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This episode of industrial Talk is brought to you by RDI Technologies. RDI Technologies is the pioneer in motion amplification. Their proprietary technology enables users to see and measure motion impossible to the human eye and turning complex data into easy-to-understand videos to solve maintenance challenges quickly and safely. For more information, go to RDITechnologies.com. 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
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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.
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And let's try once again, thank you very much for joining us real talk. This is a platform that celebrates industry professionals all around the world because you're bold, brave and you dare greatly you innovate and you are solving problems making this world a better place. Thank you very much for what you do. And as you can tell, maybe if you can tell him the noise in the background, we are broadcasting on site SMRP, the 30th annual event and it is just full of I don't know maintenance and reliability professionals destined to solve your problems. And this is a event that you need to put on your doggone calendar if you are in the maintenance and reliability space. This is a must SMRP Check it out. I think it's in October next year. Jeff hay is in the house. He's in the hot seat. RDI Technologies. Motion amplification. Let's get cracking. Yeah. Hi, Jeff.
01:59
Hey, how's it going? Scott?
02:00
Good. I like your tech. Uh, do you know why? Because I'm a visual guy.
02:06
Yeah. Well, turns out lots of people are so
02:10
no way. Yeah, that's, it's true. You know, I look at I've always, in fact, just FYI, between you and me. I took your website, and I sent it to my web guy. I said, I see how they got this header of this thing moving. I want something like that. Not your tech, just sort of something like a header like that. So I'm stealing your stuff. Sorry.
02:36
Yeah. No worries. No worries.
02:37
Yeah. See, there it is, man. I just compliment No, no, I just don't want to just come clean. I didn't want to just carry that baggage around. So you're here at SMRP? I'm sure you're talking and speaking and connecting. Give us a little indication of just just let's, let's take motion amplification. Let's start to start with that journey. What is it? What? You know why, what? What compelled you to do it? And then let's see where we're going in the future. Give us a little background?
03:05
Yeah. So yeah, we're, you know, RTI does does motion amplification, it's camera camera based vibration. So I've, you know, my background is in physics,
03:15
I've always, because you're a doctor. Yeah, I
03:18
don't I don't generally go by that title. But you know, but yeah, you know, and I actually started, I don't know, if, you know, this, I started in astronomy. So that was that was going to be my, my path forward. But, but, you know, using cameras, you know, my background was always in cameras, and, you know, started doing doing research with measuring vibration and motion. And, you know, the, the, we started measuring the atmosphere and turbulence of stars, you know, the way the air moves and, you know, evolved into application based research and, you know, that led to, you know, one thing led to another and then started vibration company using cameras. So, now, we're almost 60 strong.
03:59
Yeah, see, in your growth has been pretty impressive. I've been watching you from a distance been sort of, not with a camera, but from my eyeballs. But so. So why is this the motion amplification, we talked about reliability, we talked about acid management, and we talked about this particular tool. Why why is it important?
04:22
Yeah, a couple of reasons. But but, you know, one of the things that I think we focus on and the camera, you know, kind of, which does so well, so tiny, it is tiny. Yeah, sometimes I want to put it in a bigger box, just so people feel like Yeah. All right, put some weights in there. Look at it. Really? Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, really, what we're trying to do is enabled people to get the data that they need, and, and get it quickly so they can make decisions. You know, I think, you know, we live in a world where it is we're inundated with data, right? We have more and more data and it's Sometimes the more data that you have, the harder it makes your life. And so what we are really interested in doing is, is providing the right data at the right time for people to make the right decisions. And that's for fixing their assets.
05:14
Do you? Is it also a factor of just? I mean, come on, I can see it. If the things moving. It's easy for me to say, that's not right. So there's a there's this, there's a beauty in the simplicity of it. But then there's a tremendous amount of horsepower in that particular image. But for me personally, it's like, yeah, there's something going on there. So that's, that's attractive. And so when I'm a company, and I go down that road, and I said, Yep, I need, I see the value, I see that important. Take me through this process of okay, here, this is what we want to do. This is how we want to approach it. Take us through a process of how you would engage a client. Yeah, so
06:01
you know, what, what we generally do it for us is, is really enablement. So, you know, we I think of motion amplification technology as being equal part, data analysis to equal part communication, because really, you can have all the information in the world you need, but if you can't do something with it, or take action, you really doesn't have a lot of value. So for us, we sort of approach it in the in the process of one, you know, to twofold one, getting the data, getting the analysis that you need done understanding your assets, but also being able to communicate that across the organization. So it you know, in the maintenance reliability space, not everybody's technical, you know, we're all here for the same purpose, right, but but not everybody understands the way that machines move the way they're supposed to move, and what what constitutes correctness in a machine, but, but when you show somebody the visualization, something that it's, you know, sort of a universal language, something's lifting up off the ground when it's supposed to be bolted down, it makes a lot more sense than then showing a graph or a plot
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is there a, once that happens, it's undeniable, I see it, it's moving. It's I can't unsee it, I can't unsee it, it is just a fact. There has to be a call to action on that. It's like, okay, there's something going on there. With that said, where's that call to action from your platform from that solution to the next step?
07:26
Usually, in the in, you know, once you get back, you know, you look at the data, you can measure and quantify so there's ISO standards, you know, there's a whole host of of information out there that that sort of qualifies what what is right or what is wrong, but the next step really is about, you know, getting the data out, and then educating the people that need to make the decisions about the corrective action that needs to take place, sometimes it happens, all in the matter of just, you know, minutes, you know, the, we can go through with our, with our camera and look at a piece of machinery that maybe someone spent already spent, well, we get a case study where this power generation company spent $120,000.05 100 man hours on a motor pump combination, and still didn't understand what what was wrong with it. But when you put the camera on it less than an hour, and they could just see that they knew they could see from there that the base was insufficient, and it needed to be supported.
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Yeah, there's, there's, there's a beauty in that at least it takes a complex environment and at least directs the attention to the right area. It's not, you know, you're just sort of not just looking at whatever that and, you know, asset is it's like, a check here. Because there it's sort of right there. So with that said, here, where's it going? Because it your, your platform, the team RDI that technology has significantly changed over the years. It's better, it's whatever, where do you see it going? What what what is it?
09:10
Yeah, so you know, we've we've had a pretty even this past few months, and the next few months are going to be pretty aggressive in terms of product release. So we just released a 3d camera that uses two cameras. So you know, you can see, you can see screen, you can see depth with your eyes, right, you know, you've got two eyes. And if you close one eye, you can you can see it slightly different view, right. And it's that difference in that view that gives you your depth perception. So it turns out when you put two cameras together, you know before we would be able to be able to measure up and down and right and left. That's how that's what a camera can measure. But with two cameras you can measure to and from the camera as well. So now you're actually getting a vibration reading from our cameras in three dimensions. So that that was just recently.
10:03
I saw it out there, didn't it? Do you have one set? Yeah, we do. Yeah, I saw a little double barrel camera to it. And it's a little, I don't because it gives the technique. It's just like a little, little camera. So what does that do? If I'm able to look at it in 3d? How does that improve my insights into that asset?
10:21
Well, before you'd have to take multiple measurements in, you know, in conjunction with one another, but now you're able to measure everything that you need to measure all at once. And that's advantageous, because lots of times you only get one shot at it, especially if it's a transient, you know, some event that's happened and you need and that often happens, you need to be able to measure everything at once in one shot. So or from one location, sometimes you don't even have, you don't have access to the equipment. And so you have to you fixed and where you can measure from, and that allows you to be able to measure, you know, the entirety all dimensions at once and get a complete view of the machinery.
11:00
So with that said, You're you're saying it, okay, um, it goes beyond the, it's yes, it's visual, but but from that visual, you're able to pull out the, the the information, you're pulling data from that you're saying, I'm extracting that information from that 3d shot, and I'm pulling it into some analytic platform that says, hey, go I'm, this doesn't, this is okay, whatever, it's, it's creating sort of that knowledge base of being able to make decisions, right?
11:34
Yeah, that's right. So with, with the, with our tool, there's the capability of trending the data as well. So you can go and measure the same point over the course of time. And in a lot of cases, it's the absolute measurement, you know, that will tell you something wrong, say it's, it's moving at, you know, point one inches per second, or point three inches per second. And, you know, that's too much. Other times it's trending. So it is, it's, it's one thing if the vibration readings are staying the same. But it's another thing if they're starting to rise, and often right before catastrophic failure, that's, that's sort of an exponential rise, it goes bad really fast. And it is in you want to catch that that change. And so, you know, we a lot of people know us for the motion amplification. But it's also important to know that we do something we refer to as fulfilled vibration, where we can measure the entire field of view, with quantified quantifiable, you know, data points, so you can draw a little box we call a region of interest, and it extracts a waveform out and it's actually measuring the motion at that location.
12:42
How do you benchmark this? Let's say you're saying it, it's, it's moving a certain amount? That's bad? How do you know that's bad? So is there's got to be some sort of benchmark or history associated with that, that data that gives you the indication that that's trending in the wrong direction? Or is that? How do you know that that's not normal? Yeah,
13:05
in some cases, there's ISO standards. So for for certain equipment of certain horsepower, you know, there's a, there's an ISO standard that says, This is the sub there's severity charts that say this is the allow allowable vibration, or this and then some organizations have their own some, some have created their own in terms of in terms of the benchmark, but then then of course, beyond that, it is it is truly as the trending that that you watch.
13:34
Do you do you backload the day to DSA okay, I'm looking at this fan, this motor, this pop, whatever it is, I'm looking at it, it's a specific type. And I have some data and information on it. I loaded into the platform, the series and then and then and then create that trend on out what how do you
13:54
Yeah, so we in our tool, we actually have a trending software. So it so it just sucks the data right in, it's hooked to an an asset, and then it will plot that for you. Other times if it's being trended by another tool, and that's already in some other database then then if that starts trending in the wrong directions, maybe that's when they pull our tool out and say hey, what's going on? Because our tool is very powerful at getting at root cause very quickly. So if you ever suspect Yeah, it really is you want
14:27
to compress that time as fast as possible if you don't want to have a catastrophic failure because your whatever your your lollygagging out there and you're you're just not getting the information quick enough or fast enough.
14:39
Yeah. And to be honest, we we really try to push it beyond just you know, waiting to catch a fault. So when you have a piece of equipment, you know, we would prefer that the fault never make it into your facility in the first place. So you want to catch it at design or or you want to catch it installation are coming missioning, you know, and then we also, you know, the industrial portion as part of our business, we also sell to what we've heard referred to as test and measurement. And that's really where products are being designed in the design stage. And if, ultimately, if you can catch, say, by a resonance in a product, before it makes it into the final design, then the fault never gets introduced into the product in the first place. The next best thing is installation and commissioning. Because the fault at that point never gets introduced into the facility.
15:29
Yeah, you're focusing on precision installation, and the precision of that piece of equipment and, and that has that has tremendous benefits to the organization. You know, if I'm installing that property, if, if I'm capturing that asset at the beginning, and making sure that that's precise, and then I install it, and that's precise, as much as I can, which, given today's technology, you should be fine, then you're in your you're assuring that longevity, that that asset to be available. And and and if you see any trends that are happening, you're saying, hey, there's something going on, there doesn't have to be catastrophic. It's just like, something's going on there. Go out, figure it out.
16:12
Yeah. And the earlier you catch that, you know, obviously, the more time you have to prep for it and plan and do the maintenance.
16:19
What's happening in the future? Where do you see it going? I mean, you haven't, you haven't achieved your Zenith yet. There's still a lot going on. Right? Yeah,
16:29
we do. I don't know if you've, if you've, if you've been by our booth, you see our robot dog spot. Yeah. So that's, that's a big thing. We've been working on a payload for Boston Dynamics. Robot spot, and this will be fully autonomous route based data collection with motion amplification. So you know, this complete vibration, you know, monitoring with a camera, where the dog will wake up, walk around, know exactly where the assets are, you let it know, you know, in the beginning, what assets you want monitored, and what locations and then we do the rest, our software will, you know, pay the camera will pan and tilt, and, and focus, you know, right on the asset, and then make the measurements that you need at the locations you need, and then do that on a regular basis. Or you could have it go out on demand and say, Hey, do a, do a troubleshooting on this asset, go take a collection around this asset. And so, in that, in that sense, you get, you know, a complete picture of your facility. And, and automate that process, and you can do it all noncontact with with our camera.
17:45
It sounds to me that that solution, what you just, you know, articulated, is allows you to do more with less, it's like you've you've just automated that that route. And, and and you can, and once again, with that automation with that solution, you're compressing the time identifying challenges, you know, calling into action, how to resolve the problem, and so on. Is that really the thought behind all that? Yeah,
18:12
it is. And, you know, one of the things too, if you backup, you know, outside of spot one, in terms of that time compression, you know, the way I see the assets in your facility, you know, you think about a triangle and the tip of the triangle, you know, the height of the triangle is related to how valuable your asset is. And so at the top, there's just a small set, right, that that little tip is small. And then as you go further down that triangle, the number of assets that you have increases, right, so you have a lot of lower cost assets. And somewhere, there's a line that gets drawn in that across that triangle that says anything above this. We can afford to do advanced analysis on because the asset is that value asset criticality rating, and we want to push it lower on the criticality, we want to be able to say, Okay, if you can only spend, you know, half a day on an asset, that's one thing, but what if you could spend 20 minutes on an asset and do advanced analysis. So with motion amplification, that's, that's possible. So lower on the criticality, bring more assets into the advanced analysis, so that you're looking more holistically at your larger set of assets. And spot allows that to so now, we can go and increase the amount of assets we can look at in a much more sophisticated way. It's not just a single point trending, we're really looking at the entire asset in context.
19:38
Yeah, I've been a part of asset criticality conversations and I people will die on hills on that, you know, that motors important and that when that happens, that's, that's what, but that just sort of with that solution, and you're pushing to, you're increasing the ability to be able to see more assets, you still have to have those conversations. You're still sort of That's sort of important. That's okay. But but it gives you the flexibility to do more, see more. And, and, and really direct the resources, where they need to be.
20:12
Oh, yeah, that's right. And, you know, if, if, if you have another sort of data point that says there's an issue and your facility, instead of having to do, you know, issue a work order, and you know, get manpower to go out and, you know, figure this out, you know, spot can just wake up, walk out, collect the data, and then, you know, over coffee the next morning, you've identified a fault, you've done advanced analysis on the fault, and you have all the information ready for you right there to look at.
20:46
I kinda like that. You know, that's pretty cool.
20:49
We hope so.
20:52
Every time I go to a conference, and I see Boston Dynamics spot, there's always a trail of people behind it.
20:59
We did because it's cool. We did a we did a outreach to a middle school and had the robot there with the kids. They treated it like they was like, they were petting it treated just like it's awesome.
21:12
I'm waiting for the laser beams on the forehead. That's what's gonna happen. No, that's that's cool stuff, man. Yeah, that that whole payload concept that that 3d. I don't know, man. I'm giddy. I'm gonna get older. Yeah,
21:27
we're excited. Yeah, we go www dot RDI technologies.com. Check out we have a YouTube YouTube page with hundreds of videos.
21:36
Which they are good.
21:37
They're fun. They are in. Motion amplification.
21:41
Yeah, I just I don't know if that sounds sad. But I do like it. I'm watching it. Go check that out. I like to. I like the one set to the next right. You got the Normal View, which my eyes can see. And then the one that's amplified.
21:57
We have this nice scanning technique. Software. Yeah. All right.
22:01
Awesome. As always, Jeff, you're awesome. I remember when you were just a little pop doing this stuff. All right. Once again, we're broadcasting from SMRP, the 30th annual conversation, conference conversation to many conversations here in Raleigh, North Carolina. And again, check out RDI technology stunk. It will be out on industrial talk.com. That's a must attend, or must connect type of thing. All right. We're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
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You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.
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All right. Once again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and for your support a hearty thank you to Jeff. Hey, team, RDI Technologies, motion amplification, go out to RDI Technologies.com. Look at those videos. Very cool, very just impressive technology go out to RDI Technologies.com. All right. You know, I've been talking about building an ever expanding industrial ecosystem of problem solvers. We truly have a passion for your success, and we'll do whatever is necessary to make that happen. amplify your message, be a part of this ever expanding ecosystem, get your message out. It is important, specially today. So go out to industrial talk.com Reach out, find out more. It's a lot of fun, but I'm telling you, you and your company are the heroes in this story because we really need you to succeed we really need you to to do what you do best because communities people the world is depending on you. Sounds hyperbole, but it's not. It is important. And what you do is important. All right. Be bold, be brave, daring, greatly hanging out with people like Jeff, and you will change the world. We're gonna have another great conversation coming from SMRP The 30th annual conference shortly so stay tuned. We will be right back.
