SUMMARY KEYWORDS
twin, digital, system, world, industrial, jamie, consortium, talk, conversation, verified, machine, safety, software, assets, great, debating, company, industry, stop, innovation
00:03
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.
00:21
Alright, welcome back to Industrial Talk, a platform that's dedicated to you industrial professionals all around the world, because you are bold, brave, you dare greatly you definitely collaborate to solve problems. You're making the world a better place each and every day. That's why this platform is here for you. It's a celebration of your hero. This is not a word.
00:41
You're a fit here. I guess everything's in balance.
00:44
Yes, right here. Yes. And as you can tell, we are on site. And it is Austin, Texas. And he this guy right here. Jamie right next to me is from Austin, Texas. And we were talking about food because food is really special here in Austin, Texas. And of course, we're broadcasting live from OMG, the fourth quarter, and it's a bunch of really smart, passionate professionals focused on creating standards, and debating the things that make you a success. That's all well, that's it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker real well, but let's get cracking.
01:19
Yeah, okay, great. Let's dive in.
01:21
Yeah, how long have you been?
01:24
Oh, so I've actually had a few different stints working with OMG. back several years ago, I was one of the first members of the industrial Internet consortium, then I was with a company industry IoT. Now, at the time, it was the industrial Internet consortium
01:44
that rocked my world, by the way, when they changed, like I couldn't assume, you know, the pathways were just sort of struggling.
01:51
They're all they're all wired. And I was with the company National Instruments at that time. And we did a lot of really exciting edge based control and compute and measurement systems and did a variety of testbeds. Back then around smart grid, predictive maintenance, deterministic networking, a lot of incredible work. And some of the members are still here at the OMG groups, and some have moved over from what was the IIC over to the Digital Twin Consortium.
02:28
There's not going to be a test on that right?
02:30
No, no, Scott, we won't be having any pop quizzes, at least not yet. I hope not.
02:39
But you're having to get this is a great meeting. It's an excellent and it's it's outside of my ears bleeding, because you guys, everybody has this wonderful story to tell, and why they're passionate about what they do. And and the conversations that happen at this is just, they have four of these a year. This is q4, right? So they have four and then each one everybody debates and hangs out and talks and and, you know, kudos to you, and others that make this happen. I like it. All right. You're part of the Digital Twin Consortium. What does that mean?
03:15
Well, I there's a few ways to address that. Well, that question time. Take, let's take, let's take some let's take some liberties here. So I mean, the Digital Twin Consortium is a group of companies from a wide range of industries, technology providers, and users, members of our governments, people from all around the world are here, determining the best way to use digital transformation, to gain insights and value out of all the assets that we have deployed around the world, and make them better, make them safer, make them more trustworthy, and learn. We've seen all kinds of great presentations this week, we saw a team that was looking at creating digital twins of wastewater facilities and oil processing facilities. We just saw digital twin of traffic infrastructure. We've seen also other digital twins of a wide variety of things. And one of the things that I talked about yesterday was this concept of not making a digital twin of a physical thing that actually making a digital twin of a process or highly automated software system. As Yeah,
04:40
okay. Interesting. So I've I have the virtual twin, the digital twin, I've got assets that are can be digitally twinned. Yep. And now you're talking about a, a, the a, a software to be twinned. Yep. Yeah, you can use it 20 By the way, next time you go talk to somebody at the, you know, you say, Hey, I got a new term for you guys, because you guys come up with acronyms and terms.
05:07
Yeah, we got a ton of them. It's alphabet soup here. You know, I like to say twinning is winning. That's one way. Oh, snap. Yeah. Okay, there
05:15
we go. Right. As good as good. Yeah. So I mean, you're part of this trustworthy, work group. Yep. Set me.
05:24
So that group, again, I'm a pretty new member of that group. And I'm really excited about the work that they're doing. They're building out how to implement standards, and actually ensure that digital twins are secure. And they're safe. And they can be used to sit alongside real assets on things like factory floors, are heavily industrial settings, where there's really stringent safety standards that have been in place for decades. And now there's new emerging security standards. And those things sometimes are thought about differently, or people come from from different directions. And then how can a digital twin of a factory or a collection of machines be made to help these systems ensure their safety and ensure that they're secure? And to take that one level further, one of the things we have to do is make sure we can trust the digital twin itself?
06:31
Okay, let me unpack what you just said, ever so carefully. And definitely not as good as you did. So we have a security related situation where you got this digital twin, you've got to be able to make sure that nobody can really get into it, you got to protect it from that, from people hacking into it. That's relaxed. That's one, two. And because the safety component, right, what do you help me understand what the safety you get this digital twin, it's digital. What's the safety? Well,
07:03
the the real issue here is machines and cells on the factory floor are safe. But are there things that we can do with digital twins to learn about some of these incidents that occur with this type of equipment to ensure even greater safety. One of the presentations we saw today from a gentleman from to soothe Dr. Detlev Richter, he talked about an edge case with the machine where if a part was a little bit longer than some of the other parts, sometimes this machine would eject this part and incredibly high velocity. And a digital twin could potentially predict that this outcome might occur. Or the digital twin might be able to be there to alert the user or the machine or the facility that this this risk is in place based on the work order that's coming down the line today, that this this part may be just a little bit too big for this machine and might be unsafe. So it's it's and it's also you know, safety philosophy and security philosophy philosophies and the digital twin philosophy. We got to make sure that we bring all the stakeholders together and get everybody on board and it's not a doesn't feel like disparate systems and disparate approaches that we're trying to pull together.
08:25
But the other thing that I want to make sure that we don't gloss over you, you create this, this digital twin, whatever it might be got it and you you ensure that it's protected properly. It is it, you put the analytics in it so that you can determine that the safety of assets, possibly whatever it might be, but you've got to, for lack of a better certify that yeah, that's it. Yep. Like, yeah, that's what you're doing. You're just saying, uh, got it. You got all this great stuff over here. We've got to make sure that that's trustworthy. Right,
08:58
right. That's right. And one of the things that we've done at a company I worked for now a Imandra is we have technology and tools that are based on automated reasoning, and formal verification. This is the technology that was originally built to help formally verify autopilot systems, or the software that would run on spacecraft by NASA, historically was a very manual process, lots of PhDs. And in the mid 90s, the technology started to get automated in used in the semiconductor chip design space. After the infamous Intel Pentium bug. Chip. Designers started to rethink the way they test their chips and moved away from purely vector based testing to formally verifying the design. And for the 20 years that follow researchers who have been figuring out how can we apply these techniques to general purpose software systems and algorithms? And we're there today. So, with a Imandra tools, what we're able to do is create a model of a software system or an algorithm, we're then able to take that model and mathematically prove its correctness. And once we've done that the models verified. And then that verified model can be deployed alongside the system. And now we have a formally verified digital twin of the system. It can be a trusted source of truth of how the system should operate. And we can use it to test the production system. And we can also use it to sit side by side and look for variance.
10:50
What was the problem? The problem? Yeah, what was the problem? You're saying? I hear what you're saying. Yep, I get it. And my question is, what what problems does this
11:02
solve? That's a great, great, great question that kind of rolled me back a little bit. where this all started for us was working with financial institutions that had highly automated trading systems, systems that would conduct trades with multiple banks, and highly automated fashion with very limited or no human supervision. And there are all kinds of concerns about business correctness, you don't want a automated system connected to your bank account that you can't trust. There's also all kinds of regulatory compliance. So if you, because there's a defect in your system or a bug, you may conduct yourself for years outside of regulation, which may lead to fines. And then sometimes if the financial system goes really poorly, that can lead to people's careers being jeopardized. And even companies can, can lose their value and be acquired or go out of business. So that's, so we started by coming in and formally verifying software systems for financial institutions, our largest customer is Goldman Sachs. So we formally verify one of their trading systems, as well as we work with many other financial institutions. But we've taken the technology and approach and we're now applying it to all kinds of highly automated software systems, that people want to have a verified digital twin that they can use to test their system. They can ensure it's correct. It's safe, and it's compliant.
12:41
You've had this conversation before, haven't you?
12:43
Yeah, I mean, once or twice, once or twice. And I'm really passionate about this stuff. I can tell that it's It's infectious. Choking you up
12:52
even though Yeah, it is. Tears. I'm getting all teary eyed here. No, this is really interesting. Because I've it's not a it's not a slap, but my concern with digital twin the term digital twin, yeah, becomes a miscellaneous file. And everything just starts to that's a digital interested, well, twin that I look at that plan. And get it it's all capable. Oh, yeah, great. But I like the fact that you can determine if this is something new. Yep, determine the trustworthy of that. And then be able to do that in the world of sort of the code of the programming.
13:35
I like that. Yeah. It's really a game changer. And one of the points that was brought up in the evening discussions, and a lot of the collaborative conversations that we have here at the consortium, you do, which this we do we do is this concept of, it'll be virtually impossible for an external entity to come in hack the twin and the production system simultaneously, and make the same change to both because the systems are implemented differently. So if we're in a really highly safety critical scenario, or system, and we see that there's a deviation are a strong variance, there's a highly high likelihood that that that system has been hacked. And so the twin can actually work as a watchdog, preventing us from something going in a direction it shouldn't go. And that's that's a sort of a new chapter that we're discussing. You know, you guys can't stop with the use cases. No, we can't. And we also can't stop with the new ideas to solve problems and
14:47
to do some amazing and that's, that's true. That's perfect. I heard this I was fortunate enough to go to IMTS which is the International Manufacturing Technology Show. Yeah, and a lot Because everything's becoming connected in some way, shape or forms, so you get these CNC machines, these high production CNC machines, they're connected. Yep. And rightly so they have to be. But now people are talking about the protection of those systems because it doesn't take much to bring something out of spec. Yeah. And then of course, there's a lot of money lost. But in the world of the Digital trends, if you have something to sort of, you can play that game of saying, hey, it's all of a sudden out of whack, it shouldn't be out of whack, but now it is. So something went on. Yep. That's right.
15:33
That's right. And, you know, one of the terms it's used in industry is metrology, where you're measuring and making sure things are aligned or calibrated correctly. You know, I don't really think I've ever heard this term before. But digital twin can be a form of continuous digital metrology to assert to assure your systems in spec, it's compliant. So it's ready to go.
15:55
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. On that, yeah, I think you're absolutely. And what I've gathered from a number of conversations, this ability to be able to use the digital twin, you can simulate some of the things that you want in a digital twin. And then whenever it gets out into the real world, the non digital world, then you feel that there's a level of competence. So you've reduced the risk dramatically, because you've already played around with it over here, and you've got it all dialed in, you see what's going on?
16:22
That's right. And one of the things we call that is, is there's this concept of shift left, where you try to bring the detection of all your software defects is early as you can in the design process. Yeah. So those defects, don't make it out into the production system. And then what you're talking about is taken a step further, you use the digital twin as a crystal ball. Yeah, you can actually look into the future by playing what if scenarios, and as we bring the new piece of equipment online and bring it into the system? Let's do that in the digital twin first, and see what the impact may be. It's an incredibly powerful tool for what if testing, yeah, and
17:03
I think as a world becomes far more as becoming complex, you know why it's, you know, why it's been come become more complex? It's because of people like you that can't stop thinking about use cases. Yeah. But it is. But as the world becomes more complex, it's harder to, you have to have that ability to be able to look at your systems, look at your assets, whatever that might be, and run those simulations. So that you can press that time to the real world. Right, right. I think it's brilliant.
17:33
Yeah, yeah. Well, we're really excited about the work we're doing and the role we can play to ensure that these systems are correct, safe and compliant. You know, we're gonna play that part and play our position and work with with all the great minds that are here at the Digital Twin Consortium.
17:48
You know, you've glossed over that, but there's a lot of great minds here.
17:52
That's right. Until and we're sitting right here at these microphones.
17:54
negatory. Tori, because all I do is I just soak it up. i That's all I am on Discovery Channel dream right here. I get to just listen all the time to people that Well, you do all the thinking. I'm just the lazy guy to know about crack open a beer.
18:12
Really? Yeah, that happens here at the Jewish little twin consortium members meeting too. So we do a little that to
18:19
snippy snippy. Yep. Oh, I got it. How do they get ahold of you?
18:22
So you can learn about a Modra at a modra.ai. And I think there'll be notes in the in the show notes of this podcast. All right. Listen to
18:34
you. Yeah, little I'll be out on Industrial Talk. You just, it just fed me a line did you and it's, it's I M A and D are a trend. Mandra? Yeah, there you go. That's right. And you got your LinkedIn stack card here too. Yeah, I
18:48
do. My name is Jamie Smith. I'm the Vice President of products at a Modra hit me up on LinkedIn. Let's let's keep the conversation going.
18:56
His stack card will be out there on Industrial Talk too. So reach out to him. Because I think you will not be disappointed as nobody disappoints over here. But he knows what he's talking about. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. All right, listeners. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
19:14
You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.
19:19
All right, that was Jamie. As you can tell, he has mad skills. We're going to have all his contact information, the company's contact information all out on Industrial Talk, digital twin. Every time I have conversations, like the one with Jamie, I come to realize in a stark way that we are still at the tip of the iceberg of what this innovation, what these solutions will bring to industry. It's an exciting time. And I am for me, and I think I alluded to it in the conversation that my ears bleed sometimes just because it never stops. ops, it never stops evolving, and then identifying new ways or applications to take the innovation that is existing out there and expanding that use case and say, Hey, what about this? What about that? How about, hey, that just keeps going on and on. And people like Jamie and others at OMG never stopped debating. And I also like, the fact that even though we are at this point where all this innovation is just exploding, that there has to be some way of generating the standards or trustworthiness that ensures that we are doing the right thing that we're properly protected. I've just so excited. Thank you, Jamie, for being on. It does real talk. I'm gonna have a program. The program people ask me, Scott, how do you do all of this stuff? So we have a program that's coming out. It's specifically industrial marketing. It's, it's around what I do, and how I, you know, get the information out there. Be on the lookout for that. And we also have a number of webinars that are coming out. All out there on Industrial Talk. All right. Be bold, be brave, dare greatly hanging out with Jamie and you're going to change a little world. We're gonna have another great conversation coming from OMG shortly so stay tuned.
