In this episode of the Industrial Talk Podcast, Mark Board, SVP and GM of the Oil/Gas, Utilities and Mining at Infor, discusses the positive impact InforEAM, Mobile applications and the Cloud are having on the energy markets in streamlining operational processes and providing valuable operational insights. Find out more about Mark by the links below and reach out to connect. Also, get your free InforEAM Toolkit and exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy. Both links designed for keeping you current in a rapidly changing Industrial Market. Enjoy!

Mark Board\'s Contact Information:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-board-3bab878/

Infor EAM: https://www.infor.com/about/contact

Your Infor EAM Toolkit:

Click on the InforEAM Toolkit picture above and receive the following “Must Have” EAM reports:

1. 7 Steps for implementing reliability-based maintenance
2. 10 steps toward a paperless operation with mobile EAM checklist
3. Asset intensive industries, finding the straightest path to the cloud
4. EAM vs CMMS, don\'t get fooled
5. Infor EAM Brochure
6. Infor EAM Overview
7. 9 fleet management challenges and how to resolve

Podcast Video:

Industrial Academy (One Month Free Access and One Free Licence for Future Industrial Leader):

Other Podcast Resources:

Mr. Ruben Stancel Discusses building a Seamless EAM platform

Industrial Leadership: Process, Process, Process!

Podcast Transcript:

[00:02]                                    [inaudible].

[00:04]                                    Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott McKenzie. 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.

[00:22]                                    All right, let\'s go. My name is Scott MacKenzie. Welcome to the industrial talk podcast. I am so glad that you are here. You industrial juggernaut. You know this is where the industrial professionals come to talk. This is the largest and I mean the largest podcast that is focused on you, the industrial professional end, the industrial market, bigger than the galaxy. I say the universe, it is the biggest in the universe. So thank you very much for joining. We\'re going to have a great conversation because we\'re going to be talking to a gentleman by the name of Mark Ford and he\'s within four and we\'re going to be talking about the future. So stay tuned. We\'re ready to get going. Hey Mark, how you doing? I\'m good. How about that? Is that, yeah, that\'s all right. You got so much energy. Try to go. I have another guy.

[01:04]                                   And if you\'re out there on the video, if you\'re looking at it on the video, you can tell that I\'m bald because the glare from the lights are just shining off my forehead and my forehead goes all the way back to my back of the neck. But it is it. I\'m just not going to have that hairband. I\'m just not going to have it just between you and me. It\'s just not gonna happen. So how are you doing? Well, thank you. We\'re here. We\'re here in Alpharetta right now in their beautiful corporate room because this is what podcasts could do. We can go pretty much anywhere and be able to do this with a level of confidence. That is a pretty surprising. And once again, I got you off on that one there, mark. Yeah, Dude. Yes. You\'re welcome. You\'re welcome. So anywhere, yeah, we\'re broadcasting from a in foreign Alpharetta and we\'re going to be talking right now in specifically, we\'re going to be talking about, uh, in [4:00] AM and the utility side. And that\'s what Ya, that\'s what you\'re all about. So for the listeners in the, uh, the industrial market industrial talk market, give us a little background on who you are and why you\'re so spectacular there.

[02:10]                                    Yeah. Well, uh, so I\'ve been doing, you mentioned e a m or f for a long, long time, which is one of the things we\'re doing. I\'ve been doing this for years and years. Uh, it\'s a, it\'s a great place to be just asset management across a variety of marketplaces. Right, right. So today, um, what\'s most exciting for us is the way that it\'s now making its way into a lot outside of just pure industrial places and more into utilities in oil and gas and some of the other, the other industries that have typically haven\'t done a lot in, just know how long you\'ve been with the [inaudible] I\'ve been within for almost eight years. Eight years. Yes. You\'re back. Oh, where\'d you come from? I came from a company called Mincom. C. O. O. That\'s right. That\'s exactly right. That\'s an interest passport company. That\'s exactly, yes. Exactly. Very good. It\'s got a funny cause. A men calm, really stiff for mining for long, but really heavy

[03:00]                                    assets and all of that. Yeah. They branched into a lot of different things. Yeah. I think at that time when I was implementing the, uh, we tried to deploy it in a utility setting, but there was a, a, a, the way it was structured as a whole that the system as a whole, it was you, you really had to sort of boot shoehorn it on in some way, shape or form into a utility. They do, it does really well when you\'re talking about maybe generation and vertical assets. Yeah. Difficult. When you start talking about linear assets. Yes. And we were deploying it in a transmission environment, right? Yes. Yeah. Wow. Where were you when we were doing this? Because I\'ll tell you right now, that\'s when I had a lot of hair and after that deployment I just started to go home. Well, we weren\'t pricing had been deploying into that environment technically.

[03:47]                                    Right. And that\'s okay. But now, I mean, uh, systems in general, technology in general recognizes that you just, there\'s, there\'s a level of flexibility that\'s been brought in to just systems in general because all of a sudden in the case of that particular system, it just was hard. But now systems are far more flexible to be able to say, Oh yeah, yeah, we can do that. We\'ve got a level of functionality that will suit and we can modify it. And we don\'t have to have really any, you know, absolutely. Well, the technology\'s come a long, long way. If you, if you think about a lends itself really these industries before you had to run truck, uh, big a bunch of the trucks and crews out into the field and it costs a lot of money. They take paper in and out. So now with the proliferation of the Internet and mobile devices, we\'re shoving all of that, that work right out into the field and bring that stuff to jail time.

[04:40]                                    Huge. And, and we were talking offline here and a, what always fascinates me is the, is technology. And it just seems like something took place. Some, somebody was sitting in a big conference room like this special conference room and said, you know what, what if we did it this way? And it was just like that. Things just started to change rapidly. Technology started to really begin to evolve. And it\'s whether you like it or not, listen out there you industrial professional, whether you like it or not, technology is your best friend. It might not look like your best friend. It is your best friend. And it\'s only gonna get easier, better, more user friendly. The adoption\'s coming along, plus the technology as to everyone\'s got an iPhone now, right? And before they were, they were not, it was flip phones or let me go put a quarter somewhere, fine, find a phone.

[05:29]                                    And so today people are much more comfortable with it. And it\'s really, and also the, the, the stability and reliability is another thing too. For years people tried to use some of these devices, you know, the old brick phone and some of the other stuff out in the field. And today it\'s reliable. You\'ve got a network of Internet that allows you to upload and download and just kind of makes it practical. It always fascinates me today if you travel, if you go into a bunch of airports, you\'ll always see those, those special areas where there used to be phones and now there\'s nothing in your, it\'s sort of, it\'s a rough section of the town. When you go into those airports, it\'s like what was over there, Ben? We were back in that,

[06:10]                                    my kids back to my mother in laws and they had a phone sitting there all time. You looked at the wall. My kids are like, Whoa,

[06:17]                                    what is that? And then, and then you realize, wow, I\'m old. That\'s right. I went back to visit my mom wouldn\'t it before she passed away. And uh, not to bring the conversation down. It\'s okay. But, uh, she still had the rotary phones. Exactly. That\'s what this one\'s like. What is this? What is this? Yeah, it hurts my fingers when I hit that little stop thing. So, so let\'s, let\'s dive in a little bit about what we\'re talking about here. And, uh, let\'s, we, we sorta talked a little bit about the past, but what, what was the problem in the past? And then we\'re going to talk a little bit about where it stands today, what we\'re doing today and what, what\'s really changing and where do you see this, this a technology juggernaut going? And then of course we\'re going to talk a little bit about challenges cause it\'s not all just, you know, you know, balloons and bubblegum.

[07:12]                                    Yeah. It\'s funny that you asked that way, right? Because I don\'t think what was the problem. I don\'t think they are, anyone saw that there was any problem, everything was just roll around fine. And they were doing this the way that they had done them. Right. Especially in all gas utility because you put everything in the right base and as long as you can justify the calls, you put it in there. That\'s changed a lot. And so and so as the market. So people are now demanding more real time information in any of these kinds of markets.

[07:39]                                    But what\'s driving that? What, what is the necessity? Because in the past for me to get, let\'s say financials, it wasn\'t uncommon for me to say, okay, 45 days later I\'m finally getting in it. Oh my gosh, we\'ve had a problem, but I have no time. What? Who there, there was a point when data was also all of a sudden we can get that data. We can get it now. We can make tactical decisions today.

[08:04]                                    I think that\'s, that\'s it. I mean in, in the world at large, everything\'s faster. It\'s faster, faster, faster. How do we, how do we get things? How do we get real time data? You know, half, half of the time you get data, if you, in the manner that you just spoke of, it\'s dated. It\'s not any good, right? It\'s real time. You\'ve got to be actionable data, real time to be able to do these things and it\'s happening everywhere. It\'s then this is, these are markets that are laggards. If you really think about it and so

[08:30]                                    and, and like utilities, oil and gas, energy that, you know, the

[08:35]                                    big, big, big companies in those things. I think those guys put in, they spent billions of dollars on assets, so now they\'ve got a legacy of, of investment that it\'s very hard to change once you get in place. So it\'s taken away.

[08:47]                                    Well that\'s true because it\'s all embedded. It\'s all there. It\'s all in rate case.

[08:53]                                    Especially in our country, in North America. Some of the evolving countries that have money that are building it, they\'re building brand new things. And you can see a Greenfield as opposed to, yeah, absolutely. You wouldn\'t build it the way we built it. If you\'re building it today, could use that. You\'d use the technology available to you.

[09:08]                                    So what was driving so to, so today there is a huge push and a desire and a drive to get information so that I can, I can make decisions right now. Yup. And that, that\'s key. And how do you, how do you implement, how do you do that? What, what, what, what, what technology exists out there so that I can get that.

[09:29]                                    Well, we\'re finding everything, all the works being pushed to the field. So mobile is huge for us and all the technology that\'s available today, sending drones out to do inspections and kind of run up and down the pipelines and bring that data back real time. Taking pictures of inspections of, you know, big equipment that you couldn\'t do yet to send a guy up on a ladder to do different things. The technology is just, is now available and you, you didn\'t have it before I think.

[09:54]                                    And, and, and even the price point, they\'ll absolutely, I mean, it\'s not, it\'s not some sort of big old cap acts as you\'re saying, okay, we want to buy a drone and we want that drone to be able to go this distance and

[10:04]                                    isn\'t that amazing? So we do healthcare in a lot of different places for asset management and it used to be, I mean, in some places we\'ve put tags and RFID devices on doctors and patients and equipment to make sure they\'re all in the right place. Uh, when it was a, the first time we did the pilot, it was a number of years back. It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars today. You can buy the chips to put on the follow any kind of an asset, you know, from, you know, from these big equipment to, to soup cans and food for pennies.

[10:36]                                    I bought two, I think two drones. I went to a local electronic store. I bought two drones. They were about the size of this and which if you\'re looking out on the video, I three inches maybe, and I spent a grand total of $20 per. Yeah. And they were fantastic. I mean, there\'s just, just this little dinky thing. It was, it was fantastic. And I, I all I could tell my son gets tired of me telling them, I said, can you believe what if this was a real life? Like a serious drone?...