December 19, 2024 • 58 mins
How can breaking free from traditional limitations unlock a new era of innovation and resilience in automation?
Join us with Jennifer Sutter, Itoro Meshioye, and Talita Clemente, three amazing women from Schneider Electric, who are pioneering the “Universal Automation” movement, where design flexibility and hardware independence redefine possibilities.
Experience their inspiring narratives and an interactive demo of EcoStruxure, an IoT-enabled, plug-and-play, open, interoperable architecture and platform designed for use in homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries!
Thank you to Schneider Electric for demoing this cool product and sponsoring the episode!
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Co-Hosts are Alicia Gilpin Director of Engineering at Process and Controls Engineering LLC, Nikki Gonzales Director of Business Development at Weintek USA, and Courtney Fernandez Robot Master at FAST One Solutions.
Follow us on Linkedin and YouTube for live videos, demos, and other content!
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Get in touch with us at automationladies.io!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, it's another Thursday afternoon.
Welcome to an Automation LadiesDemo Day.
We haven't done a Demo Day in awhile, and we're super excited
to have a platform fromSchneider Electric that I hadn't
heard of until well, maybe itwas last year, but I remember
when I saw it, I immediatelystarted to watch some videos on
(00:21):
their website and I thought thatit was really cool, and I think
I threw out a comment andtagged Schneider Electric and
said who can show this to us orto me, or something of that
effect.
And here we are now, probablyseveral months later, but I'm
super stoked to have threeincredible ladies on from
Schneider Electric to talk to usabout no, it's not open
(00:43):
automation, it's universal.
Okay, same concept, though, butit's a specific organization, a
group, and so we're both goingto talk about that, as well as
the platform itself thatSchneider has developed as part
of this, being part of thisgroup, being able to utilize
(01:04):
this infrastructure so that noteverything is completely vendor
locked and hardware locked,which I think is really
important to the resilience thefuture resilience of our
industry.
So I was really interested inlearning more.
Courtney, I don't know ifyou've ever come across this
eco-structure, and I'll let theladies explain what all of this
(01:26):
terminology means, um but theiriot platform and, and in
specific, this automation expertstuff.
Have you ever heard of that orworked with it before or seen a
demo?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
uh I, I have heard the words uh, but didn't know
what it was.
Um, and admittedly, iot stuffis kind of like my weak point,
so I'm actually very curiousabout products related to it.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Then I think we're going to learn a lot today and
unfortunately Courtney is goingto have to jump off after kind
of the conversation portion ofthis.
Because, yeah, as we discussed,I think in our meeting
yesterday, when I had kidsbarging and my kids were home
from school, at least thepandemic, one good thing that
came out of it is that we allkind of learned that, hey, we
have these you know lives andfamilies and things, and they
(02:14):
sometimes come up.
So Courtney's got to go pick upsome kids from school and only
if I get the text.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, okay, yeah, Okay, we may make it on time, but if
I get an uh-oh text I may haveto drop off at 1 30.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, so at least we all know that that's gonna
happen.
Um, I also want to say livedemos are something that not
everybody's willing to do.
They don't always go well.
That you it's a little bit of abusiness like version of being
vulnerable which is really whatwe're all about in automation
ladies is kind of being true toyourself, being really what
we're all about at AutomationLadies is kind of being true to
yourself, being able to speakwith passion, but also just
(02:49):
honesty and integrity about whatyou do, and I love that you
guys are willing to come.
Guys we actually just had thisconversation just now you ladies
, but we use the term guys foreverybody, so like, but, uh, we
use the term guys for everybody,so like, whether it is a
genderless term.
If you get offended by that, Iapologize.
That's not my intention.
(03:10):
I we're super excited to haveyou guys here today to both
actually give us the the demo ofthis, but also just kind of
like, uh, clarify what it is.
What is schneider electricdoing with it?
How does it fit into the restof all of the technologies and
portfolios and things?
We won't get too much into that,but a little bit of
clarification about what thisterminology is, which I think
(03:31):
would be really helpful to usthat have heard it but maybe
don't know exactly what it is.
We'll dive into why thismatters and then we'll actually
go through a bit of a sales demo.
Let's see the thing, let's, youknow, put some eyes on it.
You're not going to get youknow, all your in-depth question
answered or dive into everylittle detail of the software or
how it works, but we are goingto see just a standard kind of
(03:53):
demo.
Talita is going to drive thatfor us.
She's an application engineerthat does these demos on a
regular basis.
So we asked for, like a personthat normally does these, so
that it's not necessarilyprepped as a show, it's just
prepped as you get, to be a flyon the wall for these demos and,
more importantly, if you, youknow, come here for the
(04:14):
community.
So don't be a fly on the wall.
Engage in the comments, tell uswhy you're here, where you're
from, if there's anything you'reinterested in finding out today
, and then during the demo, feelfree to ask questions and we'll
try to.
You know, throw them up on thescreen.
We've had a really fun timewith our demo so far the
audience engaging with somequestions and stuff, and that
also just helps the presentersto not feel like they're just
(04:35):
talking at a wall.
For you know, 30 minutes, 20minutes it's a lot more fun for
everyone involved if it'sengaging and we're engaged.
So with that, thank you so muchfor joining us and I would like
to just pass it off to Jen toget started with a brief kind of
like our standard automationladies question.
I'd love to hear just a littlebit of an introduction about
yourself and then how you got tobe in this position, and we'll
(04:58):
take all three of you and thenwe'll dive into kind of
introducing the subject matter.
Does that sound good?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, sounds good.
So, yes, so I'm Jen Sutter andI have been with Schneider
Electric for 30 years now.
How did I get into this?
Well, my dad was a powerengineer for a utility company,
so there were no other women,other than a cousin of mine who
went into petroleum engineering,that were engineers in the
family.
So I was good in math andscience and decided to dive
(05:27):
right in, got my degree inelectrical engineering, put in
power services, got my first jobout of college at a utility
company, and there I am, sittingin an office that really was a
closet, with a computer doingload flow studies all day by
myself, and I thought how can Ido this the rest of my life?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
That's exactly what I thought engineering was and why
I didn't get a degree in it.
So I was like I don't want tobe stuck in that closet.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
So I and I knew my dad had worked in the field.
So I was like this isn't likewhat I want to do, and so.
But I grew up also ironicallyor not ironically, but I grew up
above a restaurant.
My mom owned and ran and mygrandmother before her we lived
in the apartment above it.
So growing up I had a lot ofexperience waitressing and stuff
(06:13):
, and even at the young age of12 to 11, 12, I'm onboarding and
training the new waitressesthat are 16 years old, being
hired into the family to workfor the family.
So what I did is I didsomething fun, or what I did is
I thought about it.
Everybody remembers that onecredit class you took in
engineering.
That was like all the differentjobs an engineer can do, and I
(06:33):
remember learning that, hey, alot of engineers go into sales
and marketing for companies thatlook for people in sales and
marketing.
So I started networking withdifferent people.
I had five uncles that my fourof them were engineers.
One was a purchasing agent.
So of course I went to the onewho was a purchasing agent and
said, hey, can, can you help mefigure out like what companies
(06:54):
hire engineers, go into salesand might have sales development
programs or something.
And that's how I found Square Dby Schneider Electric at the
time Cause again my backgroundwas power Square D by Schneider
Electric at the time becauseagain my background was power
Got into their sales developmentorganization, their program,
and spread my wings into theindustrial automation and I'd
like to tell people, in my 30years at Schneider I did what I
(07:16):
call the monkey bar approach.
I took a lot of lateral moves indifferent business units to
learn more about the company andto learn a lot of other areas
of the business.
And now that I'm a regionalsales director in our industrial
automation space, it has reallyserved me well to have friends
and all of our other businessunits, like our buildings
(07:36):
business, our IT business, oursustainability business, our
microgrid business and all ofthat.
So a lot of fun stories overthe years and it's a great
company for women to work at.
I really enjoy working atSchneider Electric.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I love that experience and the fact, like
you said, that careerprogression doesn't always have
to be linear.
And even within one company youwould think you just okay, you
kind of just climb the ladder up.
But at a company as big asSchneider and I think some of
the other big companies in ourindustry do well with this but
you know giving people theopportunity to move around and
learn different disciplines andareas, and then you kind of you
(08:14):
know, with all of that and yourinstitutional knowledge, you
become, you know you can becomea very valuable asset over time
just from having all thosedifferent experiences across the
organization.
Right, absolutely, celita.
How about yourself?
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Hi everyone.
My name is Celita Clemente.
As you can see from my accent,I'm not American, I'm from
Brazil.
So I started at Schneider sevenyears ago right off college as
an intern actually in Brazil.
So I started as a college as anintern actually in Brazil.
So I started as a.
I was part of the engineeringdelivery team.
(08:50):
So I started working onprojects, developing projects,
commissioning.
I got hired to that position andI was super excited.
I loved PLCs and working withthem was like my dream coming
true.
But then, just after I gothired, I joined an early
graduate program at Schneiderand I saw the role that
(09:12):
Schneider had to offer me.
So I started networking andtalking to people still working
on my delivery position.
Then I moved to a position onthe same team that I am today.
That is where the competencycenter inside Schneider.
So I started working witheverything that Schneider has to
(09:33):
offer in industrial automationwith Brazil, ecuador and
Colombia.
And almost three years ago Igot the opportunity to move to
the US and work with EcoStruxureAutomation Expert for North
America, and I've been enjoyingever since the ride here Very
(09:54):
cool.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I think you may be the third Brazilian guest we've
had on the show so far.
Oh, really, that's exciting.
Well, I'm missing someone, we.
I think we haven't scheduledthis episode yet, but yes, so
very cool.
Um, join the, join the ranks.
My dad loves, uh, brazil.
I've never been, but would loveto to go at some point in the
(10:15):
future and I should have beensaying your name the american
way, with the like mymother-in-law's name with theita
, with the T.
So Etoro you're next.
I think I got that better Holdon.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I'm listening to Jen and Toledo and I'm like, oh my
God, I think I'm in the wrongplace.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
But not for today's discussion.
People will understand whylater.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The history that you ladies have with automation, I
really don't know.
So we don't have much time, butI'll just summarize real quick.
So I started off in oil and gas, right, and at the time,
traditionally, for like 160years, you know, you extract the
oil and then you flare the gas,which is pretty much those
(11:07):
stacks we see, right, with, youknow, fire burning.
And so ExxonMobil decided, hey,let's not flare the gas anymore
, right, let's.
You know, let's innovate, right, let's build the pipelines and
the assets and all that toprocess this gas and sell it.
(11:30):
Yeah, right, and so they builtthis natural gas liquids plant,
the first of its kind, and I wasone of the first people to work
there.
So I did that.
And you know, now, like 20something years later in my
career, I can look back and sayyou know, I'm always drawn to
(11:51):
innovation.
I'm always drawn to peoplepushing the needle and saying
let's not do things the waywe've been doing it right, let's
do it differently.
So it started off in ExxonMobil.
And then, you know, bell Southat the time was called Bell
South.
Now it's AT&T.
They said let's not do dial-upanymore.
If you can remember AOL, you'vegot mail.
(12:13):
And if you had to choosebetween, you know, being on the
phone or being online.
Right, dial-up internet.
And AT&T said let's not do thatanymore, let's create
high-speed internet so peoplecan choose between hey, you
don't have to always unhook yourphone to get online, let's
(12:35):
create, let's give people both.
And while we're doing it, let'smake the internet even faster,
so fiber to the home.
I was part of that right.
And then I moved to Houston andOSIsoft a company called OSIsoft
, the makers of the Pi systemhave always been using their
technology for operationalexcellence for process
(12:58):
industries.
And they said let's not do thatanymore, let's actually still
do that, but use the software indata centers.
And I was like I want to be apart of that and fast forward to
here.
Right, schneider electric saidlet's not do traditional control
systems anymore, let's decouplethe software from the hardware.
(13:18):
And I'm here, I signed up.
So now, looking back, I'm, youknow, like moth drawn to the
fire.
I'm just constantly drawn topeople pushing the envelope,
saying let's not do things theway we do them traditionally.
There's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I love that.
So you're the perfect person tobe here today, because some of
the things that we and we don'teven have a super clear like we
started the show with X mission,like we started it for a bunch
of different reasons and as wekeep doing it, we keep doing it
for different reasons, but oneof them is there are so many
people that could come into thisindustry in so many different
(13:58):
ways and maybe they don't knowabout it.
Right, you ended up being in aconversation with someone where
it was an opportunity, right,but we just want to increase
those opportunities for everyoneto hear about what we're doing,
how cool it is, how there isinnovation happening and that
you can be a part of it.
Whether you're a trainedengineer or you come from some
other business discipline, itdoesn't matter.
(14:18):
We need all of them in thisindustry.
So you can go do that inpharmaceutical or you can come
do that here, and I thinkthere's something cool and
exciting about being here.
Um, even things like, uh, youknow, courtney and I actually uh
, work a bit with, uh, landfillgas, uh, capture and flare
systems oh, wow, look at that,yeah, and you would think like,
(14:38):
oh, you know trash.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
that's not exciting, but there's exciting stuff about
trash um I've been to one ofthe flare stations and, uh, it
was intimidating, like the soundof the flame.
Um, I didn't realize like.
I thought like a train waspassing and it wasn't a train
(15:00):
passing under us, it was likethe deep rumble of these things
going it's intense.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
It's intense when you I mean conversation for another
day but when you look at theenvironmental implications of
that, yeah, yeah, then thathelps you know of the
communities who live around it,right, so?
So of course, you knowcompanies like exxon to get in
mind.
And also, when you're flaringgas, you're pretty much just
(15:26):
burning money, yeah exactly Iwas going to say it takes
something.
That's what you're doing soyeah, you're doing the right
thing.
Part of it.
And there's also how much moneycan be made when you report
yeah, so another perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
We do this because it's a win, win, win, win, win
Like whoever people are on thescreen is how many wins we like
to get.
We also like to have fun doingthis.
We like to learn.
Our audience likes to learn.
We get to know each other.
You know, it's really great whenyou can kind of check a lot of
boxes all at once, and I thinkyou know we really one of the
things we wanted to not do thesame way and I think you know we
(16:04):
really one of the things wewanted to not do the same way
but do differently with thisdemo day was not keep all of the
information about our industryso under wraps and even things
like sales information and salesdemos.
You know, and I completelyunderstand, you don't just want
to demo your stuff to everyonein the world and if it's not
relevant and to give thatone-on-one time from a sales rep
to a person, it's a waste oftime for everyone involved if
(16:26):
you're not a potential customeror you have no use for it.
But awareness and knowledge isalso really cool.
Even if you're not in thebuying cycle or you're not a
customer, if you're in theindustry, it's nice to be able
to know what's available, what'sout there, what it looks like,
without wasting people's timeand expectations of having to go
(16:48):
for a sales demo that isn'tworth anybody's time.
So we really, you know, justappreciate your willingness to
come show this to whoever'swatching, no matter how likely
they are to buy this or not,with the mind of just sharing it
with everyone, andopportunities do tend to come
from that.
Thank you all ladies.
Those was were great intros.
I learned a lot about each ofyou.
It's just I I continue to beamazed by the caliber of people
(17:13):
that we get into this industryafter they've been doing other
stuff, uh, so we're very, veryhappy to have you, um, yeah, so
I guess unless, courtney, youwant to talk a little bit like
me, get any of your dying,burning questions out before we
hand it off to Jen to starttelling us a little bit more
about this EcoStruxure stuff anduniversal automation.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, actually I like your words better than my words
, nikki, you're just moreeloquent than I am on things.
I get excited about seeing techand I'm like yeah take it out,
take it out, take it out.
Oh yeah, take it out, take itout, take it out.
Oh yeah, there's people too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I really uh, like to yourpoint.
Getting to meet you guys andtalk to you is always like the
best part of this Cause.
Like I'll, I'll rememberwhatever you guys show off today
(17:57):
, but I'll remember you morethan I will whatever you're
about to demo and you know whatnikki was saying.
I think it's just cool thatpeople can come on and see the
different paths, um, you know,into automation and also, just
to you know, look at people andbe like hey, I look like that,
my story sounds like that.
I could do that.
So thank you guys for beingwilling and vulnerable to share
your stories in front ofeveryone.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, I'm also going to throw up a few thank yous to
some of the people that joinedus in the comments.
Jose, thank you so much for afew comments, including this
passion on it.
Yeah, this is.
This is important, um,important stuff.
I appreciate that, carl.
Yeah, I, I don't know, I'vestruggled with the y'all so a
little bit, but I moved here tohouston in middle school from
(18:40):
iceland via a brief stop inengland and I had a really heavy
british accent.
When I first moved here andpeople would try to, they would
be like, can you say y'all?
And they would have me saydifferent words and then make
fun of me.
So I immediately was like I'mnever saying that word, I am not
from here, I am not saying that.
And then now, you know, many,many years later and with kids
(19:02):
and I live here again and Iappreciate it, I've started to
say it a little bit, but I stilldefault to guys most of the
time.
So again, that applies to guysin this case.
All good, you know, all goodintentions for that.
Um, uh, yeah, totally Y'all.
Hey, from Frisco, okay, soyou're pretty local.
Um, we had a couple of peoplethat I brought up earlier on the
(19:24):
screen.
Thanks for joining us, leo.
Thanks for joining us fromToronto.
Let's see.
Oh, we have Rafi here fromPakistan.
Great to see you, rafi.
I'm wondering if you're familiarwith this platform.
I know he works a lot withIgnition, scada and companies
that use various differenthardware platforms for their
operations.
He works with a lot of US-basedsystems integrators and things
(19:47):
like that, and he actually flewhere to Houston for our OT
SkateCon earlier this year.
I would love to come.
Yeah, absolutely, I'll get youguys in touch, michael.
Great to see you.
Michael's also an automationengineer with a great systems
integrator, growing systemsintegrator called Mast Owl
Technologies, and actually thepodcast episode that came out
(20:08):
today is recorded with the ownerof Mast Owl, alex Poole, and
that was an incredibleconversation that Ali and I both
really enjoyed and we want tocollaborate with them more.
So thank you guys for coming on.
Slam dunk, courtney.
Yeah, it's absolutely right,and you know, same thing goes
for being in the comments andbeing active.
(20:29):
A lot of people they kind ofpassively consume content, which
I don't want to push anybodyout of their comfort zone.
I just want to encourage you topush yourself out of your
comfort zone and I find that youknow, our crowd is pretty
friendly.
If you're into automation, wealready really have something in
common, like we nerd out aboutthings, so our differences are.
I think.
To me, the commonalities aremuch more so.
(20:52):
With that said, acknowledgingeverybody in the comments for
joining us, we really appreciateit.
Let's dive into what the heckare we talking about today,
technology-wise, and Jen, dispelthe lingo confusion for us.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yes, yes, I will simplify the Schneider Electric
meaning of EcoStruxure.
So, really, ecostruxure isSchneider Electric's IoT-enabled
architecture and platform.
It integrates across varioussolutions, different business
units like energy management,automation, sustainability and a
(21:26):
more cohesive system.
Ecostruxure is what we sayhelps businesses optimize our
operations, improve efficiency,enhance sustainability by
leveraging real-time data andanalytics.
So EcoStruxure is our broadterm that we use across the
company, so you'll haveEcoStruxure in all of our
(21:48):
business units.
So, specifically, we're all apart of our industrial
automation business unit.
And today we're specificallygoing to talk about universal
automation and universalautomation for us.
We call it EcoStruxureAutomation Expert and that is
what Etoro will refer it to.
And universal automation isreally based off of an IEC
(22:12):
standard I think it was setabout 15 years ago the 61499 IEC
standard that is driven by endusers.
Exxonmobil, for instance, isactually putting in.
So Etoro you talked aboutExxonMobil, for instance, is
actually putting in.
So Toro, you talked aboutExxonMobil being a leader in
industry and changing.
They are this month, and one oftheir Baton Rouge facilities,
(22:33):
ripping out PLCs and putting ina universal automation solution,
not just leveraging SchneiderElectric EcoStruxure automation
expert but leveraging other umcompanies, products um, that are
part of universal automation.
So with that I'm going to turnit over to Toro to kind of talk
a little bit more details aboutSchneider Electric's play with
(22:56):
EcoStruxure automation expertwithin the universal automation
organization and a little bitabout universal universal
automation organization.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Thanks Very cool and I know you can we'll include
this, and it was included insome of the event descriptions,
but there's a list of all thecompanies that are members of
this on the website, so it'sreally easy to find.
There's definitely like othercompanies that we've all heard
of and worked with, so it seemsto be a very good collaboration.
Yes, so, just seems to be avery good collaboration.
Yes, so just jumping right in.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
So what is Universal Automation?
The board?
So it's really a not-for-profitorganization and it's made up
of members from the end-usercommunity, from vendors like
Schneider Electric and fromnonprofits as well as
universities.
And what do we agree on?
(23:47):
We agree that we came up with acommon runtime, so it's a
common software for doing yourautomation right.
And we're saying that when youuse this automation system, it's
totally decoupled from thehardware automation system.
(24:08):
It's totally decoupled from thehardware, which means
traditionally when you get a PLCsystem, you get, you know, you
buy from a certain vendor andyou're pretty much locked to
that vendor.
And so this organization issaying, no, let's decouple the
software from the hardware sothat end users have that choice
to decide what vendor they wantto use it for.
So think about it.
(24:29):
And you know my mom alwayswonders what I do and I like to
explain to her.
You know I talk about likeAndroid for control systems.
That's pretty much what we do.
So if you can think about youriPhone, you're pretty much
locked into the iPhone ecosystem, right.
And you know we're lining uptrying to get upgrades, but
(24:52):
still locked to that system,right.
And so we are pushing theneedle and we're saying let's
not do that anymore.
Let's give our customersbecause we've listened to the
customers customers let's givethem the choice to decide what
hardware vendor they want to gowith.
Right, so it's.
It's.
It's totally separating,decoupling the software from the
(25:13):
hardware so you can take thesoftware and run on multiple
hardware infrastructure, as longas they're members of universal
Automationorg.
So that's pretty much whatUniversal Automationorg is.
It was founded in 2021.
It was about 10 members, butnow it's over 100 members
(25:35):
because the more we're takingthe message out we're talking to
system integrators,distributors, customers.
People are saying absolutely,this makes sense.
Like we've never gone to anyonewho says absolutely doesn't
make sense, right?
They're saying it makes senseand it's high time we move from
(25:57):
the way things were done in the50s, because now it's 2024.
We should have options, and I'mgoing to steal the word that
ExxonMobil uses.
They say we need options.
Okay, yeah.
So we're saying we've heard you, customers, and we're giving
you options.
So that's pretty much what itis.
So EcoStruxure AutomationExperts it's an implementation
(26:22):
of that standard.
It's Schneider Electric'simplementation of that standard.
It's Schneider Electric'simplementation of that standard.
Like Jen mentioned, it's basedon IEC 61499, which is pretty
much function blocks Not gonnasteal the thunder, but Toledo is
gonna demo that and show how itworks Very cool.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I'm pretty excited about that.
My role in kind of the supplychain stuff over the last few
years definitely makes me thinkthat a lot of people realize
that this in fact does make alot of sense when you can't
finish building somethingbecause you can't get the PLC or
whatever that is, or you can'tget a spare fair right.
(27:08):
This at least gives you a lotmore resilience in your
operations not to be completelylocked in to one particular
vendor or one particular pieceof hardware, absolutely
absolutely, because I alsoworked for a system integrator
and you know we're used to, youknow, running into issues with
projects being delayed becauseof supply chain issues.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Anyone remember COVID right, when you had to wait for
hardware to come so you couldwork on your project?
So you're not delivering yourprojects during the timeframe
that you promised your customeryou were going to deliver the
project.
So it's just messing up withpeople's bottom lines.
And so now, with this system,you do have flexibility.
(27:48):
You're able to deliver yourprojects within the time that
you promised you would right,because you can just pick and
choose and you can distributethe control as well within
different vendor platforms.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Absolutely.
That's what my time at Festoone of the things like that's
really important is you want tosize the right thing for the job
, but sometimes that perfectsize isn't in stock or the lead
time is long, and so you thenreally you want those options
right?
Yes, you may use a sub optimalsolution this time, but it, you
know, in the grand scheme ofdelivering or not delivering, it
is in fact the optimal solution, right?
(28:24):
So to have the ability to kindof mix and match and have, you
know, some things like that Iwas going to say, like spares,
or in this case we're talkinglike valve manifolds, right,
slotting different things in andhaving certain types of sizes
maybe in stock, exactly, exactly.
I'm going to, just before youdive in, before we dive into the
demo, I'm going to answer acouple of questions from the
(28:46):
audience.
So I apologize.
I guess we're having a littlebit of issue in some cases with
buffering and people having to Xout.
I think our friend David Garciaalso told me that during our
last live stream he was havingtrouble.
Linkedin was kind of kickinghim out of the event and then
he'd have to come back in.
So if you guys head over to theYouTube Automation Ladies
(29:07):
YouTube page.
It may be streaming better overthere.
You can just search forAutomation Ladies on YouTube and
it should be live streamingthere.
I know we have at least acouple people over there
watching right now.
That would be one way.
And then I wanted to answer thisquestion will there be a
recording available?
So, absolutely, this iscurrently streaming, but then we
will be available for replayanytime, both on LinkedIn and on
(29:30):
YouTube.
So our apologies for that.
I don't know what's going on.
We've never had issues withStreamYard up until about three,
four weeks ago, so if this is acontinuing problem, we're
definitely going to have to lookinto that.
Yeah, so it's apparently acommon problem, and we have
somebody joining us from brazil.
Hello, mariana, thanks for uhjoining us.
(29:53):
I guess that's one of your teammembers there, so it's always
awesome.
I think also, you know, as women, we want to see more women
represented, so I we like topush any women that we meet that
we find their work to beincredible or interesting or
whatever, to say like oh go outthere and show it more or, you
know, represent, but it's alsoit can be a lot of pressure, it
(30:14):
can be some people just aren'tused to it, you know, and it's
an expectation that shouldn't beput on us just because we need
more representation.
Now you need to do that inaddition to your job and you
know, whatever.
So I just want to acknowledgethat anybody that is, you know,
coming out to do it, it's alsojust really, really nice to have
support.
It's one of the things welearned at OT Skatecon.
(30:35):
We had a lot of first timespeakers and it made a huge
difference the fact that wetalked about ahead of time that
hey, if they freeze up or ifthey, you know, need some help,
like let's be a supportiveaudience, Because and we had
people comment on thatafterwards that actually was a
really enriching part of theexperience, because some of the
speakers did stumble and kind oflike feel awkward, and then
(30:55):
everybody cheered them on andthen they just got more
confident versus, you know,sometimes when a speaker
stumbles and they know they'vemessed up, everything gets more
awkward after that because theyjust lose all their confidence.
So thank you all friends thatcome and to support our guests
in the comments.
I appreciate that.
Oh yeah, perfect.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, shout out to Audrey who's?
Speaker 4 (31:32):
in who's been mentioning some stuff in the
comments.
She's yeah, so Audrey works.
Yeah, audrey works with us.
She's a part of our team up inwestern New York, so she's
helping us out by putting thewebsite there for you, a Toro,
where you know where thatorganization, that non nonprofit
organization, is that you know.
And one of the things I thoughtI'd mentioned also is that it's
not just end users andmanufacturers.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
You do have in universities you've got systems
integrators and distributorsthat are joining the
organization as well.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I mean, there are systems integrators that want to
be in the front end of this newtechnology.
Like you said, nikki, I'm goingto steal that Win win, win, win
.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
All right.
So I think we're up for demoand actually perfectly on time.
We like to, you know, I like tosay we're probably going to
talk for the first half hourbecause I really like to you
know, not just get into product,but a little bit of like why
the product, why does it matter,why should I care?
Why is my attention on this?
So I think we've set the stagefor that perfectly.
(32:31):
So, talita, feel free to shareyour screen whenever you're
ready, and I'll try to arrangeeveryone around so that we can
see things yeah, let me makesure that I shared that.
(32:57):
Okay, right, are you good?
Speaker 5 (32:57):
yeah, no pressure, there we go, and I don't have to
rearrange anybody, just oneminute before you guys get me to
, to put this on so perfect.
No, it's good, it's good, itwas just before.
Oh, that's good, that's good.
So this is um, ecostruxureAutomation, expert Engineering
(33:18):
Tool.
Right, it's EAE for the closefriends, which we all are, and
we we call it ea.
Um, so, um, this is theengineering tool.
This is how we, we design andwe develop our projects here.
One thing that I uh, that I likethe?
Uh the most, and that isdifferent than the traditional
(33:39):
automation, uh, traditional pocskater architectures.
When we're developing, whenyou're, when you start a new
project, the first thing thatyou need to decide is where do
you want to run, right, what isthe hardware that you're going
to use for this project?
And in here, this will be thelast thing because, as Itoro
said, we're giving you options.
So you just need to think aboutyour process, what you need to
(34:00):
develop here, and then later on,you can decide where you're
running, and if you want tochange that later, it's okay as
well.
So there's no problem with that, and that is really different
here.
So, just by installing IAE, youget a bunch of libraries that
we develop for you.
So we have a lot of things thatare already done, the most
(34:24):
common things that we use whenwe're developing projects for
our process.
We have some segment relatedstuff.
So everything is done here foryou.
But of course everyone candevelop its own library based on
our library.
So we give you something tostart.
So there is that, and then herewhen we're developing, the
(34:50):
developing how can I saymentality that we need to have
here is very object oriented.
So in this demo that I broughthere for you it's a pumping
station demo.
So you will see that we havethe entire pumping station all
encapsulated into one littlesquare here.
That's our block, so we canreuse multiple times.
(35:12):
So that's easy to do.
And what is a pumping stationmade of?
Right?
So you can, we can dig into the, into the software, and see
what do we have.
So we have a block here thatwill control all of that.
And we have our assets, thatare the pumps here.
So the pumps are all laid outhere as little blocks, and this
(35:37):
is just automation programming.
We program the pumping stations.
You can do the same way that wealways do.
But there is something specialabout the way that we do these
blocks here.
It's that you're not only doingthe control part of it, we also
have the SCADA part of itintegrated, so you can develop
(36:01):
your own symbols and faceplatesand everything and all the
communication between the HMIand the PLC will be done for you
.
There is zero effort.
It's basically just draggingand dropping objects here.
So we just drag and drop thepumps here and the communication
(36:24):
is done for you.
So this is already everythingencapsulated into one block.
So later I'll show you guys.
But to create a new pumpingstation, it will be pretty
simple and this is how weprogram things here is how we
(36:46):
program things here and later on.
When we want to decide where Iwant to run this code on, it's
basically click away.
So I have a mapping option herewhere I can decide between all
of the hardware that I have hereon my project.
That I'll show you guys later.
Where do I want to run that.
So if I want to change rightnow that it's running on a M580
(37:08):
deep pack and I want to changethat to a soft deep pack, I'm
just remapping and okay, that'sdone.
So there is no hard timebetween to change from one
platform to the other.
Our time to change from oneplatform to the other.
(37:33):
Then here I have an exampletopology here for you to show
the flexibility that we haveavailable here we have what we
call the Eco-Runtime.
That is the runtime that willrun in every device.
That is part of universalautomation.
Schneider is not the onlyvendor that is part of universal
automation.
Schneider is not the onlyvendor that is part of universal
automation.
We have other vendors withuniversal automation offers as
(37:54):
well that can run this runtime.
But on Schneider's time we canrun the runtime on M251, m262,
m580 DPACs.
Those are all hardware offersthat someone that works with
Schneider is already used to.
But we also give you the optionof doing something different,
(38:15):
like making your PC a PLC.
So you can have a software DPACrunning here on my Windows PC.
Or I can have like a RaspberryPi running Linux.
That can be a PLC as well, soyou can go very small.
Or you can run it on a datacenter server.
You can create just a VM,because our Linux PLCs they run
(38:41):
on a Docker container, so it canpretty much run anywhere and
it's pretty light.
What about drives?
What about variable frequencydrives?
On a Docker container, so itcan pretty much run anywhere and
it's pretty light.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
And then on top what about drives?
What about variable frequencydrives?
Speaker 5 (38:51):
Yes, so that's another thing that we're also
doing different.
We have our ATV offer that it'swell known, and we have like a
very small module that you canjust attach to your drive and
then your drive can also be aPLC on the network, like I have
here, so you can deploy and thenit can be a part of a bigger
(39:12):
architecture like communicatingwith all the devices.
That's pretty unique, right, butif it loses communication for
some reason it will also controlitself, because you have the
PLC embedded on the drive itself, when our customers are doing
let's say end-of-life upgradesfor the hardware, right?
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Remember, traditionally you're removing
everything and you're rewritingyour code.
But, like Talita is showinghere, you know when you want to
swap out your hardware, thesoftware still is the same,
right?
So you don't have to rewritethe software.
So you know, that's one of theprinciples of universal
automation.
(39:51):
Because it's portable, so youcan use it in multiple hardware
devices and you don't have tokeep rewriting like we do
traditionally.
So, I'm sorry, Go ahead like wedo traditionally.
So I'm sorry, Go ahead.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Awesome.
Yeah, no, that's perfect.
That's it.
We're all about efficiency here, right?
So we want to make theengineer's life easier, and I
think this is how we do it right?
So we want to make theengineer's life easier and I
think this is how we do it right.
You have the flexibility toremap from one to the other.
You have the flexibility ofhaving the HMI designed with the
controls and then inside oneobject, you have everything done
(40:38):
for you.
And another thing here as wellusually when we have an
application with multiple PLCs,we need to configure
communication between the PLCs.
You'll spend a lot of timedoing that In here.
All of those PLCs here, eventhe drive one, the one that runs
on the PC they all talk to eachother without any effort.
(41:00):
Just by connecting one blockthat is mapped on one device to
the other, they're communicating.
You don't need to configureanything.
So we're also saving you timedoing that.
Then in here also, when we'reusing EAE, we're all about the
data.
We want to make the dataavailable to you.
We want to help you take yourdecisions based on data.
(41:24):
So we communicate using everyindustrial protocol that is
available, but we also have, forexample, an OPC UA server
natively in each one of thosePLCs.
So if you're running in, wecall it the ATVD pack, the
(41:44):
version for the drive.
So if you're using that, thiswill also be an OPC UA server on
top of being a PLC.
So that's also very nice.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
If you don't mind, I'm going to interrupt you for a
sec, though, and see, Courtney,what are you thinking.
I don't do PLC programmingmyself, so I haven't even seen,
like all of the, as many ofthese IDEs as you have.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
I like this one for how graphical it is compared to
a lot of others.
Like you get into functionblock and you can kind of make a
little boxy looking thing thatconnects to other things.
But this is.
You know, I like how this looksand I like that the SCADA is
built in.
Like the stuff you have to doto talk to SCADA is already
built in.
(42:30):
And obviously I'm a robot chick.
So my brain always goes to howdo I use this to talk to robots?
Because that's a lot of timeswhat I'm using a PLC to do.
So I'm curious, like if I Iwant to choose, like different
industrial protocols, could Imake these talk to any robot?
(42:51):
Or like where would I run intoa challenge?
There is what I'm reallycurious about.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
Yeah, regarding protocols, we can configure
almost all of them.
We have Internet, ip Modbus,tcp, opc way, mqtt Courtney,
maybe that question would alsobe answered.
We're kind of doing everythinghere.
So you have the option toconfigure.
It's up to the user, but we'regiving you the ability of doing
all this.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
There's automation types that go into that.
I haven't read it myself, butand there's a link to it right,
it's in the like first page ofthe link that Audrey provided
provide some backgroundinformation into the
organization and then, as wellas the standards, information.
But yeah, I just wanted to Iknow that you know your
questions are going to be, oryour comments are going to be,
(43:50):
more technique related, so Iwanted to bring that up and then
maybe we can just get to that alittle bit later.
I don't know if you guys wantto bring this up now, but
Ralphie's asking a question, youknow, maybe we can address it
at the end.
But to kind of understand howsimilar this is or different
from CODISIS yes, I could start.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
So, yes, it's almost like CODISIS, but it's a little
bit different.
So CODISIS is based on the 613.
I'm not a CODISIS.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
Are you going to answer that, Itona?
Speaker 3 (44:25):
But this is based on let's say, it's 1499 standards,
right?
So this is based on functionblocks.
Codecs is not Codecs.
Yes, it's open, it's kind ofsimilar, but it's not truly open
.
With this it's truly when wesay it's truly vendor agnostic.
It is so you can take this codeand run it, even on our
(44:49):
competitor's hardware, and youdon't need to recompile or
anything like that.
So it's truly when we say it'sopen.
It's truly open, like you couldtake this and not even buy a
Schneider hardware and run itand it would work.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Of course this kind of has different flavors for
different vendors.
Yeah exactly, but they all kindof have their own way of
running it right.
As far as I'm concerned, yeah,but this is truly, truly open.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
And then I guess if you're okay with it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
we'll take one more question before we move on in
the demo and then a comment.
But how old of ATV firmwareswill work with this system?
Is this a question we can take?
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
Yeah, usually when we install the Deepak module, we
usually update the firmware,each version that we have here
will have its own firmware.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Very cool, I guess.
I'll throw out a comment here.
You could even run the UAOvirtual PLC runtime on a robot.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
You can do it without a problem, so we will update
both of them together.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Okay, yeah, courtney, did you hear?
Speaker 3 (46:13):
that.
Yeah, that's good news, right,that's good news.
Speaker 5 (46:17):
Between you and Albert.
I know that he also is probablygoing to geek out about the
Skata server stuff and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I've got a robot in my garage, I want to put it on
it.
Yeah, somebody help me do it.
The Skata server stuff andwhatnot.
I've got a robot in my garage,I want to put it on it.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Somebody help me do it.
Let's make a follow-up.
I'll make it all the content.
Let's keep going.
We've got what about 13 minutesleft?
Speaker 5 (46:41):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Follow me after this.
Yeah, so all I really wanted toshow was the HMI, because
there's also no configurationhere on the communication to the
(47:02):
HMI, because we usually need togo over, even if it's OPC, ua,
you need to configure the tags,but here done for you.
So we just have a general maphere with pumping stations that
you can do, and then we cannavigate and we can see the
system running.
It's controlling the level,just based on a set point, a
very simple control here.
(47:25):
And then I just want to show youhow easy it will be, for
example, to create a new pumpingstation.
So, for example, I have fivepumping station, I will create
the sixth one.
So just by copying and pasting,it's done here, my pump station
number six, and I, for example,want to run it on this softdpac
(47:48):
here.
So I have multiple options.
I just select one of them, allof those that I was showing in
the picture Just now.
They're here laid out for me.
So I just select, and becauseit has this green single here, I
know that it's mapped.
Then I can just deploy to thisone.
Let me show you.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I'm keeping myself mostly muted because up until
now my dog was just whining.
Speaker 5 (48:14):
I'm going to deploy, and then we will create the HMI
and we'll see how I'll pop inand out on the audio how easy it
will be too.
Okay, no problem.
So I'm just deploying here, andwhile we do that, I will just
(48:39):
create a new pumping stationscreen.
So I just need to wait until itfinishes compiling, but I will
just create a pumping stationscreen, drag and drop, and
everything will be done for us.
So that's very nice.
So let me yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
(49:14):
We also, on top of that, wehave a very good integration
with Aviva, so we can integratefrom your engineering drawings
to generate the objects here andthen from here we can generate
the objects on a VivaSystemplatform, so that you also don't
have to configure communication, create the symbols, the
(49:37):
objects and everything.
So we also give you that.
So I'll just create a pumpingstation here, my pumping station
6.
Then, when I do this,everything is just done for me
(50:03):
and then that's pretty much it.
We're good to start a newpumping station Right on top of
that.
What we would have to do, beingrealistic here, is just
configure the IOs, but the logicand everything will be done by
you.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
And it took a really long time.
So if you're a customer and youhave engineers and you have
projects that you have to do,think about using EcoStruxure
Automation Expert to do thoseprojects and think about the
engineering efficiency and howmuch quicker you'll do the work.
And it's uniform too right, soyou're not introducing any
(50:42):
coding mistakes or backfingermistakes like we used to have,
because this is just drag anddrop like very easy to do.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
So it's here, our pumping station six.
I just missed the station namein here, but it's running, it's
communicating and we don't needto configure basically anything
here.
So after you have your, librarydesigned.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
It will be so easy for you to move forward and
reuse and increment.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
on that yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
That's one of the features that I like the most
here.
I won't tell you how manyengineering hours we're putting
on those HMI screens and stuffright now, but I you know.
Oh, really, maybe there'ssomething to be said about the
Department of Efficiency for alot of these ways that we're
doing things.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
Oh yeah, we can save us some time of efficiency for a
lot of these ways that we'redoing things Absolutely.
Oh yeah, we can save us sometime.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
Well and that's where we're spending a lot of our
time right now is in thewater-wastewater segment, but
really any oil and gas as well.
You know these are energy andchemicals.
You know these are all areas ofefficiencies that can be driven
and it allows you.
I think the one thing I likethat you say when you talk about
(52:21):
this, is that it can bescalable, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, I hope it's okay.
It can be scalable.
Is that it can?
Speaker 4 (52:25):
be, scalable right, absolutely yeah, I hope it's
okay.
It can be scalable and as timegoes on, there's going to be
more and more vendors that havemore of their products to plop
on the network as well.
So think about I was going tosay, think about everything that
can be connected to theinternet and how you would want,
or anything that could beconnected to the system that you
(52:47):
would want to collect data.
Yeah, and we love to hear youknow from real life use cases
whether it's kind of either fromintegrators or from end users.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
And so I know you've mentioned before that you guys
have kind of an evangelist overat Exxon that's currently
implementing a lot of this, sowe're hoping that maybe he would
like to come speak at ot skatercon to give us a you know, play
by play or or the real world,like, hey, we did this, this is
why we did it, this is how wedid it, and, yeah, we have a few
.
Uh, we have another questionfrom rafay uh, asking what about
(53:18):
learning resources?
Is there training for thiswebsite?
Where do people want to go ifthey want to start getting
familiar with this?
Speaker 3 (53:24):
yes, we've got.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
Yes, we've got training.
We've got training on schneiderelectriccom.
So secom, or you could alsoreach out to us.
We could, you know, send you,point you to the right direction
.
But absolutely we want toempower people to play with the
software, try it out and howmuch, like all the things we
(53:47):
talked about, how cool it is,how efficient it is.
So, yes, we are, we want totrain you, we want to get people
trained so you can play with it.
Because if we just give thesoftware to you and you don't
have any training, it could benot very good, right?
Because now you're like this isa different way of doing things
(54:09):
, right?
So, very good question on thetraining.
Yes, on SchneiderElectriccom.
You'll see all the trainingthere.
Or you could reach out to us onLinkedIn.
We'll send you the exacttraining links.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yeah, I would highly encourage all of you that watch
this either now live or watchthis later.
Connect with these ladies onLinkedIn.
They're tagged as the speakersof this event on LinkedIn.
They're here to, you know, kindof grow awareness about this in
the community.
We've got three differentrepresentations of areas from
you know, within this, practiceat Schneider, practice at
(54:43):
Schneider, and they're, you know, open to networking with you
and answering your questions orpointing you in the right
direction, whether that's rightnow or, you know, six months
from now when you watch this,but also if you're going to
spend your time coming tosomething like this right during
the workday.
Usually we hope that it's alittle bit entertaining, but of
course you have to have abusiness reason and a lot of
(55:04):
times again, if you're watchingthis out of more of a learning,
curiosity standpoint, havingjust those connections later on,
for when a business use casedoes come along, can be huge,
right, because you may notremember everything you saw in
the demo.
Thankfully, you can come backand watch it anytime.
But then having that personthat you can reach out to or
that you remember and I alwaysencourage people if you connect
with a person you don't know onLinkedIn through an event like
(55:26):
this, either just say, hey, wewere both on this event.
Or, in this case, if it's aspeaker, my favorite tip and I
started doing this recently is Itake a picture of the speaker
while on the stage.
Or, in this case, what youcould do is take a screenshot of
this and be like, hey, greatjob, I just saw your talk.
Or, even better, post about itand tag that person.
And then, when your friendrequest comes along, you bet
(55:49):
that person's going to clickaccept, right, because you
showed them that you were there,that you were interested, that
you're friendly.
And we all get enough like spaminvitations from developers or
whoever nowadays on LinkedIn,right?
So it's just.
I think the value of thosequality personal connections
keeps going up.
The more we have ai and bot andjust unsolicited activity all
(56:12):
around us all the time.
It becomes so nice to have areal trusted network of people
that you can, you know, know,have some expertise backing up
what they're talking about andyou can reach out to them on
your own time.
Uh, so we have leo over.
He says you have my attention.
So, leo, I hope you'll be readyto learn more, and it looks
like we have another friend herethat maybe a couple of you know
(56:37):
.
I do know him and happy to seea fellow Brazilian here as well.
But then he says back when Iworked as an automation engineer
.
Absolutely, I was just speakingto.
Happy to see a fellow Brazilianhere as well, but then he says
I wish he had a tool to use backwhen I worked as an automation
engineer.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Absolutely.
I was just speaking to somepeople this week.
I remember when I started inautomation.
You know learning logic when Istarted working because it
wasn't taught in schools and ittook me months to be able and
Courtney is nodding because youknow that.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
It's not taught in universities.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
So you start working and they start teaching you and
it takes you months to be ableto program on your own and
you're shadowing the seniorengineers, right.
So think about all the peoplethat are, you know, retiring
from the workforce and all theyoung engineers coming in.
They're going to have time tolearn ladder logic.
(57:31):
What if we gave them a programthat they're used to?
They're familiar with functionblocks, they're familiar with
the look and feel of it.
These guys can be productive inweeks.
So think about your bottom line.
If you're a project manager andyou're trying to get projects
done, right, you have peoplecoming in from the streets
(57:52):
pretty much who can help movethe needle and be productive
from you know, in weeks insteadof months like in my day.
So this is huge benefits.
Not enough time to talk abouteverything, but that's a huge
one.
The workforce, the newworkforce this is a huge thing,
changer for sure.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
And I know one of the ways we've always done things
in this industry is kind of keepit internal and then say
there's a limited number ofpeople and they know all of this
and it's really valuable.
And then everybody goes afterthose same people back and forth
, and then they end up using thesame stuff.
Let say, well, we can only findpeople that know this.
Um, and oh we, we go with thisbecause we know that you know
there's going to be techniciansaround that we can hire, that
(58:33):
know how to do this already.
Well, there's just not enoughof them to go around anymore and
we're not making a whole lotmore of them unless we bring the
kids that are graduating nowinto and and I know, some of
these new mechatronics programs.
So we work with a student from acentral Virginia community
college.
She already graduated fromthere, but now she just got into
a bachelor's mechatronicsdegree.
(58:55):
Um, I won't say the wrongcollege because I don't remember
exactly what college, butseeing it as a bachelor's degree
, it's not that common.
I mean, there's more and moreof them now, but seeing this in
school especially or if youdon't see it in school, have it
be close enough to things you'vealready learned makes a huge
difference.
I think for and I say kids.
Right, but we were all like 21.
(59:20):
We wouldn't call ourselves kids,definitely not oh yes or even
someone without a college degreeright Like a mechatronics
associate's degree.
Those are becoming more andmore common and you can
definitely get up to speed onsomething like this super
quickly and we need to be ableto attract more people.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
Yeah, yeah, and it's transferable mickey.
It's transferable for for umcomputer science.
I mean there's there's threetimes or four times in many
computer science for people thatare adjacent to this industry
(59:58):
to feel like they can come inand they're not going to have a
huge learning curve.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
That's impossible to get without going to specialty
trainings that cost lots andlots of money or that they're
going to be gatekept from any ofthese jobs because they don't
know.
Xyz hardware platform um, Ithink it makes the industry more
inclusive in general as wellfor the tech to be more
inclusive and more connected.
A few more comments.
Oh, carrie pierce is here.
She's a machine visionintegrator.
(01:00:23):
She just recently had ananniversary at her company.
Congratulations, carrie.
Thank you for joining us.
Leo, yeah, he wants to teachthis to his students, so get him
in touch with whoever is in theeducation space there as well.
And then just some kindfeedback.
Thank you, param.
That's really nice of you tosay.
He says thank you for thepresentation.
He's glad to be.
I guess he's part of theschneider team.
(01:00:45):
Um, and we had another, uh,great feedback here from ronald.
Thank you so much for theamazing presentations and
fantastic live demo.
Um, yes, you did a fantasticjob to lita and thank you a
minute of it, so it really makeswhat we do worth it to hear
that.
It's worth it to you guys aswell that are watching, although
I will be frank with you.
(01:01:06):
Um, I've always said this toAllie and Courtney like we don't
do this for the audience, wedon't research what you guys
want to see and, you know, tryto build out a campaign.
We have the conversations thatwe want to have and we want to
look at the stuff that we'reinterested in and I think just I
want to be transparent aboutthat, because that's really
where this comes from.
It's the only way that we'reable to do it with the workloads
(01:01:28):
that we have is it has to beinteresting, it has to like fill
our cup versus drain it.
To do this, and when we hearsome feedback that other people
love it as well, it just makesit that much more enjoyable for
me.
So, for selfish reasons, I'mgoing to say I'm glad you loved
it.
We're going to keep doing it,keep showing up and keep telling
us that.
You know, maybe this sales stuffdoesn't have to be done the
(01:01:51):
same way as we've been doing it.
Coming from a sales engineer aformer sales engineer myself
there's a lot of great thingsabout a lot of the ways that we
used to do things in theautomation industry from a sales
and relationship buildingperspective, but there's just a
lot more.
I mean, the future is kind oflike these, maybe smaller
communities that are connectingin different ways in different
places, small communities partof one big kind of industry
(01:02:14):
community.
So with that, I would say weare up on time and go ahead and
connect with these ladies,follow some of the links that
we'll drop in the comments andkeep engaging on this and then
honestly drop to us as well.
You can drop us a voicemail onour website, automationladiesio,
or a message to us on LinkedIn.
(01:02:35):
You can message the page.
You can also email hello atautomationladiesio, and we'd
love to hear if you have anysuggestions of other demos that
you'd like to see.
If you're the marketing personfor a company and you want to
pitch our demo, we're going toask you to sponsor it.
But if you're one of ourcommunity members that watches
and you just have a particularproduct that you're really
interested in seeing demoed, wewill most likely reach out to
(01:02:57):
that company and offer them tocome demo it for us, because if
you're interested, we probablyare too.
So with that.
Oh, also one more thing Ifyou're watching on YouTube,
would you please hit thatsubscribe?
We don't put, we don't edit ourYouTube video, so we don't have
SEO or click thumbnails or theysay smash that like button.
(01:03:19):
We've been learning from ourkids what we're supposed to do
to grow.
So go ahead and subscribe itand if you ever find it in your
heart to leave us a kind reviewon our website or anything, we
would also really appreciatethat.
So thank you, ladies, so muchfor spending a little time with
us here on this Thursday.
I think we are super stoked tokeep learning about this and
(01:03:40):
maybe trying it on our robot andseeing what else we can do with
this.
Absolutely it on our robot andseeing what else we can do with
this.
Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Absolutely sure, I'll be.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
I'll be in your dm shortly yeah, everybody get to
work, connect with each other.
Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Have fun, let's learn , let's grow together, and even
if you're not using this,there's a benefit for you
knowing about it.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
So thanks everybody.
Have a great rest of your week,uh, and we will be uh coming to
you live, probably in some wayshape or form um from anaheim
next week, as we're going tovisit courtney.
So have a great rest of yourweek, everybody.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Bye thank you, bye, thank you bye, bye.
Hey everybody, it's another Thursday afternoon.
Welcome to an Automation LadiesDemo Day.
We haven't done a Demo Day in awhile, and we're super excited
to have a platform fromSchneider Electric that I hadn't
heard of until well, maybe itwas last year, but I remember
when I saw it, I immediatelystarted to watch some videos on
(00:21):
their website and I thought thatit was really cool, and I think
I threw out a comment andtagged Schneider Electric and
said who can show this to us orto me, or something of that
effect.
And here we are now, probablyseveral months later, but I'm
super stoked to have threeincredible ladies on from
Schneider Electric to talk to usabout no, it's not open
(00:43):
automation, it's universal.
Okay, same concept, though, butit's a specific organization, a
group, and so we're both goingto talk about that, as well as
the platform itself thatSchneider has developed as part
of this, being part of thisgroup, being able to utilize
(01:04):
this infrastructure so that noteverything is completely vendor
locked and hardware locked,which I think is really
important to the resilience thefuture resilience of our
industry.
So I was really interested inlearning more.
Courtney, I don't know ifyou've ever come across this
eco-structure, and I'll let theladies explain what all of this
(01:26):
terminology means, um but theiriot platform and, and in
specific, this automation expertstuff.
Have you ever heard of that orworked with it before or seen a
demo?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
uh I, I have heard the words uh, but didn't know
what it was.
Um, and admittedly, iot stuffis kind of like my weak point,
so I'm actually very curiousabout products related to it.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Then I think we're going to learn a lot today and
unfortunately Courtney is goingto have to jump off after kind
of the conversation portion ofthis.
Because, yeah, as we discussed,I think in our meeting
yesterday, when I had kidsbarging and my kids were home
from school, at least thepandemic, one good thing that
came out of it is that we allkind of learned that, hey, we
have these you know lives andfamilies and things, and they
(02:14):
sometimes come up.
So Courtney's got to go pick upsome kids from school and only
if I get the text.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, okay, yeah, Okay, we may make it on time, but if
I get an uh-oh text I may haveto drop off at 1 30.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Okay, so at least we all know that that's gonna
happen.
Um, I also want to say livedemos are something that not
everybody's willing to do.
They don't always go well.
That you it's a little bit of abusiness like version of being
vulnerable which is really whatwe're all about in automation
ladies is kind of being true toyourself, being really what
we're all about at AutomationLadies is kind of being true to
yourself, being able to speakwith passion, but also just
(02:49):
honesty and integrity about whatyou do, and I love that you
guys are willing to come.
Guys we actually just had thisconversation just now you ladies
, but we use the term guys foreverybody, so like, but, uh, we
use the term guys for everybody,so like, whether it is a
genderless term.
If you get offended by that, Iapologize.
That's not my intention.
(03:10):
I we're super excited to haveyou guys here today to both
actually give us the the demo ofthis, but also just kind of
like, uh, clarify what it is.
What is schneider electricdoing with it?
How does it fit into the restof all of the technologies and
portfolios and things?
We won't get too much into that,but a little bit of
clarification about what thisterminology is, which I think
(03:31):
would be really helpful to usthat have heard it but maybe
don't know exactly what it is.
We'll dive into why thismatters and then we'll actually
go through a bit of a sales demo.
Let's see the thing, let's, youknow, put some eyes on it.
You're not going to get youknow, all your in-depth question
answered or dive into everylittle detail of the software or
how it works, but we are goingto see just a standard kind of
(03:53):
demo.
Talita is going to drive thatfor us.
She's an application engineerthat does these demos on a
regular basis.
So we asked for, like a personthat normally does these, so
that it's not necessarilyprepped as a show, it's just
prepped as you get, to be a flyon the wall for these demos and,
more importantly, if you, youknow, come here for the
(04:14):
community.
So don't be a fly on the wall.
Engage in the comments, tell uswhy you're here, where you're
from, if there's anything you'reinterested in finding out today
, and then during the demo, feelfree to ask questions and we'll
try to.
You know, throw them up on thescreen.
We've had a really fun timewith our demo so far the
audience engaging with somequestions and stuff, and that
also just helps the presentersto not feel like they're just
(04:35):
talking at a wall.
For you know, 30 minutes, 20minutes it's a lot more fun for
everyone involved if it'sengaging and we're engaged.
So with that, thank you so muchfor joining us and I would like
to just pass it off to Jen toget started with a brief kind of
like our standard automationladies question.
I'd love to hear just a littlebit of an introduction about
yourself and then how you got tobe in this position, and we'll
(04:58):
take all three of you and thenwe'll dive into kind of
introducing the subject matter.
Does that sound good?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Yeah, sounds good.
So, yes, so I'm Jen Sutter andI have been with Schneider
Electric for 30 years now.
How did I get into this?
Well, my dad was a powerengineer for a utility company,
so there were no other women,other than a cousin of mine who
went into petroleum engineering,that were engineers in the
family.
So I was good in math andscience and decided to dive
(05:27):
right in, got my degree inelectrical engineering, put in
power services, got my first jobout of college at a utility
company, and there I am, sittingin an office that really was a
closet, with a computer doingload flow studies all day by
myself, and I thought how can Ido this the rest of my life?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
That's exactly what I thought engineering was and why
I didn't get a degree in it.
So I was like I don't want tobe stuck in that closet.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
So I and I knew my dad had worked in the field.
So I was like this isn't likewhat I want to do, and so.
But I grew up also ironicallyor not ironically, but I grew up
above a restaurant.
My mom owned and ran and mygrandmother before her we lived
in the apartment above it.
So growing up I had a lot ofexperience waitressing and stuff
(06:13):
, and even at the young age of12 to 11, 12, I'm onboarding and
training the new waitressesthat are 16 years old, being
hired into the family to workfor the family.
So what I did is I didsomething fun, or what I did is
I thought about it.
Everybody remembers that onecredit class you took in
engineering.
That was like all the differentjobs an engineer can do, and I
(06:33):
remember learning that, hey, alot of engineers go into sales
and marketing for companies thatlook for people in sales and
marketing.
So I started networking withdifferent people.
I had five uncles that my fourof them were engineers.
One was a purchasing agent.
So of course I went to the onewho was a purchasing agent and
said, hey, can, can you help mefigure out like what companies
(06:54):
hire engineers, go into salesand might have sales development
programs or something.
And that's how I found Square Dby Schneider Electric at the
time Cause again my backgroundwas power Square D by Schneider
Electric at the time becauseagain my background was power
Got into their sales developmentorganization, their program,
and spread my wings into theindustrial automation and I'd
like to tell people, in my 30years at Schneider I did what I
(07:16):
call the monkey bar approach.
I took a lot of lateral moves indifferent business units to
learn more about the company andto learn a lot of other areas
of the business.
And now that I'm a regionalsales director in our industrial
automation space, it has reallyserved me well to have friends
and all of our other businessunits, like our buildings
(07:36):
business, our IT business, oursustainability business, our
microgrid business and all ofthat.
So a lot of fun stories overthe years and it's a great
company for women to work at.
I really enjoy working atSchneider Electric.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
I love that experience and the fact, like
you said, that careerprogression doesn't always have
to be linear.
And even within one company youwould think you just okay, you
kind of just climb the ladder up.
But at a company as big asSchneider and I think some of
the other big companies in ourindustry do well with this but
you know giving people theopportunity to move around and
learn different disciplines andareas, and then you kind of you
(08:14):
know, with all of that and yourinstitutional knowledge, you
become, you know you can becomea very valuable asset over time
just from having all thosedifferent experiences across the
organization.
Right, absolutely, celita.
How about yourself?
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Hi everyone.
My name is Celita Clemente.
As you can see from my accent,I'm not American, I'm from
Brazil.
So I started at Schneider sevenyears ago right off college as
an intern actually in Brazil.
So I started as a college as anintern actually in Brazil.
So I started as a.
I was part of the engineeringdelivery team.
(08:50):
So I started working onprojects, developing projects,
commissioning.
I got hired to that position andI was super excited.
I loved PLCs and working withthem was like my dream coming
true.
But then, just after I gothired, I joined an early
graduate program at Schneiderand I saw the role that
(09:12):
Schneider had to offer me.
So I started networking andtalking to people still working
on my delivery position.
Then I moved to a position onthe same team that I am today.
That is where the competencycenter inside Schneider.
So I started working witheverything that Schneider has to
(09:33):
offer in industrial automationwith Brazil, ecuador and
Colombia.
And almost three years ago Igot the opportunity to move to
the US and work with EcoStruxureAutomation Expert for North
America, and I've been enjoyingever since the ride here Very
(09:54):
cool.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I think you may be the third Brazilian guest we've
had on the show so far.
Oh, really, that's exciting.
Well, I'm missing someone, we.
I think we haven't scheduledthis episode yet, but yes, so
very cool.
Um, join the, join the ranks.
My dad loves, uh, brazil.
I've never been, but would loveto to go at some point in the
(10:15):
future and I should have beensaying your name the american
way, with the like mymother-in-law's name with theita
, with the T.
So Etoro you're next.
I think I got that better Holdon.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I'm listening to Jen and Toledo and I'm like, oh my
God, I think I'm in the wrongplace.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
But not for today's discussion.
People will understand whylater.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The history that you ladies have with automation, I
really don't know.
So we don't have much time, butI'll just summarize real quick.
So I started off in oil and gas, right, and at the time,
traditionally, for like 160years, you know, you extract the
oil and then you flare the gas,which is pretty much those
(11:07):
stacks we see, right, with, youknow, fire burning.
And so ExxonMobil decided, hey,let's not flare the gas anymore
, right, let's.
You know, let's innovate, right, let's build the pipelines and
the assets and all that toprocess this gas and sell it.
(11:30):
Yeah, right, and so they builtthis natural gas liquids plant,
the first of its kind, and I wasone of the first people to work
there.
So I did that.
And you know, now, like 20something years later in my
career, I can look back and sayyou know, I'm always drawn to
(11:51):
innovation.
I'm always drawn to peoplepushing the needle and saying
let's not do things the waywe've been doing it right, let's
do it differently.
So it started off in ExxonMobil.
And then, you know, bell Southat the time was called Bell
South.
Now it's AT&T.
They said let's not do dial-upanymore.
If you can remember AOL, you'vegot mail.
(12:13):
And if you had to choosebetween, you know, being on the
phone or being online.
Right, dial-up internet.
And AT&T said let's not do thatanymore, let's create
high-speed internet so peoplecan choose between hey, you
don't have to always unhook yourphone to get online, let's
(12:35):
create, let's give people both.
And while we're doing it, let'smake the internet even faster,
so fiber to the home.
I was part of that right.
And then I moved to Houston andOSIsoft a company called OSIsoft
, the makers of the Pi systemhave always been using their
technology for operationalexcellence for process
(12:58):
industries.
And they said let's not do thatanymore, let's actually still
do that, but use the software indata centers.
And I was like I want to be apart of that and fast forward to
here.
Right, schneider electric saidlet's not do traditional control
systems anymore, let's decouplethe software from the hardware.
(13:18):
And I'm here, I signed up.
So now, looking back, I'm, youknow, like moth drawn to the
fire.
I'm just constantly drawn topeople pushing the envelope,
saying let's not do things theway we do them traditionally.
There's got to be a better way.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I love that.
So you're the perfect person tobe here today, because some of
the things that we and we don'teven have a super clear like we
started the show with X mission,like we started it for a bunch
of different reasons and as wekeep doing it, we keep doing it
for different reasons, but oneof them is there are so many
people that could come into thisindustry in so many different
(13:58):
ways and maybe they don't knowabout it.
Right, you ended up being in aconversation with someone where
it was an opportunity, right,but we just want to increase
those opportunities for everyoneto hear about what we're doing,
how cool it is, how there isinnovation happening and that
you can be a part of it.
Whether you're a trainedengineer or you come from some
other business discipline, itdoesn't matter.
(14:18):
We need all of them in thisindustry.
So you can go do that inpharmaceutical or you can come
do that here, and I thinkthere's something cool and
exciting about being here.
Um, even things like, uh, youknow, courtney and I actually uh
, work a bit with, uh, landfillgas, uh, capture and flare
systems oh, wow, look at that,yeah, and you would think like,
(14:38):
oh, you know trash.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
that's not exciting, but there's exciting stuff about
trash um I've been to one ofthe flare stations and, uh, it
was intimidating, like the soundof the flame.
Um, I didn't realize like.
I thought like a train waspassing and it wasn't a train
(15:00):
passing under us, it was likethe deep rumble of these things
going it's intense.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
It's intense when you I mean conversation for another
day but when you look at theenvironmental implications of
that, yeah, yeah, then thathelps you know of the
communities who live around it,right, so?
So of course, you knowcompanies like exxon to get in
mind.
And also, when you're flaringgas, you're pretty much just
(15:26):
burning money, yeah exactly Iwas going to say it takes
something.
That's what you're doing soyeah, you're doing the right
thing.
Part of it.
And there's also how much moneycan be made when you report
yeah, so another perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
We do this because it's a win, win, win, win, win
Like whoever people are on thescreen is how many wins we like
to get.
We also like to have fun doingthis.
We like to learn.
Our audience likes to learn.
We get to know each other.
You know, it's really great whenyou can kind of check a lot of
boxes all at once, and I thinkyou know we really one of the
things we wanted to not do thesame way and I think you know we
(16:04):
really one of the things wewanted to not do the same way
but do differently with thisdemo day was not keep all of the
information about our industryso under wraps and even things
like sales information and salesdemos.
You know, and I completelyunderstand, you don't just want
to demo your stuff to everyonein the world and if it's not
relevant and to give thatone-on-one time from a sales rep
to a person, it's a waste oftime for everyone involved if
(16:26):
you're not a potential customeror you have no use for it.
But awareness and knowledge isalso really cool.
Even if you're not in thebuying cycle or you're not a
customer, if you're in theindustry, it's nice to be able
to know what's available, what'sout there, what it looks like,
without wasting people's timeand expectations of having to go
(16:48):
for a sales demo that isn'tworth anybody's time.
So we really, you know, justappreciate your willingness to
come show this to whoever'swatching, no matter how likely
they are to buy this or not,with the mind of just sharing it
with everyone, andopportunities do tend to come
from that.
Thank you all ladies.
Those was were great intros.
I learned a lot about each ofyou.
It's just I I continue to beamazed by the caliber of people
(17:13):
that we get into this industryafter they've been doing other
stuff, uh, so we're very, veryhappy to have you, um, yeah, so
I guess unless, courtney, youwant to talk a little bit like
me, get any of your dying,burning questions out before we
hand it off to Jen to starttelling us a little bit more
about this EcoStruxure stuff anduniversal automation.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, actually I like your words better than my words
, nikki, you're just moreeloquent than I am on things.
I get excited about seeing techand I'm like yeah take it out,
take it out, take it out.
Oh yeah, take it out, take itout, take it out.
Oh yeah, there's people too.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I really uh, like to yourpoint.
Getting to meet you guys andtalk to you is always like the
best part of this Cause.
Like I'll, I'll rememberwhatever you guys show off today
(17:57):
, but I'll remember you morethan I will whatever you're
about to demo and you know whatnikki was saying.
I think it's just cool thatpeople can come on and see the
different paths, um, you know,into automation and also, just
to you know, look at people andbe like hey, I look like that,
my story sounds like that.
I could do that.
So thank you guys for beingwilling and vulnerable to share
your stories in front ofeveryone.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Yeah, I'm also going to throw up a few thank yous to
some of the people that joinedus in the comments.
Jose, thank you so much for afew comments, including this
passion on it.
Yeah, this is.
This is important, um,important stuff.
I appreciate that, carl.
Yeah, I, I don't know, I'vestruggled with the y'all so a
little bit, but I moved here tohouston in middle school from
(18:40):
iceland via a brief stop inengland and I had a really heavy
british accent.
When I first moved here andpeople would try to, they would
be like, can you say y'all?
And they would have me saydifferent words and then make
fun of me.
So I immediately was like I'mnever saying that word, I am not
from here, I am not saying that.
And then now, you know, many,many years later and with kids
(19:02):
and I live here again and Iappreciate it, I've started to
say it a little bit, but I stilldefault to guys most of the
time.
So again, that applies to guysin this case.
All good, you know, all goodintentions for that.
Um, uh, yeah, totally Y'all.
Hey, from Frisco, okay, soyou're pretty local.
Um, we had a couple of peoplethat I brought up earlier on the
(19:24):
screen.
Thanks for joining us, leo.
Thanks for joining us fromToronto.
Let's see.
Oh, we have Rafi here fromPakistan.
Great to see you, rafi.
I'm wondering if you're familiarwith this platform.
I know he works a lot withIgnition, scada and companies
that use various differenthardware platforms for their
operations.
He works with a lot of US-basedsystems integrators and things
(19:47):
like that, and he actually flewhere to Houston for our OT
SkateCon earlier this year.
I would love to come.
Yeah, absolutely, I'll get youguys in touch, michael.
Great to see you.
Michael's also an automationengineer with a great systems
integrator, growing systemsintegrator called Mast Owl
Technologies, and actually thepodcast episode that came out
(20:08):
today is recorded with the ownerof Mast Owl, alex Poole, and
that was an incredibleconversation that Ali and I both
really enjoyed and we want tocollaborate with them more.
So thank you guys for coming on.
Slam dunk, courtney.
Yeah, it's absolutely right,and you know, same thing goes
for being in the comments andbeing active.
(20:29):
A lot of people they kind ofpassively consume content, which
I don't want to push anybodyout of their comfort zone.
I just want to encourage you topush yourself out of your
comfort zone and I find that youknow, our crowd is pretty
friendly.
If you're into automation, wealready really have something in
common, like we nerd out aboutthings, so our differences are.
I think.
To me, the commonalities aremuch more so.
(20:52):
With that said, acknowledgingeverybody in the comments for
joining us, we really appreciateit.
Let's dive into what the heckare we talking about today,
technology-wise, and Jen, dispelthe lingo confusion for us.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Yes, yes, I will simplify the Schneider Electric
meaning of EcoStruxure.
So, really, ecostruxure isSchneider Electric's IoT-enabled
architecture and platform.
It integrates across varioussolutions, different business
units like energy management,automation, sustainability and a
(21:26):
more cohesive system.
Ecostruxure is what we sayhelps businesses optimize our
operations, improve efficiency,enhance sustainability by
leveraging real-time data andanalytics.
So EcoStruxure is our broadterm that we use across the
company, so you'll haveEcoStruxure in all of our
(21:48):
business units.
So, specifically, we're all apart of our industrial
automation business unit.
And today we're specificallygoing to talk about universal
automation and universalautomation for us.
We call it EcoStruxureAutomation Expert and that is
what Etoro will refer it to.
And universal automation isreally based off of an IEC
(22:12):
standard I think it was setabout 15 years ago the 61499 IEC
standard that is driven by endusers.
Exxonmobil, for instance, isactually putting in.
So Etoro you talked aboutExxonMobil, for instance, is
actually putting in.
So Toro, you talked aboutExxonMobil being a leader in
industry and changing.
They are this month, and one oftheir Baton Rouge facilities,
(22:33):
ripping out PLCs and putting ina universal automation solution,
not just leveraging SchneiderElectric EcoStruxure automation
expert but leveraging other umcompanies, products um, that are
part of universal automation.
So with that I'm going to turnit over to Toro to kind of talk
a little bit more details aboutSchneider Electric's play with
(22:56):
EcoStruxure automation expertwithin the universal automation
organization and a little bitabout universal universal
automation organization.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Thanks Very cool and I know you can we'll include
this, and it was included insome of the event descriptions,
but there's a list of all thecompanies that are members of
this on the website, so it'sreally easy to find.
There's definitely like othercompanies that we've all heard
of and worked with, so it seemsto be a very good collaboration.
Yes, so, just seems to be avery good collaboration.
Yes, so just jumping right in.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
So what is Universal Automation?
The board?
So it's really a not-for-profitorganization and it's made up
of members from the end-usercommunity, from vendors like
Schneider Electric and fromnonprofits as well as
universities.
And what do we agree on?
(23:47):
We agree that we came up with acommon runtime, so it's a
common software for doing yourautomation right.
And we're saying that when youuse this automation system, it's
totally decoupled from thehardware automation system.
(24:08):
It's totally decoupled from thehardware, which means
traditionally when you get a PLCsystem, you get, you know, you
buy from a certain vendor andyou're pretty much locked to
that vendor.
And so this organization issaying, no, let's decouple the
software from the hardware sothat end users have that choice
to decide what vendor they wantto use it for.
So think about it.
(24:29):
And you know my mom alwayswonders what I do and I like to
explain to her.
You know I talk about likeAndroid for control systems.
That's pretty much what we do.
So if you can think about youriPhone, you're pretty much
locked into the iPhone ecosystem, right.
And you know we're lining uptrying to get upgrades, but
(24:52):
still locked to that system,right.
And so we are pushing theneedle and we're saying let's
not do that anymore.
Let's give our customersbecause we've listened to the
customers customers let's givethem the choice to decide what
hardware vendor they want to gowith.
Right, so it's.
It's.
It's totally separating,decoupling the software from the
(25:13):
hardware so you can take thesoftware and run on multiple
hardware infrastructure, as longas they're members of universal
Automationorg.
So that's pretty much whatUniversal Automationorg is.
It was founded in 2021.
It was about 10 members, butnow it's over 100 members
(25:35):
because the more we're takingthe message out we're talking to
system integrators,distributors, customers.
People are saying absolutely,this makes sense.
Like we've never gone to anyonewho says absolutely doesn't
make sense, right?
They're saying it makes senseand it's high time we move from
(25:57):
the way things were done in the50s, because now it's 2024.
We should have options, and I'mgoing to steal the word that
ExxonMobil uses.
They say we need options.
Okay, yeah.
So we're saying we've heard you, customers, and we're giving
you options.
So that's pretty much what itis.
So EcoStruxure AutomationExperts it's an implementation
(26:22):
of that standard.
It's Schneider Electric'simplementation of that standard.
It's Schneider Electric'simplementation of that standard.
Like Jen mentioned, it's basedon IEC 61499, which is pretty
much function blocks Not gonnasteal the thunder, but Toledo is
gonna demo that and show how itworks Very cool.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I'm pretty excited about that.
My role in kind of the supplychain stuff over the last few
years definitely makes me thinkthat a lot of people realize
that this in fact does make alot of sense when you can't
finish building somethingbecause you can't get the PLC or
whatever that is, or you can'tget a spare fair right.
(27:08):
This at least gives you a lotmore resilience in your
operations not to be completelylocked in to one particular
vendor or one particular pieceof hardware, absolutely
absolutely, because I alsoworked for a system integrator
and you know we're used to, youknow, running into issues with
projects being delayed becauseof supply chain issues.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Anyone remember COVID right, when you had to wait for
hardware to come so you couldwork on your project?
So you're not delivering yourprojects during the timeframe
that you promised your customeryou were going to deliver the
project.
So it's just messing up withpeople's bottom lines.
And so now, with this system,you do have flexibility.
(27:48):
You're able to deliver yourprojects within the time that
you promised you would right,because you can just pick and
choose and you can distributethe control as well within
different vendor platforms.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Absolutely.
That's what my time at Festoone of the things like that's
really important is you want tosize the right thing for the job
, but sometimes that perfectsize isn't in stock or the lead
time is long, and so you thenreally you want those options
right?
Yes, you may use a sub optimalsolution this time, but it, you
know, in the grand scheme ofdelivering or not delivering, it
is in fact the optimal solution, right?
(28:24):
So to have the ability to kindof mix and match and have, you
know, some things like that Iwas going to say, like spares,
or in this case we're talkinglike valve manifolds, right,
slotting different things in andhaving certain types of sizes
maybe in stock, exactly, exactly.
I'm going to, just before youdive in, before we dive into the
demo, I'm going to answer acouple of questions from the
(28:46):
audience.
So I apologize.
I guess we're having a littlebit of issue in some cases with
buffering and people having to Xout.
I think our friend David Garciaalso told me that during our
last live stream he was havingtrouble.
Linkedin was kind of kickinghim out of the event and then
he'd have to come back in.
So if you guys head over to theYouTube Automation Ladies
(29:07):
YouTube page.
It may be streaming better overthere.
You can just search forAutomation Ladies on YouTube and
it should be live streamingthere.
I know we have at least acouple people over there
watching right now.
That would be one way.
And then I wanted to answer thisquestion will there be a
recording available?
So, absolutely, this iscurrently streaming, but then we
will be available for replayanytime, both on LinkedIn and on
(29:30):
YouTube.
So our apologies for that.
I don't know what's going on.
We've never had issues withStreamYard up until about three,
four weeks ago, so if this is acontinuing problem, we're
definitely going to have to lookinto that.
Yeah, so it's apparently acommon problem, and we have
somebody joining us from brazil.
Hello, mariana, thanks for uhjoining us.
(29:53):
I guess that's one of your teammembers there, so it's always
awesome.
I think also, you know, as women, we want to see more women
represented, so I we like topush any women that we meet that
we find their work to beincredible or interesting or
whatever, to say like oh go outthere and show it more or, you
know, represent, but it's alsoit can be a lot of pressure, it
(30:14):
can be some people just aren'tused to it, you know, and it's
an expectation that shouldn't beput on us just because we need
more representation.
Now you need to do that inaddition to your job and you
know, whatever.
So I just want to acknowledgethat anybody that is, you know,
coming out to do it, it's alsojust really, really nice to have
support.
It's one of the things welearned at OT Skatecon.
(30:35):
We had a lot of first timespeakers and it made a huge
difference the fact that wetalked about ahead of time that
hey, if they freeze up or ifthey, you know, need some help,
like let's be a supportiveaudience, Because and we had
people comment on thatafterwards that actually was a
really enriching part of theexperience, because some of the
speakers did stumble and kind oflike feel awkward, and then
(30:55):
everybody cheered them on andthen they just got more
confident versus, you know,sometimes when a speaker
stumbles and they know they'vemessed up, everything gets more
awkward after that because theyjust lose all their confidence.
So thank you all friends thatcome and to support our guests
in the comments.
I appreciate that.
Oh yeah, perfect.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, shout out to Audrey who's?
Speaker 4 (31:32):
in who's been mentioning some stuff in the
comments.
She's yeah, so Audrey works.
Yeah, audrey works with us.
She's a part of our team up inwestern New York, so she's
helping us out by putting thewebsite there for you, a Toro,
where you know where thatorganization, that non nonprofit
organization, is that you know.
And one of the things I thoughtI'd mentioned also is that it's
not just end users andmanufacturers.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
You do have in universities you've got systems
integrators and distributorsthat are joining the
organization as well.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
I mean, there are systems integrators that want to
be in the front end of this newtechnology.
Like you said, nikki, I'm goingto steal that Win win, win, win
.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
All right.
So I think we're up for demoand actually perfectly on time.
We like to, you know, I like tosay we're probably going to
talk for the first half hourbecause I really like to you
know, not just get into product,but a little bit of like why
the product, why does it matter,why should I care?
Why is my attention on this?
So I think we've set the stagefor that perfectly.
(32:31):
So, talita, feel free to shareyour screen whenever you're
ready, and I'll try to arrangeeveryone around so that we can
see things yeah, let me makesure that I shared that.
(32:57):
Okay, right, are you good?
Speaker 5 (32:57):
yeah, no pressure, there we go, and I don't have to
rearrange anybody, just oneminute before you guys get me to
, to put this on so perfect.
No, it's good, it's good, itwas just before.
Oh, that's good, that's good.
So this is um, ecostruxureAutomation, expert Engineering
(33:18):
Tool.
Right, it's EAE for the closefriends, which we all are, and
we we call it ea.
Um, so, um, this is theengineering tool.
This is how we, we design andwe develop our projects here.
One thing that I uh, that I likethe?
Uh the most, and that isdifferent than the traditional
(33:39):
automation, uh, traditional pocskater architectures.
When we're developing, whenyou're, when you start a new
project, the first thing thatyou need to decide is where do
you want to run, right, what isthe hardware that you're going
to use for this project?
And in here, this will be thelast thing because, as Itoro
said, we're giving you options.
So you just need to think aboutyour process, what you need to
(34:00):
develop here, and then later on,you can decide where you're
running, and if you want tochange that later, it's okay as
well.
So there's no problem with that, and that is really different
here.
So, just by installing IAE, youget a bunch of libraries that
we develop for you.
So we have a lot of things thatare already done, the most
(34:24):
common things that we use whenwe're developing projects for
our process.
We have some segment relatedstuff.
So everything is done here foryou.
But of course everyone candevelop its own library based on
our library.
So we give you something tostart.
So there is that, and then herewhen we're developing, the
(34:50):
developing how can I saymentality that we need to have
here is very object oriented.
So in this demo that I broughthere for you it's a pumping
station demo.
So you will see that we havethe entire pumping station all
encapsulated into one littlesquare here.
That's our block, so we canreuse multiple times.
(35:12):
So that's easy to do.
And what is a pumping stationmade of?
Right?
So you can, we can dig into the, into the software, and see
what do we have.
So we have a block here thatwill control all of that.
And we have our assets, thatare the pumps here.
So the pumps are all laid outhere as little blocks, and this
(35:37):
is just automation programming.
We program the pumping stations.
You can do the same way that wealways do.
But there is something specialabout the way that we do these
blocks here.
It's that you're not only doingthe control part of it, we also
have the SCADA part of itintegrated, so you can develop
(36:01):
your own symbols and faceplatesand everything and all the
communication between the HMIand the PLC will be done for you
.
There is zero effort.
It's basically just draggingand dropping objects here.
So we just drag and drop thepumps here and the communication
(36:24):
is done for you.
So this is already everythingencapsulated into one block.
So later I'll show you guys.
But to create a new pumpingstation, it will be pretty
simple and this is how weprogram things here is how we
(36:46):
program things here and later on.
When we want to decide where Iwant to run this code on, it's
basically click away.
So I have a mapping option herewhere I can decide between all
of the hardware that I have hereon my project.
That I'll show you guys later.
Where do I want to run that.
So if I want to change rightnow that it's running on a M580
(37:08):
deep pack and I want to changethat to a soft deep pack, I'm
just remapping and okay, that'sdone.
So there is no hard timebetween to change from one
platform to the other.
Our time to change from oneplatform to the other.
(37:33):
Then here I have an exampletopology here for you to show
the flexibility that we haveavailable here we have what we
call the Eco-Runtime.
That is the runtime that willrun in every device.
That is part of universalautomation.
Schneider is not the onlyvendor that is part of universal
automation.
Schneider is not the onlyvendor that is part of universal
automation.
We have other vendors withuniversal automation offers as
(37:54):
well that can run this runtime.
But on Schneider's time we canrun the runtime on M251, m262,
m580 DPACs.
Those are all hardware offersthat someone that works with
Schneider is already used to.
But we also give you the optionof doing something different,
(38:15):
like making your PC a PLC.
So you can have a software DPACrunning here on my Windows PC.
Or I can have like a RaspberryPi running Linux.
That can be a PLC as well, soyou can go very small.
Or you can run it on a datacenter server.
You can create just a VM,because our Linux PLCs they run
(38:41):
on a Docker container, so it canpretty much run anywhere and
it's pretty light.
What about drives?
What about variable frequencydrives?
On a Docker container, so itcan pretty much run anywhere and
it's pretty light.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
And then on top what about drives?
What about variable frequencydrives?
Speaker 5 (38:51):
Yes, so that's another thing that we're also
doing different.
We have our ATV offer that it'swell known, and we have like a
very small module that you canjust attach to your drive and
then your drive can also be aPLC on the network, like I have
here, so you can deploy and thenit can be a part of a bigger
(39:12):
architecture like communicatingwith all the devices.
That's pretty unique, right, butif it loses communication for
some reason it will also controlitself, because you have the
PLC embedded on the drive itself, when our customers are doing
let's say end-of-life upgradesfor the hardware, right?
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Remember, traditionally you're removing
everything and you're rewritingyour code.
But, like Talita is showinghere, you know when you want to
swap out your hardware, thesoftware still is the same,
right?
So you don't have to rewritethe software.
So you know, that's one of theprinciples of universal
automation.
(39:51):
Because it's portable, so youcan use it in multiple hardware
devices and you don't have tokeep rewriting like we do
traditionally.
So, I'm sorry, Go ahead like wedo traditionally.
So I'm sorry, Go ahead.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Awesome.
Yeah, no, that's perfect.
That's it.
We're all about efficiency here, right?
So we want to make theengineer's life easier, and I
think this is how we do it right?
So we want to make theengineer's life easier and I
think this is how we do it right.
You have the flexibility toremap from one to the other.
You have the flexibility ofhaving the HMI designed with the
controls and then inside oneobject, you have everything done
(40:38):
for you.
And another thing here as wellusually when we have an
application with multiple PLCs,we need to configure
communication between the PLCs.
You'll spend a lot of timedoing that In here.
All of those PLCs here, eventhe drive one, the one that runs
on the PC they all talk to eachother without any effort.
(41:00):
Just by connecting one blockthat is mapped on one device to
the other, they're communicating.
You don't need to configureanything.
So we're also saving you timedoing that.
Then in here also, when we'reusing EAE, we're all about the
data.
We want to make the dataavailable to you.
We want to help you take yourdecisions based on data.
(41:24):
So we communicate using everyindustrial protocol that is
available, but we also have, forexample, an OPC UA server
natively in each one of thosePLCs.
So if you're running in, wecall it the ATVD pack, the
(41:44):
version for the drive.
So if you're using that, thiswill also be an OPC UA server on
top of being a PLC.
So that's also very nice.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
If you don't mind, I'm going to interrupt you for a
sec, though, and see, Courtney,what are you thinking.
I don't do PLC programmingmyself, so I haven't even seen,
like all of the, as many ofthese IDEs as you have.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
I like this one for how graphical it is compared to
a lot of others.
Like you get into functionblock and you can kind of make a
little boxy looking thing thatconnects to other things.
But this is.
You know, I like how this looksand I like that the SCADA is
built in.
Like the stuff you have to doto talk to SCADA is already
built in.
(42:30):
And obviously I'm a robot chick.
So my brain always goes to howdo I use this to talk to robots?
Because that's a lot of timeswhat I'm using a PLC to do.
So I'm curious, like if I Iwant to choose, like different
industrial protocols, could Imake these talk to any robot?
(42:51):
Or like where would I run intoa challenge?
There is what I'm reallycurious about.
Speaker 5 (43:11):
Yeah, regarding protocols, we can configure
almost all of them.
We have Internet, ip Modbus,tcp, opc way, mqtt Courtney,
maybe that question would alsobe answered.
We're kind of doing everythinghere.
So you have the option toconfigure.
It's up to the user, but we'regiving you the ability of doing
all this.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
There's automation types that go into that.
I haven't read it myself, butand there's a link to it right,
it's in the like first page ofthe link that Audrey provided
provide some backgroundinformation into the
organization and then, as wellas the standards, information.
But yeah, I just wanted to Iknow that you know your
questions are going to be, oryour comments are going to be,
(43:50):
more technique related, so Iwanted to bring that up and then
maybe we can just get to that alittle bit later.
I don't know if you guys wantto bring this up now, but
Ralphie's asking a question, youknow, maybe we can address it
at the end.
But to kind of understand howsimilar this is or different
from CODISIS yes, I could start.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
So, yes, it's almost like CODISIS, but it's a little
bit different.
So CODISIS is based on the 613.
I'm not a CODISIS.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
Are you going to answer that, Itona?
Speaker 3 (44:25):
But this is based on let's say, it's 1499 standards,
right?
So this is based on functionblocks.
Codecs is not Codecs.
Yes, it's open, it's kind ofsimilar, but it's not truly open
.
With this it's truly when wesay it's truly vendor agnostic.
It is so you can take this codeand run it, even on our
(44:49):
competitor's hardware, and youdon't need to recompile or
anything like that.
So it's truly when we say it'sopen.
It's truly open, like you couldtake this and not even buy a
Schneider hardware and run itand it would work.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Of course this kind of has different flavors for
different vendors.
Yeah exactly, but they all kindof have their own way of
running it right.
As far as I'm concerned, yeah,but this is truly, truly open.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
And then I guess if you're okay with it.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
we'll take one more question before we move on in
the demo and then a comment.
But how old of ATV firmwareswill work with this system?
Is this a question we can take?
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
Yeah, usually when we install the Deepak module, we
usually update the firmware,each version that we have here
will have its own firmware.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Very cool, I guess.
I'll throw out a comment here.
You could even run the UAOvirtual PLC runtime on a robot.
Speaker 5 (46:02):
You can do it without a problem, so we will update
both of them together.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Okay, yeah, courtney, did you hear?
Speaker 3 (46:13):
that.
Yeah, that's good news, right,that's good news.
Speaker 5 (46:17):
Between you and Albert.
I know that he also is probablygoing to geek out about the
Skata server stuff and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
I've got a robot in my garage, I want to put it on
it.
Yeah, somebody help me do it.
The Skata server stuff andwhatnot.
I've got a robot in my garage,I want to put it on it.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Somebody help me do it.
Let's make a follow-up.
I'll make it all the content.
Let's keep going.
We've got what about 13 minutesleft?
Speaker 5 (46:41):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Follow me after this.
Yeah, so all I really wanted toshow was the HMI, because
there's also no configurationhere on the communication to the
(47:02):
HMI, because we usually need togo over, even if it's OPC, ua,
you need to configure the tags,but here done for you.
So we just have a general maphere with pumping stations that
you can do, and then we cannavigate and we can see the
system running.
It's controlling the level,just based on a set point, a
very simple control here.
(47:25):
And then I just want to show youhow easy it will be, for
example, to create a new pumpingstation.
So, for example, I have fivepumping station, I will create
the sixth one.
So just by copying and pasting,it's done here, my pump station
number six, and I, for example,want to run it on this softdpac
(47:48):
here.
So I have multiple options.
I just select one of them, allof those that I was showing in
the picture Just now.
They're here laid out for me.
So I just select, and becauseit has this green single here, I
know that it's mapped.
Then I can just deploy to thisone.
Let me show you.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I'm keeping myself mostly muted because up until
now my dog was just whining.
Speaker 5 (48:14):
I'm going to deploy, and then we will create the HMI
and we'll see how I'll pop inand out on the audio how easy it
will be too.
Okay, no problem.
So I'm just deploying here, andwhile we do that, I will just
(48:39):
create a new pumping stationscreen.
So I just need to wait until itfinishes compiling, but I will
just create a pumping stationscreen, drag and drop, and
everything will be done for us.
So that's very nice.
So let me yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
(49:14):
We also, on top of that, wehave a very good integration
with Aviva, so we can integratefrom your engineering drawings
to generate the objects here andthen from here we can generate
the objects on a VivaSystemplatform, so that you also don't
have to configure communication, create the symbols, the
(49:37):
objects and everything.
So we also give you that.
So I'll just create a pumpingstation here, my pumping station
6.
Then, when I do this,everything is just done for me
(50:03):
and then that's pretty much it.
We're good to start a newpumping station Right on top of
that.
What we would have to do, beingrealistic here, is just
configure the IOs, but the logicand everything will be done by
you.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
And it took a really long time.
So if you're a customer and youhave engineers and you have
projects that you have to do,think about using EcoStruxure
Automation Expert to do thoseprojects and think about the
engineering efficiency and howmuch quicker you'll do the work.
And it's uniform too right, soyou're not introducing any
(50:42):
coding mistakes or backfingermistakes like we used to have,
because this is just drag anddrop like very easy to do.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (51:05):
So it's here, our pumping station six.
I just missed the station namein here, but it's running, it's
communicating and we don't needto configure basically anything
here.
So after you have your, librarydesigned.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
It will be so easy for you to move forward and
reuse and increment.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
on that yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
That's one of the features that I like the most
here.
I won't tell you how manyengineering hours we're putting
on those HMI screens and stuffright now, but I you know.
Oh, really, maybe there'ssomething to be said about the
Department of Efficiency for alot of these ways that we're
doing things.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
Oh yeah, we can save us some time of efficiency for a
lot of these ways that we'redoing things Absolutely.
Oh yeah, we can save us sometime.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
Well and that's where we're spending a lot of our
time right now is in thewater-wastewater segment, but
really any oil and gas as well.
You know these are energy andchemicals.
You know these are all areas ofefficiencies that can be driven
and it allows you.
I think the one thing I likethat you say when you talk about
(52:21):
this, is that it can bescalable, right, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, I hope it's okay.
It can be scalable.
Is that it can?
Speaker 4 (52:25):
be, scalable right, absolutely yeah, I hope it's
okay.
It can be scalable and as timegoes on, there's going to be
more and more vendors that havemore of their products to plop
on the network as well.
So think about I was going tosay, think about everything that
can be connected to theinternet and how you would want,
or anything that could beconnected to the system that you
(52:47):
would want to collect data.
Yeah, and we love to hear youknow from real life use cases
whether it's kind of either fromintegrators or from end users.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
And so I know you've mentioned before that you guys
have kind of an evangelist overat Exxon that's currently
implementing a lot of this, sowe're hoping that maybe he would
like to come speak at ot skatercon to give us a you know, play
by play or or the real world,like, hey, we did this, this is
why we did it, this is how wedid it, and, yeah, we have a few
.
Uh, we have another questionfrom rafay uh, asking what about
(53:18):
learning resources?
Is there training for thiswebsite?
Where do people want to go ifthey want to start getting
familiar with this?
Speaker 3 (53:24):
yes, we've got.
I'm sorry to interrupt.
Yes, we've got training.
We've got training on schneiderelectriccom.
So secom, or you could alsoreach out to us.
We could, you know, send you,point you to the right direction
.
But absolutely we want toempower people to play with the
software, try it out and howmuch, like all the things we
(53:47):
talked about, how cool it is,how efficient it is.
So, yes, we are, we want totrain you, we want to get people
trained so you can play with it.
Because if we just give thesoftware to you and you don't
have any training, it could benot very good, right?
Because now you're like this isa different way of doing things
(54:09):
, right?
So, very good question on thetraining.
Yes, on SchneiderElectriccom.
You'll see all the trainingthere.
Or you could reach out to us onLinkedIn.
We'll send you the exacttraining links.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yeah, I would highly encourage all of you that watch
this either now live or watchthis later.
Connect with these ladies onLinkedIn.
They're tagged as the speakersof this event on LinkedIn.
They're here to, you know, kindof grow awareness about this in
the community.
We've got three differentrepresentations of areas from
you know, within this, practiceat Schneider, practice at
(54:43):
Schneider, and they're, you know, open to networking with you
and answering your questions orpointing you in the right
direction, whether that's rightnow or, you know, six months
from now when you watch this,but also if you're going to
spend your time coming tosomething like this right during
the workday.
Usually we hope that it's alittle bit entertaining, but of
course you have to have abusiness reason and a lot of
(55:04):
times again, if you're watchingthis out of more of a learning,
curiosity standpoint, havingjust those connections later on,
for when a business use casedoes come along, can be huge,
right, because you may notremember everything you saw in
the demo.
Thankfully, you can come backand watch it anytime.
But then having that personthat you can reach out to or
that you remember and I alwaysencourage people if you connect
with a person you don't know onLinkedIn through an event like
(55:26):
this, either just say, hey, wewere both on this event.
Or, in this case, if it's aspeaker, my favorite tip and I
started doing this recently is Itake a picture of the speaker
while on the stage.
Or, in this case, what youcould do is take a screenshot of
this and be like, hey, greatjob, I just saw your talk.
Or, even better, post about itand tag that person.
And then, when your friendrequest comes along, you bet
(55:49):
that person's going to clickaccept, right, because you
showed them that you were there,that you were interested, that
you're friendly.
And we all get enough like spaminvitations from developers or
whoever nowadays on LinkedIn,right?
So it's just.
I think the value of thosequality personal connections
keeps going up.
The more we have ai and bot andjust unsolicited activity all
(56:12):
around us all the time.
It becomes so nice to have areal trusted network of people
that you can, you know, know,have some expertise backing up
what they're talking about andyou can reach out to them on
your own time.
Uh, so we have leo over.
He says you have my attention.
So, leo, I hope you'll be readyto learn more, and it looks
like we have another friend herethat maybe a couple of you know
(56:37):
.
I do know him and happy to seea fellow Brazilian here as well.
But then he says back when Iworked as an automation engineer
.
Absolutely, I was just speakingto.
Happy to see a fellow Brazilianhere as well, but then he says
I wish he had a tool to use backwhen I worked as an automation
engineer.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Absolutely.
I was just speaking to somepeople this week.
I remember when I started inautomation.
You know learning logic when Istarted working because it
wasn't taught in schools and ittook me months to be able and
Courtney is nodding because youknow that.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
It's not taught in universities.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
So you start working and they start teaching you and
it takes you months to be ableto program on your own and
you're shadowing the seniorengineers, right.
So think about all the peoplethat are, you know, retiring
from the workforce and all theyoung engineers coming in.
They're going to have time tolearn ladder logic.
(57:31):
What if we gave them a programthat they're used to?
They're familiar with functionblocks, they're familiar with
the look and feel of it.
These guys can be productive inweeks.
So think about your bottom line.
If you're a project manager andyou're trying to get projects
done, right, you have peoplecoming in from the streets
(57:52):
pretty much who can help movethe needle and be productive
from you know, in weeks insteadof months like in my day.
So this is huge benefits.
Not enough time to talk abouteverything, but that's a huge
one.
The workforce, the newworkforce this is a huge thing,
changer for sure.
Speaker 1 (58:12):
And I know one of the ways we've always done things
in this industry is kind of keepit internal and then say
there's a limited number ofpeople and they know all of this
and it's really valuable.
And then everybody goes afterthose same people back and forth
, and then they end up using thesame stuff.
Let say, well, we can only findpeople that know this.
Um, and oh we, we go with thisbecause we know that you know
there's going to be techniciansaround that we can hire, that
(58:33):
know how to do this already.
Well, there's just not enoughof them to go around anymore and
we're not making a whole lotmore of them unless we bring the
kids that are graduating nowinto and and I know, some of
these new mechatronics programs.
So we work with a student from acentral Virginia community
college.
She already graduated fromthere, but now she just got into
a bachelor's mechatronicsdegree.
(58:55):
Um, I won't say the wrongcollege because I don't remember
exactly what college, butseeing it as a bachelor's degree
, it's not that common.
I mean, there's more and moreof them now, but seeing this in
school especially or if youdon't see it in school, have it
be close enough to things you'vealready learned makes a huge
difference.
I think for and I say kids.
Right, but we were all like 21.
(59:20):
We wouldn't call ourselves kids,definitely not oh yes or even
someone without a college degreeright Like a mechatronics
associate's degree.
Those are becoming more andmore common and you can
definitely get up to speed onsomething like this super
quickly and we need to be ableto attract more people.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
Yeah, yeah, and it's transferable mickey.
It's transferable for for umcomputer science.
I mean there's there's threetimes or four times in many
computer science for people thatare adjacent to this industry
(59:58):
to feel like they can come inand they're not going to have a
huge learning curve.
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
That's impossible to get without going to specialty
trainings that cost lots andlots of money or that they're
going to be gatekept from any ofthese jobs because they don't
know.
Xyz hardware platform um, Ithink it makes the industry more
inclusive in general as wellfor the tech to be more
inclusive and more connected.
A few more comments.
Oh, carrie pierce is here.
She's a machine visionintegrator.
(01:00:23):
She just recently had ananniversary at her company.
Congratulations, carrie.
Thank you for joining us.
Leo, yeah, he wants to teachthis to his students, so get him
in touch with whoever is in theeducation space there as well.
And then just some kindfeedback.
Thank you, param.
That's really nice of you tosay.
He says thank you for thepresentation.
He's glad to be.
I guess he's part of theschneider team.
(01:00:45):
Um, and we had another, uh,great feedback here from ronald.
Thank you so much for theamazing presentations and
fantastic live demo.
Um, yes, you did a fantasticjob to lita and thank you a
minute of it, so it really makeswhat we do worth it to hear
that.
It's worth it to you guys aswell that are watching, although
I will be frank with you.
(01:01:06):
Um, I've always said this toAllie and Courtney like we don't
do this for the audience, wedon't research what you guys
want to see and, you know, tryto build out a campaign.
We have the conversations thatwe want to have and we want to
look at the stuff that we'reinterested in and I think just I
want to be transparent aboutthat, because that's really
where this comes from.
It's the only way that we'reable to do it with the workloads
(01:01:28):
that we have is it has to beinteresting, it has to like fill
our cup versus drain it.
To do this, and when we hearsome feedback that other people
love it as well, it just makesit that much more enjoyable for
me.
So, for selfish reasons, I'mgoing to say I'm glad you loved
it.
We're going to keep doing it,keep showing up and keep telling
us that.
You know, maybe this sales stuffdoesn't have to be done the
(01:01:51):
same way as we've been doing it.
Coming from a sales engineer aformer sales engineer myself
there's a lot of great thingsabout a lot of the ways that we
used to do things in theautomation industry from a sales
and relationship buildingperspective, but there's just a
lot more.
I mean, the future is kind oflike these, maybe smaller
communities that are connectingin different ways in different
places, small communities partof one big kind of industry
(01:02:14):
community.
So with that, I would say weare up on time and go ahead and
connect with these ladies,follow some of the links that
we'll drop in the comments andkeep engaging on this and then
honestly drop to us as well.
You can drop us a voicemail onour website, automationladiesio,
or a message to us on LinkedIn.
(01:02:35):
You can message the page.
You can also email hello atautomationladiesio, and we'd
love to hear if you have anysuggestions of other demos that
you'd like to see.
If you're the marketing personfor a company and you want to
pitch our demo, we're going toask you to sponsor it.
But if you're one of ourcommunity members that watches
and you just have a particularproduct that you're really
interested in seeing demoed, wewill most likely reach out to
(01:02:57):
that company and offer them tocome demo it for us, because if
you're interested, we probablyare too.
So with that.
Oh, also one more thing Ifyou're watching on YouTube,
would you please hit thatsubscribe?
We don't put, we don't edit ourYouTube video, so we don't have
SEO or click thumbnails or theysay smash that like button.
(01:03:19):
We've been learning from ourkids what we're supposed to do
to grow.
So go ahead and subscribe itand if you ever find it in your
heart to leave us a kind reviewon our website or anything, we
would also really appreciatethat.
So thank you, ladies, so muchfor spending a little time with
us here on this Thursday.
I think we are super stoked tokeep learning about this and
(01:03:40):
maybe trying it on our robot andseeing what else we can do with
this.
Absolutely it on our robot andseeing what else we can do with
this.
Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Absolutely sure, I'll be.
Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
I'll be in your dm shortly yeah, everybody get to
work, connect with each other.
Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Have fun, let's learn , let's grow together, and even
if you're not using this,there's a benefit for you
knowing about it.
Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
So thanks everybody.
Have a great rest of your week,uh, and we will be uh coming to
you live, probably in some wayshape or form um from anaheim
next week, as we're going tovisit courtney.
So have a great rest of yourweek, everybody.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Bye thank you, bye, thank you bye, bye.
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