00:04
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, once again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and thank you so much for your support. The heroes of industry are all here, not me. They are heroes. And this platform right here right now is dedicated to everyone around the world. You because you're bold, brave and you dare greatly you solve problems, you innovate, you collaborate, and you're making the world a better place. That's why industrial talk is here to celebrate industry professionals all around the world. Again, we are at the OMG cuecore meeting. And it is again a collection of really smart people passionate about solving industrial problems. I mean, that yeah, my ears bleeding. They are that passionate about it. And it is in Austin, Texas, and we're gonna have another great conversation q1 with that on it. I'm gonna put all the contact down on industrial talk. So make sure that you make that happen to people are in the hot seat. Dr. Costas and we don't even go there. Alexandridis Dr. Kostas Alexandridis. Got that man. And Michael LaFontaine, Orange County Public Works. Is the location or the company that are the know it's the entity. Let's get cracking. Yeah, I like that. guys having a good see, it's not a conference. It's not a conference. I'm not gonna say it's a conference. Nope. I'm gonna say it's a meeting. And is this the first time you guys been here? Michael? Yes. There you go. And of course, you have to
01:56
say yes. Yes. Orange County Public Works. It's one of the newest members of the we joined the consortium less than a year ago. And it's a first meeting. We've been participating on the online meetings and, and all those proceedings, but this is the first time we get to meet in person. So I have to ask
02:21
the question, I have to ask the question, because why? Why all of a sudden, you're saying, hey, that's the first time we haven't been here. I mean, it's been less than a year. It's important for you to be a part of it. Why why is why was that a discussion costs.
02:37
I think, for us as as a public institution, and one that is involved with infrastructure in a big regional area.
02:50
It's big.
02:53
We wanted to be part of that digital transformation. And also providing our cities or communities, the opportunity to be involved in that really exciting era, as we transform an infrastructure from a more traditional, conventional utilities type of thing into a more digital form, that is able to serve a citizen for the 21st century. And that's kind of motivators. The second reason is, as a group, the subgroup, the people who are doing that we are just natural innovators, so we enjoy being part of that innovative ecosystem.
03:37
I have to step in, Michael, that's not a typical mindset for any public works. You guys are sort of Blazing it. You guys are unicorns.
03:48
Yeah, you could say that. And, and I'll be honest, it's all led by a vision. And that vision is our county surveyor. It's Kevin hills. And he's kind of he's, he's, he's paved a path and a vision that, that we all want to follow that we want to be a part of, and what that's enabled us to do is attract young, talented or just young, but talented people that want to be a part of this vision, and, you know, see it through and, and also serve the public in a new way. Right.
04:21
So this is just, this is brilliant. I mean, me being an old utility guy, and I know that there's the, you know, we have, we have our way of thinking and we have our way of doing things where the utilities and where the unknown and, and the same thing with public works. There's just a there's a culture that exists within just that. And it's it's like, this is how we do it. This is how we've done it forever. We basically this is why we build these roles, and this is why kudos to that because it's with that said, has it been sort eye opening, just just being a part of the OMG. And like, okay, here we are, we say we want to do and we want to participate. Are you? Are you getting that sort of collaboration, sort of feel about the whole thing and learning more and saying, Oh, wow, that's different. That's good.
05:18
It is, this is a new endeavor for a lot of us. And Jana, and we are surrounded by like minded people, we all embrace innovation on the one hand, and the second part is we learn from each other, because most of the things we try to do never been done before. So we are kind of pushing the envelope, we're exploring kind of blue sky horizons, here, we have a vision, we know where we're going to go, maybe we don't know exactly how to do it. But we're learning from each other, we're sharing experience, we creating, you know, case studies, and, you know, tool boxes for us to work and these kind of active workspaces to feed each other. And it's very rewarding, because we started creating collaborations that we wouldn't imagine a year ago. global,
06:15
global, global, you're absolutely spot on. Now, with that said, and many of the conversations I've had here, it's, it's extensive, meaning there's just, there's a lot of chirping going on out there. And it's all great. And here's a new use case and all of that fun stuff. And I get it from a public works perspective. How do you approach your work? Right, Michael, how do you approach your work? And how do you determine how to apply the new technology, the innovation, that you're saying, Oh, hey, that that can be applied here. And then because you can't look at it, I mean, you can look at it as sort of, in a total total vision, but but the reality is, you got to start someplace, and then apply that, because you're part of the digital twin that to whatever that is,
07:05
sure. I mean, it's driven by demand, right, we have a lot of work, we're part of the capital improvement plan. So we have a lot of work on the table. So by demand, we have to learn figure ways to work better, and automate a lot of these processes. Great examples, would be facilities maintenance, right? Typically, how that works is you have a 2d plan set, someone walks on the site, and they figure out where an asset is that needs to be maintained. Right, right. Now, what we want to give them the capability to do is walk through that in a 3d model at their desktop, and find that asset, understand the part number any, any other facilities or assets that may be involved in that repair and maintenance, and have the part in their hand when they go to fix it and know exactly where to go. I mean, you're looking at time and cost savings of, you know, exponential factors. So so it's really, it's driven by demand. And we want to provide excellent service to our clients. We call all of our internal agencies and customers, we call them our clients. We don't consider them like, Oh, hey, it's an engineering group. Right? Now it's a client, we're gonna give you the best product possible. And that's our approach. Go for it.
08:26
Yeah, I wanted to put a little bit an additional perspective or dimension on this. So there is this kind of direct aspect of it with machine learning and AI and all the technologies that bring us allow us to do really advanced things that serve a new generation of Z, Z generation young man that might have no clue that technology itself is is selling itself, right. So when you have a proof of concept, and you sell it to somebody, they can see the big picture immediately. But on the back and on the back end of our mind, as a public institution, there is this, this need to bring the county into higher level of digital literacy, bridging the divide, and also prepare ourselves with what's we know it's coming, like self driving cars, who's going to handle this, this infrastructure to support those things that the next 10 years or maybe coming? Right, we have a role to play to create an infrastructure to support this big changes coming in. So we have to prepare ourselves. So all those things are additional forces.
09:38
Good, awesome. I mean, I love that I love that vision. I love the strategy behind it. Going back to sort of the digital twin. To be able to do that. You're gonna have to begin pulling data of these assets. So you're gonna have to get into that whole digital transformation conversation about how polling data, what to do with that data? How do you, you know, and then be able to take that data and create some tactics around it or, and and say, Hey, go out there and maintain that asset, because it's showing signs of wear whatever that is right? And be able to do that. Have you come to that sort of that level of insights? Are you still sort of working through the details about that? Or have you started today? Yeah, let's get a device out there to pull that motor vibration, whatever it might be.
10:33
I would say we're still on our journey. We're finding better ways to do things. I mean, every month, there's a new application that comes out that allows us to work better and more efficiently. So we're on our journey right now. We're still, you know, evaluating the tools out there. Because like I said, they're so abundant. But But yes, we do have some proof of concepts in progress. So
10:59
and the scale of data, it's, we talking about an area that incorporates three candidate ad miles roadways, we have 35 cities, we have we managing more than 800 buildings in the country, we talking about 3 million plus population. So we talking about massive scale, we just, we started bringing things together the beam models of the buildings, we manage, like the footprints of the entire county buildings, that's 800,000, buildings, structures that we're building in city data, we talked with green rain, now we started understanding the massive scale of our endeavor. But we started creating this kind of bulk of work in the proof of concept as we bring in things in. And I think, as we move along in the journey, we're going to get better and better and,
11:56
and see what makes the this whole journey, which is great with OMG, is that you're able to find individuals to collaborate and have real dialogue and say, I'm not I have this issue, this challenge or whatever it might be, and be able to find somebody that says, I got you. And all I can think about with this old data thing. You need to you need to connect with Bassam, because we were just having that because it's a tsunami. And given the size of your area, I'm just telling I, again, way above my paygrade, I just see the pain. So from here, we're at what are some of your, your tactical steps, you got some POCs happening? And you've got when do you think you'll begin to deliver and just put these into real, you know, operations?
12:52
So we have several different initiatives, because
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he's the I'll let you guys hang there. I messed up, Michael, tell us.
13:03
So so we have several different initiatives happening at the same time. So which one gets done first? I mean, that's a matter of where we can, you know, focus our resources. But I think the overall cost this can probably give some more input. And
13:20
so yeah, so you're tracking it? You're saying, Okay, I've got these POCs are happening right now. I'm tracking the expectation, we think it's this, are we tracking? Are you hitting your targets? Yeah, some
13:30
of it is project base. And the more people seeing what we're doing the proof of concept, the more people coming out, we want to be involved in that. So for example, the buildings, creating some interface with our managing buildings and linking our real time Asset Management databases to a twin. So that that's one project. The other project is being able to visualize quickly emergency operations, that's really important, especially with wildfires or floods. And so that's another priority, we might want to build a component there. But on the same time, as we're doing that, we start bringing in slowly the bigger infrastructure, supportive data as they go there and building the large scale, digital twin, but we might have more details and more functional parts, project by project or need by name. And, you know, who knows, people on the county, the supervisors, or the leadership might see certain things in center needs that we don't see immediately. And they might say, well, let's prioritize Yes, right.
14:46
How it just seems like Okay, write this to Mike. It just seems like okay, this is great. I got it. It's increased work. You know, it's easy to sort of status quo everything. This is how we do it. I go out here I have my He's a paper, but what you're asking to go through this change, you're gonna have to find people to to help facilitate the chain. It's a, there's a human equation there. How are you addressing that?
15:13
Yeah. So I mean, that's, that's the funniest part of it right? Is we're determining where we need to upskill. And then we're bringing in kids fresh out of college. I say kids, you know, I mean, we're bringing, you know, students that just graduated from local universities, and they're so excited to be a part of this. And so that right, that part is actually, I don't want to say it's been easy. But understanding having people excited about this vision, yeah, determining where we need to upskill those parts have kind of come naturally, and they're working out really well. I'd say the hardest part is the data part, right? Understanding all the data we have, we are sitting on a mountain of data. And to cost this is point, I mean, we're building the foundation for a larger county digital twin. And we have this data in our fingertips already, we just need to turn over the rock and, oh, there's that data, it
16:14
has to be scalable. You can't just do it. This one line thing and, and, and but you know, it's scalable. So you also have to have that, that architectural vision of saying that's going to scale. So we got to make sure that we don't, you know, pigeonhole ourselves. Go ahead conscious.
16:30
Yeah, I wanted to put a dimension this is more my personal journey and where they bring into my work. And I'm a complex systems scientist, I love complexity. I'm one of the generation you
16:43
have found, you have found your Shangri La. Because if and only because
16:50
I'm part of this generation of scientists, that complex systems scientists, that thing, the worst thing that happened to science with the last 70 years was the Occam's razor, looking always for the simple solution. But I think now, as societies we realize the complexity of our problems, and the solution has to be at least as complex as the problem itself. So there is a two pronged battle, the one battle is we need to bring, not only are our CEOs or leadership, but also the communities to the level to understand and embrace that complex. Right. So we need to bring that complexity forward. The other end is we need to bring forward the citizen digital literacy, so they can understand how they can use those complex solutions in their everyday life. So
17:39
let's see, this is the challenge, right? There's you, you've just sort of articulated the challenge of being able to compute to communicate that many people just sort of right off the bat begin to gloss over, you can see their eyes just sort of rolling in the back of their head. But but the reality is, it is complex. It's changing rapidly, there's a velocity, and there's a complexity that is taking place just within the world itself. And I think the leaders, whoever have to make the decisions, have to just, you know, tighten up their belt and learn this stuff.
18:16
I have a background in academia used to be a professor at the University for more than 10 years. So I work with kids in the newer generation, I understand, it's very easy for them to understand this. And now we need to bring that complexity curriculum to the university create professionals with those kinds of skills, because we need them to come in and work with us.
18:38
That's another that's another conversation. Do you think the existing academic structure is nimble enough to deal with this complexity and speed?
18:51
Not knowing we're working on that right now we have a collaboration with a couple of universities. At this moment, I co teach digital twin course and Cal Poly Pomona. We are trying to bring as part of the consortium, academia working group to bring forth curriculum, to suggest to universities when we need this kind of skills to do the curriculum, because then again, it's not part of the standard.
19:21
But you need the teachers are the ones like you who've been in the trenches who are having these conversations at OMG. To be able to sort of share that with you. I don't think it's plausible. And this is just my opinion. I don't think it's plausible for these professors to be just sort of academia focus all fine and dandy and understand and be able to deal with what the reality is out there and being able to prepare. But then again, to your point, Michael, you're you're hiring from the universities, and then recognize that there's a necessity for you to train. Yeah, and upskill and rescale Whatever the skill is, right,
20:01
and I would add a lot of the professors that we're working with at these local universities are excited about this. And I love it. They're excited, they want to learn about it. And they're, they're open minded to adding this curriculum to their coursework. And it's excellent. I mean, it's a great relationship we have. And we're seeing that with the students, because they're excited about it as well. And they're coming out with skills that we can put to work right away and helping us build this digital planet.
20:32
Let me give you an example. One of the projects that we did on that other class, we gave the students access to all the open data, GIS data with Orange County, there's hundreds and hundreds of data sets. And we tell them, come up with five ideas how you can use this data in a digital twin. And I was blown away with the level of innovation and creativity that students can all it's all this really nice ideas coming out of that.
21:02
But see what's interesting, and what I like about what you're talking about, I can honestly say I can see OMG, where you guys are part of the digital twin, this the standards body. But then you're also an organization over here that is passionate about changing. So you've got this, this organization you're collaborating with, and you're trying to put it into action. But then you're also working with academia to pull them in to for the next generation. I like the way that works. Kudos to you guys. I mean, maybe I'm, I don't know, I think there's
21:36
great stuff there. I think this is a functional example, how a collaboration between industry, government and academia can be very productive.
21:47
I don't see any other way to get around that. I do. All right. For the listeners out there. Michael, give us a little contact information if they want to get a hold of you and ask some questions.
21:58
Sure, you can reach me on Michael LaFontaine at OC gov.com. Hello, the URL.
22:09
All right, Kostas. I don't think getting a hold of you. Doctor.
22:13
I think the best way is LinkedIn. You know, if you look at, versus Aleksandra, this, public works if you go find me there. Yeah,
22:21
I was just gonna say there's I don't know. There's many of you out there on the app. Yeah. Just good. Very good. All right. Thank you guys. Excellent conversation. All right, listen, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side, I'm gonna have all the contact information out for these two gents out on industrial talk.com. So stay tuned, we will be right back.
22:41
You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.
22:47
All right, once again, thank you very much for joining industrial Hawk on this excursion into industry and celebrating industry professionals all around the world, you got to like that conversation. You got to like what is happening out there in the community. And and one of the things that comes popping into my head, of course, is that you, industry, and anybody listening to this need to be engaged, you need to continue to educate, and of course collaborate because you're, you're going to have to innovate, it is happening, whether you like it or not, if you own a business, if you're just a part of a business, you're gonna have to advocate, you need to get connected, and you need to be able to, I don't know, just just do what's happening out there from a digital transformation perspective. Also, also, to do that, to begin that journey. OMG.org. Just go out to omg.org., right there, worldwide web and find out how you can get engaged and how you can participate. And what that's all about. You get to connect with some of the industry thought leaders, right? They're happening all the time. So don't, don't hesitate, go out to bo m, the g.org. Now, you can get engaged, you can be a part of the industrial talk platform. We're all here about celebrating industry. In all its wonderful glory, and all of that innovation, all of that operational efficiency. Stop right here. Industrial talk celebrate you we're going to have another great conversation coming from OMG as well as other sites on industrial talk, so stay tuned. We will have them up shortly.
