Better Together: Live from 2024 TAPPICon - Episode 2

Strong attendance, special events, and a sold-out exhibit hall kept the energy high at TAPPICon, held April 28 - May 1 at Cleveland's Huntington Convention Center. Better Together host Jan Bottiglieri was in Cleveland to try to capture that energy at the podcast booth. In this episode, we bring you six fun, short interviews—here's a sampling of what you'll hear:

Brian Mock—President, Event Capture Systems:
"We want to reduce waste and delay... and we want to do that in such a way that allows the paper maker to increase efficiencies of the overall process."

 Heather Jennings—Director, Huma Environmental and
John Rudd—Director of Operations, IoT-MFG Company:
"Let's look at that entire ecosystem and then once we understand it, we can start reacting to it in a positive way."

 David Strobhar—Principal Human Factors Engineer, Beville Engineering:
" At the very time when you want the alarm system to help you, it's actually working against you. And then of course, the operators were getting blamed."

 Shih-Chin Chen—retired, recipient of 2019 Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal:
"The knowledge of all the participants is just amazing. So you learn every time, from a very broad spectrum of people. You get pulled in!"

 Herman Quon—Sales Manager, Esko:
"Sustainability is what this industry is all about and innovation in the paper industry is what will sustain this industry."

John Weiler—Sales Manager, Boston Dynamics:
"Part of the reason why I'm at the show is to talk about how mobile robots are creating safer tissue and paper and pulp operations around the world."

Other resources mentioned on this Episode of Better Together include:

·      View Brian Mock's Chalk Talks on Near Infrared LEDs for pulp and paper mills.

·      Learn more about the Center for Operator Performance that David mentions.

·      Try out Esko's oil viscosity calculator.

·      See Spot the Robot Dog in action.

Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:00

Welcome to a special mega episode of The Better Together. I'm Jan Bodillieri, your host and the editor of Paper 360 magazine. Recently, I spent some time in Cleveland for Tapicon 2024, and I was really impressed with the energy of the crowd and all the opportunities to learn and participate. While I was there, I pulled a bunch of interesting people over to the podcast table. This episode brings you six of my on-site interviews. We talk about automation and innovation, reducing waste and treating wastewater, attracting young talent to our industry, lots more. I'm happy to share these conversations with you. Let's get started. So I'm here now with Brian Mock. He's president of Event Capture Systems. Uh we've been chatting a little about the use of technology in our industry, and I'm really excited to welcome him to Better Together. Thanks for being here, Brian. That is exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_09 1:11

So tell us what that is and and how event capture systems brings it to our industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Right on. Okay. So machine vision is this fancy word for taking cameras and connecting them to computers to do quality control on the uh paper machine. So we want to reduce waste and delay and make sure the quality is there. And we want to do that in such a way that allows the papermaker to increase efficiencies of the overall process. So the machine vision is again what's watching the paper, because the paper's going by extremely fast. And back in the old days, think of a VCR. Like back in the nineties, if you had a paper break, uh there would be a camera and it'd be connected to a VCR, you'd go and you'd hit stop and you'd rewind that video and you'd actually look, and then oh, that's where it broke. So that was the that was the base of the technology in the nineties, and man, there were a lot of those systems out there. And then like a lot of things like uh a cell phone, I mean, there's just advances on it. So now concepts uh still kind of the same that now these computers and cameras are making proactive decisions to try to keep the break from happening, maybe.

SPEAKER_09 2:13

Okay. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, so it's all about uptime.

SPEAKER_09 2:16

You know, one thing I've noticed about technology is as the new technology develops, you can't always predict how and where and when and the way it's going to be used. You can purpose build it, but then you usually find other applications or purposes. Has that been true for what you guys do?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

So yeah, a lot. Oh, the emphasis over the years has been, well, let's put all this technology just on the paper machine, because that's the big, big thing. And so now as the technology is getting more versatile, we're able to apply machine vision not just there, but on the converting line. We can now do it in the woodyard, we can now do it in the finishing department. So basically, from almost that tree to the time that pallet goes to Walmart, there's an application to deploy a camera and computers in order to again reduce waste, r reduce delay. Right. And and make sure that there's a efficient manner in which that product is made.

SPEAKER_09 3:08

Shipping to shipping, baby. It is, it is.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

I mean, we get paid on the pallet to go to Walmart. I mean, that's where it has to be.

SPEAKER_09 3:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

So efficiency.

SPEAKER_09 3:15

Yeah, efficiency and just that kind of control over the whole process, really.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Well, people don't realize um it's funny when you talk to people about paper that they don't realize it it's such there's such variation. It's come from some natural source of fiber, it could be a non-woven, but e either way, and then we're expected to make this perfect product, right? Right?

SPEAKER_09 3:35

Perfect commoditized, uh completely homogenized product out of trees.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

And there's so much um jitter and wiggle and variance that happens from point to point, and it takes a long time to make the paper. So, anyways, everything that we can do to try to understand it, get the data, and then hope that we can reduce the things that we don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

So that we can just make it go faster and still but while we're make going faster, we don't want to make more mistakes, of course.

SPEAKER_09 4:03

That's obviously um or sacrifice safety, right, right. And certainly not quality.

unknown 4:09

No.

SPEAKER_09 4:09

Um and that's the key for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Correct, correct. And we're one of many tools that the paper maker uses. I mean, we fit into what's called process automation. So there's a lot of buttons and dials and sensors and things that the industry has developed in order to do what we do. We're just of that pie, we're we're we're one wedge of it.

SPEAKER_09 4:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

And the wedge again is the machine vision uh aspect of it.

SPEAKER_09 4:31

How long have you guys been involved with the pub and paper industry?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So I started in the mid-90s. Um I know, right? Just out of college. Um that's back when VCRs ruled the roost. Right. And then it just became digitized. That was a big deal, uh, to not have to use VCRs and analog tapes and stuff. It's kinda again, I go back to the cell phone. It's like i we started with a flip phone and now we're on the iPhone 16 or whatever the next version of it is, and every time because essentially it's a computer and it's a camera and it's a it's an interface. So all of those things get combined to make sure it's easy to use, that it's adopted well. Um but we've seen sort of the migrations from some very old things until now it goes AI. I mean that's kind of Frontier is to have it connect with every other sensor in the paper mill so it gets intelligent.

SPEAKER_09 5:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah. And when I mean intelligent, it's it it it communicates so that maybe there's a a pattern that's happening over here, and then you combine it with a signal that the camera's doing, and they're unrelated in the past, but now you can see potential correlations between these different data streams, and you're like, oh, well now we need to turn that valve this way.

SPEAKER_09 5:39

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I mean that's essentially what what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_09 5:42

I think it's almost a little bit of a misnomer. When we talk about intelligent machinery, it seems like what we're really talking about is intelligent decisions on the part of the people who get the data.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Correct. Um there are some things that machines do really well, and there's some things that humans do really well. And I think what we're finding with all this promise for AI is we have to understand the difference between those two. Machines can't do everything, and humans can't do everything. And there's a lot of things that um we call it augmented uh the term we use now is augmented quality control, where we're not saying, oh, we're gonna develop it so the human can just walk away entirely, even though some people think that that is the end result.

SPEAKER_09 6:22

And hey, that's not what cruise control is. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

So, you know, maybe what it helps the operator to do is that they can spend more of their conscious time looking at the things that matter and therefore they're more efficient, less waste, less delay. Um because this paper industry is a low margin high volume. So that means that very small differences make a big difference if you can control that waste and delay.

SPEAKER_09 6:49

And do you are you sector specific? So, I mean, do you talk about just paper, tissue, packaging?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

It's all the same. Uh I would say that some paper grades deploy cameras more than others, but now uh there shouldn't be a paper machine, a converting line that doesn't have some type of machine vision system on it. Um and it's becoming now an absolute must. Ten ten years ago your your fifteen, twenty, your fastest machines would have it. But nowadays any machine should have some level of camera intelligence there.

SPEAKER_09 7:17

There's no excuse, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:18

No, there's there's not. And like a lot of technologies, it's becoming even though it's becoming more sophisticated as it does, it's also maybe simpler because the components are more standardized. They're more off the shelf, they're more using the same type of computers the DCS system would use. So one of the challenges over all the years, Jan, is to deliver this technology, it required very specific types of hardware.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Right? So like when that fancy thing dies, it the whole thing goes down because I need to find one of those, you know. Like, well, do you have it in the store room? Like, oh my gosh, I didn't order that one. No. So then the whole system is dead because cades down, just yeah. Simple point of failures due to the dependency on specialized hardware. We're getting away from that now. Um, cameras are very specialized, but maybe the computer that runs it and the way it communicates to the camera, all the backbone stuff is very standard. Yeah. So that would already exist in a mill.

unknown 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So it's it's not a silo of technology, and that's again what it was in the past when you say, Well, how has it changed? Now we're kind of inside the mill IT network a lot more comfortably.

SPEAKER_09 8:18

That's cool though.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

It is, yeah. Or in been we've been invited in the family.

SPEAKER_09 8:24

Well, Brian, I'm gonna ask you a leading question. Are you ready? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Oh no. All right.

SPEAKER_09 8:27

Okay, you really know what you're talking about. All right. Oh goodness. If only there was a way for people to get more of this information from you without just re-listening to this podcast. Oh well. Only there was a way.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Jan, let me think about that. Oh, I just had a what we call a light bulb moment. All right. So what we do, what Jan and I are doing, we have to be educators first.

SPEAKER_09 8:50

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And then we're implementers.

SPEAKER_09 8:51

We're at Tapicon, that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, and and hopefully if education goes correctly, then there's a lot that what we when we interact here, they're thinking of about 15 different things at once, right?

SPEAKER_09 9:02

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

I mean, they're probably still thinking about the mill even while they're here.

SPEAKER_09 9:07

Hundred percent they are.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

And so we have to find a way to be like, all right, cool. Well, let me maybe this are you curious? And and you educate, and then they go away, maybe not understanding the entire thing, but they're like, I like what they're talking about. Right. And so for additional resources, we do a chalk talk where I sit really behind one of those, it's actually not chalkboard behind me, but it says nice glass boards.

SPEAKER_10 9:27

Yeah, really cool.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

So the camera's looking right at you. Yeah. Then as you draw the camera, it reverses the image, so you don't have to learn how to write backwards. So we do we do that about once to twice a month. And we'll bring up a topic. Um, it might be how to update your vision system or what are problems with L LED lightings, or you have a converting line and you need laser triangle, you know, these things that they're tongue twisters to even pronounce.

SPEAKER_10 9:51

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

But I'll sit there and I'll do some pictures and I'll draw it out and say, let's start from A to B. Let's think about this box. How does that box connect to that box? And we try to do it in anywhere from two to fifteen minute segments. So you can get a bite-sized one, or if you want a little deeper dive, uh the 15 to plus minutes also do the same material.

SPEAKER_09 10:10

And we can find those on your website.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

That's correct. Um, you can find them on the front page, and then they're all nest in our blog, and they have the contents right there, and you can say, Oh, I want to listen to this one, and I want to listen to that one.

SPEAKER_09 10:20

Cool. I'm gonna link to that contents page from our um from our landing page. Um how's the Tappy Con experience been for you so far?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

We we we love it. Uh I mean uh we've been coming to Tappy since the late nineties. I remember my first show was in New Orleans.

SPEAKER_09 10:35

Yeah, I mean we've been to the nineties New Orleans was great.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

It was the jazz festival, it was at the same time. It was like oh my gosh. Um so you know, we've seen it shift and adjust, but I love the community and I think that's why people keep coming back.

SPEAKER_09 10:50

Yeah, I think that's a great that's a great note. Um, let me ask you a final question before I let you go. And I've been asking all of my interviews this one question. When you think about the future of the pulp, paper, tissue packaging industries, what's the one word that comes to mind first when you think about the future?

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Well, there's easy words like innovation and sustainability. Oh I'm gonna nest that into even a different way. I think that the place for the renewable resource that we have is gonna continue to become more prominent. So I'm gonna go right back to people are gonna think more of paper than they have in the past. It's not just for packaging. Yeah, you know, it's it's gonna do more than that. So I'm really looking forward to how paper and then nonwovens and some other things get combined to to be a bigger part of really mankind.

SPEAKER_09 11:42

Wow. Mankind.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Or humankind, yes.

SPEAKER_09 11:45

Is that your word? I love it. Well, what's a better note to end on than that? That uh the products our listeners make are important to humankind.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

They are, absolutely, absolutely. And I'm proud, actually, as we are, to be in the paper industry.

SPEAKER_09 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yes, proud to be here.

SPEAKER_09 12:02

Well, we are proud to have you here. Thank you again, Brian. It was great to speak to you today. Awesome. And now I'd like to welcome two guests who are speaking together. First, I have Heather Jennings, PE, she's director for HUMA Environmental. And then I have John Rudd, he's CTO for IoT Manufacturing. Welcome to you both, and thanks for being on Better Together.

SPEAKER_08 12:28

Thank you for inviting us. Yes, thank you. So tell me first a little, Heather, what does Huma do? Okay, so we're an environmental firm and we come in and we work on the wastewater. We're in the back end of the mill and we're there to support the microbiology, to support production in the wastewater, and also support the operators there.

SPEAKER_09 12:49

Okay. Well, you know, I I hear it said all the time that every mill is different, but I know they all have wastewater. Very true, but every one of them has their own personality. Really? Um I like a woman who can tell me a more about the personality of wastewater. I think that's great. I think that's a great place to start. Um and in fact, you do just that in an article that we have coming up in Paper 360's May-June issue. Um tell us a little about the article.

SPEAKER_08 13:21

Well, it's it's kind of an exciting uh opportunity for John and I to work together. Uh m I've always said my job is to make the invisible visible. And John's bringing that piece in.

SPEAKER_05 13:33

And that's that's what the Internet of Things gives us the capability of doing because there are so many things that are measured. Uh a lot of times you will anecdotally we find that mills say that they're 40 to 60 percent of the measurements that are made in a mill are local only. They're not actually coming back into the distributed control system. And it's because the waste treatment area is one of the things that's so far removed from the mill, and you may have a transmitter, it may cost five hundred dollars to buy a temperature transmitter, and it may cost you thirty-five thousand dollars to run a cable uh back to bring that signal in. Well, the Internet of Things, it's a wireless system. Uh we put in a a wireless infrastructure into the mill, and then all of these signals that have been out there that are important, the operators use them continuously, they're important to running the system, they're now able to be brought back into the infrastructure that allows us to really look at the overall um architecture of the of the uh data structure. And that allows us to start doing things like optimizing things and doing uh re instead of reacting to everything, we can start being proactive in the way we control the systems.

SPEAKER_09 15:09

So you're saying that in some mills up to 60 percent of data is just orphaned, just kind of left by itself and not contributing to the greater picture.

SPEAKER_08 15:21

Well, that or they're walking around with a sheet of paper and writing down the the numbers for the day, and then that has to be put into an Excel file or database, which is rarely done consistently. And so, like uh people like us from Human Environmental, uh, we come in and we're like, where's your data? Right. We're looking at just pages of semi-wet, semi-dry paper.

SPEAKER_09 15:47

Well, usually I would say if it's involving the use of paper, I'm all for it. But in this specific incidence, I think there must be better ways.

SPEAKER_08 15:57

I agree. And you know, making that John mentioned being able to react to it rather than not knowing what's coming and getting hit by something, being able to be proactive and put things in place so that you're never exceeding permits going out the door. Right. Or you're never stopping production. Right. And that's really what the the paper mill cares about.

SPEAKER_09 16:20

Yeah, kind of that no surprises attitude. Well, again, so John, tell me a little more, because I think wastewater systems can be sort of these ignored, like you said, back of the mill, it's a cost center, people people don't want to pay much attention to it. They think they have bigger fish to fry. Um, and then you're talking about Internet of Things, which is sort of a really forward-looking type of technology. How how do you bring them together?

SPEAKER_05 16:52

It's a matter of you you have to first take a look at where somebody stands, where they are today, and where they would like to be tomorrow. And then go out and take a look at what is there, what do what is available today, what needs to be added, what needs to be implemented to bring more data together. Because the the ability to do the types of things, like you said, it's a cost center. And that's the thing, it's not a profit center, so who cares? Let's just just make it run, and it we we won't worry about it.

SPEAKER_08 17:31

We'll figure it out later.

SPEAKER_05 17:32

We'll figure it out later. But it is a cost center, it affects it is directly affecting the bottom line, and so I think there is an attitude change. One one thing we have to do is we people have to start thinking about that we can save money by reducing this cost center, and that's that's what we need to focus on, and you know, and like I said, it's a matter of finding out where they stand today, what data is available, what data is orphaned, data that can be brought into the system, what data is missing. What do we need to add to do a complete picture of what is going on and not just in one particular area? There, you know, there are a lot of we call them silos of technology. There a lot of people have a solution for this application. They have a solution for another application. But what we want to do is this is an uh a complete ecosystem from the beginning of the main sewer, the first sewers in the mill, all the way to the outfall from the waste treatment. And so let's look at that entire ecosystem, and then we can under once we understand it, we can start reacting to it in in a positive way, in an interactive way.

SPEAKER_09 18:55

That's really interesting. Because again, when I think of wastewater, I think of just that idea of dealing with what you've got, right? You dealing with what's already here. But Heather, you're telling me that if we can do this kind of technology integration, we can tell what's going to be coming.

SPEAKER_08 19:16

Oh yeah. And what I love about it is because operators have always been running what we call by the art of wastewater, and that means experience. That means you've been there for years. Yeah. And that's not always the case anymore with the retirements and things. So where this isn't put into position for operators to be able to actually capitalize on it, right? We want that now. That that art, that experience is important, understanding the microbiology, the ecosystem of it, but now we need data to truly run it efficiently. And to sort of bring us into the future for wastewater. Well, yeah, and you know, if we can reduce an ulcer or two, that would be great.

SPEAKER_09 20:01

Can you think of a specific way you've helped a mill or a or an operator where they kind of went, wow, I didn't know this was going to be possible.

SPEAKER_05 20:12

It it's one of the things that you have to uh the operators have to build trust in the knowledge that we're bringing to them. Uh for example, uh I had a situation where, again, it was one of the an orphaned measurement, it was a flow measurement of what was going from the mill to the waste treatment ponds. Uh it was the flow meter was a long way away, uh, and they got a measurement t uh twice a shift when somebody got on a golf cart, rode out there, looked at the meter, and and put it, you know, wrote it down in the system.

SPEAKER_09 20:54

If they had time and remembered to get on the golf cart.

SPEAKER_08 20:57

Well, and if you know, not no big thing happened, a spill or an issue.

SPEAKER_05 21:02

So and what we did was we went and we put uh an electronic head on the flow meter, and then we put a IoT device to transmit the signal back, and it's way out in the middle of nowhere. So we put a solar panel on it, just like the solar panels that you see on stop signs and everything of the flashing lights on stop signs. We put a solar panel on it. So now that measurement is a continuous measurement that the operator has 24 hours a day.

SPEAKER_09 21:33

So you went from two times a shift to continuous measurement.

SPEAKER_08 21:37

Yeah. Wow. And and that is that is like mind-blowingly different.

SPEAKER_09 21:43

I mean, that is very different, not only in how the signal arrives, but in how they're able to track changes and yeah.

SPEAKER_08 21:52

Well, and they can get consistent information where if this happens, we know this will always happen on this back end, so we need to put this in. I mean it's just it is a game changer.

SPEAKER_09 22:04

Wow. So here's the question I'm asking all of my guests, and I'd love to hear an answer from each of you, and that is when you're thinking about the future of the pulp, paper, tissue, packaging industries, what is one word that you can tell us that you feel describes that future for our industries?

SPEAKER_08 22:25

For me, innovation. We have got to get out of these dark ages. Yeah. We need to really press and move paper forward. I get excited with the young professionals because they've got so many fresh ideas. Yeah. And I I love seeing that innovation coming in, as well as you know, experienced paper makers looking around saying, this isn't good enough.

SPEAKER_09 22:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 22:48

You like seeing those holes and I really I really like that. I like coming to Tappy because of that, because I get to see those innovation pieces. I love that. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 22:59

And I agree with that totally. It's uh it's just a matter of we it's I go back to the six million dollar man. We have the technology.

SPEAKER_09 23:10

We have the technology.

SPEAKER_05 23:12

So that's that's the thing, is and that's one of the things. I've been I've been an instrument instrument and controls engineer for 48 years. And the reason I'm still doing it is we're at a point now where I'm having more fun doing my job than I did in the first 40 years of my career.

SPEAKER_10 23:31

That's cool.

SPEAKER_05 23:32

I always always said, if I had, if I could measure this, if I had that, if I could do this, now we can do that. And that's what's so exciting is we have an opportunity now to really make some significant gains in our the way we do business in the pulp and paper industry.

SPEAKER_09 23:54

I love it. Well, thank you both for being podcast guests today, and um everybody look for that article, The Art of Wastewater. It's gonna be in Paper 360s made you an issue. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Well now I'm here with David Strobar, PE. He's a principal human factors engineer with Bevel Engineering Inc. David, welcome to the podcast. I'm really glad you're here.

SPEAKER_07 24:26

Jan, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_09 24:27

Okay. Principal Human Factors Engineer. I have to say that again. That's an interesting title. Can you tell me what you do?

SPEAKER_07 24:35

Sure. There's there's not that many of us out there, but uh human factors engineering deals with how people function predominantly in complex systems. Uh so it got its uh origins in the uh Air Force, aerospace, uh looking at cockpit design, how you design for pilots, um, and then it is extended into other areas. Um uh medical uh uh is a big issue. Uh I got my start at uh Three Mile Island after the accident there.

SPEAKER_08 25:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 25:06

And it had to do with how do we redesign the control room of the undamaged reactor on the island to enable it to restart. And so uh that was in the nuclear power industry, and since um 1984, I've been working in uh uh process industries, uh mostly refineries, but some chemical plants and production facilities, and uh pretty much anybody that is sitting behind a computer screen trying to control a process, that's what we're we're interested in.

SPEAKER_09 25:40

Now I'm beginning to understand why you're interested in pulp and paper.

SPEAKER_07 25:44

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_09 25:45

Well, operator performance is certainly something that we're interested in. Um and uh manning those control rooms. Um but I'm wondering, some of our listeners might not even know what Three Mile Island is. And in me it it it elicits this immediate reaction. Um can you tell me a little more about how that led to what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_07 26:11

Certainly. So so Three Mile Island was a nuclear reactor, commercial nuclear reactor, uh in Pennsylvania. And in 1978, uh they had an incident that happened at 4 a.m. when uh your your body circadian rhythms are not doing well, you're not gonna be processing well. Uh they uh they had a a reactor trip which was in it was should have happened, you know, that was appropriate for what was going on. And then there were a series of errors that occurred uh after that, including the operators misinterpreting what was going on. They thought they had too much cooling, and in fact, they didn't have enough cooling.

unknown 26:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 26:51

And so they took action uh that was 180 degrees from what should happen. Um it exacerbated the problem. Eventually the nuclear core melted down um and melted through the uh containment uh vessel that was in the the containment building and the uh nuclear pellets all fell to the floor. And so, you know, the last I heard that was a six billion dollar accident. Wow. But you know, that doesn't even account for it. It pretty much killed the U.S. nuclear power industry at the time.

SPEAKER_09 27:20

You know, it was I was alive during that time and it was a very scary news story and kind of illustrated what people really are afraid of when it comes to manufacturing technology is what if it gets away from us? What do we do? How do we know when something goes wrong?

SPEAKER_07 27:37

Well, and what uh what came out of that was the limitation was not the um the hardware, um it was not the the engineering, it's uh it was the person. And it was um, you know, that uh that person not being able to understand what was occurring and reacting appropriately that resulted in that. So uh, you know, we we place a lot of emphasis on technology and often then don't think about the person who's interacting with that technology.

SPEAKER_09 28:04

Interesting.

SPEAKER_07 28:05

And if they don't interact correctly, then very bad things can happen.

SPEAKER_09 28:10

Yeah, so that's where you come in. Um let me ask you this. I when I was learning a little about Bevel, I learned the phrase alarm rationalization. That's a to me, that's a really fascinating phrase. And um I'm still not sure I understand what it means.

SPEAKER_07 28:29

Well, so it's a it is a it's a you know, of course we had to come up with some fancy term. Uh we couldn't just say, well, let's let's make uh smart alarms or or good alarms. But um what was happening particularly with distributed control. So it used to be even at Three Mile Island you had hardwired alarm panels, and so um you know, to get an alarm in, you had to you had to fight for your alarm space. But with distributed control, I can alarm every single point, and I can put six or more alarms on every point. Wow. And so it was and then people were doing that, and so you were getting these alarm floods. So something would happen, and now you were getting 50, 60 alarms per minute on the alarm every second. And what was happening, of course, is the operators just ignored it. Uh that's too much. I can't I can't do my job and try to read you know, an alarm a minute coming in. And so they would ignore the alarm system. A lot of times they would get through and they would have no problems, but there were numerous incidents where they uh something else happened and they didn't see it.

SPEAKER_08 29:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 29:34

Because it got lost in that flood. And then with that, you know, uh the the alarms they were missing, you know, sometimes, you know, they were critical alarms and they were crashing the facilities and bringing them down.

SPEAKER_09 29:47

Again, though, the opposite reaction of what you're hoping the alarm will elicit.

SPEAKER_07 29:51

Well, exactly. When the the at the very time when you want the alarm system to help you, it's actually working against you. Yeah. And um, and then of course the operators were getting blamed because somebody could point out the alarm, like, well, I you know, I gave you this alarm and you didn't react to it. And it's like, yeah, but it was one of six.

SPEAKER_09 30:08

And the operator points out sixty other alarms that they also didn't react to with no consequence.

SPEAKER_07 30:14

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_09 30:16

My goodness.

SPEAKER_07 30:17

Yeah, and typically you do a rationalization, you'll reduce the number of alarms by 50 to 75 percent because uh well over half are the sort of redundancies that are built in, or sort of the, you know, the um, you know, I'm I'm gonna, you know, uh protect myself by putting this alarm in. That way nobody's gonna blame me if something went wrong.

SPEAKER_09 30:39

It's the CYA theory of alarms. Right.

SPEAKER_07 30:42

I wasn't off we were saying that on the bottom.

SPEAKER_09 30:45

Well that's why I said CYA.

SPEAKER_07 30:47

So um, yeah, so you you get rid of all of those. And uh and I've had numerous operators that will tell me uh after the racialization, they say, well, okay, well, you know, this is a real change of mindset, and that's where you have to get through and and uh you know and convince people and show, and you can show by the consequences. In other words, you know, they'll say, Oh, this is a really high priority alarm, you know, and I'm like, well, yeah, but your con your consequence just says you're gonna waste steam. You know, that's that's that's a that's a economic efficiency issue. Um that doesn't sound like a high priority.

SPEAKER_09 31:21

Because then if two quote unquote high priority alarms go off at the same time, and one of them is you might be wasting steam, and another is your dryer is critically overheating, right?

SPEAKER_07 31:34

How do you choose? Right, right. And that's a whole the the you know, I've often said that it if alarms only came in at one at a time, you would never need priorities. Right. Because you'd read it and you'd react. But it's only when you get multiple ones coming in that says, forget the steam, get on that dryer and fix it. And and that becomes and that's where so many of them, you know, in these alarm floods, they lose these really critical alarms amongst all these others that really don't mean all that much to the operators.

SPEAKER_09 32:04

So there really is, as your title says, a human factor to responding to the alerts.

SPEAKER_07 32:10

Yeah, yeah. So you're looking at how people respond, what can they respond to? There are, you know, there are known limits as to, you know, how many signals a person can deal with in a you know in a reasonable period of time. Um and so and that's part of the you know human factors is looking at the psychology of you know what what can people handle, how do they learn, how do they perform, and and what can they do.

SPEAKER_09 32:35

So that's really operator performance. Right. And what I understand is there's an organization called the Center for Operator Performance, in which you are also involved.

SPEAKER_07 32:47

Yes, so the Center for Operator Performance, it's an open uh group of uh industry companies. Um uh Georgia Pacific is one of the member companies there through their uh relationship with Coke Industries. Uh but the goal of the Center for Operator Performance is to research how do we get better operators. And it started in 2007, and one of the issues in two 2007, uh I can't do the math fast enough to however many years ago that was, several several, was the wave of retirements. It's had oh man. We've got this wave of retirements coming in. We need to get uh uh our operators better faster.

SPEAKER_09 33:28

100%.

SPEAKER_07 33:29

And how do we do that? Is there ways that we can make that happen? And so the the very first project that the center uh conducted uh was with a gentleman, Dr. Gary Klein, and he's one of the leading experts in decision making and uh expertise. And uh so he came in and they were looking at, well, how do we make this happen? Well, one of the things that he brought up, and again, these are simple concepts, and once you hear them you go, Oh yeah, that makes sense, is um uh decision making. Decision making is a skill, he said. How do you get good at a skill and how do you stay proficient at a skill is practice. That's that's what you can do. So the question is do you get to practice uh decision making?

SPEAKER_09 34:14

That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_07 34:15

Yeah, you don't think about it because you and and as the plants have become more reliable and they have fewer incidents, you make less decisions. Um and so your ability to make decisions, your skill uh degrades. So the center uh with uh Dr. Klein came up with decision-making exercises. So um these are tabletop exercises you can use with operators that takes them through um different scenarios. And the key difference, people go, oh well, we do what if drills and you know, these sort of things. The difference is these present symptoms. So I'm gonna give you symptoms of a problem and I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna ask you what do you think is going on? Sure. What do you want to know? You know, what um what information would you like to see? And then you go through a little bit f longer and you you you keep doing this, and then you can put time limits on it too. You know, so you you describe the problem and you say, um, you know, okay, uh now what do you think is going on? You have 30 seconds. Wow. And you start counting it down. Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven, you know, and so you put some time stress in it.

SPEAKER_09 35:22

So that's real life. That's real life, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 35:24

Uh one plate they said that if you really want to ramp up the stress, you have the operations manager sit in and watch you do that. And um he said that puts the that puts the stress through the through the ceiling. Right. But all of it is about how do I make decisions and I can practice making those decisions. And uh so the center that started with that, it's evolved into a variety of other areas in terms of uh you know, how to do put together scenarios, how do you capture information from this um gray tsunami that's going through, you know, we're absolutely losing all these operators. How do you capture what's the problem?

SPEAKER_09 36:01

Well that knowledge and skill, that that practice, as you're saying, of having made decisions for 30 years.

SPEAKER_07 36:08

Yeah. And what uh the one of the latest projects was looking at storytelling. So instead of asking somebody, tell me everything you know, well they don't they're like, I d I don't know, you know, I don't know how to tell you that. I don't know what's important. But if you ask them, tell me some stories about things that have happened in your career, they can do that. And embedded in that story is that key knowledge you're looking for that you can then extract and build into the scenarios. And and so one of the co coke industry companies they've done that. So they've taken these stories and then they've taken and converted them into some of these decision-making exercises to teach other operators what is what is going on. Yeah, yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_09 36:52

That's really cool. So how if there's a a listener out there who would like to access that kind of information, how would they find out more about um the Center for Operator Performance and what's available?

SPEAKER_07 37:04

So it's it's at operator performance uh.org. Okay. Um and you can go there. Um it it has information about the center. As I said, it's it's an open group, so any company can join uh and help guide the the research. Um it's operating company driven, so it's the operating companies that decide what's important, not the vendors. So it's um this is not a product development tool. It's the what do I as a company that um uh you know is making a product, what do I need? You know, how can we help my operators? And and so um we've done these decision-making exercises, we've got a project right now on procedures, how to write better procedures um uh for the operators to use, issues around the interface, you know, how do I present the information to the operators, um, particularly as you go more and more advanced control and it gets more complicated. Uh so all anything that really deals with the operator is available. So operatorperformance.org.

SPEAKER_09 38:08

Okay, we'll put a link on to that on the landing page along with a link to Bevel.

SPEAKER_07 38:13

Okay, great.

SPEAKER_09 38:13

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming and talking with me, David. I really enjoyed it and learned something from our conversation.

SPEAKER_07 38:19

Well, Jan, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_09 38:22

Well, I am particularly excited right now to welcome Shee Chen to our podcast. He's a retired member of our industry. He is also a Tappy fellow and a past recipient of our Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal, uh, which is Tappy's highest award. So I am very excited to welcome you to the podcast. Thank you for being here today.

SPEAKER_01 38:49

Thank you, Jane. That this is uh Shi-Chin. Uh yes. Very happy to have a chance uh talk to you.

SPEAKER_09 38:56

Um so you are retired from the industry. You got your start as we were chatting a little before we began. You retired from AVB, but you got your start um back with Acuray. And yes. Um so what's your area of expertise?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Well, uh, you know, uh it's uh kind of the go back a little bit, uh I can uh let you know. Uh before I came to US, I actually worked in uh uh aeronautic and uh navigation guidance uh application. But uh after I uh get to US uh finished my PhD, uh I kind of accidentally got into uh pulp and paper industry.

SPEAKER_09 39:39

You accidentally got into the industry. I think that has happened to a few folks.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

But you know, I just love it. I mean there's so many things uh very challenging and uh uh very exciting.

SPEAKER_09 39:51

Yeah, it is. I think a lot of people in our industry sort of get hooked once they see a paper machine and all the possibilities there.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

That's very true. Uh you know, uh look at the paper machine and uh look at uh how much you can do for it and you can see the result. That was the really uh very fulfilling uh experience.

SPEAKER_09 40:16

So even though you're retired, you're uh part of Tappy's process control division. Can you tell us a little what you do there and um how you f why you find that rewarding?

SPEAKER_01 40:28

You know, I you know back in the uh 80s and 90s, uh mostly, you know, I come to to Tappy just you know present my paper. It was uh late uh uh 90s, you know, one of the members uh in the process control got me on and said, Oh, do you want to help to chair sessions and uh uh you know just help out uh you know for the session uh you know the the division. So I said, Oh yeah, sure, I can do it. So then uh from there, you know, do you know the session chair and then uh later becomes uh uh program chair and then uh just just keep going.

SPEAKER_09 41:05

Just keep going. As you said to me right before we beg began, they just keep pulling you back in. Absolutely. Well, that must be because you have a lot of knowledge, and that's one thing that Tappy really values. We don't want to let that knowledge go.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Well, I think it's you know the very interesting is uh come to this conference. The knowledge is among you know all the participants is just amazing. So you learn every time, every you know, uh uh chance, you know, with just you know very broad uh spectrums of the people. And uh so uh you you just get you know it's like you know, the exactly you say get pulled into this and never get out.

SPEAKER_09 41:50

Well, um what kind of changes have you seen in the process control area through your career?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Oh, pretty, pretty significant. Uh back when when when we just when I just started uh it's mostly you know on you know like r you know regulatory control or you know we called it uh you know uh scan level control, QCS uh control, quality control, system control. And now you know you really see more and more advanced control, and then from you know the division point of view or you know the overall uh happy uh conference you know point of view, we used to have you know individual division conference, but that you know over time really kind of declined. So we have you know m multiple divisions combined together. Right. And so at one point uh process control division almost shrink you know down to nearly you know non-existent. Oh no. Uh only a very few of us kind of continued to uh come to this conference and then said, well, we need to rejuvenate it.

SPEAKER_09 43:02

Yeah, because those divisions they they offer such a wealth of knowledge and great connection with your peers.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

Absolutely. So then uh we kind of make it uh more focused, you know, focused on the process control. And uh so then uh we were able to get uh uh the division uh kind of the kind of the go went through the low point and start to grow and uh start building a good technical program and then uh we get a lot uh more participation uh for the industry. That's fantastic. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 43:39

I love it. So you started with the industry as a young engineer. Yes, so and we're really trying to attract more young engineers to our industry now. Um how do you see us being able to do that? What are what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Well, you know, the that's you know the really a challenge. To everybody. So no difference for process control division. So we actually are very focused, you know, trying to come up the different program, like myself and other members in the process control. We actually visit the university, give uh you know talk in the university. A few times I even took you know sensors, actuators, computers, the whole night, you know, to the university and showed it to our students. And some of them said they they remember that. Right. And it was very good. So that is one thing that we do. The other thing is uh yes, you probably noticed we have this uh event called Fun Run.

SPEAKER_09 44:45

Yeah, the fun run was just this morning, and it was a beautiful day for a run here in Cleveland.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Absolutely. Yeah, it was uh really enjoyable and beautiful on the lakefront. And so we uh have you know this event to raise the money for scholarship. And I can tell you the truth, you know, the 20 years ago, you know, we we have no money for you know the scholarship. And over the year, you know, uh we raised uh you know actually by this morning there's more than uh uh 200,000 uh dollars. What? So how yeah 200,000 for scholarships?

SPEAKER_09 45:29

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

So we were able to give uh you know this scholarship out to the student. Yeah. More students uh now know you know this exists, yeah, and not just exist and know you know our program and even you know, like uh we have uh the in the division meeting yesterday, we have the recipient uh student actually come there join us. And uh so that's uh that's you know the direction we think we are heading to.

SPEAKER_09 45:56

Well, I knew we were gonna be talking about the legacy of a process control genius and Gunnar Nicholson Award member, but I didn't know we'd be talking about the legacy of the fun run. But that's what better legacy is there?

SPEAKER_01 46:13

In in fact, uh this morning uh uh we were just uh uh joking, you know, we have this uh fund and family in our reunions every year. So actually a few of us uh all retired but we still come back.

SPEAKER_09 46:27

That's awesome. That's awesome. What's what has Tappy involvement meant to you over the years?

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Well, Tappy really gave me you know this wonderful chance uh to grow and to uh basically network with uh people and uh you know that kind of opportunity, I mean you hardly find it anywhere else. Yeah. So and and the other thing is Tappy staff just wonderful.

SPEAKER_09 46:59

I mean aren't they the best? It's the best. Shout out to my Tappy uh fellow employees. The the event staff is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Everybody. I you know, and uh any you know the mess, you know, you send a message or you just make a call, instantly you get me know the you know the actions uh from uh tappy staff. And it's just this kind of support uh I I think is absolutely absolutely uh uh key to the success.

SPEAKER_09 47:32

That's fantastic. I'm so glad to hear that. Before I let you go today, um you've seen so much, you've contributed so much, but when I when you think about the future of our industries, what one word comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Uh we need uh young blood. We need a young blood. Okay, young blood. Yes. And uh, you know, this industry actually is a very interesting industry. People do not uh really uh recognize that. So we need to uh get people you know uh you know more aware of that and uh get the young talents uh in you know this industry. I think that is crucial.

SPEAKER_09 48:16

I agree with you. She Chen, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I am really honored that you sat down uh for Better Together.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Thank you. Thank you, Jay.

SPEAKER_09 48:28

Okay, welcome back. I'm here with Herman Kwan. He's a sale manager for ESCO, and I'm really excited to have him on Better Together. Thanks for being here, Herman.

SPEAKER_04 48:39

It's a pleasure to be here, Jan.

SPEAKER_09 48:41

So can you tell me a little about ESCO? What do you do?

SPEAKER_04 48:46

I work for ESCO, and we manufacture flow meters, variable area uh meters that uh measure water, oil, and grease. And uh I work in the sales division of them, and my job is to go out there and promote the product and meet the customers and just generate sales wherever I can.

SPEAKER_09 49:11

That's terrific. So you work a lot in the pulp and paper industry?

SPEAKER_04 49:15

Yes, extensively. A lot of our products are geared towards the product industry. We've gone from uh making our flow meters very modular, where we're able to incorporate um parts and just be able to use the utilize that um modularity to increase our delivery time, which we found is very helpful in this industry. A number of our customers, they're they need when they have a failure, they need a flow meter very quickly. We are able to take the parts off our shelf, build it, test it, and then just box it up and ready to ship overnight. Oh that's good.

SPEAKER_09 49:56

Wow. Yes, that's terrific. So not only is it so modular for uh the needs of different mills, but by uh controlling production you can kind of guarantee that uh shorter delivery time.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

Yes, that's what we find is very important. We feel that we're here as a partner with our customers, and we feel that if they can keep running and use our products and we can help them and we do everything we can. So the modularity we feel is been able to enable customers who have, let's say down in the south, they have a uh winter condition where their lines freeze and now their flow meters are broken, they need something right away. We're able to pull together as a team of us. We'll work through the night, we'll box them up and ship them out overnight. 48 meters we've sent down to a number of the mills in the states, because they don't expect freezing cold weather. But with right these past few years, the difference in weather conditions, they've actually had freezing conditions down in Texas and down in the southern states of Arkansas. So we've been able to do that. And I think with COVID, um mills became the paper mills became part of the essential services that had to that's right, yeah, had to be maintained with the um PPE requirements, the mask, and uh just different things, and as it keeps evolving, I feel the industry keeps evolving and the mills, we need to keep them going, and that helps everybody move forward.

SPEAKER_09 51:31

Absolutely. I completely agree with you there. And you know, you s you mentioned COVID, um, and we were talking a little right before the podcast. So COVID kept you away from uh traveling to as many industry shows as you would have liked, but this year you are back at Tapicon.

SPEAKER_04 51:46

Absolutely. We were unable to come, um COVID being restrictive, and and just do we just want to stay out of the way and allow people to to take their time to feel comfortable traveling. And and yes, we're glad we're back here at Capicon. We've uh missed it for a few years.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

But it's wonderful to come back and and just to see the customers face to face and to see um our the people who use our products and uh to meet new people and and to show them that we are here. We continue to support the industry and we continue to be available to provide uh flow meters for whatever needs you have, whether it's oil, grease, and water.

SPEAKER_09 52:26

That's terrific, and that's what it's all about, really, it's just that face-to-face time. You just can't get anywhere else, right?

SPEAKER_04 52:32

That's right. It's it's unbelievable when people's you talk to people, you hear their voices, but when you see their faces, it makes a big difference and you feel like you're doing business with friends as opposed to just strangers over the you know the internet or Zoom meetings. It's just it's just better to have that personal touch.

SPEAKER_09 52:53

I think that's really cool. So uh is there anything that you've brought with you to TapyCon that's new that you're kind of like trying to get the word out about?

SPEAKER_04 53:03

So we're developing apps and updating our web pages, and we're using branding things that will help us reach out to the younger engineer, the younger papermakers, and allow easier access to more technical information. So we've developed recently a oil viscosity calculator app that we it's available on our website, and once you enter the type of oil you have, the temperature, and the desired operating temperature, we can tell you what your operating oil viscosity should be, which will help us then customize our variable area flow meters to meet your flow rates and your conditions, yes.

SPEAKER_09 53:42

Yeah, that's really cool. So that has been part of the conversation at Tapicon this year is how do we tell young people, prospective, you know, employees, prospective leaders in our industry, how do we tell them about the great tech that we have available in our industry?

SPEAKER_04 54:01

It is the way to go. I mean, textbooks are great, they they allow you to read them anytime and have them handy, but yes, by promoting on podcasts, by promoting on uh websites and just using the social media that's available, it's incredible how quickly we can get information out and how accessible it is. And we we have constantly been updating our websites and we have a great marketing person who does that for us, and and so yeah, we're bringing the old technoxy out there for people. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 54:34

So you mentioned one customer story where uh a mill in the south, they needed, did you say 48 flow meters?

SPEAKER_04 54:42

Yes, they needed 48 flow meters, and we were we we pulled people in and we knew they were in a bind because the the snow star was coming. So we worked um two days straight, we pulled a night shift with some of them, and we were able to build them, test them all, package it, and FedEx it overnight to them, yes.

SPEAKER_09 55:03

That's a great story. Can you think of another time where you were able to provide a solution for a customer that you really felt proud that of how you helped them?

SPEAKER_04 55:15

We because we also do a lot of the um engineering of the flow rates within ourselves, a lot of customers come to us with they they want a different scale than our standard scale on our specification sheets. So we're able to modify and customize to the flow rate they want, whether it's uh some people like um cubic meters per hour, some people like instead of your standard SCFM, they want different flow rates or different media. We're able to adjust and modify and still provide a very quick, timely delivery. I can think of other mills who've had requests and and one time they had an emergency shutdown and asked for a couple of flow meters to be flown out, so we were able to meet that also. But I think that's it's it's it's very common for us because we have the inventory, the parts on the shelf, when we do all our own assembly in-house, we are able to meet that quick delivery. And that's the most key point. When you're maximizing your operations, you're maximizing the profit and the profitability, and we're very aware of that, and that's why we make good quality products that were built to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it allows people to monitor them and plan their uh shutdowns. And what when they have shutdowns, one other thing I want to mention is we have spare parts, spare O-ring kits, spare valves, knobs, everything that you need to rebuild our flow meters so that you can plan ahead for every shutdown, and you buy the parts and they fit in perfectly.

SPEAKER_09 57:03

And uh so you get your kit together and and plan that maintenance project.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

Exactly. Got it. And planning maintenance schedule, doing preventive maintenance is the most important thing I think Emil needs to do.

SPEAKER_09 57:15

Yes. Yeah, okay. Um let me ask you once more about the app, the um the app that you have available. Is that and tell me a little more about that.

SPEAKER_04 57:26

The app is kind of new, but it's um it's it's really handy because if a lot of times people get mixed up of how how we calculate the flow rate and whatnot, because oil is not like water. Water is the standard where the density is one and and and oil has is thicker, so there's a viscosity, so that affects the normal flow through our flow meter. So understanding the operating temperature and the pressure and the type of oil will help us properly calibrate your flow rates and and give you the um correct readings off our flow meters, yes.

SPEAKER_09 58:04

And is that in is that something that anyone can access through your website?

SPEAKER_04 58:09

Absolutely. Um we found that we put on the oil viscosi calculator a few years ago. It wasn't as refined as it is now, but we had a lot of um a lot of uh young engineers who are accessing. I would imagine. And and we're just helpful and we realize, wow, this is something that will help young engineers, whether they're students or whether they're just beginning industry, to understand the how oil and the viscosi is very important and lubricating bearings is very important on our paper we're seeing.

SPEAKER_09 58:42

Absolutely. Well, you heard it, all those young engineers head out to the ESCO website, we'll have that on our landing page. You could just click and go through. Okay, one final question before I let you go, Herman.

SPEAKER_04 58:53

Sure.

SPEAKER_09 58:53

I've been asking every guest when you think about the pulp and paper industry, as you look at the future of our industry, what's one word that you feel characterizes that future?

SPEAKER_04 59:07

I would say sustainability is what this industry is all about. And innovation in the paper industry is what will sustain this this industry.

SPEAKER_09 59:18

I Oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_04 59:20

I think um people think that paper is very passe, like with newspapers and writing papers, everyone wants everything digital, but I think the industry has innovated, they've they've made changes, and and you can see for an environment, more people have more customers, more users are changing the paper products to uh package things as opposed to using plastic.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 59:48

And as we the industry changes, we will change with them that you're there are many different uses of pulp and paper to produce different products.

SPEAKER_09 59:56

I love that connection between innovation and sustainability. Well said.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:02

Well, thank you for coming on the podcast, and I appreciate you spending time with me today.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:07

You're very welcome, John, and thank you for the opportunity to spend the time with you. I enjoyed it, and we're looking forward to seeing you at the next Tappy Show.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:14

Awesome. Well, now I'm really excited to welcome John Weller from Boston Dynamics. He's a sales manager, and he brought a friend with him to TapyCon. And this friend's been making quite a splash. Can you tell us about your friend? What's his name?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:34

Yeah, absolutely. Uh thanks for having me on the pod. And uh our friend here is Spot, and Spot is a four-legged quadruped. Um it is an industrial application tool, um, so you can mount different hardware and software to it to uh take on the tasks that seem uh best for your mill.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:55

I love it. And um if that uh if that description doesn't fully paint the picture in your head, we'll drop a little link on our landing page so you can see Spot in action. Uh he's really been attracting a lot of attention. And I want to say, what kind of applications would uh a a robot dog have in the paper industry?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Yeah, it's a it's a great question. So, you know, we we launched Spot about four years ago. So there's a there's about 2,000 spots around the world in 40 different countries. Um and really in the last couple of years is when we've started seeing the paper, pulp, and packaging industries really kind of look at this not just as an innovation uh play, but also as an industrial application, a tool in their tool set. Um the things that we know that it does really well today and provides a good return on investment for paper mills is uh industrial inspections. So instead of having uh predictive and preventative maintenance technicians walk around with a suite of sensors and collect data, the robot dog can now do that and send that data directly to their software or their system of record. Um and this allows them to have more wrench time while the robot just does all the data collection.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:13

Okay. So, John, this is something that's really interesting to me because we talk about technology and sometimes you hear um, oh, technology is taking away jobs. But that's not true necessarily. I think technology can be used to free up time where you really need people to be the decision makers, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

Absolutely, yeah. They actually so so I'm a little biased, right, because I'm in the robot industry, but um there's a report out there that they they tracked um a government entity tracked robot density in manufacturing um plants around North America, and the higher the density of robots, the more people that were employed at that plant.

SPEAKER_10 1:02:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:54

So it actually creates more jobs than than eliminates. But yeah, it's oftentimes, you know, people kind of see it with a a few different perspectives.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:01

So what kind of sensors can be on the robot?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:05

Yeah, that's a great question. So it's a platform. Um you can connect a variety of hardware and software to it, and there's an API that allows you to communicate on the software side of things. The industrial inspection product is now is is now a verified solution. On that, and that's what we have here at the show today, there's a FLIR uh thermal camera. There's a 4K 360-degree 30X optical zoom camera, and so all of your thermography and then all of your visual inspections. And you can also load up computer vision models and th and do things like is there are there chemicals on the ground? When did they get on the ground? Is there liquid leaks? Um, change detection, like is there oil buildup, uh, sight glass readings is another one. So if you have a walking camera and you can load up these different models, you can start to really do a lot of different things. And then there's a fluke SV600 that sits in the middle, and that is your acoustic imaging device. So all your compressed air lines, gas lines, it can detect all those leaks that we can't hear. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:08

So dogs really do have better hearing.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

Yeah, they do. They they they do, and um, that same device actually can do vibration analysis and partial discharge.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:18

Oh man, you are hitting on everything that's important to the pulp and paper industry.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

Yes, yeah. It's a it's a it's a great complement for uh mills that have fixed sensors. If they have fixed sensors on critical assets, they're already going to understand that return. This is a mobile inspection platform. So all the areas where you don't want to put fixed sensors or does it make sense to, you can cover that ground with spot.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:39

Now, are you able to pull that data from spot into a mill's data system?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

Absolutely, yeah. So that's actually the key to all the value. We oftentimes say it wouldn't matter if there's a mouse running around your facility than a robot dog. Um it's the data that's all the value, right? So people want to understand what what what uh temperature range do my motors start to fail so I can repair them rather than replace them. Or when do I start to have valves or couplings start to leak air and now I'm less sustainable because I'm wasting energy and my compressor's running all the time. Um so there's there's things that you can start to collect data on with the robot, and then you can send that data to your system of record, um, like you were saying, and you can do things like generate work orders, right? So if you have IBM Maximo or SAP plant, you can actually use the robot to collect data and then in real time have that data create an anomaly and create a work order for your for your maintenance team.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:33

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:34

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:34

So I would also imagine that given the size and the mobility of the robot, that there might be some safety benefits.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

Yeah, there is. So um that's part of the reason why I'm at the show is I'm I'm gonna talk about how mobile robots are creating uh safer tissue and paper and pulp uh operations around the world. Um and this isn't just spot either, right? So low hanging fruit for robots. Are dull, dark, dirty, and dangerous areas.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:04

Again, you are describing many of our facilities.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:09

Yeah, there's if anyone who's been to like right basement of a paper mill or up along the top floor of a paper machine, you you have high ambient temperatures, you have water, you have slip, trip, fall hazards, right? So it's just the the the more opportunities we have to put the robot in those confined spaces or less than ideal atmospheres, that that actually improves their their lifestyle and their enjoyment. And then they can focus on more complex tasks, right? So they're not walking around just in a really hot area collecting a a thermal reading.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:38

Right, exactly. And it the we still need operators for these machines.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:44

So yeah, we do. And like moving equipment, right? So so anytime a lot of these processes are happening, um, you do you you have inspections that can only be done during annual outages. And oftentimes it's because people can't get as close or proximity to the moving equipment. Um and and so now customers are actually putting the dog in those areas and maybe doing uh readings on gearboxes that are bel bel beneath a uh converting line or a packaging line. Yeah. So they don't have to stop production to take some of these important readings.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:16

Absolutely. Oh, that's so that to me that says possibly more frequent readings.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:22

Yeah, yep. Easier to see trending because you have more uh you know, less time between readings.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just uh I talk to a lot of people that they know they need a lot of data and and the buzzwords, right, are industry 4.0, digital transformation, uh AI, you know, p everyone wants to build like these foundational data sets, and the first step is to have a large data set of consistent, reliable data. So some people are actually just building their own machine learning models and they use spot to take a bunch of pictures of their plant, and they know that they want to do something, they don't necessarily know what yet, but they're they're using the data that the robot collects every day to help build that model for them.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:04

So if let's say you place uh spot, you place spot with a MIL customer, and after a while they think of a new application that they'd like to try. Is that something they could go back to and say, hey, could you add this kind of monitor? Could you pull this kind of data?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Yeah, absolutely. So um this is this is what's really exciting about Boston Dynamics is we we lean in with our customers. So the product that we have today is a reflection of the industries that have really leaned in with us. Um an example of that is like we we just put reinforcement learning in our last software release. Um we walk on a lot of slippery floors, hydraulic oil, cocoa butter, beer on the floor. And and so it's your average male.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:47

And so, you know, we need to be able to reliably operate in those types of instruments, otherwise we can't do our job and we're not being valuable. So that's an example of how we updated the software to be able to be more robust in some of these slippier environments. Um but yeah, we also like, you know, we have a robot dog that has an arm on it and we're racking breakers for Ontario Power and Generation. That's not something that was available, but the customer said, hey, we want to remove people from ArcFlash.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:14

Will you help us do this? And over the course of six months we developed a product uh product for them.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:20

I love that. You know, we were talking a little at the executive panel about agility um and you know, that for the future it's going to be really important not necessarily to know ahead of time what you need, but just to be reactive, to be agile enough to accommodate new needs that spring up.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:41

Yep. Yeah, and we have um we have a humanoid robot. We debuted it on our YouTube last week. Um it's an electric version of our Atlas robot. And a lot of people see this and instantly it's it's easier for us because it resembles our form factor to go, oh, I know exactly where I'd put this in a mill.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

Um but we talked to people about like you wouldn't just put a walking human like robot in a mill, it'd probably freak people out. But you can start with a dog and you can start to build up that that digital muscle, right? So you know, we were talking before we hopped on here about uh the workforce and the trends that are happening here, and there's a significant amount of tribal knowledge. You know, my dad retired last year at 70 years old. He's got 30 plus years of engineering experience that he's taking with him. And so, you know, one of the biggest things that I see with Spot is you bring it in into a mill, and the younger generations, the ones that are just starting off, the ones that need to carry the torch, they get really attracted to it and they get really excited. And so we're on this big mission of like how do we capture this tribal knowledge? Because a lot of these technicians can walk around a mill and they just know they can hear things, they can smell things, they can see things. It's unbelievable, right? Their semantic understanding. So, how do we quantify that and associate it with data so the next generation can correlate with that data?

SPEAKER_09 1:10:58

Yeah, oh that's a terrific point. I really like that. And the idea that cool technology is what draws engineers. I mean, we are really trying as an industry to lean into that.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

Yeah, yeah. You it's it's a global, it's a global thing that I think the whole world's kind of paying attention to now, right? So some industries are definitely hurting more than others. Um but you know, I think it gets back to that comment about the the the robots, the perception that robots could take people's jobs. Um I've been in robotics and manufacturing now for a decade, and it's not all these plants I visit in these mills, they're hiring for 20 plus roles. And they just it doesn't matter when I go there, there there's always openings. It's more of a unfillable job than it is it's than anything else, to be honest. So it's it's and and the people are demanding, you know, do more with less. You know, demand is growing.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:53

And you know, the thing is what does a lot of data enable is decision making. You're not relying on the automation to make the decisions necessarily. You st are still gonna me need uh uh talented and trained engineers to use the data to make those decisions.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:13

100%, yeah. Many of our customers will um they'll do spot with these inspection rounds, and if they catch an anomaly that seems out of the ordinary, you can now say, hey, spot, go back to this point in the mill, take a second reading. Um I've also seen people from a change management perspective, for the first couple of months, every time that SPO catches a thermal anomaly or an acoustic anomaly, like an air leak or a gas leak, they'll they'll bring one of the maintenance techs out to verify that. And what this does is it builds collaboration and trust between the tools and the human workforce. And this gets back to your point about you know, how do we empower these people so they can do um more things throughout their day.

unknown 1:12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:53

And they don't have to just kind of walk around doing some of these mundane tasks. Yeah, it's have a robot do that.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:58

I think it adds in two ways to that job satisfaction. Job satisfaction of one, I don't have to do this grunty work.

unknown 1:13:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:06

And two, we have a very cool robot dog.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:10

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so it's not, you know, I don't I don't present business cases for recruiting and marketing, but a bunch of our customers, especially in the heavier industries, will bring these to the shows and they'll they'll publicly talk about the work they do because they notice it pools in some of that next generation. Right. Right. Right. And so it's it's it is a tool for that as well.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:30

So we've got increased safety, uh, increased attraction to uh the younger generation of of leaders. Um what else do you really want people to know about the capabilities that Boston Dynamics can offer or that Spot can offer?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:49

Yeah. I'd say the biggest so the the biggest value driver that people talk to us about is reducing unplanned downtime. So, you know, if you if you're able to associate quantitative data to your machines, you can really start to understand if if something starts, you know, vibrating more, if something starts leaking, or if something starts raising in temperature, if I know further up that failure curve, then I have more time to order parts, I have more time to repair things, versus replace things, and I have safer operations. So the more machine uptime you have, the more product you can produce. And so this is something that our customers talk to us about. They'll they'll build a business case maybe on labor augmentation or energy savings, or there's several different buckets, but within the first 90 days, the robot inevitably always finds something. And once it finds something, maybe it's a hydrogen leak, maybe it's a natural gas leak, maybe it's uh a motor overheating that would have caused downtime. Once that event happens, then they really start to open up their eyes to okay, so I I see exactly where the value is here.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:55

Well, absolutely. Unplanned downtime is the worst and can be catastrophic for a mill and its profitability. So you've you've been working now with the paper uh pulp paper packaging tissue customers.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:09

And um before the podcast you said you don't see uh a lot of uh robot dogs in the industry yet, but you see so much potential. When you think about those customers and their operations and the future of pulp, paper packaging and tissue, what is one word that comes to mind that that you think that sort of describes that future?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:38

One word is all is all is always tough. Um I I would go between reliability and sustainability. I know that's two words, but um I feel like the you know, for people that aren't aren't necessarily in the industry, the first time you walk along a paper machine, yeah, I think it's a something you never forget. Right. Um and you you don't d I I I don't just necessarily crumple up paper down the way that I used to. Um but yeah, I mean it's one of those industries where the mills around the U.S. Um they're employing towns and those towns are small. I mean, that's middle and small America, right? And that's the backbone of of U.S. manufacturing. It's something to be proud of.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:21

Well, John, will you come back on Better Together in five years and report back to us on how much growth you've seen in our industry and uh how many mills that Spot is helping?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

Absolutely, I'd love to. Thanks. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:36

Absolutely, thanks for being here. Listeners, do you remember that first time you walked along a paper machine? I do. We really are fortunate to work for this amazing and important industry. Many thanks to Brian, Heather, John, David, Shee Chen, Herman, and John for taking time at TapyCon to share their perspectives with us. And in case you missed it, check out our page for our first TapyCon 2024 episode, featuring more lively interviews with working industry professionals just like you. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share. This podcast is just one more way Tappy and Paper 360 connect you with peers and experts throughout our industry, and we would truly appreciate your support. Because through Tappy, we really are better together. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:40

Hello everyone, this is Larry Montague, president and CEO of Tappy, the pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, and converted industry's go to resource for news, industry trends, and technical and management information. We hope you enjoyed today's Better Together podcast. And remember, there are two types of people in our industry TAPI members and those who should be. Have a great day.