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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress, Industrial Talk podcast, Octave Live user conference, ProLytX, system integrator, Octave products, 3D modeling, PNIDs, data integrity, digital twin, AI impact, engineering project, support culture, lifecycle management, industrial maintenance.

00:00

All right. Before we get into the conversation, I want you to be aware of a conference that you need to put on your calendar, and you have time. It is the Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress. It is necessary. You need to up your cybersecurity game. You're connected. You need to make sure that you're protected right here. This event, Barcelona Cybersecurity Congress. It is November 3 through the fifth. You have time, November 3 through the fifth this year in Barcelona. And I'm telling you right now, the team at Farah who put this particular Congress on the best. You will not be disappointed, and you know what else you get to do? You get to network with some of the best cybersecurity professionals from around the world. You need to do this. You need to put this one on your calendar. All of the contact, all of the information is out on Industrial Talk. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be broadcasting. I'm going to be talking cybersecurity with the best in the world. So be there. Put this one on your calendar. That is November 3 through the fifth. I'll see you there.

01:16

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! All

01:33

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 brave, you do greatly. You innovate, you collaborate. You're solving today's problems. You're making the world a better place. That's why we celebrate you on Industrial Talk. We're broadcasting here in Austin, Texas. It is Octave's very first user Octave live user conference shindig there. I just sort of I'm just laying it out right there, and we're right outside the the Octave showcase, and it has all of that dock-on technology in there. I can see it from a distance. They won't plow me in, but I can see it from a distance, and I know they're making they're they're solving problems. And speaking of solving problems, we have two in the hot seat. We have Mike and Blake. ProLytX. Did I get that right? Yes, sir. That's right. ProLytX is the company. You guys are a solution provider, right? A

02:34

system integrator. We call it.

02:38

I call it something. I don't know. Thank you. I'm going to write that down because I don't want to make that mistake again. I'm no, I'm not. So you guys having a good conference? Yes,

02:49

sir.

02:50

How long you been a system integrator, Mike?

02:53

About 10 years.

02:55

So you've seen it through Infor all the way up into Hexagon and all that.

02:58

Yeah, we actually started on project teams working with this software, like at an EPC, and got to a certain point where we felt like there was a opportunity for an independent system integrator to float out there and help. So, so we've got like 25 years of experience with some of these Octave products.

03:21

All right, Shane. I jumped a gun because that's pretty cool. Mike, give us a little background on that 25 years of you know professional background.

03:31

Yeah. Well, my goal was to be a professional basketball player, and that didn't last past high school. So I went to

03:40

common tale.

03:41

Yeah, the dream's still there. I think about it all the time. But I I went to college at Texas A&M, which was great school. Went to work at

03:51

Maggie's LSU Tiger.

03:53

Oh, there we go. Okay, I went to school there. Got a job in Houston at Mustang Engineering, and I was working in automation and controls at the time. Did a little time offshore. One of my first projects was to go offshore and do commissioning and startup for a facility, which is a pretty cool experience. Have you ever been?

04:12

Yep. Okay. Yep.

04:14

Nice. And and so I worked in that automation and control world for about six years, and man, the problem with that part of the industry is that you got to travel everywhere to start those things up. And I didn't think that was going to work for the long term. During that time, I got into programming and databases. Really enjoyed that, as nerdy as that sounds, and had an opportunity to move internally within the company into a group that manages all the smart tools, the smart models and databases and drawings, and that gave me a little more stability, where I didn't have to travel to the sites all the time. It also gave me a chance to work from home a little bit, which was exciting. So I was like a pioneer in that work from home world.

04:58

Yeah.

04:59

So Blake and I actually met in that role. We shared an office for a minute when I guess we didn't know each other at all, and then all of a sudden we were office mates, right? And so we worked together in a group that supported a lot of these Octave solutions. At that time, they were in a graph. Now then Hexagon now Octave, and like I said, we worked together in that group for about 10 years, and did a whole bunch of cool stuff, and then ended up starting ProLytX to be a service provider, a system integrator. Yeah, to do that. So we've been doing that about 10 years. Yeah, it

05:33

sucks to it sucks to follow that. Go, Blake. Try to get get give give me a background, and don't don't mess it up, man. Yeah, I'm all nervous for you. I'm nervous for

05:44

myself. Yeah, I had a very similar background to him, a little bit differently. I didn't go straight to college. I went straight to the plant and started turning wrenches. Yeah, he was a tech. Rose up through being an instrument tech in the field, working in facilities, chemical plants. Got into automation, control system design. Got into the group that he's talking about, helping manage these enterprise engineering applications. Spent some time overseas working in a facility, helping them take the the engineering applications data used for a capital project, merging that into their base plant environment, and using that information through operations within their operational team, and then started Prolytics about 10 years ago.

06:36

Mike, we talk about the products. What products are you referring to in the Octave world of products?

06:43

So Octave has four pillars. They like to talk about the design, which is for the engineering, the build for the construction process, the operate, obviously for running the plant, and then the protect. And for us, we we work in all four of those areas, but our roots and our primary focus is in the design. So that's the 3D modeling, the PNIDs, the wiring diagrams, the data sheets, all that sort of stuff. And and you mentioned I think you have a background in industrial maintenance, right? And and in that world, I bet there were a lot of times you went out to the field somewhere and you just did not have the right drawing. You didn't have the most up-to-date version, something like that. Is that right?

07:27

Truth be told, we never had up-to-date versions. We never, nobody ever updated PNIDs there. So in that in that

07:39

design pillar, there's a way to take all the magic that the engineering company did, and then steward it for the life cycle, the facility, so that when that guy goes out and opens a panel or stares at a pump, he can trust he or she can trust that they have the right information available. And so, as a company, one of our big things is to just steward that information in the transfer over to the owner, and then in the integration with the owner's maintenance systems, and then being available as the long-term lifecycle management tool for that facility.

08:16

How how how do you enable that, Blake? How do you how do you do that? Here's a here's a scenario that's out in the field. So I go out in the field, something's happening. I got to replace that pump. I, you know, because the we got to get the facility back up. So you know, I'm riding in on my white horse and I'm coming in and I'm going to save the day. So I take it and I do it. I fix it. There, how do you how how do these tools enable the fact that I I just replaced the pump and I didn't update anything? How how do you do that?

08:54

I I think that starts with the the actual applications themselves and the data inside them and the data integrity and then the access that it gives the users going out into the field, like in like a tech or or a maintenance personnel going out into the field, making those changes and then updating it, and how it how it actually facilitates that information going back into the system. So these data these tools are all enterprise level tools. They they have database backends. They're data-driven tools, and so a lot of the reports, a lot of design documents that you see out of them, they're they're like graphical reports of the information that's in the tool, and then that that allows the facility to use more later technology, so tablets, intrinsically safe devices that the the actual text can take out into the field that can make those changes right there on the fly, and then it and it updates and propagates through the database backend and all of the information affecting all of the deliverables that it might might need to be changed.

09:56

I can go for it. Well, I just wanted to add on to that. You know. You're going to be driving back to Tigerland at some point, you know, today or tomorrow.

10:05

Yeah, I'm flying over it. Okay, okay. Well, let's pretend you were driving back and

10:10

you needed to figure out. You needed to zoom in on the next gas station, the next brisket sandwich, or the next Dr. Pepper that you needed, and you're going to pull out your phone. You're going to go to you know Google Maps or something, and you're going to zoom in along your route, and you're going to go down to a restaurant. You're going to find their menu. You're going to find the time that they're open, the price of gas, whatever it is. There's no reason that for an industrial facility, when you go to that pump, you shouldn't be able to have that same look and feel to where you just you have your plant, you zoom into the object you're looking at. You get the the blueprint for that thing. You get the maintenance inspection for that thing. You get the history. You get all of that information. There's no reason that all of that isn't as available as it is on your phone. Just trying to get restaurant information. Does make sense?

10:57

Yeah. Again, That's great, but I'm not. I'm not trying to. I'm saying, how do you get a company to that point? How how do you take? How do you, how do you shepherd them along that journey and get it to the point? And you got the data. You have you have the P and IDs. Oh yeah, they're right there. They're on they're on the shelf right there. They're PNIDs. I'm a I'm a facility that's been around forever, and there they are right there, knowing full well that they've never been updated. Well, right, you've got you've got multiple scenarios here. Let's let let's stay in the the nice version. Let's stay in the green field, brand new. There

11:37

you go. Let's let's just let's just talk about that because because

11:41

even in that even in that world, you know every facility was at one point had a perfect data set from the project, right? And why why is it that now you go out there and it's the data's not up to date? How do you how do you steward that? So the first thing is you got to have a location that you trust, and that's what the Octave tools provide. Is they provide a centralized location that you can trust as long as you steward it. And so, if you take the data, that's never going to be in better shape than the moment the EPC issues. That's right. Right. That's the that's the best version of it. If you if you take that and you say, okay, we're going to put that into a cloud, and it's going to be a single source. We never have to copy it, paste it, you know, hand it off, whatever. We're going to put it into a location where those drawings always have a master. All of our revisions go in there. Everyone is trained, and then the most important thing is that you have to have some type of support culture that actually coaches them through that.

12:36

Yeah. Because

12:37

software doesn't run itself. You know what I'm saying? You can have the greatest thing in the world, but it doesn't run itself, and and so the technology enables it, but the people make it happen. You got to have a thought. You got to have a thought leader that says, "Look, we're going to invest in maintaining that 3d model because I want that Google Map version of my plant. We're going to maintain those PNIDs because I want every contractor that walks through this plant in the next 20 years to know there's one simple source where all of that is. I'm not going to deal with somebody having a markup in a drawer in the I/O room. I'm not going to deal with somebody having a copy in a panel stowed away somewhere or some picture on their phone. Right? Everything comes from the cloud, and it's managed, and the culture supports that. That's that's the key.

13:22

The culture is a large part of that. I I would agree. I agree.

13:25

Continue.

13:27

Oh, I was just going to say I would agree with that. You have to have the the infrastructure. A lot of people focus on just the infrastructure and the data integrity, in in the widget, I guess, to do it. And you have to have that in place, and that has to be set up correctly. But the culture, the support culture that Mike's talking about, is the key because that that drives the trust in the actual data, and nobody's going to use anything if they don't trust it.

13:51

14:20

Yeah.

14:20

And when the leadership leaves after two years of being in leadership role, and you know how do you sustain that? But how do you, as an organization, help companies develop that culture?

14:37

Well,

14:38

and trust.

14:39

So the most sophisticated usage of the design tools is in the engineering project in the detail phase. That's where I would call like the the most experienced, most innovative, sort of most knowledgeable people are. And so for our company, with that being our root. We built up from that. It's it's kind of like you know how you like strength training. The whole purpose is you stress yourself so that you know you you build through the adversity, right? And so like the the major capital project battlefield as it is is the one where everything is most critical. The hardest problems were solved, and so if you take people with that experience and you take experiences from that time, you can then translate that into maintaining the tools fairly easily. And so what we try to do is is really take folks that have been through that, and that's why a lot of people that support these tools come from projects. They don't come from IT, and that's one of the big debates here. Is like, okay, it's a software, so who owns it? Well, I got to tell you, IT struggles to own these tools, and so the engineering teams, the the middle ground, some middle ground between engineering and IT is what actually runs these tools, and so we try to lean on the strength of that culture that has been through the hard parts to then say, okay, now now that we made it through that, all we need to do is keep this thing good and up to date, and we have all. There's nothing we can't solve because we've already been through the hardest part.

16:19

Yeah, I would like I would like to say there that that Mike is right. The a lot of times these systems are managed or or supported by an IT organization, so they're supported by like a system engineer or a developer engineer or something like that. And I think our our differentiator there is that we are engineers, we are techs, and and we're bringing that domain knowledge, and we we have a saying even amongst ourselves that I can take an engineer or I can take a tech and teach them the 20% of the IT part that they need to know to be able to help manage the software, help manage the culture around it. I can't take a an IT person and teach them the 80% of the domain knowledge that they need to know to support the people on the plant every day. The the instrument tech in the field, the the operational tech in the field, those guys have a job to do, and and you got to know what it is that they're doing to get them to trust you.

17:17

Yeah, that's fascinating. I have to ask, and and I I don't have an answer, but you brought brought up the Google analogy, right? How does Google keep up with it current? I trust Google. I trust the map. How do they keep current? I don't even know how they do that. It just brings up a good point. Don't they

17:36

have a car that drives around and no? But then the car.

17:38

Well, you know, some of that I guess is crowd sourced. When I was saying like, hey, I can look up a restaurant and find a menu, so I guess people go there and they actually post individual pictures. But I agree with you. How do how do you know like when I look up Ace Hardware and I need to know, hey, are they open till eight tonight or nine? And it's right, that's a hell of a question. I'm not sure the answer. Oh,

17:59

he is. So

18:00

Waze app. You ever notice that they're talking about hey? Careful, there's a car to the right.

18:06

So, so I you probably

18:09

don't want to know exactly how they know that. I don't. Anyway, go ahead.

18:13

Well, I would agree with you. It's crowd sourced, right? It's the people that's sending that information in Waze app. It's the people that are actually on the ground can see that car on the side of the road, and then they're updating it. And then, and this is the this is the same way. The the information is should be sourced from the text in the field that are doing that's exactly correct

18:33

to to support it. I'm just

18:35

dazzled by the fact that that their people think that I need to do that, like it's just for free, yeah. Hey, hey, Google, it's not it's not open. You said it was open at nine. I'm here at nine, and it's not open. I better let them know. Who's

18:54

that? There are a lot of people in this world, Scott, and some of them feel obligated to do that.

18:59

It would seem to me, to your point, Blake, is that the people in the field need to they need to crowdsource that. They need to make sure they need to crowdsource enough and put it on in there and make it update and say that's accurate. I feel comfortable. I trust the information. I'm ready to live life. That's

19:16

right. I got a question for you, Scott. Yeah, because I'm sure the world did the word "digital twin" has come up at this table this week in some capacity. Is that right?

19:24

Yeah, but I'm going to drop a bomb on you. I interviewed the guy who came up with the term "digital twin.

19:32

Oh, really, man? Yeah,

19:33

he he just he just came up with it. Did he

19:36

explain what it meant?

19:37

Yeah, he just said we just need a digital representation of the you know physical world, and so I'll I would I like that I will call it digital twin, and the value of having a digital twin to you know create scenarios and run you know all of that stuff. Yeah. So I

19:57

have a little bit of a of an add-on to that. Yeah. You immediately went to scenarios and different circumstances in that twin, but I back that up a bit, and I say the map we were talking about 10 minutes ago is a digital twin. It is a virtual representation of the road that I'm going on to go home, and what happens is in these conferences, people use the word digital twin, and all the process engineers and everybody get get all excited about a video game version of a part or a plant or something like that, and and what we say is that's fine. That is a digital twin, but if you just back that up for a moment and say, what if I just had the map? The map alone is the first level of value, and I and I think people skip that and they go to the video game version. And I mean, I really think the map is a twin.

20:47

Yeah, that's interesting. I like that. Blake, where do you see it going? You hear it at Octave, Octave Live, and you're listening. How is AI going to? Because AI has been a conversation. Hashtag, hashtag AI. How, how, how's it? What do you see that's going to really impact your business?

21:11

Do you want good or bad?

21:13

Well, I don't want any drama, whatever that. If it's good, no drama. If it's bad,

21:20

I think AI is going to impact the business in in positive ways. What I see it doing is helping and enabling people to to gain their information faster. So it's almost like right now, especially with LLMs, AI is kind of like the new Google. Like if you have a question, you can ask it.

21:39

I don't go to Google anymore.

21:41

You go straight to the idea. Yeah, and so even in engineering or even in design or technical fields, it's going to be it's going to be more complicated questions, but it's going to be able to facilitate those questions and give you relevant answers.

21:55

Again, it goes down to the data, the information. I don't want I don't want garbage. I don't want garbage going in and garbage coming out, giving me some wrong stuff.

22:04

So here's the interesting question for me. Right now, we're at a place where AI is new, so all of our colleagues have been in the industry for a while. Not all, but a lot of colleagues have been in the industry for a while. So when AI spits out an answer that doesn't make sense, you know, you know, you know, you've been working with piping or equipment or instrumentation, and you look at that answer, and you're like, "That's nonsense. Yeah, I got to ask that question better. The question is, I got a daughter, for example, that starts her first day of work next Monday, electrical engineering, and so she'll be different somewhat because AI will be probably a part of her first day on the job. Yeah, that's interesting. And so the question is, 10 years from now, based on however she learns, will she be able to tell bullshit when bullshit comes out? Sorry, I don't know what this that's allowed on this podcast. It's

22:54

a podcast. I'm not. I'm not being governed by the FCC. Okay, FCC. So, so,

23:00

and to me, that's an interesting question. to me, that's an interesting question because right now the humans in the loop are the ones that are vetting the answer. That

23:08

that would be the bed.

23:10

It's it's a question we have to consider, right?

23:13

How do you correct that? It's like you can. How do how do you say that doesn't make sense? Process engineer that makes no sense. That's wrong. How do you how do you sort of go into that data and say, hey, hey, you rascal AI, that's not the right answer. Correct it. It should be this. Yeah, I don't know how to do that.

23:35

I I don't know. I mean, I will tell you. I don't. I don't know. I don't know how to do that. I'm certain when the when the calculator came out, Scott. There were a bunch of people saying, "Well, if we don't solve these problems with paper and pencil, we'll never know if the calculator's right. And eventually, we just figured it out. Yeah,

23:49

I guess you're right. How do people get a hold of you, Mike?

23:53

Definitely on LinkedIn, Mike Antosh. LinkedIn, LinkedIn, Mike

23:58

Bernanke. Again, well coached on that answer, they did a fantastic job. Well, I was really happy with this conversation. Thank you very much. All right, thank you for being on Industrial Talk. You can't just leave. That's not your cue to leave. You got to hear me. All right, we have all the contact information for these two gents out on Industrial Talk. So fear not. Go after them. IndustrialTalk.com. Find them, reach out to them. They know what they're doing. They're they've got some mad skills. All right, we're broadcasting once again from Octave Live, right outside Octave Showcase, looking at technology, and you get to meet people like these two gents. If you came here next year, if they, I don't even know where they're at. But anyway, we're going to wrap it up on the other side, stay tuned. We will be right back.

24:42

You're listening to the Industrial Talk Podcast Network.

24:54

Yeah, that's Mike. That's Blake. You heard them. You were listening to the podcast, and you say to yourself. Prolytics, man, they have some mad skills. Man, are they absolutely passionate about your success? And of course, you need to succeed. You need to absolutely reach out to these two gents out on Industrial Talk. Be a part of their network. Have a conversation. It's all about people. There's no other way of getting around it. There's technology. Don't get me wrong. I'm all-I'm all happy about technology, but you know, at at its base, at its root, it's always always the people, and always finding these individuals that you trust, know, like all of that, and again, I mean, coining the term beer factor. High beer factor, right there. Yep, you you would probably just have a good time just sitting there, just picking their brain. So go out to industrial talk, reach out to them, be a part of their network. They're good guys. All right, that was Octave Octave Live, that was the first Octave Live user conference. It was great. I'm wandering around looking at the mad technology. They've got an incredible vision for the future. Wonderful solutions. So go out to Octave.com. They're also out there on Industrial Talk. You just got to do it. It was a marvelous, absolutely marvelous event. Wonderful people, and again, Industrial Talk is always passionate about your success. Just like Octave, just like Prolytics, we're just passionate about your success. Go out to Industrial Talk right here. I want you to tell your story. I think that's where it begins. You need to tell your story, and we're here to help you. Industrial Talk is a marketing company, a media company, and a PR company. We are all destined and focused on getting more eyeballs to your solution. It's a must, an opportunity for you. That's what we're all about. If you don't succeed, yikes! This is an exciting time. You need to succeed. All right. Be bold. Be brave. Dare greatly. Say it all the time. You, you, you are the heroes in this story. Hang out with Mike. Hang out with Blake, reach out to them, and you will be changing the world. We're going to have another great conversation coming from Octave just shortly, so stay tuned.