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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Industrial Talk, predictive maintenance, reliability technician, Augury, machine health, predictive analytics, AI algorithms, CMMS system, vibration analyst, preventative maintenance, failure modes, API integration, maintenance journey, asset management, SMRP conference.

00:00

Scott. Welcome to the Industrial Talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots

00:21

and let's all right once again. Welcome to Industrial Talk. Thank you very much for joining the number one industrial related podcast in the universe that celebrates you industry professionals all around the world. I say it all the time because I believe it in my heart that you're bold, brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you are solving today's problems each and every day. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk, we are here on site, SMRP. It is a great conference. If you're in the world of asset management, reliability

00:51

and maintenance and everything

00:53

in between, you can be in technology, data, it's all here, and you need to put this on your calendar. If you're not here this year, you need to be here next year, so make that happen. All right. In the hot seat is Chris Napier. Did I get that right? Yes, sir, and he is with a company called augury. And you know why I have a hard time saying augury? It's it's because it's a hard name to say. No, yes. It's hard for me. Maybe not for you. Maybe it just sort of rolls off your tongue.

01:22

It's tongue. Well, are you familiar with the

01:25

No, I don't. That's why I wanted to. I was going to go down that road, and maybe that'll help help me pronounce it better. Yeah, am I saying it right? Augury. Augury. Augury. See, see, come on. Come on.

01:36

And if you're if you do some research on augury, you find that and augur is somebody who used to predict the future by the movement of birds. So it's a cool name for us. We predict, we do predictive maintenance. And so if you search augury, you know, Google it, you'll, you'll see that there's people that used to be called August, and they would predict the future. Ain't that pretty, pretty cool. I didn't know that. I just sort of blows my mind. Great name for a predictive maintenance company. Yeah, that's it.

02:10

That's cool, man. All right, for the listeners out there, give

02:12

us a little background on who Chris is.

02:16

02:47

I was just going to ask, how many years?

02:49

Yeah, starting the late 90s. I'm a lot older than I care to

02:53

admit, yeah, clearly, I was just gonna say, Geez, yeah, that the math didn't work in my head. It just didn't. You've seen a lot of changes. Yes. I mean, come on, where we are at today versus where we are at yesterday. You know, there's just

03:07

when I started in maintenance, we didn't even have a CMS system, no. And that was, that was unheard of. We had your carbon copy work orders back in the day. And that was, that was normal for everybody. And now it's normal that every every plant out there has got a CMS system. Every plants got predictive maintenance and reliability things. So the changes over the years that I've seen just in manufacturing have been phenomenal. I mean, we've got spot over there for Boston, Diane, yeah, we've got our augury sensors, which are just next level sensors. So I like the two new technology out there, and then you put AI in the mix. And so we're changing manufacturing, and it's changing right here in front of us. We had to

03:52

tell you, I came in contact with arguing

03:56

guy, it's been years.

03:58

Yeah. How long has that company been in business?

04:01

For about 14 years. We just celebrated 13, yeah, see,

04:05

and at that time, when I was having a conversation, this is in Florida, this like again, at another event, yeah, they they were at a cutting edge. What they were talking about was just from my perspective, at where I was at that time, it was gobbledygook, because I couldn't understand because they were next level, thinking they were they saw something that that I'm thinking to myself, oh how, wow, yeah,

04:34

to see them where they're at today, and

04:37

those things that they were talking about to you all Those years ago, those are true.

04:41

Now that's the point,

04:43

and it's in it's cool to be a part of just see the in that level of thinking. I see that every day with augury that they ask, why not? What would be the coolest? Coolest end to this? What? What can we develop to make that happen? They ask sex questions every day. And that's, that's why we've got a phenomenal product.

05:03

That product, what? What is that product? And is it manufactured in house?

05:09

Some is, some are, the platform itself is. And that product that we offer is machine health. So we're going to have sensors all over your machines, predictive analytics. We're going to bring that data in. We've got the world's most powerful algorithms running on that data. We've got people behind it too, and most people think that AI takes care of everything. It doesn't. There's always a human element in there. So we've got a bunch of vibration analysts and guys like me. I'm a reliability Success Manager. I work with our customers hand in hand. So I when you are become a new customer, you get assigned a guy like me, and I will have meetings with you every couple weeks, every month, whatever it takes to assist you through that reliability journey and implementing predictive maintenance technologies. That's what we do. That's our role.

06:00

So are you saying that, that you also are in the

06:03

field and being able to deploy these, these, this technology, in the field to make sure that it's pulling the data properly, and then it's, it's, it's going into your platform appropriately, whatever, and and spitting out information that is tactical. It's a, yep, it's good, good, good.

06:18

Go, yeah. How it works is, when we bring that information in, we've got the algorithms that are looking at all the data, they will pinpoint to me and our vibration analyst where the problems are. We go and verify that. So there's still a human kind of training that algorithm saying, yes, algorithm, you did good. Way to go, way to spot that. Or no, that's not a problem. So there's still a human element there, and that's and then it's the people that I think sets augury apart. They've done a real good job of going out and finding those elite, alive, reliability talents, bringing them in house, and giving them to our customers to utilize any way they can.

07:01

The the it the the algorithms? Yes, I guarantee you the algorithms, when I was talking to augury, number of years ago is different, are different today. Yeah, that never stops. That never that that that refinement, that that honing of results and insights never it just keeps on going.

07:23

07:35

How does, how does that happen? How? What's the, what's

07:39

the process behind it?

07:40

Now I understand it again. I'm a big

07:42

advocate on saying, Okay, it's great to have all this technology. You cannot, you cannot surgically remove the human element. You can't, you can't get rid of it. It's always going to be there. So how does the how do you, how do you do it? How's that tapped out?

08:01

You mentioned something just now that was very important, the human element. How do, how do manufacturers take this new technology and put it to use? I see struggles with that. If you're out and manufacturing, you will see that they struggle with it. And the difference is, you can have all the technology in the world. But if you don't have the fundamentals down in reliability, if you're not doing the right things with your lubrication or your parts of procurements or a mess, or your CMMS, utilization is not there. It doesn't matter what technology you throw at it. You've got to build that foundation first to be able to utilize it, because if you don't, then you will will not get the return on investment out of that new technology that you're purchasing. I think we talked yesterday about CMMS

08:49

systems, yeah, which they're,

08:50

they're, they're here. Yeah, there's a ton of them. Yeah, they're here.

08:54

I seen there's one there, and there's one right over there. So I think that may be one of our biggest things that manufacturing, that we struggle with. We're not using our CMS systems effectively. I see that, and I always tell people the reliability journey, if you're wanting to become, you know, a more efficient plant and install reliability practices throughout a plant. Step one start with knowing your machines, and that comes with building a bomb list in your CMMS system. You would be surprised how much Reliability starts right there when you know your machines and you have that bomb list built in your CMMS, Bill of Material, Bill of Material. And I wouldn't, you know, every manufacturer out there, I talked to somebody earlier and mentioned about, you know, mechanics walking around the parts room, looking for parts while machines are down. That's a big problem that will be solved by build the bomb list, you know, knowing your machine, knowing what parts are on there, and assigning it to that part, that asset in your CMS system. A very effective

10:01

way to do that, but that takes time. I've got to sit down. I got, I'm already sort of fighting other alligators, Chris, I can't do that. Oh, well, you got to,

10:12

it's, there's a That's step one. But you know, that's the, that's the argument, and that's where, that's where you got to develop a system in a plant that I've built before, about the steps going through of implementing that bomb list every time you add a new part, it's got to go on to an asset. Every time you add an asset, the bill of material has to be done. So that is a and you would be surprised how much reliability comes from that you know, preventative maintenance optimization when you're doing FMEA is you got to know also on the component level to do an FMEA, and that's where your PMA, PMO starts. Your preventative maintenance optimization starts from those FMEA, those failure modes. You're going to design your PMS around that failure mode. And you can't do your failure mode effectively, if you don't do it all the way down to component level, and you have to know those components, and you have to have them on the bomb list in the CMMS system. One thing I talked to another customer about today, they were also starting out with reliability. I told them, Hey, start with your bomb list. And they said, well, we don't even have PMS. And I said,

11:23

Come on, you gotta admit that's pretty stunning.

11:25

Well, it's it's common. It's more common. You think

11:28

I've been in business for a number of years, and the same contact conversations happen the same? Yeah, it hasn't changed.

11:36

Seems like it never changes. Oh, go ahead, continue. I hate to and we talked about PMS, building your pm we also talked about metrics. And I know a lot of people, when they're starting out with PMS, they want to track pm compliance is, are we doing our PMS effectively, or are we getting the job done? It's not that's not where we should start. When you're starting, your metrics shouldn't be pm compliance. It should be, is that pm effective? Look for metrics to track to whether your PMS are effective or not. Once you know they're effective, then track the pm compliance.

12:15

What constitutes an effective pm?

12:18

I look, I look for breakdowns, breakdowns between pm schedule. So my my reactive work that I'm doing. I want that work to be minimal if, if it's not, I'm going to go back to my FMEA is and adjust my preventative maintenance. But then once I got that to a point where I know that's effective pm, then I'm going to start tracking its compliance to make sure it's completed.

12:45

But I'm gonna argue is, is, is the

12:50

company that

12:53

manipulates or just chews on data? Yes, you do a great job at that, but what you're talking about is operational type stuff.

13:01

Yeah, it's like, are you

13:02

in that too well?

13:04

Or you are? You're not going to sell

13:07

a solution that augury provides if they're not going to use it properly, which then is not good for

13:13

you guys, exactly. So that's why each, each of our customers are assigned a guy like me, an RSM, and we stay in touch regularly with the plants. I've got quite a few plants that I have meetings with every couple weeks. We'll have a teams meeting, we'll pull up the data, we'll prioritize maintenance work, depending on different factors of what the data tells us, and help the plants put their put their problems into planning and scheduling effectively.

13:41

Talk about their CMS. Yeah, you guys connect directly to their CMMS, API, whatever. Here we have

13:50

an API, yeah, but

13:54

so I don't have to me from a workflow perspective, I can stay in my CMMS and then be able to

14:02

do all the work that I need to in that

14:04

particular platform. In our platform, we have, we utilize API's for everybody. SAP Maximo, ifs will, we change a health status into one where we feel work needs to be done, it will automatically generate a notification or a work order there at the site. And when they close that work and complete that in their CMMS system, it will, it's a two way integration, so it'll talk back and close it in augury form as well. And it's, and it's great to have that, because it just removes a

14:32

step, it removes busy work. And there's no reason why you wouldn't have that. Yeah, I think, I think the the

14:40

Shangri law of maintenance will be a

14:45

notification of a challenge in the asset, okay, there's a notification, and the analytics is so precise that it will fire off a work order contact the maintenance. Professional tell that maintenance individual to bring a wrench this and the problem is seal, or whatever it might be, and the seal number is 543, have everything drive out there. No, no. It just, all of a sudden, just happens. Yeah, compresses that time, and

15:19

we're getting to that point with the augury platform. We've got a button in there. If you do have a machine that changed health status, you just hit that button that says, What's wrong with my machine, and it will it will source all the data in the platform, the historical data, the vibration, analyst recommendations, any comments I make in there on that machine. It will put it all together in something you can copy and paste in a work order. And that's when we have those API for CMS. We will, we will include that so the work order gets printed with the AI recommending what to be doing, done on the machine to get it back into the green.

15:57

Here's, here's a interesting challenge. Yeah. Now, granted, I agree, has this platform, it's it's robust, it can do a lot of great things. And just like many things,

16:13

do you have

16:16

an issue knowing that maybe where that company is in their their journey into the world of maintenance and reliability, and where your your platform and your service and your solution can deliver, there's a gap that they won't take advantage. They're just not at a point where they can take advantage of

16:37

your tool. Yeah, and that that comes from the maturity of you of a facility and reliability, the the manufacturers that are more mature in their reliability journey are more effective utilizing any new technology. And that's just common across all manufacturing. So the like, the the basics, the you know, having the having your house in order if you're reliability, yeah, that that creates a higher ROI because you can use it more effectively. So that's what I always that's what an RSM does. That's what we do for our customers. We make we help them through that journey.

17:16

See, I think that that's again, back to that human element. You just can't, you can't decouple it. You got the technology. But it's always gets down to that human element. Yeah, yeah, and and, and trust. Do I trust Chris? Yes, I do. He's got mad Street, credit, all of this stuff. He fits the bill. So I,

17:35

I consumer

17:37

of your solution, feel confident that I'm on the right journey with the right

17:43

collaboration with the right company.

17:45

Yeah, that's, that's the way we view it, and that's our RSMS for our customers. We will go the extra mile, even if it's not related to our data. We're we've been in the maintenance reliability world for long enough. And I always tell them if, if I you can ask any question, if I don't know the answer, I know the people who do, yeah, and you'll find those people right here at SMRP. This is a great conference, too.

18:11

It is. Everybody's so nice. You notice that? So nice?

18:15

Yeah? Well, well, they're not working. That's why

18:19

they're not sour by the word Yeah. So as we close, how do people get a hold of you?

18:25

Augury.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn. Just look me up. Send me a request, and we'll look up and we'll teach you about Augury.

18:36

19:24

be right back. You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

19:36

All right, I'm looking at a stat card. Yeah, Chris' stat card, I agree, is the company and again, mad skills. As I scroll down, 25 years of experience, 25 so he's seen a lot. So you what you need to do? Yeah, you need to reach out to him. You need to sort of say, hey. Hey, Chris, let's be friends on LinkedIn, right there. Stat card, Hamas, great company, by the way. Yeah, I remember when they were young and and full of just incredible thinking, yeah, it's a great company. You need to look into them. And again, you connect with Chris, you'll, you'll look into the company. Arguing. All right, we were broadcasting from SMRP. We're going to be doing that, that broadcasting again this year, and it's going to be bigger, better, stronger, faster. It's going to be absolutely wonderful. You're in the world of asset management, reliability, maintenance, technology, everything in between. It is moving fast. It is something that you need to keep your finger on the pulse, and you need to participate, you need to go out to SMRP.org, it's all there and get engaged. It's a really great event. And everybody there, and, I mean, everybody wants you to succeed, and they're there to help you. Yeah, you can tell I'm a big fan of SMRP, society of maintenance and reliability professionals, right? There been around forever. Great team. All right. Industrial Talk

21:11

needs for you to

21:12

tell your story. You need to inspire that next generation, and that comes through storytelling and why you're cool, we can help you be cool. That's what we're all about. It's where the cool kids hang out. I say it all the time. Come to Industrial Talk. Go out to Industrial Talk.com. Find out more. Talk to me. Let's have a conversation. Let's see how we can make you cool. All right. All right. We're gonna have another incredible conversation coming from SMRP, so stay tuned. We will be back shortly.