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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Women in reliability, Fluke Xcelerate, industrial podcast, predictive maintenance, AI diagnostic, safety systems, Lineage Logistics, CMMS implementation, psychological safety, untapped workforce, AI features, event logistics, marketing campaigns, industry professionals, cultural impact.

00:00

Industrial talk is brought to you by Fluke. We were on site at Fluke's Xcelerate event, where Reliability Reimagined came to life, from high energy keynotes to hands-on predictive maintenance tools to breakthrough AI diagnostic. The event delivered real-world strategies teams can use today. Xcelerate once again proved why it is the launch pad for smarter, faster, reliable operations. Go out to Fluke.com to find out more.

00:35

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.

00:53

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, you're bold, you're brave, you dare greatly, you innovate, you collaborate, you are making the world a better place. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk. This is a story about you. You are the heroes in this story. We are broadcasting here, Austin, Texas. The event is Xcelerate, brought to you by those wonderful people at Fluke. Go out to Fluke.com find out more. They are a group of incredible professionals passionate about your success. Fluke.com All right, in a hot seat, in a hot seat we have women in reliability. We're going to be talking about women in reliability. It is a panel we're going to expand upon that. We're going to encourage the women to be involved in this reliability world, and we have Niccolette and Nikki. Yes, I did say that. There it is. And we're going to be talking about that event, and we're here. We're just going to expand upon it. So, let's get cracking. All right. Hi, Nikki. Hi, Niccolette.

02:03

Hi. Hello.

02:05

I'm excited. First woman on the broadcast here at Xcelerate. It is a man-dominated sport, just FYI. It just is. I'm sorry, and I'm glad it's not. Yeah, big time. I'm glad. But anyway, Nikki, you having a good conference?

02:23

Yeah, it's great. Lot of great people, great connecting across the board. The wealth of knowledge just with Fluke that are in attendance right now is fantastic.

02:32

You're stubbing your toe on it, slipping in it. I can't keep it. I'm

02:36

dripping off the wall.

02:37

That's right, drinking from a fire hose. Yeah, and Niccolette, you're with Fluke, you're part of the team that put this incredible event on.

02:45

Yeah, it's amazing. This event every year takes a huge team to put together and run smooth.

02:52

Assume it's a

02:53

detail, it's just..

02:54

it is

02:55

stupid amazing,

02:56

that's what it is. The

02:57

D, in a very positive way, not stupid in a bad sense. Yeah, stupid amazing. All right, let's level set. Let's just do a little background on Nikki. Give us a little background on who you are.

03:09

Well, my name is Nikki Smith. I work for Lineage Logistics,

03:13

just FYI. You're one of the easiest names I can remember. Thank you.

03:16

Right, you should see my maiden name. Work for Lineage Logistics. Have been working in the industry for about 18 years now, been in reliability, started

03:25

at age 10,

03:26

totally, you know, it, yeah, about 12 years in reliability, working with different CMMSs, purchased by Lineage about four years ago from my previous company, and I've been doing it ever since. Also, I'm Canadian.

03:44

Whereabouts,

03:45

British Columbia, Canada,

03:46

BC, beautiful,

03:48

absolutely

03:49

gorgeous.

03:49

BC, bring cash.

03:52

Yeah, all my family is from Ontario, so

03:55

I grew up there. Yeah,

03:56

whereabouts

03:56

Bradford, Ontario, just outside of Toronto,

04:00

Hamilton, and Dundas,

04:01

there you go,

04:02

there it

04:02

is.

04:03

Just move along, Niccolette. Now it's you. Tell us about you.

04:08

Yeah, well, so I'm in marketing, hence helping out with the event.

04:12

Yes, and you're doing a great job.

04:13

Thank you so much. And I've been in predominantly the male side of marketing, digital marketing, coding, web design, and a couple years ago I decided to switch it up, go over to the marketing campaign side, and event logistics. So my passion with women being part of engineering and reliability kind of stems from my own experience working in a male-dominated field.

04:42

Yeah, it is. it is all right. You know, I, we will want to talk about women and reliability, but I need to talk to you, Nikki. Why? Why are you? What, what drew you into being a part of this whole. Reliability community, because let's just, let's just lay it out there. You're a unicorn, you got that old horn coming, as I could. You're a unicorn. Why, that's amazing.

05:11

05:18

No,

05:18

he fell 11 stories off of a high-rise building,

05:21

no,

05:21

two months in ICU, 84 days in outpatient care. And from there I started getting into safety, making sure that our safety systems were reliable, and getting in, making sure that another wife, another family didn't have to go through the same experience. Joined safety committees, became a safety representative for my organization, and we're working closely with the engineering department, and as time went by, they looked at me and said, "Hey, do you want to be an engineer?

05:48

"Shut up.

05:48

So I said, "Great, let's do this.

05:52

Take us.. Is your husband okay?

05:55

He is

05:56

okay.

05:56

Still a royal pain in the butt.

05:58

Well, there you go. There you have it. Well, now take us through just the company lineage. What are we talking about?

06:05

We are a global organization across all continents. We've got about 500 plus sites around the world. In North America, about 240 I think was my last math on the back of the napkin. In North America alone, Canada and the US,

06:22

240

06:23

Yes, sir. We've got standard warehousing, fully automated warehousing, D to T, D to D, a whole lot of different things going on, but in the end, food from the farm, food to the warehouse, food to your table.

06:39

Oh,

06:39

we are feeding the world,

06:41

that is amazing. How many people work for lineage?

06:45

Oh, I couldn't tell you. I'll stop my head. About 10,000

06:49

Nicola. I'll come to you, Nicola. Just FYI, but this is just back over here. Yeah, are you on an email of some sort?

06:58

Yes, we were in the United States, we were mostly on x4 across the sites, and then to get that enterprise level reporting and visibility.

07:09

Yep, yep, yep,

07:10

we went to x5 We are currently 104 sites live up on our 500 site implementation journey. We should be done North America, hopefully in the next three months, and continuing moving on.

07:22

How has that been? I mean, how is it? Because you're at x4 now, you're saying now we need to go x5 we need some more that that ability to go organization wide. Has that been.. I mean, I would imagine the transition becomes better as time goes on,

07:41

it does, but if you start with good standardization, right from the get-go, you build your framework, you build what you want to get out of the program, and work from there. Implementations start to go one after the other, you start to get things out. It's not a cookie cutter, every site is different, brings its own complexities, but you have that framework for better success down

08:00

the end. And final question, because I have to ask this question, is how long have you been on

08:06

EMaints,

08:07

and a five, just to say EMaint,

08:09

EMaint in general, our company has been on for 14 years.

08:13

Say that again,

08:14

14 years,

08:14

14. See, yeah,

08:18

Nicollet,

08:19

that's that's you guys are the winners in the conversation. You're not only just the women at the first time on the podcast here at Xcelerate, you got the great story. It's a cool story. All right, Niccolette, let's talk a little bit about women and reliability. What was the brainchild behind that? What, what, what did you see?

08:39

Yeah, so I've been to several conferences where they host women on stage for specific reasons, because of male-dominated fields like technology, utilities, and the last company I worked at, my boss spearheaded their Women in Utility conference. It was amazing, and when I came to Fluke, I knew we had to double down on that, and so this year we decided to have one of the breakout sessions be a panel of women, and it went so great. I'm so blessed that they all joined us, and I'm hoping we can be on the big stage next year.

09:16

Do you need me to sort of pull some strings, because I can pull some strings?

09:19

Absolutely,

09:20

I can't. It's just me speaking at the side of my mouth. Niccolette, give us a little background on who you are.

09:28

Yeah, so I've been with Fluke for almost five years now.

09:31

Yeah,

09:32

and I started.. well, I live in Idaho. I started Northern Idaho, in Coeur d'Alene.

09:38

Coeur d'Alene,

09:39

it's gorgeous.

09:40

Yeah, Coeur d'Alene, I think. Don't you have the vandals? Is that where that..

09:44

that's where I went for my undergrad. Yep,

09:46

the best mascot

09:48

I know.

09:50

Go ahead,

09:51

go Vandals,

09:52

go Vandals! Yeah,

09:53

and so then, and I went to Gonzaga University, go Gonzaga basketball,

09:59

yeah,

09:59

I. For my MBA, and so I've been doing marketing for, like, I said, about 15 years, and mostly in the male-dominated portion, which is like coding web design, and the last about six years I've been doing events and marketing campaigns.

10:19

That's an interesting decision to make, because events you have to live in the world of chaos,

10:26

totally,

10:27

and have that demeanor about you. So I look at Xcelerate by right behind you, you got maps there on a little truck, somebody had to make a decision to go there, somebody had to make a decision, and there's a breakout thing. I just see the level of detail that has to happen, and it just happens

10:44

totally.

10:45

And nobody, and just FYI, does the map.. it's just attention to detail. It's amazing.

10:54

Events take a lot of attention to detail, and a lot of helping hands. Honestly, it would take two years to do this all by yourself, you know, for the amount of work and the attention

11:05

to detail. Never, you'd never get there.

11:07

Yeah,

11:07

never get there. Yeah,

11:09

by the time you, you got done, it'd be outdated to start over, you know. You need a team, so we've got a great team at Fluke, and this event goes off without a hitch every year,

11:19

without a hitch, I can definitely attest to that. It's been absolutely a highlight of my year. It really is, and it's not just.. it's not just the event. Events great, it's great, you know. You don't.. it's almost.. if, when you.. you're in the middle of the event, if you.. if you're getting irritated, you don't want that. You don't even feel irritated, because that's that's that's the level of detail it just happens. It was like

11:46

to hear that.

11:48

Yeah, it is. And I've been at events where it's like really, and our customers

11:54

really make the event. Honestly, every customer we have here is such a class act. They're a good time, you know. Last night we were all line dancing after dinner, and they're so fun. They're just so easy to get along with and talk with.

12:09

Yeah. All right, let's talk back to women and reliability, the brain child behind that. So we need to highlight that more. That's absolutely, I agree with that. You need to highlight it, and how does, how does a women's perspective in the world of liability differ from a man's? Nikki,

12:36

women's perspective and a men's perspective, everybody comes to the table with a different perspective.

12:41

Yeah,

12:42

we all have different experiences, different backgrounds, and we all bring something new to the table. If you are bringing the same type of person onto your team, you're getting confirmation bias. You need to diversify your team,

12:54

yeah,

12:55

get those different perspectives. Women bring that different lifestyle, bring that different background to the team, and they could see things with a new pair of eyes, and they do on a very regular basis. Having a very well defined, well-rounded team makes reliability that much better, because you can see things from every angle.

13:14

I have to ask the question about just your organization and the commitment to properly managing those assets, leveraging the technology, leveraging the tool, you have, must, you must have seen a lot of changes. I've been in the world of asset management reliability for many years, to where it was like the, the, you know, nobody wanted to do it because nobody had any, any pull to get it done, like you're always pushing rope up a hill to where we are today, which I think has traction. I think it has stickiness. Can you tell us a little bit outside of the fact that you, you started focusing on safety and all that stuff when you were tasked to be that engineer. Where were you at on that? How did you start that? How did.. how do you just like.. okay, I'll do it. And what do you do?

14:11

Well, it was going to school, getting certifications, getting a great mentor. A great mentor makes all the difference, helping you every step of the way. I had wonderful mentors along the way, all of them were just really great men who wanted to see women succeed, because they saw the value that bringing women into the industry had, and that's what it took, is just making sure and having the ability, even in myself, to raise my hand and say, I want to be a part of this, I can be a part of this, but we need to make sure that we give that option to women to be able to step up and show what they've got.

14:45

Yeah, there's been a lot of change. Now, I'll give you a case in point of real life example. I've been on many projects, and I've seen the reliability engineer, and the reliability engineer was pretty much rode hard. Put it away wet, and nobody cared about them, and, and they use, they bought the tools, but nobody can. It's just they live in this world of chaos, right? Because nobody's doing what they need to do, and, and, and, so on and so forth, and everyone, like, I don't trust management, you got to have that top-down management, and if you don't, it just dies a miserable death. And then nobody takes you serious.

15:27

You need to make yourself approachable. Every month, I have a - I call it my tips and tricks call with all of my field, all of my users. They're more than welcome to come on. We discuss their issues, their shortfalls, we discuss tips, tricks, things that make their lives easier. I want them to be heard. Every user in the system helps build a better system, and if we don't have that backing, if we don't have that buy-in from our users, it's doomed to fail right from the word go.

15:53

Absolutely, culture, people, human, it's never really the technology. The technology you get, you get a lot of smart people in the room, do the technology, you know that, NColette. Yeah, you got it. Yeah, Fluke does a great job at that. They've got some great solutions, but man, if you don't really tackle that culture, this is to you, Nicollet. How is Fluke? How is that that team? Because what I can appreciate with Luke, the team that I work with, and what I see here at Xcelerate. There is this culture that really is committed to rowing in the same direction, understands the mission, understands the purpose. It seems like it, whatever, I'm not in the, you know, the behind the curtain type stuff, but it just seems like that that's the case. How does the culture of Fluke can impact your clients

16:46

100% What you're seeing is what's behind the curtain. Our team is so invested in the culture in creating this safe space for everyone to be able to relax and really open up their minds and help contribute in a way that works best for them, and I think our clients see that and gravitate towards

17:10

it. Yeah,

17:10

I mean the fact that we get this autonomy to do the work that we love and to be able to jump on special projects, join other teams if we want, like leadership is so supportive of those things, and I truly think our clients can feel that, and it goes into our work. It shows,

17:31

yeah, without a doubt. I, you know, I've spoken to many people, I was thinking, well, I don't know what you guys are drinking, but it's good stuff, whatever that is.

17:39

Flu Kool-Aid,

17:40

I'd also just like to add on that my experience with flu,

17:43

thank you,

17:44

and on that, it, they're, they're not a bunch of yes men, I don't have somebody coming in and placating me, if I've, if I'm going off the rails, someone will say, "Hey, we may want to pivot, look at it a different way, we work as a team, not as a customer and a supplier,

18:00

yeah,

18:00

and it's that team building. We are working on a single product for my site, and your implementation specialists, customer success managers. You write down, I spend a lot of time in the IT department today. Everybody is willing to help, has the knowledge, the skills, and are approachable. It is fantastic. It is in our company, we have our safety principles, and our last and most important, in my opinion, safety principles. Safety is also psychological, being free to express ideas. Our ideas empowers our team, and I think you guys also show that

18:31

100% Yeah, and every client that I talk to, that's why I love Xcelerate, because I get to talk to a lot of clients in a short amount of time. They reiterate exactly what you're saying, they just feel like this safeness to open up, really be themselves, and that's when the ideas start flowing, you know. Creativity, I mean, it's just amazing.

18:53

See, I like that. I think that that's the, that's the silver bullet that everybody's trying to search for, because I know that in industry today they're looking for that, that I can't find people, I can't, I'm struggling here. So I go to automation, I'm going to do certain things to try to keep my business up and running and resilient, and so they gravitate toward the, but I believe personally, me, I believe it is truly a conversation around culture and being able to establish that that culture, that purpose, that meaning that people can get behind. I think it's just vital. Then, then once you get that, once you deal with it, I think that's also a way of being able to attract that young talent, that next generation of leaders, that that everybody's trying to get whatever you need to commit to, that you need to commit, commit to the solutions and the technology, because that's what's going to attract that too, and that mentor,

19:51

I never thought that this was going, I was going to film school when I got out of high school, this was not my first, my first. Voice, I never thought a day in my life I'd be an engineer.

20:03

Yeah,

20:03

but that opportunity came, and I think if we take that opportunity and offer it to other women, make them know that you don't need to have a bachelor's degree right off the bat. You can learn on the job, you can get fine mentors, find companies that are willing to sponsor you, and we have an initiative at Lineage called Will Women in lineage, and we do that. We try to raise them up, give them the other options. There's a whole untapped workforce, yes, expertise, yes, that we need to encourage and support them to come and try these generally male-dominated careers.

20:36

Brilliant.

20:37

I think, too, I agree that women sometimes they can put themselves in this box, and you don't realize you can step out of that box and try other things.

20:45

That box is safe,

20:47

totally.

20:47

And once we show them that other boxes are safe too, they'll, they'll step out of that. My kids look, you know, "Hey, Mom, I want to be an engineer like you one day. It touches my heart

20:57

so much.

20:58

Yeah, how old are your kids?

21:01

10 and five.

21:02

Shut up. Okay, that's cool too.

21:04

I don't know if my five year old I trust with a tool rate yet might break something, probably.

21:11

So, here's, here's a challenge. And this is to you, Niccolette. I believe we're all, everything's happening so quickly, everything's changing. There's a velocity out there, that's just like everybody's trying to figure it out, right? And it's being driven, it's being driven by that technology, it's being driven by customers saying, I want more, I want, I demand more, I want better quality, whatever, whatever, there's a velocity out there, your point, Nikki, about untapped workforce, whatever, to you, Niccolette. We're not telling the story.

21:46

Yeah, so I

21:47

need to

21:47

100% agree. I think sometimes companies, and Blue concluded, can kind of play it a little safe,

21:54

yes,

21:55

when it comes to pushing the envelope, and when you see those companies that really stick out, it's because they're pushing that envelope, and so with our new AI features that we've launched this week, that's one of the things that we were like, we need to push that envelope a little more within reliability and maintenance. AI needs to become a reality, not just, oh yeah, I use like Chat GPT, you know, my personal life, this is like you can use this on the plant floor, it's useful, and it requires you to use it, a human, you know, so it's not like scary autonomous like AI. So I think, like, this is a great example of us testing those waters and giving our customers what they want to, I mean, they've been shouting from the rooftops, like, yeah, we want to use these new features, these new tools, these new ideas,

22:48

yeah, because here's the funny thing, these tools, and somebody's gonna say it's gonna replace my business, it's not, it's just a simple fact, there is these tools remove frustration, it's like beforehand, I had to, I had to go through this SOP, and I was like, I had to read through all this stuff to get to the stuff that I need to get to. Now it's like, it's like, boom, boom, boom, it

23:12

doesn't love saving

23:13

time. Yeah, no, it's, it is, it is all right. Oh, just one second. We're being.. it's time to go. All right, guys, it's time to go. I am.. I just think you guys are absolutely wonderful. What if I needed to get a hold of you, Nikki? How would I do that?

23:35

You could probably find me at LinkedIn, or you can reach me at N Smith at One lineage.com

23:41

There it is, and Niccolette, how do people get a hold of

23:43

you? Yeah, did a LinkedIn, you know, hit me up on the Fluke page, I'll get back to you.

23:48

24:17

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast network,

24:28

all right. As you can tell, that was Xcelerate, brought to you by those wonderful people at Fluke. They're doing great stuff. EMaint is a part of that Luke family, fantastic platform, Nikki and Nicole, let just knocked it out of the park. Really enjoyed that conversation. All the contact information for those two incredible professionals are out on industrial talk. You're looking to deploy a system, you're looking to deploy E-Eight. You need to reach out. You need contact Nikki, contact Fluke. Let's be successful at this. It's an incredible, incredible platform. Make it happen. All right. Industrial Talk wants to tell your story. You go out to Industrial talk.com those Real talk.com and you need to tell your story. We need to be together in telling the story of industry, and your story needs to be told, and the reason it needs to be told is because we need to inspire next generation of industrial leaders, and to do that, you have to tell the story. They don't know what's going on, they don't know what's going on, they need to know what's going on out there, and you are in the best position to be able to make that happen, we make it happen. Industrial talk, go out, connect with me. Let's have that conversation. It's important because you're important, and you need to be celebrated, and that's what industrial talk is all about. To celebrate you, get that story out. All right, we're going to have more conversations coming from Xcelerate, we're going to be highlighting great, great professionals once again from that event, like, Nikki, and Niccolette. Yeah, right there. All right, be bold, be brave, dare greatly hang out with those two professionals, and you will be changing the world. We're going to have another great conversation shortly, so stay tuned.