Do you desire a more joy-filled, deeply-enduring sense of accomplishment and success? Live your business the way you want to live with the BUSINESS BEATITUDES...The Bridge connecting sacrifice to success. YOU NEED THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!
TAP INTO YOUR INDUSTRIAL SOUL, RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW! BE BOLD. BE BRAVE. DARE GREATLY AND CHANGE THE WORLD. GET THE BUSINESS BEATITUDES!
Reserve My Copy and My 25% Discount
00:00
Industrial Talk is brought to you by Armis. Yes, you were in the digital transformation game. Yes, you need to find trusted companies, trusted individuals to help you along with that journey. The Armis platform delivers complete asset intelligence, you know what that means, insights into your connected assets, you're in the digital transformation game, you have to have the insights into what is connected, go to armis.com Find out more, you will not be disappointed. Also, AiDash AiDash is on a mission to create a greener, cleaner, safer planet from space. AiDash helps core industries become more resilient, efficient, and sustainable through the power of satellites and AI, go out to AiDash.com find out more. Thank you very much for joining industrial talk on this episode, we are broadcasting from distribute tech 22. And it was just an incredible event highlighting some of the great leaders in the utility space, and really pushing the envelope on what is taking place and transforming the utility business. We're speaking with Scott Reese. He is the CEO of GE Digital. And I'm telling you, he brings the truth bombs. But before we get into that conversation, I want you to put a couple of events on your calendar, the first one, and I'm broadcasting there. The first one is IMTS, this is in Chicago, it is September 12. Through the 17th, which it looks at, if you're in the manufacturing space. Yeah, that's where you want to go a lot of great is a huge, huge, so we will be broadcasting their industrial talk. So if if you're going, you know, reach out to me, let's get something scheduled for on site. The other events that I'm going to is this is the American manufacturing strategy Summit. This is October 11, through the 12. This is in Houston. And again, this is going to be a great event. If you're in manufacturing. Yep, check it out. And don't be afraid I'll be there too. And, and if you're thinking about being in the Houston area, yes. Look me up. And the last one that I have on your calendar, this would be the European manufacturing strategy Summit. This is, again, going to be a great one. This is in Berlin, and the date is November 7 through the ninth. So put those on your calendars. All right, let's get with the conversation with Scott Reese. Enjoy the conversation.
02:41
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 good on your hardhat grab your work boots. And let's get
02:58
right once again, welcome to industrial talk the number one industrial related podcast in the universe. Scott, That's data that's just pure data that backs that up, just FYI. Don't Don't don't start chirping and saying, Hey, that's impossible. It's got no it's not. It's not. And we celebrate industry professionals all around the world. Because you're bold, you are brave, you dare greatly. you innovate. You solve problems, you're making my life better, and you're making the world a better place to live. Thank you very much for what you do. And it is an ever expanding industrial ecosystem that is just including a lot of problems. So I was like Scott right next to me. Problem solvers. Yes, it is industrial talk. All right, we're broadcasting prop distributech 22, Dallas, Texas is the location. It is a great place. A lot of wonderful vendors happen in here. But we're going to be talking to Scott, he's in the hot seat. Energy Transition. From the software perspective. GE is the company. Let's get cracking. Yeah, that's Jusco. I'm worn out. It's all about you. Just start talking
03:57
at Great. Get the chance to connect with a fellow Scott world's biggest problems. That's right, what we're doing to make things better.
04:03
You're gonna notice listeners right off the bat that we're both really good looking. I love your hair. We go to the same barber house, Ted. Got that. So anyway, give the listeners just give us a little background little 411 on who you
04:18
are. Sure, Scott Reese, kind of a software nerd that spent a lot of time in manufacturing. So a lot of passion for all things manufacturing. But over the last decade or so really spent my time moving all things manufacturing to the cloud, and realizing you know, the power of the cloud and what it can do to tackle some of the big problems. And you're now at GE looking forward to doing that same thing around the energy transition.
04:43
See, that's interesting with about the cloud that there was the cloud is powerful. The cloud allows businesses to do a lot of things that that we weren't able to do not that long ago. And then all of a sudden Cloud was there. And it's like, all right. I remember having to figure out what the cloud was. And somebody said, Well, yeah, just put it in the cloud. The heck are you talking about? And then he, of course, he realized what it is. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about cloud. Let's talk about what GE is doing. And let's talk about how the, how we're talking about energy transition, the need for technology, the need for software, where does G stand on all that?
05:24
Because if you think about, you know, what the cloud does does, in general, it gives us the ability to compute things that previously, we just didn't have a way to compute. So many of the problems that we're facing in the world are computable problems. So we want to bring the power of the cloud to the point of the problem. And with the energy transition, so many things that we need to tackle, these are computable problems, we just need to apply the software to the problem, and make the humans tackling those problems a lot more capable.
05:51
Yeah, see, we've, I know that the technology is always the technology. And again, you got smart people like you, there's always that human component. And you're always talking to utilities that have that commitment to serve, reliable, you know, cost effective, safe wise. And so they're gonna always drive this sort of transition into this. But you find in any interest, or well, when you work with the utilities, sort of like a way, way home? Hey, I don't know if it's security, you have any of those conversations,
06:23
no question. And there are a lot of regulatory elements that we advantage with utilities. And you know, the shift to the cloud won't happen overnight. What we want to do is make sure that we are painting the picture and making sure everybody sees what a better future looks like. Because we're convinced around the energy transition in particular, that the next 10 years, the work that we do, there is going to have a multi generational impact. So we just want to make sure that we're doing the hard work that we know is going to have that multi generational impact and leave a legacy that we can all be proud of.
06:56
What does that look like when we start talking about? I mean, I see. Honestly, Scott, I'm glad you're in that it that is way above my paygrade. I'm sort of that old school guy that has that sort of linear thermal, you know, model in mind generator, transmission, substations, and it's just real linear, down to that pole top transformer and my light goes on. How do we, how do we do this effectively without causing any issues? Because I mean, we're talking about, hey, that guy's got a solar panel, I want to I don't want to wheel it into the grid, and then that might play. It just I don't know how you do.
07:36
It's tricky. Electrons historically, float in one direction. And you know, now that you and I have solar panels, windmills are showing up everywhere. You know, it's no longer a united directional flow of electrons. So utilities are having to figure out how do we bring these things on safely, without destabilizing our grid? And, you know, those are the challenges that we want to help with. Because if we don't tackle those things, a lot of that renewables are going to get resisted. Oh, yeah, they will. And we're never going to move the needle. Right. So cleaner energy is obviously the answer. But we have to be planful and intentional about how we bring those onto the grid, so that we don't need to stabilize things. How
08:20
do you deal with, you know, the typical, the stability of the grid is always driven by real physical assets. GE turbots, man, they're, they're physical, and they're in sync, and they, you know, there's a physical quality to it. How do we address these other generation sources like solar panels? And how do we how do we address that to ensure you know, the grid stability?
08:46
So again, it all comes back to software, we don't believe there's any way that the energy transition happens without software. You know, one of our most recent acquisitions is a company called Opus One, which brings the ability to have visibility and ultimately manage these renewable assets and bringing those into our ADMS solution where people are managing the historical grid, and making those renewables that natural part of the ecosystem is not only important, but we think software is the way that that happens. And that's been our big focus to ge.
09:21
Because the reality is if you don't have that solution, that software one of the challenges that we dealt with, long ago when I was negotiating power purchase agreements, was that the system operator said I'm depending on you, I'm depending on you. And so it was a different conversation. Like you said, your you know, your 15 Meg's I want 15 Meg's, because I'm depending on yours today, that's not the case. It has to be solved by software. Yes. So other way of getting around
09:52
Yeah. And this is, you know, the terminology I use is, you know, these are computable problems. But unless we build the software, we have the AI in place, we don't know what to compute, right? And there's deterministic computable problems and there's non deterministic computable problems. And, you know, the one of the things that I build out in a prior role previous to GE is something we've got general generative design, where you framed the problem, and then literally, the cloud will compute every solution to that problem could be millions, and brings back to you based on what you care about, here's the one solution to the problem. That is literally the most optimal solution, not just one that simply works. A lot of those same dynamics, a lot of those same patterns around computability, applied to helping us accelerate the energy transition
10:42
along the same lines is that we know that I'm a consumer, you're a consumer, and we don't want to go without power, we need it. Right. All right, we got equipment. Everything's with power. One of the things that I see as critical to it, and I think you spoke briefly, is that asset management asset prediction, how do you take these disconnected and I can't see disconnect, that's a sort of these other generation sources to ensure that they're reliable, that they're available, and that you and I, you know, are just sort of numb to the fact that the power works, yeah, they have to be reliable, they have to apply.
11:21
there, where we monitor over:12:42
there, you're with that ability to have insights into the health of that asset. You can press the time, you don't want catastrophic, you don't want it. You want to be able to proactively apply the maintenance that is necessary for that asset. For minimal impact, you got it. We have to play that game, we have to be in that game. And that's all
13:07
about collecting the data it is and not just having the data but being able to translate data into insights that are actionable.
13:14
Yeah, that's the game. That's and that's that AI ML type of component because we have limitations. We do. We need that ability to have those platforms in place to say, that's fine, that's fine. That's fine. Well, there's visa data and do it quickly. And then be able to notify you that that's something's going on, you got to see there's no other way of looking at it. Because we do you think and of course, you're gonna say yes, this is sort of a leading question, but thanks for giving me the answer. That's right. All right. Do you think it's gonna be okay for us?
13:52
Look, it's it's all about, you know, taking action quickly. And that's the reason I came out of the job that I had for nearly two decades, and came to GE Digital because I believe in the energy transition, but we're out of time. We have to get after it. We have to get serious and we have to take advantage of the assets that we have with the cloud in particular and bring it to
14:15
C and G brings that trust your CI doc on it good. The majority of all the turbans on the turban Decker G the generator G you know, they're out there. So you have this wealth of knowledge. And from a utilities perspective, right? Utilities culture is not known for being the leader in this innovation journey. They're gonna wait till something is truly high. That's okay. It works. Okay, I'm gonna that's what GE comes into play. You know, you can point to it's like, right there. There it is. That gives that comfort, that trust where
14:49
you want those utilities to kind of play that role, right? Because you said it yourself. When I flipped the switch. I want the light to come on. The reason that happens more times than not is because the role of the utilities play out Our job is to help de risk the future for those utilities pointedly, you know, for you. So that's why we're investing ahead and software to really figure these things out and make it safe for the utilities to put in play that way they're able to save the planet while keeping your lights on.
15:19
That's pretty cool, huh? You're cool. You like to jump.
15:23
I'm a nerd. I just like nerdiness. To me, big problem.
15:26
It's like this. This is the digital coffee table. Industrial digital coffee table right here. Because I know that I can continue. Because I What's interesting, I don't even know some of the questions asked, all I know, is that it's happening. We, we've got to do it. We've got to have that collaborative type of play with with all the parties to come up with a solution that is somewhat so certain, invisible to the end user. They don't know what's going on. It just happens magically sort of like that cloud, SAS all of that stuff, it just sort of it just gets better. And they don't even know it.
16:04
It's happening but like it's not happening fast enough. And that's why if you go over and look at our booth, you know, we use the word accelerate accelerate the energy transition, because we believe it's not happening fast enough. And we're out of time you know, let's beat let's be clear like the time is now and again. That's why I'm excited to be here. It's easy to get people rallied around a mission. A time based mission right? We're not just doing work we're not coming here to do work. We're coming here to make the world a better place and to have it be here for multiple generations after us.
16:37
Your your cool all all Scots are cool. You can use it on all Scots are handsome, and all Scots are cool. And all Scots are just great people. How do people get a hold of this great skier to hear? Yeah. Terrified air? Yeah. It's backed by data. It's science. How do they get a hold of us get? They get a hold of you, not me. They know how to get a hold
17:05
of ge.com/digital. Check us out. And let's save the world together.
17:12
Hey, If this doesn't work out, you got a great career in podcasting. Thank you for being on. Thanks for having me, Scott. All right, listeners. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Thank you very much for joining industrial talk. We are broadcasting from distributech 22. Dallas is the town. Boy, it is a great event. It's good to have people together and shaking hands and seeing things and solving problems. All right. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
17:37
You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.
17:46
That was a great conversation. Thank you, Scott Reese, CEO, GE Digital for being on industrial talk. And at the distributech 22 event. Sorry about the noise in the background is just we were all right on the floor, making things happen. All right. Remember, we've got a couple of things that we're rolling out one, we're doing a series on one, the state of utilities, I think that there's a necessity to be able to bring people together, paint that cogent picture. So we're going to be putting that live podcast together. The other thing of those three events, and we're talking about IMTS. We're talking about the manufacturing manufacturing strategy Summit. And that's both Europe and the United States. Put those on your calendar. I'm gonna be there. Please look me up. If you want to get on the podcast, and if you want to be interviewed at those at those events, all right. Be bold, be brave, dare greatly reach out to Scott. And I'm telling you, you're going to change the world. Thank you very much for joining industrial talk. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So stay tuned.