliability of machines, of materials of methodology, businesses, or of people are all the same. They're always the same. It's just a little bit of a different nuance.

08:59

Yeah, I'm having a hard time even poking holes in that logic. You can't brother No, it's tough. Emily's would just wrap this conversation up because you've just sort of nailed it. I don't even know what

09:12

beautiful Okay, so yeah, you've been doing these interviews now for hours. Yesterday, the day before? Yeah. Have anyone even broached that concept? No, not even close. No.

09:23

It's mostly just the challenges that we face, in industry as a whole are just just after 3000 of these conversations, it's always people. It's always it's never the technology. It's never it's never that it's always just people. People not caring or people are not just people they have

09:44

their own motivations. And this is something that and I always sinister in my discussions. Because if you're going to do something different, that's going to require change. Yeah, no, don't like that. What the thing is, is that and some people realize that they have to, they have to change the way they do things. They have to Change in which way they apply technology, they have to adopt new methodology. If you take a look around, there's all kinds of new stuff here. And you probably know, it's all really good. I mean, you couldn't you couldn't go wrong with any one of these dogs in a patch. They're just that good, right? So why isn't everybody using this stuff? Because they're reticent to change? Yes. And the thing is, is that, once they do, they realize why did I do that before, and then all of a sudden kind of snowballs. But the thing is, we've got to get them going. And people will ask me, like, they want to develop an oil analysis program. Well, they want to do better at it. And so they got this huge thing they want to take a bite out of I said, Don't do that. Just a little bite. You can't eat an elephant swallowing it, you have to just take a nibble every day, and eventually go away. And I often ask you, this is another thing to bring up from time to time. You ever meet a guy that wrote a dictionary? No, you just did I wrote to you did industrial dictionary of adults, the terms my second edition just came out this year. How do you read a dictionary?

10:57

I don't know. I don't know if I want even have the conversation one word at a time one

11:02

letter at a time? No way. Yeah, that's how you do it. You work on a beat the heck out of a. And as soon as you think a is done, go to B. And as soon as he's done, go to see one byte at a time. There's no way you can develop the whole entire thing. Just in one set. You can't do it. Yeah.

11:19

And here it is. He's this industrial dictionary guy.

11:24

No kidding. Right? Highly Cited to hire you. And here's the thing about Office. So over an Industrial Press, I got one of my books, they've written another one I edited it's for sale over there. Another one I wrote a chapter for ICML is 51 50.2. Over there. So what's the cool thing about this, when you when you do talk about books, a good author, it's not about book sales, after he's written. So I've written nine books, it's not about book sales. You know, it is about citations. how often you've cited and other people's work. People don't write books to make money unless you're doing some sort of romance or horror flick. You don't write these books to make money. You write these books or other people can gain insight and use your insight, get them better and make other people better. And that only comes from they actually take your stuff and cite it and use it as a reference, then you know, you succeeded. That's the true measure of an author, how many citations they have?

12:18

How do you know they say, Oh, you

12:20

can do Google citations. It's instant. Well, what were the things online now that with this AI stuff, and machine learning? I mean, there's nothing you can't find out. So I don't get a thing once a month from the various publishers that say, Hey, you've been cited 214 times. Awesome. Really? Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's yeah. So it's good to so that's the measure of your success is how often been utilized.

12:45

See, I was looking at the camera and I gave the wow, look at the camera. Yeah.

12:51

No way. Yeah,

12:52

sure. Yeah, that's what you want to do. I mean, think about it. He's got you got some great one liners isn't awesome. When someone just quotes you and says, you know, those from talk, he said blue? Like, that's awesome. You know, that's like, it's like when they actually take somebody's written and actually use it something they

13:09

want to write. That's right, Susie,

13:10

I get I get cited. He's gonna say citation. But it's even better. I guess. There's a guy here. I love the guy. He's He's awesome. He's like an icon of a specific duck. Palmer, he wrote a book. And what's interesting, though, is that somebody else wrote a book. And I opened it up. I'm thinking, this looks like stuff that Doc wrote years ago. Like, I'll be darned. Yeah. So now I was talking about this. He said, Well, you know, in a way, I should feel honored that someone copied and plagiarized. I said, you should, man. I said, No. Is it actionable? Wow, how much money did he take out of your pocket? He's like, I don't know if I do it. But listen, this is what I do when I give my presentation. And also no group of slides and I see 15 cameras open, they start taking snaps. And I say, Guys, if you want to take as many pictures as you want to have, if you want my deck, you got it. Here's what it wants you to do, though, you can use it all day long. Steal it, please do everything. Do me one favor. Just say reference, Michael Holloway, that's all you got to do. You could use it, I want you to use it. That's why I built it. We don't make things so we don't not use them. We make them so they can be used. So if I do a presentation if I read a book, I want you to steal it and plagiarize it and say got to say it's your sales when I call it it's fine. It's yours make money on it. I don't care. What's there for us where we build it right? Make it simple. It's useful. So we can benefit

14:32

so when I grow up I want to be like you galactic leader of SES, you know. Galactic I'll talk to my people and talk to your people to get that galactic

14:44

galactic title. To me thinking you got me thinking

14:48

that that makes you sit up and take notice electic leader but SGS man, great company. Yes.

14:55

It's their father. They're good people. They're really good people.

14:58

You will One of the things outside of all the other stuff that you've mentioned, I didn't realize the weight to how they got started the weight of grain and it made complete

15:08

sense. And here's the other really cool thing. People don't know what SGS stands for they see for illicit safer, greener, smarter No, no, it's not. It's the society have a general surveillance, which is awesome. So they'll go into a bar and you meet somebody and pull up the you know, say go to business school. Yes. Yes. What's destined for? society in general surveillance, what? We surveil everything that we can do. Yeah, man, I know what you had for breakfast. And I know what you're thinking about it night.

15:37

I can tell surveillance.

15:40

Casting. That is amazing. Yeah, I know that how long you been with him? I've

15:45

been doing work for them for a number of years. But they just brought me on board officially as an employee back in March.

15:50

So as recent as God Yeah, because last time you were you were my own company. Yeah. Industry, man. Yeah. See, that's what the 15 different platforms return everything we're talking about? Well, other solutions that

16:02

was fantastical, do it? Yeah. Okay, we're getting away from LA, one of the things is a little bit of a conflict of interest. So I got to divest one particular division. So that's for sale now. But that'd be a conflict. So I got to get rid of that next 12 months, and I will, but I'm going to keep the other divisions because that's that's my that's the fun stuff. And I got some good people working on it with me too.

16:23

Man, that was a roller coaster. Winner winner chicken dinner. That was a great conversation. I enjoyed that. Thank you. You're welcome. No, no, don't go. How do we get a hold of you now all of a sudden, and I mean, if they're saying, hey, I want to know what

16:38

might go into LinkedIn, Michael D. Holloway, follow us on LinkedIn or better yet. Just do LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest bet. That's usually

16:51

when people tell me yeah, here's my email. No, no, no, no, just

16:55

yeah, just go there. Here's a link got it.

17:00

Set, bought it up. And it's bad enough. I'm getting that. I get these like, 30 year old women are constantly bugging me on LinkedIn. Hey, I'm decent. But ain't that good. These are not 30 year old hobbies looking to hook up with like Holloway. Hey, you know, what do you do? Well, let's go to WhatsApp. I'm American. We don't do WhatsApp.

17:22

What is WhatsApp?

17:24

It's a telltale sign. Yeah, no,

17:26

you're absolutely. All right.

17:28

Mike, you were absolutely wonderful. Thank you very much for being on industrial talk. We're going to have all the contact LinkedIn contact information for Mike out on industrial talk.com. So fear not, you'll be able to connect with this, Jen. And it's a must. You'll change your life. That's how important he is collected. Change your life. All right, we're broadcasting from SMRP 31 annual conference, it is the largest one that I've had. So far. I didn't know that. There was a lot of people running around food is in front of me, drinks in front of me. And of course, I'm not eating or drinking. So it's a it's a sham. But anyway, you need to go out to SMRP.org. That's mrp.org. Get engaged, get a part of the symposiums and all of this stuff. And if you're not here, you need to be here next year, because it is going to be bigger, better, stronger, faster. Right here. We're going to wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back.

18:20

You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

18:30

His name is Michael D. Holloway. That's what a stat guard says out there. Also in a stack card name. He has in parentheses, Houston, Texas, and in Texas. He has it all. That's his name out there. Your call to action your to do list edition is to connect with Mike e via you know, you listen to his conversation. He has mad skills, mad skills and a great way of looking at asset management, reliability, maintenance, and everything in between. All right. SMRP, put that on your calendar as well, for next year. That's MRP 30 to the 32nd annual SMRP conference. If it's anything like 31, which I'm sure it's going to be bigger, better, stronger, faster. You got to put that on your calendar if you are in the maintenance and reliability space. Industrial talk is here for you. It is a platform for industrial creators right there right now. We want to connect. Be bold, be brave here greatly hang out with Mike change the world. We're gonna have another one shortly.