October 10, 2024 • 62 mins
Cybersecurity has become one of the fastest-growing fields, offering a wealth of job opportunities.
Join us as we discuss the challenges and advancements in cybersecurity in industrial automation with Michael Grollmus, CEO of Grollmus, highlighting the crossroads of tradition and innovation in this evolving sector.
Together we investigate the mesh of cybersecurity into industrial automation and the dire need for improved practices and the shortage of skilled professionals, showcasing the field’s limitless opportunities and reach.
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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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
pre-recorded episode of Automation Ladies.
It is June, but we may actuallyhave this conversation come out
in season four, which should besometime later this year, and
if you're listening to this way,later it's 2024.
But yes, we are getting closeto end of our recording season
(00:20):
here for season three.
We've hit 31 episodes in seasonthree already.
somehow, ali, I had no idea, uhthat's awesome our team is
telling us time to take a break,um, but we love what we do.
We get to talk to so many greatpeople in the industry that
it's very hard to put the breaks, pump the brakes on having
these conversations.
Uh, so I'm very excited totoday kind of hopefully leave
(00:44):
most of the talking again to alium and our wonderful guest
today, michael.
Uh, how do you pronounce yourname?
I should stop doing it becauseI might do it wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Um, we should just ask you on air you pronounce
your name for us yeah, at first,thank you very much that you
invite me to to your podcast.
So, um, and my, my sure name,uh, I pronounce it grolmoose,
yeah, grolmoose, uh, but, but,uh, I, I think it's, it's quite
easy.
(01:13):
So you call me michael and uh,then you don't have to challenge
uh with my sure name yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So I did that with kathy rinny for many years,
thinking I just never said herlast name and then it took me
two years to realize I wassaying it wrong.
So now I try to just confrontthat challenge head on.
Yeah, is it actually Rinney?
It's Rinney.
Both of us were getting itwrong Wow.
Yeah, and.
I also learned not to take mycues on how to say names from
(01:41):
Allie, because I'm in thesubstance too.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, well, I was gonna say Growlmoose, but yeah,
growlmoose okay, but for me,names for me are also a very big
challenge.
So this is also one thingbecause I love industry
automation, because there aredeep in it one and zero and I
(02:06):
don't have to spell any names.
This is one reason because Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, no room for interpretation.
There it's a universal language, and where are you?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Michael, well, I'm in Germany, quite in the middle of
germany, uh, near frankfurt, um, also a big city in germany,
it's uh mainz, but I think uh,it's not so international like
frankfurt.
So I think, munich, frankfurt,hamburg, uh, these are the
(02:41):
cities.
Well, everybody knows, when youtalk about Germany, or
Nuremberg, the SPS fair, ofcourse, the Hannover fair,
hannover, right, of course.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Is there a lot of manufacturing there?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
An automatic what?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Are you near a lot of manufacturing where you are in
Germany?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I think we have a lot of manufacturers around us the
nearest pharmacy, böhringer,ingelheim, sanofi, aventus, but
also car manufacturers.
So you have a lot of factories,plants around you in Germany,
(03:33):
because Germany also is a quitesmall country.
So everything is near insteadof uh, so it's it's.
Everything is near, yeah,instead of the us, yeah, it's.
It's a bit, a little bitdifferent, different.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So you have a short ways yeah yeah, how long does it
take to get to like siemensheadquarters?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
uh, so so to nuremberg.
Uh, I think it's about a littlebit over three hours with the
car.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And how many times have you been there?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Sometimes, not so often my brother is there quite
often because they create thetier selection tool for Siemens
and so they have a lot ofmeetings with Siemens.
We are a partner.
But I'm not so often inNuremberg but I visit in
Frankfurt the Siemens office,yeah, the office there, and so I
(04:41):
think every two months I visita Siemens office or a little bit
, a small fair.
So we talk a lot with Siemens,or Siemens come also to us and
we talk about new stuff and soon.
(05:02):
So this is also one of thechallenges that we knew the
newest things which are alreadythere from Siemens and which
will come in the future, so thatwe can say our customers okay,
well, maybe have a look at thispart, go this way, because the
(05:23):
future will come and then youcan use the new function, use
the new benefits.
Last week I have a call with oneof Siemens promoter for the new
S7-1200.
So he explained to me what'snew in the new hardware and I
(05:45):
hope at the end of the year Iwill have one of the new
controllers on my desk.
Nice, because I see it in yourbackground.
There there's a S7.
1200.
, 1500.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
1200.
I was going to ask you do youdo any work with back off?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
yes, also, I'm myself .
I'm not a back off expert, uh,but but we have uh experts for
back off.
Uh, back off isn't grown up.
Uh, poc manufacturer and uh, soyou, I think if you work in
germany with industry automation, then then you have to handle
(06:31):
with back off also in the futureand and kuka, even though now
that's chinese.
Uh kuka uh, interestingquestion.
Kuka crumbs comesKA comes fromthe car manufacturer VW.
Vw built KUKA.
Then KUKA split to an ownfactory, to an own company.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I think four or five years ago, a Chinese holding by
a cooker, and so now it'sChinese.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
But still manufactured in Germany?
Or did they move productionover to China?
Do you know Not that?
You need to be a spokespersonhere.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It depends, it depends which kind.
So I think everyone knowsGerman cars.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
The best cars.
Just kidding, they're very goodcars.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
It depends, yeah, it depends, what you look for.
But there's a big challenge inGermany for the car
manufacturers, also everymanufacturer which needs high
energy, because the energy costsare very high in Germany.
But we also get newmanufacturers from the pharma
(08:02):
industry.
I think Lily, ellie, I thinkit's america yeah yeah, thank
you very much.
Yeah, that's it.
Uh, they built a complete newuh plant factory on a green
field.
So some goes away, some comesnew.
I think it's.
It's every time the same samegame.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, okay well, ali, you know I'm gonna interrupt
you and start by asking ourstandard question, so we can get
this yes, sorry, yes a lot ofour format.
That's okay.
So, michael um, can you tell us, give us an introduction to
yourself and your background andkind of how you came to be in
this industry, what you're doingnow?
because we really like to hearpeople's interesting stories,
(08:47):
because I think when most of usstarted back in the day, there
wasn't and this may have beendifferent in Germany, but at
least here in the US there isn'treally a career path to
controls engineering it kind ofhappens to people at some point
in their careers.
So if you can give us a littlebackstory and introduction to
yourself and then maybe kind ofend up like what your company
does today, what you do, andthen we'll have probably plenty
(09:09):
of questions when the time comes.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Spoiler alert he has a company, Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So the truth is there was no other chance for me
Because my father has hiscompany I was born in and no,
just kidding, I also can dosomething else.
But I was a little child Then Igrew up with technical.
(09:37):
My father loved technical andwe play with the technical.
Uh, when I was a teenager, uh,I, I earn a little bit money to
help in the company, uh, to workwith s7, uh, s5, s5, yeah, yeah
(09:58):
, the the old, old stuff youhave semen in your blood.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I have no other choice, that's cool.
But I love it.
And well, there was a pointwhere I decided I want to be one
of the experts so that someonelike you invite me to a podcast
and then I can tell about myknowledge, about it and um, well
(10:28):
it's, it grows up, I learnedthat I'm good in it and people
say, oh, you're good, you canexplain us.
Um, also, I, I have a greatchance, um, because there was a
company.
Um, my brother also worked inthe company.
We do this together.
And also it's a great chancebecause in the industry
(10:51):
automation you can earn goodmoney and so you love it, you
earn good money, you like it, sowhy should I do something else?
The only thing it's.
It's a little bit special whenI talk, uh to to the family,
(11:12):
when I want to explain my, mykids or my wife or my friends
what are you doing?
What's this?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
yeah, uh, it just goes like this yeah.
Yeah, that sounds so boring.
Yeah, yeah, I had a guy saythat he saw my hat and it said
process and controls engineeringand his comment was that's so
boring and I was just like, well, maybe to you.
(11:41):
But, for me, it's how I eat.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, that's true, I always try to explain.
There's a Coca-Cola.
Do you know how the Coke comesinto the bottle?
No, it's in the supermarket andI can buy it In the supermarket
.
But there's so much stuffbehind it and this is the thing.
(12:11):
I love it.
It's also so different kinds.
Sometimes you need ascrewdriver when you open a
cabinet control.
Then you need your laptop to dosoftware.
Right now I I work a lot ofindustry, networks, cyber
(12:32):
security.
There are so a lot of stuff.
One thing I I have to tell Iwas invited from from the german
military for the biggest natotraining for cyber security, um
to um to consult the germanmilitary, um for the training,
(12:56):
because in the training scenariothere 1200, which simulates um
energy plant and um my I I haveto secure this and um well to to
protect it for um hacker andhelp them pack it.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Hey, I was so that you can protect it yeah, so that
you can protect it.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Well, the idea that, yeah, yeah, I was a part of the
blue team.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
yeah, can protect it so that you can protect it.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
The idea that you, yeah, yeah, I was part of the
blue team to protect it againstthe red team, and these are
things.
Well, they are so great so Ican tell I was a part of the
biggest NATO cybersecuritytraining and well, this is one
thing, or one other things why I?
(13:46):
I love industry automation.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, so I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's not just a us thing, it's a world thing yeah,
ali, I'm gonna chime in with alittle personal story here.
Um, my dad so I grew up iniceland but my dad's a control,
he's an electrical engineer,he's a controls engineer but has
never worked with like plcs,like siemens and stuff.
He does microcontrollers um,because he started working for
(14:13):
an oem and built the controlsystem for their, their little
machine and and so on.
But at the time that he wasdoing that, back in the late 90s
uh, I guess, or in the 90s,they were starting to do
wireless telemetry andmonitoring weather stations and
monitoring fishing vessels, andso remote monitoring was kind of
(14:34):
starting up at that time.
And so he was able to go Ithink it was EU Fisheries
Commission that was trying toimplement some technology,
standardize something to wherethey could track the boats and
their safety and differentthings like that.
And so my dad got invited to bepart of some EU commission or
(14:54):
some sort of cooperation likethis NATO thing, and he
represented Iceland or maybesome of the telco companies.
He was working with hisemployer, something of that
nature, but that's actually whatgot him in touch with Rakel,
which is a UK company.
Then it ended up hiring him tothe UK and then bringing us to
(15:15):
the US.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Being involved in controls and these multinational
kind of cooperations aroundstandards or things that are
critical in our world.
If you get involved in thosesorts of things, they can lead
to great opportunities and inour case, I don't know that we
would have ever moved to the USif it hadn't been for my dad
(15:37):
being involved in that sort ofsituation.
He's emerging technologies.
He's also an engineer that wasfound to be good at explaining
things to non-engineers which isa huge skill set, I think, to
be able to teach customer facingwhen you also know what's going
on behind the scenes but Ithink it's also a good example
(16:01):
that knowledge opens the door inthe whole world.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, this is also one thing uh I I fight for.
Yeah, uh, also I share myknowledge.
Um, only, of course I I earnmoney with it, yeah, but also,
uh, it's, it's a kind of mission, yeah, so, um, there is a in
(16:25):
germany.
You say, uh, if knowledge is isthe only thing you, you share
and you don't get a half, youdouble it yeah that's a good
saying.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You know, translate it to english is a little I had
to think about that for a second.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
okay, maybe, maybe, then you can later you can give
me the right translation.
Yeah, can you say it in German?
The original?
Yeah, wissen ist das einzige,was sich verdoppelt, wenn du es
teilst.
Ai can translate.
(17:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
We're German-speaking listeners, which I'm sure we
have a few.
We've definitely met quite afew Germans here in the US.
The manufacturing sector is astrong knowledge transfer
mechanism, I guess, between ourgreat nations.
I've worked for two Germancompanies here in the US.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I love so many German companies?
I, I was gonna ask you a spicyquestion and we can like debate,
like taking it out later, butlike no, no, you have to ask
does anyone in germany use alanbradley on purpose?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
uh, yeah, only if they have to but what's an
instance of having to?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
is there such thing?
Oh, maybe like a customer fromoutside of germany wants to
maintain their own style.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Is that the?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
only real reason why yeah, the, the.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
the normal thing is there is an um us company which
comes to germany and in us theyuse uh rockwell automation and
then you have to use it ingermany also and some years
later, uh, somebody goes to thecontrol cabinet, threw, threw it
out and built a back of Siemensor something, a European one.
(18:41):
But the question I like thequestion because I also want to
make the question like this sohow many manufacturers use
Siemens or backhoff in us?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
so very little, but it's growing and I think that
that like that's kind of whatsiemens is very interested in
growing that as much as possible.
Um, in the us they, they knowthat like we have our standard
as Alan Bradley and and Rockwell.
But there are a lot ofcompanies that have been have
(19:21):
got upset, perhaps for differentreasons, maybe licensing, maybe
you know this or that and sothey have converted.
And so I have heard even wecould ask Alicia Lomas, I think
she converted an entire I forgotmaybe it's like a yogurt line,
but like from alan bradley tosiemens in the united states.
(19:43):
So I mean it is a thing andlike as much.
I mean we're, we're big enoughand we have stuff from
everywhere.
So we have japanese plcs, wehave korean plcs I work with,
you know, Korean PLCmanufacturers, so we do have so
much extra like coming in thatlike it is a, it is an open
market and like, even though wedo kind of have, you know, a
(20:07):
winner of that market which isan American manufacturer, and so
they are the strongest in NorthAmerica.
And so they are the strongestin North America.
That doesn't mean that like andthat a lot of companies aren't
moving, but also just machinerythat comes from another place.
If you buy a German machine,unless you pay them really good
(20:28):
to like upgrade to the AlanBradley you want, you may just
take it with the Siemens that'sin there and we do have.
That's the second most commonprogrammer in the U?
S.
I mean, obviously everyone canservice Alan Bradley here, like
our, our engineers.
But a lot of our engineers,maybe like 30%, can service
(20:48):
Siemens.
Okay so, so it's just.
But that's the selling point.
That like hurts Siemens isthere's a lot less people to
service it.
Where you are there's no one toservice Alan Bradley.
So you might be worth some moneyin Germany as an Alan Bradley
person.
But, like, if you know Siemens,that doesn't matter.
But you come here Siemens likecan make you good money because
(21:11):
there's a lot of places that dohave it.
But I've also heard in the pastthat people that are experts at
Rockwell and Allen Bradley whenthey take on Siemens projects,
they usually lose money.
It's traditionally because theydon't have all that experience,
(21:36):
like unless it's someone who'ssuccessfully executed multiple
Siemens projects.
You end up with with peoplelosing money.
And then the other issue thathas always been talked about in
the U S against Siemens is thesupport.
So I bet in in Germany thesupport is really good, but
outside of Germany because thereisn't as many places in the US
(21:59):
to even support that they wouldcall and they just don't get
help.
And so that becomes a verynegative to the customers.
Where you know, when they redidTIA Portal, they went and asked
(22:26):
you know the integrators andthe programmers what do you want
?
What would make you like thismore or make it easier for
whatever?
So they got feedback from theintegrators and from the
programmers and yeah.
So I wish more companies woulddo that, because I don't feel
that.
Yeah, rockwell does that asoften as they could, but at the
(22:48):
same time Rockwell stillcommitted to the success of you
know, it's American partners.
But yeah, there's definitely.
You know they don't want toadmit that, but, like every now
and then, they'll lose a dealand they'll just not a new, a
new, uh, a new plant may not beput in with alan bradley because
and that might be siemens- yeahum, and yeah, even their dcs
(23:10):
pcs7, I've you know yeah even mein the uS like have been
trained on PCS7, so that meanssomething yeah um, even though
I've never executed a project onthat.
So that's my long-winded answerfor that sorry so, so also, it's
uh.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
The answer is uh.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Missing of knowledge, yeah, and also support for the
manufacturing, yeah we actuallyone of our earliest episodes in
season one we talked with aaronprather.
Um, he now works for astminternational, which is a
standards organization forrobotics, but at the time he was
at fedex and he mentioned that,for instance, they executed a
(23:52):
large project.
Um that they had in the us wasall allen badly and in europe
they spec'd all siemens becausethey needed their local
technicians and plant, you know,people to be able to support
the stuff, and here we stillhave uh.
It's harder to find a siemensuh distributor and one that has
(24:14):
a lot of expertise and a lot ofknowledge and a lot of capacity,
as well as just techniciansthat are trained on it.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
So I have to come to US to solve this problem.
Yes, yes, yes, come on over.
I go and ask my wife.
Yeah, ask her if she wants to.
So I don't think so that I willcome to you.
Come on over, but it's quiteinteresting.
(24:44):
So it's a thing of the national.
So in America, allen Bradley,in Europe Siemens, but also
Schneider Electrics, also inAfrica, schneider is very big.
If you go to Asia, especiallyChina, there's Siemens, also
(25:08):
very big business, and of coursethe Japanese Mitsubishi and so
on.
They, they have also a lot ofexperience with their own
controllers and so on.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Siemens makes like plc's just for china that they
don't sell outside of china, butthose machines end up in the us
anyway.
So we either take it out orlike translate the Chinese
symbols inside because it's likean N7 300 or something like we.
We see those randomly.
(25:42):
We're like what is this?
So, yeah, they're not supposedto leave, but they're.
They have a hard time keepingit from leaving.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, and I think to solve this problem, I think
standardization yeah and uh,there's also one thing I want to
talk about you, uh, maybe opcua, yeah.
So uh, I I love opcua becauseit's it doesn't depend which um
(26:12):
vendor you use.
Uh, it works with, I also think, with Rockwell, or.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I don't know Everyone , including Rockwell, Okay
perfect, yeah, and so it does,it does yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Well, and this is one thing I love OPC UA because
it's simple, it works, itdoesn't matter which kind of
controller you use, and I thinkthis is also one thing for the
future.
So every customer I ask how doyou get your information out of
(26:46):
your PLC?
And they say, well, I use this,I program this and I use this.
And they say, no, please useOPC UA.
This is the future.
No, please use OPC UA, this isthe future.
Maybe in the future we go tothe field level where we use the
field bus technology.
Maybe OPC UA TSN in the futurewe have only one field bus for
(27:11):
every controller.
But we will see what the futurewill bring.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Do you have any other future predictions or trends
that you're seeing that youthink are gonna take hold?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
uh, well, um, they're , they are so, or, I think the
the biggest challenge is thatthere are so many challenges, so
that you, that you find peopleto solve the challenges a little
bit and I see it in Germanyespecially, or in Europe, I
(27:43):
think maybe you have the sameproblems to find employees.
It's very, very hard.
Every customer I talk we lookfor for maintenance guys, for
programming guys uh, we do.
You know what a poc is perfecthere, you can start tomorrow.
(28:04):
Yeah, you're hired.
Yeah, yeah, a little bit inthis way, and I think this, this
is, uh, the biggest challenge.
And then, um, you have so manychallenges, you get new.
Now the word is missing.
I skipped a sentence and I willcome later to this but
(28:28):
communication to get data, butto get the right data, because
if you have data and you havemany data, well, you need the
right data.
Also, for the future AI well, wewill see what happens.
Also, to use AI to generatecode it's also a big thing, but
(28:51):
it only works withstandardization and there I, I
know it from siemens, uh, fromthe customers there is no
standardization and then aiwould not be worked.
Yeah, um, the big car, manifestcar manufacturers well, they,
they have a good standardization, um, bmw uh, for example,
(29:15):
they're very good in it and theywork really near together with
Siemens also to develop newfunction for the TIA portal, and
so there are so many things forthe future.
Cyber security is a big thing.
If you look to the wars, um inin the near east, um, the
(29:39):
infrastructure, uh, water supplyin the ukraine, uh, there is a
new kind of war and um, so you,you have to do something in your
cyber security.
Yeah, um well, I, I have uh,but it's a german youtube
channel that I show some hacks,how you hack uh a seven.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
It's, it's so easy, yeah, it's so easy that's not
good, but that's cool but I alsoshow the solutions, yeah okay,
good, there you go, so Iactually was in san francisco a
couple of weeks and I don'twatch TV at home, like we have
Netflix on the TV and apps, butI don't have just regular
television with like commercialsand news.
(30:27):
So I turned on the TV in myhotel room and it was the local
news on and one of the firststories that came up was a
warning from the EPA, which isthe Environmental Protection
Agency here in the US, about astring of recent cyber attacks
on water utilities and byRussian speaking hackers is how
they put it.
So I think they were trying tosay it's the Russians, but we
(30:48):
have no proof, but we know thatthey speak Russian.
I don't know, I don't get intopolitics and of course we can't
you know, but uh, I, that wasjust the local news, um, and it
said this this warning studyfrom the epa says that at least
70 percent of us water utilitiesare unwoefully unprepared for
(31:10):
this kind of thing, and I'm notsure if these hackers are really
if it's warfare in this case orit's just ransoming or whatever
right, but the water, theutilities, are a huge target.
And I think I mean it's kind ofobvious like they're underfunded
, they're outdated, they'recritical.
They're critical to people'shealth and safety and wellness
(31:32):
and industry and everything Like.
If our water supply goes out, Iwould say most of our
manufacturing also goes out.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So does you know almost everything else, but it's
most of the time it's quiteeasy.
Uh, the one question I ask, uh,my customers is uh, do you have
a password on your plc?
And I think over 80% said noand the other 20% yes, but it's
(32:02):
every time the same One, two,three, four Like this.
They didn't use passwordmanagement tools for their OT
infrastructure and it's so easyto solve this problem.
But this is the kind where weare right now and the low fruit
(32:28):
yeah, where we have to start.
Yeah, low-hanging fruit, right.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I just saw a video from our our friend, dave garcia
at icon tech.
Um, he sells some cybersecurity like ot equipment and
he was just mentioning he hadthis conversation with the
customer and he was bringing upthis cyber security features
like, hey, have you looked atthe latest of this switch?
Right, rather than buying thelegacy model of of managed
(32:54):
switch, have you looked at thisone that includes cybersecurity
features?
And his customer said and itwas probably a systems
integrator or something he saidno, my customer doesn't care.
And he said oh, do you guys notdiscuss this?
And he's like, yeah, well, thepassword is password and the
admin is like.
They don't even use it as amanaged switch.
They just rip Like if somethingbreaks, they they replace it.
(33:17):
They're not thinking about it.
When it does come up, theyavoid the issue yeah so I really
don't know how you know, in thescenario of right, it's those
people running the plant day today.
They don't have budget, theydon't have time bringing the
issue to them without animmediate resolution.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Protection that doesn't cost money, probably you
know they're not going to havetime for it, but it's kind of a
situation.
The one thing is time, theother thing is knowledge.
Also, there are so, so many oldwindows versions.
Everybody say never change yourrunning system.
(33:57):
Yeah, don't touch it yeah itworks and, uh well, time, money,
uh, but also the knowledge.
Yeah, this, this is a big thingand, um well, for, for the
knowledge we work on, on asolution we create for the
(34:20):
industry automation, a knowledgeplatform, a training platform,
especially for the industryautomation, is that in.
English too.
Yeah, we created in German andEnglish Cool, and especially for
Siemens and Backoff.
And maybe you know Udemy, thelearning platform.
(34:48):
Yeah, the problem or not theproblem, but on Udemy you get
like on YouTube you get videos,you get PDFs, you get files to
download.
But for Siemens there's onechallenge If you want to train
with TIA portal, you have toinstall it.
You need the license.
For some basic things you canuse trial license, but for other
(35:13):
things there is no triallicense available.
Trial license, but for otherthings there is no trial trial
license available.
And here's the idea that wehave virtual machines with
digital twins to train.
You only need a browser whereyou can use the virtual machine
and to work with with the twin,to train with the twin, and this
(35:35):
is one thing we are right nowto start.
So maybe you also will find thenext month some information by
LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
That's exciting.
Give us up to date.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Because, by the time we air this episode, you might
already have it out.
This episode, uh, you mightalready have it out, um, and so
we can add it to your.
You can update your guestprofile, also on
automationladiesio, with linksto any of this stuff, so
listeners if you're hearing this, um, and it's way past june,
(36:10):
then we may have links in ourshow notes to where you can
actually find this trainingplatform.
Um, if it's not, it's notpublic yet, right?
Do you have a teaser or awebsite?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
where people can sign up like a waiting list or
anything like that.
Yeah, it's uh skillworkio,skill skilled or skill, skill,
skill, like uh to have the skilland work dot io okay, s-k-i-l-l
.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
W-o-r-k dot io skillwork dot io.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Maybe this will solve the solution for the missing
knowledge in the US, for Siemensand maybe for back off.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, okay that captures a little bit.
I would be surprised, though,if aging water utilities would
be running.
Any of them would be running onsiemens or back off, uh, but
you never know.
Uh, I, I don't know what's uh,what's in siemens, yes, back off
.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
No, yeah, siemens, maybe because different skids
again, you never know where theycame, where you're gonna get,
like a skid that came fromgermany, yeah, or just europe,
um, but I, I guess I'm like Iused to work for a, uh, probat
verka.
They do coffee, um, and theyare, they make coffee roasters,
(37:32):
um, and so they have the USversion of it Probat USA and
they just used so many Germancompanies.
That's how I learned about allthe German automation companies
there are and there's so many,and even in the beginning, like
we were using Phoenix Contact aspart of our standard and then I
(37:53):
learned about Wago.
You used the PLcs from them alsonot their plcs okay just
everything else in the panel,like this phoenix contact, and
then you show alan bradley inthere okay, okay um, but the
first time I saw like thosepush-in connectors and I really
loved um that.
You know, those terminal blocksum, those famous terminal blocks
(38:16):
um mer mer electronic yeah um,there's just so many like festo,
um kuka, um yeah, just reallycool companies um that do make
amazing products and all comefrom germany yeah, and in
germany we have a lot of we callit the hidden champions, yeah,
(38:37):
and also in industry automation,balof, sick, sensors.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
There are so many and well, I think they have very,
very good products.
But also, of course, I thinkKeyence is US or Keyence is
Japanese.
Okay, yeah, of course you haveworldwide.
But I think it's for German,it's something special that we
(39:11):
are very good in this.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, and it makes sense as you have been a
powerhouse manufacturer for, foryou know, the I guess the
limited history that I knowmakes sense that you would be on
the forefront of developingproducts for smart manufacturing
because you're using them andthen, of course, you have a lot
of expertise and, and you know,just a huge emphasis always on
(39:36):
engineering, and I think youguys have done a much better job
of emphasizing the value ofmanufacturing as a profession,
as a career, versus the US haskind of played the value of
manufacturing as a profession,as a career, versus the US has
kind of played the manufacturingis for people that aren't smart
enough to go to college.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We wrecked ourselves.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Okay, yeah, and then people go to engineering school
to be engineers, but they don'treally know what all of the
different engineering jobs thatare available are, especially
within manufacturing.
Because, because we I don'tknow why we keep all of our
plants very secret.
Like you said, your friend, hejust buys coca-cola from the
grocery store.
It has no idea how it's made,how the bottles filled, like why
(40:15):
don't we all grow up knowingthat?
I don't, I don't understand,like why this, the how things
are made, is so secret?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
I think it's to give away the secret recipe to show a
bottle being filled and howcool that is well, well, I, I
think, uh, if, uh, if you ask alittle boy, what, what will he
uh be in the future?
Uh, policeman, fireman, fireman, yeah, if I ask my daughter,
(40:47):
then she said something withhorses, yeah, and I also tried
to say industry automation,industry automation.
And they said oh, that's boring, don't tell me about this.
So my six-year-old daughter, onthe other hand, desperately
wants to be an engineer like ali.
(41:08):
Oh, okay, okay, how old is she?
she's six okay, okay, so mydaughter is seven.
I, I, I, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, she could do horse automation though we could
get her hooked up with Vinny,my dad actually my dad worked on
a project to upgrade thecontrol system of a horse
training machine.
That is like a water treadmillfor horses that she gets horses
all day.
She's got to do testing testing.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I also the truth is, though, people should.
I just want to make sure theyknow this is an option, and then
they can choose horses ornursing or whatever they want.
Right, not everybody's going towant to do this, but most
people are not going to want todo it if they have no idea that
it even exists, of course.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Of course I also repair a running machine for
horses.
Where was the Siemens PLCinside?
I also make a little HMI withunicorns to show her.
Look, you can manufactureunicorns in this machine.
But it was enough for her todecide this.
(42:23):
But yeah, well, it's also right.
It's so hidden you didn't seewhat's behind.
And well, another thing is if Ilook to software developers for
(42:44):
other systems, they earn moremoney than a software developer
for PLC systems.
And I think, if you look at thewhole thing because you need
more than to develop softwarefor the PLC, you have to know
(43:05):
the process, you have to knowhow it works, design control
cabinet.
So for me often the questionwhy is there so a pay gap
between?
Yeah, but I have no answer.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think it's the market that's on our side, too,
everyone wants to work forGoogle, apple, all of the, you
know, facebook, the big,whatever, fang, and yeah, like,
we don't pay as much on thisother side.
So, if you can make it as that,the only issue is that it's
(43:49):
volatile, so there's alwayslayoffs, and so you can have
this amazing job and then it'sgone, and then maybe you can get
another one and maybe you can't, whereas right now, automation
you can't not have a job justfor trying, which is, you know,
kind of sad, because we needpeople to be good at what we're
(44:10):
doing, but we don't have thepeople and we can't pay them.
Want to be, uh, working forfacebook or apple or netflix, or
(44:30):
what google?
Um, then, uh, yeah, we, so wehave the same issue.
basically like there's, there'smore lucrative jobs, so how are
we going to get all these peopleto come hang out with us when
there's, technically, you coulddo less work for more money?
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, Okay Like okay, so pay better and you can do
all that, like you know,remotely, you don't need as much
of yields like skills Cause.
To be an effective controlsengineer, you need a lot more
than just being able to programa PLC.
You have to understand whatyou're programming and why and
what it connects to, and thenbeing able to troubleshoot that
(45:03):
and purchasing parts.
You have to understand whatyou're programming and why, and
what it connects to, and thenbeing able to troubleshoot that.
And purchasing parts andfamiliar things.
Once you kind of get hooked onthe glory, you can oftentimes
overlook some of the downsides.
But how do we advertise this orpromote it as an industry that
is attractive over other options?
That's a hard sell from theget-go.
I think that's a hard sell likefrom the get-go, I think,
(45:27):
because, like ali said, and andI think the last like couple of
decades have been veryinteresting because there are
people that grew up that sawthese dream jobs at, let's say,
google.
Right, they started off with thewhole trend of, you know,
giving you lots and lots ofperks because you, they want you
on site all the time.
So they're like well, you don'thave to worry about your
laundry or your dog or your petor your kids or anything else.
We'll take care of it.
(45:47):
You just come and work uh, allyou know, all day long.
Um, there's a certain you knowI, I guess, appeal to that uh
kind of fun work environment and, you know, whatever.
Of course it's like extremepressure too, um, but that's a
whole lot more attractive fromthe outside than showing
somebody a guy like hunched overa bucket for 14 hours in a dark
(46:11):
manufacturing plant thatdoesn't get a ping-pong table or
free drinks or free lunch whilethey're doing it yeah, okay, so
so I I know the the, thepayment is no reason to come to
US.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
It's not better than in.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Europe for a PhD programmer.
I think again, though….
For Siemens, though, you candemand more money.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Maybe I have to talk with Siemens, maybe.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I don't do Alan Bradley.
You guys can get your AlanBradley people wherever you want
, but I can do Siemens likeGerman- can get your Allen
Bradley people wherever you want, but I can do Siemens like
German-style Siemens.
So what do you want?
You want or what, but also inEurope.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
It's also a big difference.
If you work for the processindustry, yeah, if you use a
PCS7, there's a different youearn.
Well, I think of course morePCS is more expensive.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, if you do machine PLC stuff, that's never
going to make as much money asplant controls or PCS, because
it's a higher liability, soeverything is just pay scale up.
Just because everything's ahigher liability, so everything
is just pay scale up.
Just because everything isinsured different.
Everything is just such adifferent money amount that's
(47:30):
lost when mistakes are made,small mistakes, huge mistakes.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
So yeah, but I also program or work with PCS7 15
years ago, but I know it's quiteeasier yeah excuse me.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I said are you even 50 years old right now?
Oh, but.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
But you know.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
I was born in.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Oh my god, that's true.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
His experience started at zero.
Yeah, yeah that's it.
Wait, how many years ofexperience I have to my age you
got me there.
It doesn't say born into it.
She says it's a curse on herbloodline.
But either way, yeah, you kindof started way before most
people, so I have no otherchance.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
yeah, you kind of started way before most people,
so I have no other chance.
Yeah, my father said I have todo this and I do every time what
my parents said yeah, no, justkidding.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Well, but it's.
Did you ever like leave and trysomething else and come back,
or did you stay kind of in thefamily business?
Did you ever leave and trysomething else and come back?
Speaker 3 (48:43):
Or did you stay in the family business?
I studied electronic andautomation and then I worked two
years for two differentcompanies and it was not clear
that I would come back to thecompany of my father.
(49:04):
But there was a time when Iwhen I worked 80 hours a week
and the payment was well, not sogood and I I learned a lot of,
and there I said, okay, well,now I'm ready to go to the
(49:27):
family company.
I saw the automation world andnow I have the experience to do
the family business.
Cool.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
I see that, like a lot of successful people that
work in family business, they'llgo elsewhere first because it
gives you some perspective, itgives you outside experience
yeah, um, yeah, it's less thanit's or, I guess, different than
just kind of staying in thatenvironment and then not making
a choice.
Like you made a choice to goback because you felt like it
(50:04):
was a good fit, and I respectthat.
I think that my dad kicked meout when I graduated from
college.
I worked for him from middleschool to college and then he
said I can't afford you and gofind you know, go get some
experience.
And then we work together nowon this and that, but like I
don't work for him full time,which is which is great, but I
(50:25):
can imagine you went and workedfor some strangers and didn't
you know?
You put in 80 hours of work andyou realized at the end of the
day who was making the money.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
And then you kind of come to realization, like some
of us well, if I'm going to workthat hard, at least it should
be for me or people that I careabout, or you know something
like that, right, uh, because itis hard to be in this industry,
I think, and like work, astraight nine to five, like easy
, um, yeah, if you, if you hadto plant, uh, it's commissioning
(50:56):
time, yeah, you can only gohome when, when the plant is
running, yeah, and there's a lotof pressure, yeah, and then
then, you, you, uh, you chatwith your friends at the weekend
so we go to play, uh, to play,uh, soccer, yeah, um, and well,
I'm in a nice factory.
No, it's not nice, and I haveto finish my work and uh, well,
(51:21):
so, uh, we're not doing a greatjob selling it.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
I'll also say, like so many, but I love the same
thing.
So it's like, why are we justbroken?
Like there is gotta be a way todescribe why we're so fulfilled
even though we're not making,you know, the Facebook money,
even though you can make thefacebook money, but you have to
(51:44):
have your own business, um.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
So yeah, I mean I for me, I think it's something
about the fact that we literallymake the world go around, like
the stuff that we do matters Imean facebook and all that is
cool but like that's differentways of spending our leisure
time, not actually making theworld run.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
The way that everybody… If all we have is
Facebook, we will start a desk.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
Or in automation technology.
If you're an expert, then youcan make the rules.
Then you say no at the weekend.
It didn't work.
That's true.
You picked your way up, yeah,and yeah, I think this is the
key.
Yeah, this, this was also everytime the key, also for me.
Yeah, I'm an expert.
If you want something from me,um, then we make it from my
(52:36):
rules and but.
But to come to this, this isalso hard work.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, because you can demand that, but only after
you've proven something and toprove it.
That's all the work that youhad to put in To get to a point
where they're like, okay, weneed him.
He's the only one.
There isn't anyone else,because we've already tried
(53:02):
other people, because he was notavailable and we failed
miserably.
We need him.
So that's who you want to be.
You want to be that person, butyou also, uh, yeah, a lot of
people, um, overexert themselvesand, uh, you know, deliver.
What is it, um?
If you pull miracles, then thenpeople will start expecting
that as your job.
So so you shouldn't youshouldn't regularly pull
(53:25):
miracles, even though you may begood.
You shouldn't do that, um,unless you know, unless the
people that are requiring thatfrom you are going to give you
more for being able to do that,um, and and to not expect it, or
to expect it, but not from justone person, because you're
going to burn the people out.
So it's like, okay, you canpull a miracle this one time,
(53:50):
but the next one has to be onsomebody else, because we need
to give this person, like, afull recovery of the shit you
just made them do.
Yeah, I don't know, have youever had to pull some miracles?
Speaker 1 (54:05):
you do now.
Sorry, ali, to cut you off, howmuch of what you do now is like
training and supporting otherpeople versus doing things
yourself?
Speaker 3 (54:14):
yeah, uh, so so, uh, we so.
So you mean our company ormyself Yourself.
Okay, so you mean what I do inmy daily business.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Yeah, I guess I'm assuming that your career has
evolved from like doing a lot ofthe work yourself to now you're
creating tools and trainingpeople.
You're the subject matterexpert, right?
So you get that day.
You don't have to work on theweekend or late at night do you?
Still do some actual, you know,programming or something you
know, of that nature for yourcompany, or have you more so
(54:52):
moved into educating or managingor that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
So sometimes I have to do the managing part.
But this is not the part whichI love.
I love the technical part.
I love to create trainings um,I love to try new stuff in
industry automation, to playaround um to create videos for
(55:17):
for youtube channel or also foruh for linkedin um and to to
look what's new at the market.
And uh, well, we are in thetraining business, uh, so we
provide in germany and austriaand switzerland uh, trainings
also.
(55:37):
We do trainings internationaluh for big companies.
Then we do it online, okay, orsometimes we also had a training
for a big steel company inTexas where we put every
equipment together and fly overto US.
We also do this in China.
(55:58):
But this is special and this isbecause we are, well, I think,
one of the company with the bestand deepest experience in
Siemens automation.
Yeah, um depend, sometimes weknow more than Siemens.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
Yeah, because you're you're out there you know more
directly, I guess, touching ityeah, see, yes.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Also, siemens ask us uh, what's what's new?
How can we develop things?
We talk there with siemens and,um, well, I think this this is
the key, that that I don't haveto work at the weekend, but I
also do it because I love it.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
It's pretty hard once you get to this point, I guess,
like we do.
There's so much information tolearn, there's so much stuff to
try.
We have our things we have todo and then things we'd like to
do.
Um, and I I personally have ahard time shutting it off as
well.
There's especially now there'sjust so much development going
(57:12):
on so fast.
I tried for the longest time,like the last three years, to
kind of ignore the ai and this,all this hype kind of stuff, and
focus on, like, what people arereally doing.
But then it's really that gapis really closing faster than
maybe not faster than I expected, but faster than we seen in the
past.
So it's becoming more and moreimportant to stay on top of some
(57:33):
of the new stuff.
So we are coming up on time.
So I'll ask, unless there'ssomething specific that we
didn't talk about, that youwould love to make sure that we
mention.
I would like to hear from you,I guess, where can people follow
you?
You already mentioned likeYouTube, but tell us kind of
what the names of your channelsare, if people can connect with
(57:55):
you or follow you on LinkedInand then your company, where
people can, if there arecompanies here in the us that
need more siemens training fortheir people.
Um can they contact you guys?
Can you do that with themonline, can you?
Obviously you can come here andtrain.
Tell us a little bit more aboutthat so that our us audience
can engage with you if they wantto learn more or follow you or
(58:17):
get trained by you guys, yeah,sure.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
So I already said our new platform Well, I will share
the link, of course I also said, to LinkedIn.
So follow my profile.
And well, our YouTube channeljust put in the search Grollmoos
(58:42):
, then you will find our channel.
The only thing it's in German,but the screencast we do it in
English, but then you have totranslate it with the AI, but
today it's not so big problem.
Well, and if you need trainings, well, in Germany, switzerland
(59:05):
and Austria, there are ouroffices and well, I also said it
, we do it online also inEnglish.
We do it for each Siemens topic, also for back-off topics.
Visit our website.
We also have an English site.
(59:28):
So, growlmoosede and well,there will you find all
information.
Or just send me a message onLinkedIn.
I am every day online atLinkedIn.
I also thank you very much, uh,to you both.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
uh, we also uh get the connection about linkedin,
so this is also a great platform, yeah when I, when I invited
anybody that listens to thispodcast isn't on linkedin and
didn't find us through linkedin,because that's pretty much the
only place we are.
But if you somehow stumbledacross this podcast from
somewhere other than LinkedIn,that's kind of you know where we
(01:00:10):
congregate at the moment.
I've been asking peopleactually one follow up question,
michael aside from LinkedIn, isthere a forum or a website or a
community or anywhere else thatyou find yourself in, your
community or your customers?
Sharing knowledge or makingconnections that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Well, we we decided to go to focus on linkedin.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Um, this is the the place to be okay that that's
what we see as well, thatthere's a few people like
there's a few older forums.
That's something frequent, um.
I know our friend, frank lamb,has a community um website that
he started out of his trainings,but it really seems like the
majority of these discussionsand these connections are being
(01:00:59):
made on linkedin and, yeah,inbox, inbox, michael, for work.
I mean, we, a lot of us, haveactually gotten, you know,
contracts, collaborations,podcasts, the connections you
make on LinkedIn.
So if you're listening to thisand you've been lurking on
LinkedIn and you're not active,I would highly encourage you to
become more active.
You don't have to put out yourown content, just engage with
(01:01:22):
other people.
If there's any particular areaof interest you have, either in
learning or something thatyou're learning, share it.
Um, I think at this point,there's enough of us that really
share that.
Let's share what we know andwhat we're learning mindset that
we can all just add to eachother's uh resources and our
networks.
Um, and we can accomplish moretogether, whether it's across
(01:01:44):
the sea or you know yourneighboring state or, in my case
, like even in the same city.
There's people that I interactwith on linkedin more than I do
in in real life, uh, because Ireally don't want to drive an
hour.
It's really convenient to beable to ping someone and have a
conversation and then a videocall or record a podcast so.
Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
So, now that we've done this phone call for an hour
um do we, can we come hang outat your house in germany?
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
of course, I have also a small pool, but the
weather is.
The weather is not so nice.
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah, yeah we can handle this yeah, yeah, we can
handle this it's, it's, but doyou mean it's quiet?
Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
no, I said we, we will be quiet so we don't make
noise in your house.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,yeah, perfect, so I also have a
garage, oh yeah okay, I meanthat might be so we'll come in
the summer.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Yeah, the closest I've been to where you are is
Darmstadt.
Is that anywhere close?
Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
No, no, this is close .
I think it's a little bit morethan half an hour by car.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Half an hour by car.
Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
That's like to me, me , that's in my neighborhood, yes
, yes, so, so the, so the big,the biggest is to go to hamburg
or to munich, and this uh um tomunich, I think, uh, about four
hours, uh to to hamburg, aboutsix hours, and that's it, so you
(01:03:23):
can reach everything by car.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
I can drive for eight hours and still not leave the
state.
Coming from somewhere likeIceland, which is so small, to
me, that just is.
It's insane.
So we are up on time.
Is there anything, anylast-minute additions anyone
wants to make?
Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Yeah, I just want to say that I wasn't in the frame,
but I was listening to himtalking about how even Siemens
sometimes asks them for help,and so you as a company, like
anyone in the US, wants to builda relationship with the
entirety of, like Bro Moose,because there's no reason you
(01:04:03):
shouldn't do that, and uh, yeah.
So I mean, if you want to be onthe forefront of whatever
Siemens is going to do, theseare your partners for that, and
at the same time, they're alsoyour partners for cybersecurity,
which is the most emergingthing right now.
So really, they've goteverything covered, so you
should hit them up.
(01:04:24):
Um, and if you don't hit themup, like I'm going to hit them
up and uh, yeah, so you can buyit through me They'll be
supported by the experts atGromus underneath.
Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
There you go.
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
That's our skills pitch for the day.
Also, uh, that's our salespitch for the day.
Also, like and follow us onYouTube.
We have a YouTube channel andon LinkedIn, and we hope to have
some more videos coming outlater this year as we increase
the size of our team atAutomation Ladies.
Right now we have zero time forit, so if you see our videos,
they are completely unedited andlive and just on LinkedIn and
(01:05:02):
YouTube, where they got streamed.
Conversations like this have novideo out anywhere yet because
we have no time or expertise invideo editing.
If you do and you hear this andyou want to be part of our team
, hit me up in the DMs onLinkedIn or Nikki at
automationladiesio.
Otherwise, yeah, let's sign offand then, michael, just don't
(01:05:25):
leave the studio just yet, bothof you until your uploads are
complete.
But, thank you, bye-bye.
pre-recorded episode of Automation Ladies.
It is June, but we may actuallyhave this conversation come out
in season four, which should besometime later this year, and
if you're listening to this way,later it's 2024.
But yes, we are getting closeto end of our recording season
(00:20):
here for season three.
We've hit 31 episodes in seasonthree already.
somehow, ali, I had no idea, uhthat's awesome our team is
telling us time to take a break,um, but we love what we do.
We get to talk to so many greatpeople in the industry that
it's very hard to put the breaks, pump the brakes on having
these conversations.
Uh, so I'm very excited totoday kind of hopefully leave
(00:44):
most of the talking again to alium and our wonderful guest
today, michael.
Uh, how do you pronounce yourname?
I should stop doing it becauseI might do it wrong.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Um, we should just ask you on air you pronounce
your name for us yeah, at first,thank you very much that you
invite me to to your podcast.
So, um, and my, my sure name,uh, I pronounce it grolmoose,
yeah, grolmoose, uh, but, but,uh, I, I think it's, it's quite
easy.
(01:13):
So you call me michael and uh,then you don't have to challenge
uh with my sure name yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So I did that with kathy rinny for many years,
thinking I just never said herlast name and then it took me
two years to realize I wassaying it wrong.
So now I try to just confrontthat challenge head on.
Yeah, is it actually Rinney?
It's Rinney.
Both of us were getting itwrong Wow.
Yeah, and.
I also learned not to take mycues on how to say names from
(01:41):
Allie, because I'm in thesubstance too.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, well, I was gonna say Growlmoose, but yeah,
growlmoose okay, but for me,names for me are also a very big
challenge.
So this is also one thingbecause I love industry
automation, because there aredeep in it one and zero and I
(02:06):
don't have to spell any names.
This is one reason because Ilove it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yeah, no room for interpretation.
There it's a universal language, and where are you?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Michael, well, I'm in Germany, quite in the middle of
germany, uh, near frankfurt, um, also a big city in germany,
it's uh mainz, but I think uh,it's not so international like
frankfurt.
So I think, munich, frankfurt,hamburg, uh, these are the
(02:41):
cities.
Well, everybody knows, when youtalk about Germany, or
Nuremberg, the SPS fair, ofcourse, the Hannover fair,
hannover, right, of course.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Is there a lot of manufacturing there?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
An automatic what?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Are you near a lot of manufacturing where you are in
Germany?
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I think we have a lot of manufacturers around us the
nearest pharmacy, böhringer,ingelheim, sanofi, aventus, but
also car manufacturers.
So you have a lot of factories,plants around you in Germany,
(03:33):
because Germany also is a quitesmall country.
So everything is near insteadof uh, so it's it's.
Everything is near, yeah,instead of the us, yeah, it's.
It's a bit, a little bitdifferent, different.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
So you have a short ways yeah yeah, how long does it
take to get to like siemensheadquarters?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
uh, so so to nuremberg.
Uh, I think it's about a littlebit over three hours with the
car.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
And how many times have you been there?
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Sometimes, not so often my brother is there quite
often because they create thetier selection tool for Siemens
and so they have a lot ofmeetings with Siemens.
We are a partner.
But I'm not so often inNuremberg but I visit in
Frankfurt the Siemens office,yeah, the office there, and so I
(04:41):
think every two months I visita Siemens office or a little bit
, a small fair.
So we talk a lot with Siemens,or Siemens come also to us and
we talk about new stuff and soon.
(05:02):
So this is also one of thechallenges that we knew the
newest things which are alreadythere from Siemens and which
will come in the future, so thatwe can say our customers okay,
well, maybe have a look at thispart, go this way, because the
(05:23):
future will come and then youcan use the new function, use
the new benefits.
Last week I have a call with oneof Siemens promoter for the new
S7-1200.
So he explained to me what'snew in the new hardware and I
(05:45):
hope at the end of the year Iwill have one of the new
controllers on my desk.
Nice, because I see it in yourbackground.
There there's a S7.
1200.
, 1500.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
1200.
I was going to ask you do youdo any work with back off?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
yes, also, I'm myself .
I'm not a back off expert, uh,but but we have uh experts for
back off.
Uh, back off isn't grown up.
Uh, poc manufacturer and uh, soyou, I think if you work in
germany with industry automation, then then you have to handle
(06:31):
with back off also in the futureand and kuka, even though now
that's chinese.
Uh kuka uh, interestingquestion.
Kuka crumbs comesKA comes fromthe car manufacturer VW.
Vw built KUKA.
Then KUKA split to an ownfactory, to an own company.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I think four or five years ago, a Chinese holding by
a cooker, and so now it'sChinese.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
But still manufactured in Germany?
Or did they move productionover to China?
Do you know Not that?
You need to be a spokespersonhere.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It depends, it depends which kind.
So I think everyone knowsGerman cars.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
The best cars.
Just kidding, they're very goodcars.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
It depends, yeah, it depends, what you look for.
But there's a big challenge inGermany for the car
manufacturers, also everymanufacturer which needs high
energy, because the energy costsare very high in Germany.
But we also get newmanufacturers from the pharma
(08:02):
industry.
I think Lily, ellie, I thinkit's america yeah yeah, thank
you very much.
Yeah, that's it.
Uh, they built a complete newuh plant factory on a green
field.
So some goes away, some comesnew.
I think it's.
It's every time the same samegame.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, okay well, ali, you know I'm gonna interrupt
you and start by asking ourstandard question, so we can get
this yes, sorry, yes a lot ofour format.
That's okay.
So, michael um, can you tell us, give us an introduction to
yourself and your background andkind of how you came to be in
this industry, what you're doingnow?
because we really like to hearpeople's interesting stories,
(08:47):
because I think when most of usstarted back in the day, there
wasn't and this may have beendifferent in Germany, but at
least here in the US there isn'treally a career path to
controls engineering it kind ofhappens to people at some point
in their careers.
So if you can give us a littlebackstory and introduction to
yourself and then maybe kind ofend up like what your company
does today, what you do, andthen we'll have probably plenty
(09:09):
of questions when the time comes.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Spoiler alert he has a company, Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So the truth is there was no other chance for me
Because my father has hiscompany I was born in and no,
just kidding, I also can dosomething else.
But I was a little child Then Igrew up with technical.
(09:37):
My father loved technical andwe play with the technical.
Uh, when I was a teenager, uh,I, I earn a little bit money to
help in the company, uh, to workwith s7, uh, s5, s5, yeah, yeah
(09:58):
, the the old, old stuff youhave semen in your blood.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I have no other choice, that's cool.
But I love it.
And well, there was a pointwhere I decided I want to be one
of the experts so that someonelike you invite me to a podcast
and then I can tell about myknowledge, about it and um, well
(10:28):
it's, it grows up, I learnedthat I'm good in it and people
say, oh, you're good, you canexplain us.
Um, also, I, I have a greatchance, um, because there was a
company.
Um, my brother also worked inthe company.
We do this together.
And also it's a great chancebecause in the industry
(10:51):
automation you can earn goodmoney and so you love it, you
earn good money, you like it, sowhy should I do something else?
The only thing it's.
It's a little bit special whenI talk, uh to to the family,
(11:12):
when I want to explain my, mykids or my wife or my friends
what are you doing?
What's this?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
yeah, uh, it just goes like this yeah.
Yeah, that sounds so boring.
Yeah, yeah, I had a guy saythat he saw my hat and it said
process and controls engineeringand his comment was that's so
boring and I was just like, well, maybe to you.
(11:41):
But, for me, it's how I eat.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Yeah, that's true, I always try to explain.
There's a Coca-Cola.
Do you know how the Coke comesinto the bottle?
No, it's in the supermarket andI can buy it In the supermarket
.
But there's so much stuffbehind it and this is the thing.
(12:11):
I love it.
It's also so different kinds.
Sometimes you need ascrewdriver when you open a
cabinet control.
Then you need your laptop to dosoftware.
Right now I I work a lot ofindustry, networks, cyber
(12:32):
security.
There are so a lot of stuff.
One thing I I have to tell Iwas invited from from the german
military for the biggest natotraining for cyber security, um
to um to consult the germanmilitary, um for the training,
(12:56):
because in the training scenariothere 1200, which simulates um
energy plant and um my I I haveto secure this and um well to to
protect it for um hacker andhelp them pack it.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Hey, I was so that you can protect it yeah, so that
you can protect it.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Well, the idea that, yeah, yeah, I was a part of the
blue team.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
yeah, can protect it so that you can protect it.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
The idea that you, yeah, yeah, I was part of the
blue team to protect it againstthe red team, and these are
things.
Well, they are so great so Ican tell I was a part of the
biggest NATO cybersecuritytraining and well, this is one
thing, or one other things why I?
(13:46):
I love industry automation.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Yeah, so I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
It's not just a us thing, it's a world thing yeah,
ali, I'm gonna chime in with alittle personal story here.
Um, my dad so I grew up iniceland but my dad's a control,
he's an electrical engineer,he's a controls engineer but has
never worked with like plcs,like siemens and stuff.
He does microcontrollers um,because he started working for
(14:13):
an oem and built the controlsystem for their, their little
machine and and so on.
But at the time that he wasdoing that, back in the late 90s
uh, I guess, or in the 90s,they were starting to do
wireless telemetry andmonitoring weather stations and
monitoring fishing vessels, andso remote monitoring was kind of
(14:34):
starting up at that time.
And so he was able to go Ithink it was EU Fisheries
Commission that was trying toimplement some technology,
standardize something to wherethey could track the boats and
their safety and differentthings like that.
And so my dad got invited to bepart of some EU commission or
(14:54):
some sort of cooperation likethis NATO thing, and he
represented Iceland or maybesome of the telco companies.
He was working with hisemployer, something of that
nature, but that's actually whatgot him in touch with Rakel,
which is a UK company.
Then it ended up hiring him tothe UK and then bringing us to
(15:15):
the US.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Being involved in controls and these multinational
kind of cooperations aroundstandards or things that are
critical in our world.
If you get involved in thosesorts of things, they can lead
to great opportunities and inour case, I don't know that we
would have ever moved to the USif it hadn't been for my dad
(15:37):
being involved in that sort ofsituation.
He's emerging technologies.
He's also an engineer that wasfound to be good at explaining
things to non-engineers which isa huge skill set, I think, to
be able to teach customer facingwhen you also know what's going
on behind the scenes but Ithink it's also a good example
(16:01):
that knowledge opens the door inthe whole world.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, this is also one thing uh I I fight for.
Yeah, uh, also I share myknowledge.
Um, only, of course I I earnmoney with it, yeah, but also,
uh, it's, it's a kind of mission, yeah, so, um, there is a in
(16:25):
germany.
You say, uh, if knowledge is isthe only thing you, you share
and you don't get a half, youdouble it yeah that's a good
saying.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
You know, translate it to english is a little I had
to think about that for a second.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
okay, maybe, maybe, then you can later you can give
me the right translation.
Yeah, can you say it in German?
The original?
Yeah, wissen ist das einzige,was sich verdoppelt, wenn du es
teilst.
Ai can translate.
(17:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
We're German-speaking listeners, which I'm sure we
have a few.
We've definitely met quite afew Germans here in the US.
The manufacturing sector is astrong knowledge transfer
mechanism, I guess, between ourgreat nations.
I've worked for two Germancompanies here in the US.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I love so many German companies?
I, I was gonna ask you a spicyquestion and we can like debate,
like taking it out later, butlike no, no, you have to ask
does anyone in germany use alanbradley on purpose?
Speaker 3 (17:54):
uh, yeah, only if they have to but what's an
instance of having to?
Speaker 2 (18:02):
is there such thing?
Oh, maybe like a customer fromoutside of germany wants to
maintain their own style.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Is that the?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
only real reason why yeah, the, the.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
the normal thing is there is an um us company which
comes to germany and in us theyuse uh rockwell automation and
then you have to use it ingermany also and some years
later, uh, somebody goes to thecontrol cabinet, threw, threw it
out and built a back of Siemensor something, a European one.
(18:41):
But the question I like thequestion because I also want to
make the question like this sohow many manufacturers use
Siemens or backhoff in us?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
so very little, but it's growing and I think that
that like that's kind of whatsiemens is very interested in
growing that as much as possible.
Um, in the us they, they knowthat like we have our standard
as Alan Bradley and and Rockwell.
But there are a lot ofcompanies that have been have
(19:21):
got upset, perhaps for differentreasons, maybe licensing, maybe
you know this or that and sothey have converted.
And so I have heard even wecould ask Alicia Lomas, I think
she converted an entire I forgotmaybe it's like a yogurt line,
but like from alan bradley tosiemens in the united states.
(19:43):
So I mean it is a thing andlike as much.
I mean we're, we're big enoughand we have stuff from
everywhere.
So we have japanese plcs, wehave korean plcs I work with,
you know, Korean PLCmanufacturers, so we do have so
much extra like coming in thatlike it is a, it is an open
market and like, even though wedo kind of have, you know, a
(20:07):
winner of that market which isan American manufacturer, and so
they are the strongest in NorthAmerica.
And so they are the strongestin North America.
That doesn't mean that like andthat a lot of companies aren't
moving, but also just machinerythat comes from another place.
If you buy a German machine,unless you pay them really good
(20:28):
to like upgrade to the AlanBradley you want, you may just
take it with the Siemens that'sin there and we do have.
That's the second most commonprogrammer in the U?
S.
I mean, obviously everyone canservice Alan Bradley here, like
our, our engineers.
But a lot of our engineers,maybe like 30%, can service
(20:48):
Siemens.
Okay so, so it's just.
But that's the selling point.
That like hurts Siemens isthere's a lot less people to
service it.
Where you are there's no one toservice Alan Bradley.
So you might be worth some moneyin Germany as an Alan Bradley
person.
But, like, if you know Siemens,that doesn't matter.
But you come here Siemens likecan make you good money because
(21:11):
there's a lot of places that dohave it.
But I've also heard in the pastthat people that are experts at
Rockwell and Allen Bradley whenthey take on Siemens projects,
they usually lose money.
It's traditionally because theydon't have all that experience,
(21:36):
like unless it's someone who'ssuccessfully executed multiple
Siemens projects.
You end up with with peoplelosing money.
And then the other issue thathas always been talked about in
the U S against Siemens is thesupport.
So I bet in in Germany thesupport is really good, but
outside of Germany because thereisn't as many places in the US
(21:59):
to even support that they wouldcall and they just don't get
help.
And so that becomes a verynegative to the customers.
Where you know, when they redidTIA Portal, they went and asked
(22:26):
you know the integrators andthe programmers what do you want
?
What would make you like thismore or make it easier for
whatever?
So they got feedback from theintegrators and from the
programmers and yeah.
So I wish more companies woulddo that, because I don't feel
that.
Yeah, rockwell does that asoften as they could, but at the
(22:48):
same time Rockwell stillcommitted to the success of you
know, it's American partners.
But yeah, there's definitely.
You know they don't want toadmit that, but, like every now
and then, they'll lose a dealand they'll just not a new, a
new, uh, a new plant may not beput in with alan bradley because
and that might be siemens- yeahum, and yeah, even their dcs
(23:10):
pcs7, I've you know yeah even mein the uS like have been
trained on PCS7, so that meanssomething yeah um, even though
I've never executed a project onthat.
So that's my long-winded answerfor that sorry so, so also, it's
uh.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
The answer is uh.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
Missing of knowledge, yeah, and also support for the
manufacturing, yeah we actuallyone of our earliest episodes in
season one we talked with aaronprather.
Um, he now works for astminternational, which is a
standards organization forrobotics, but at the time he was
at fedex and he mentioned that,for instance, they executed a
(23:52):
large project.
Um that they had in the us wasall allen badly and in europe
they spec'd all siemens becausethey needed their local
technicians and plant, you know,people to be able to support
the stuff, and here we stillhave uh.
It's harder to find a siemensuh distributor and one that has
(24:14):
a lot of expertise and a lot ofknowledge and a lot of capacity,
as well as just techniciansthat are trained on it.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
So I have to come to US to solve this problem.
Yes, yes, yes, come on over.
I go and ask my wife.
Yeah, ask her if she wants to.
So I don't think so that I willcome to you.
Come on over, but it's quiteinteresting.
(24:44):
So it's a thing of the national.
So in America, allen Bradley,in Europe Siemens, but also
Schneider Electrics, also inAfrica, schneider is very big.
If you go to Asia, especiallyChina, there's Siemens, also
(25:08):
very big business, and of coursethe Japanese Mitsubishi and so
on.
They, they have also a lot ofexperience with their own
controllers and so on.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Siemens makes like plc's just for china that they
don't sell outside of china, butthose machines end up in the us
anyway.
So we either take it out orlike translate the Chinese
symbols inside because it's likean N7 300 or something like we.
We see those randomly.
(25:42):
We're like what is this?
So, yeah, they're not supposedto leave, but they're.
They have a hard time keepingit from leaving.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Yeah, and I think to solve this problem, I think
standardization yeah and uh,there's also one thing I want to
talk about you, uh, maybe opcua, yeah.
So uh, I I love opcua becauseit's it doesn't depend which um
(26:12):
vendor you use.
Uh, it works with, I also think, with Rockwell, or.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I don't know Everyone , including Rockwell, Okay
perfect, yeah, and so it does,it does yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Well, and this is one thing I love OPC UA because
it's simple, it works, itdoesn't matter which kind of
controller you use, and I thinkthis is also one thing for the
future.
So every customer I ask how doyou get your information out of
(26:46):
your PLC?
And they say, well, I use this,I program this and I use this.
And they say, no, please useOPC UA.
This is the future.
No, please use OPC UA, this isthe future.
Maybe in the future we go tothe field level where we use the
field bus technology.
Maybe OPC UA TSN in the futurewe have only one field bus for
(27:11):
every controller.
But we will see what the futurewill bring.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Do you have any other future predictions or trends
that you're seeing that youthink are gonna take hold?
Speaker 3 (27:21):
uh, well, um, they're , they are so, or, I think the
the biggest challenge is thatthere are so many challenges, so
that you, that you find peopleto solve the challenges a little
bit and I see it in Germanyespecially, or in Europe, I
(27:43):
think maybe you have the sameproblems to find employees.
It's very, very hard.
Every customer I talk we lookfor for maintenance guys, for
programming guys uh, we do.
You know what a poc is perfecthere, you can start tomorrow.
(28:04):
Yeah, you're hired.
Yeah, yeah, a little bit inthis way, and I think this, this
is, uh, the biggest challenge.
And then, um, you have so manychallenges, you get new.
Now the word is missing.
I skipped a sentence and I willcome later to this but
(28:28):
communication to get data, butto get the right data, because
if you have data and you havemany data, well, you need the
right data.
Also, for the future AI well, wewill see what happens.
Also, to use AI to generatecode it's also a big thing, but
(28:51):
it only works withstandardization and there I, I
know it from siemens, uh, fromthe customers there is no
standardization and then aiwould not be worked.
Yeah, um, the big car, manifestcar manufacturers well, they,
they have a good standardization, um, bmw uh, for example,
(29:15):
they're very good in it and theywork really near together with
Siemens also to develop newfunction for the TIA portal, and
so there are so many things forthe future.
Cyber security is a big thing.
If you look to the wars, um inin the near east, um, the
(29:39):
infrastructure, uh, water supplyin the ukraine, uh, there is a
new kind of war and um, so you,you have to do something in your
cyber security.
Yeah, um well, I, I have uh,but it's a german youtube
channel that I show some hacks,how you hack uh a seven.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
It's, it's so easy, yeah, it's so easy that's not
good, but that's cool but I alsoshow the solutions, yeah okay,
good, there you go, so Iactually was in san francisco a
couple of weeks and I don'twatch TV at home, like we have
Netflix on the TV and apps, butI don't have just regular
television with like commercialsand news.
(30:27):
So I turned on the TV in myhotel room and it was the local
news on and one of the firststories that came up was a
warning from the EPA, which isthe Environmental Protection
Agency here in the US, about astring of recent cyber attacks
on water utilities and byRussian speaking hackers is how
they put it.
So I think they were trying tosay it's the Russians, but we
(30:48):
have no proof, but we know thatthey speak Russian.
I don't know, I don't get intopolitics and of course we can't
you know, but uh, I, that wasjust the local news, um, and it
said this this warning studyfrom the epa says that at least
70 percent of us water utilitiesare unwoefully unprepared for
(31:10):
this kind of thing, and I'm notsure if these hackers are really
if it's warfare in this case orit's just ransoming or whatever
right, but the water, theutilities, are a huge target.
And I think I mean it's kind ofobvious like they're underfunded
, they're outdated, they'recritical.
They're critical to people'shealth and safety and wellness
(31:32):
and industry and everything Like.
If our water supply goes out, Iwould say most of our
manufacturing also goes out.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
So does you know almost everything else, but it's
most of the time it's quiteeasy.
Uh, the one question I ask, uh,my customers is uh, do you have
a password on your plc?
And I think over 80% said noand the other 20% yes, but it's
(32:02):
every time the same One, two,three, four Like this.
They didn't use passwordmanagement tools for their OT
infrastructure and it's so easyto solve this problem.
But this is the kind where weare right now and the low fruit
(32:28):
yeah, where we have to start.
Yeah, low-hanging fruit, right.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
I just saw a video from our our friend, dave garcia
at icon tech.
Um, he sells some cybersecurity like ot equipment and
he was just mentioning he hadthis conversation with the
customer and he was bringing upthis cyber security features
like, hey, have you looked atthe latest of this switch?
Right, rather than buying thelegacy model of of managed
(32:54):
switch, have you looked at thisone that includes cybersecurity
features?
And his customer said and itwas probably a systems
integrator or something he saidno, my customer doesn't care.
And he said oh, do you guys notdiscuss this?
And he's like, yeah, well, thepassword is password and the
admin is like.
They don't even use it as amanaged switch.
They just rip Like if somethingbreaks, they they replace it.
(33:17):
They're not thinking about it.
When it does come up, theyavoid the issue yeah so I really
don't know how you know, in thescenario of right, it's those
people running the plant day today.
They don't have budget, theydon't have time bringing the
issue to them without animmediate resolution.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Protection that doesn't cost money, probably you
know they're not going to havetime for it, but it's kind of a
situation.
The one thing is time, theother thing is knowledge.
Also, there are so, so many oldwindows versions.
Everybody say never change yourrunning system.
(33:57):
Yeah, don't touch it yeah itworks and, uh well, time, money,
uh, but also the knowledge.
Yeah, this, this is a big thingand, um well, for, for the
knowledge we work on, on asolution we create for the
(34:20):
industry automation, a knowledgeplatform, a training platform,
especially for the industryautomation, is that in.
English too.
Yeah, we created in German andEnglish Cool, and especially for
Siemens and Backoff.
And maybe you know Udemy, thelearning platform.
(34:48):
Yeah, the problem or not theproblem, but on Udemy you get
like on YouTube you get videos,you get PDFs, you get files to
download.
But for Siemens there's onechallenge If you want to train
with TIA portal, you have toinstall it.
You need the license.
For some basic things you canuse trial license, but for other
(35:13):
things there is no triallicense available.
Trial license, but for otherthings there is no trial trial
license available.
And here's the idea that wehave virtual machines with
digital twins to train.
You only need a browser whereyou can use the virtual machine
and to work with with the twin,to train with the twin, and this
(35:35):
is one thing we are right nowto start.
So maybe you also will find thenext month some information by
LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
That's exciting.
Give us up to date.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Because, by the time we air this episode, you might
already have it out.
This episode, uh, you mightalready have it out, um, and so
we can add it to your.
You can update your guestprofile, also on
automationladiesio, with linksto any of this stuff, so
listeners if you're hearing this, um, and it's way past june,
(36:10):
then we may have links in ourshow notes to where you can
actually find this trainingplatform.
Um, if it's not, it's notpublic yet, right?
Do you have a teaser or awebsite?
Speaker 3 (36:19):
where people can sign up like a waiting list or
anything like that.
Yeah, it's uh skillworkio,skill skilled or skill, skill,
skill, like uh to have the skilland work dot io okay, s-k-i-l-l
.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
W-o-r-k dot io skillwork dot io.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Maybe this will solve the solution for the missing
knowledge in the US, for Siemensand maybe for back off.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Yeah, okay that captures a little bit.
I would be surprised, though,if aging water utilities would
be running.
Any of them would be running onsiemens or back off, uh, but
you never know.
Uh, I, I don't know what's uh,what's in siemens, yes, back off
.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
No, yeah, siemens, maybe because different skids
again, you never know where theycame, where you're gonna get,
like a skid that came fromgermany, yeah, or just europe,
um, but I, I guess I'm like Iused to work for a, uh, probat
verka.
They do coffee, um, and theyare, they make coffee roasters,
(37:32):
um, and so they have the USversion of it Probat USA and
they just used so many Germancompanies.
That's how I learned about allthe German automation companies
there are and there's so many,and even in the beginning, like
we were using Phoenix Contact aspart of our standard and then I
(37:53):
learned about Wago.
You used the PLcs from them alsonot their plcs okay just
everything else in the panel,like this phoenix contact, and
then you show alan bradley inthere okay, okay um, but the
first time I saw like thosepush-in connectors and I really
loved um that.
You know, those terminal blocksum, those famous terminal blocks
(38:16):
um mer mer electronic yeah um,there's just so many like festo,
um kuka, um yeah, just reallycool companies um that do make
amazing products and all comefrom germany yeah, and in
germany we have a lot of we callit the hidden champions, yeah,
(38:37):
and also in industry automation,balof, sick, sensors.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
There are so many and well, I think they have very,
very good products.
But also, of course, I thinkKeyence is US or Keyence is
Japanese.
Okay, yeah, of course you haveworldwide.
But I think it's for German,it's something special that we
(39:11):
are very good in this.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, and it makes sense as you have been a
powerhouse manufacturer for, foryou know, the I guess the
limited history that I knowmakes sense that you would be on
the forefront of developingproducts for smart manufacturing
because you're using them andthen, of course, you have a lot
of expertise and, and you know,just a huge emphasis always on
(39:36):
engineering, and I think youguys have done a much better job
of emphasizing the value ofmanufacturing as a profession,
as a career, versus the US haskind of played the value of
manufacturing as a profession,as a career, versus the US has
kind of played the manufacturingis for people that aren't smart
enough to go to college.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We wrecked ourselves.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Okay, yeah, and then people go to engineering school
to be engineers, but they don'treally know what all of the
different engineering jobs thatare available are, especially
within manufacturing.
Because, because we I don'tknow why we keep all of our
plants very secret.
Like you said, your friend, hejust buys coca-cola from the
grocery store.
It has no idea how it's made,how the bottles filled, like why
(40:15):
don't we all grow up knowingthat?
I don't, I don't understand,like why this, the how things
are made, is so secret?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
I think it's to give away the secret recipe to show a
bottle being filled and howcool that is well, well, I, I
think, uh, if, uh, if you ask alittle boy, what, what will he
uh be in the future?
Uh, policeman, fireman, fireman, yeah, if I ask my daughter,
(40:47):
then she said something withhorses, yeah, and I also tried
to say industry automation,industry automation.
And they said oh, that's boring, don't tell me about this.
So my six-year-old daughter, onthe other hand, desperately
wants to be an engineer like ali.
(41:08):
Oh, okay, okay, how old is she?
she's six okay, okay, so mydaughter is seven.
I, I, I, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, she could do horse automation though we could
get her hooked up with Vinny,my dad actually my dad worked on
a project to upgrade thecontrol system of a horse
training machine.
That is like a water treadmillfor horses that she gets horses
all day.
She's got to do testing testing.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
I also the truth is, though, people should.
I just want to make sure theyknow this is an option, and then
they can choose horses ornursing or whatever they want.
Right, not everybody's going towant to do this, but most
people are not going to want todo it if they have no idea that
it even exists, of course.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Of course I also repair a running machine for
horses.
Where was the Siemens PLCinside?
I also make a little HMI withunicorns to show her.
Look, you can manufactureunicorns in this machine.
But it was enough for her todecide this.
(42:23):
But yeah, well, it's also right.
It's so hidden you didn't seewhat's behind.
And well, another thing is if Ilook to software developers for
(42:44):
other systems, they earn moremoney than a software developer
for PLC systems.
And I think, if you look at thewhole thing because you need
more than to develop softwarefor the PLC, you have to know
(43:05):
the process, you have to knowhow it works, design control
cabinet.
So for me often the questionwhy is there so a pay gap
between?
Yeah, but I have no answer.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
I think it's the market that's on our side, too,
everyone wants to work forGoogle, apple, all of the, you
know, facebook, the big,whatever, fang, and yeah, like,
we don't pay as much on thisother side.
So, if you can make it as that,the only issue is that it's
(43:49):
volatile, so there's alwayslayoffs, and so you can have
this amazing job and then it'sgone, and then maybe you can get
another one and maybe you can't, whereas right now, automation
you can't not have a job justfor trying, which is, you know,
kind of sad, because we needpeople to be good at what we're
(44:10):
doing, but we don't have thepeople and we can't pay them.
Want to be, uh, working forfacebook or apple or netflix, or
(44:30):
what google?
Um, then, uh, yeah, we, so wehave the same issue.
basically like there's, there'smore lucrative jobs, so how are
we going to get all these peopleto come hang out with us when
there's, technically, you coulddo less work for more money?
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, Okay Like okay, so pay better and you can do
all that, like you know,remotely, you don't need as much
of yields like skills Cause.
To be an effective controlsengineer, you need a lot more
than just being able to programa PLC.
You have to understand whatyou're programming and why and
what it connects to, and thenbeing able to troubleshoot that
(45:03):
and purchasing parts.
You have to understand whatyou're programming and why, and
what it connects to, and thenbeing able to troubleshoot that.
And purchasing parts andfamiliar things.
Once you kind of get hooked onthe glory, you can oftentimes
overlook some of the downsides.
But how do we advertise this orpromote it as an industry that
is attractive over other options?
That's a hard sell from theget-go.
I think that's a hard sell likefrom the get-go, I think,
(45:27):
because, like ali said, and andI think the last like couple of
decades have been veryinteresting because there are
people that grew up that sawthese dream jobs at, let's say,
google.
Right, they started off with thewhole trend of, you know,
giving you lots and lots ofperks because you, they want you
on site all the time.
So they're like well, you don'thave to worry about your
laundry or your dog or your petor your kids or anything else.
We'll take care of it.
(45:47):
You just come and work uh, allyou know, all day long.
Um, there's a certain you knowI, I guess, appeal to that uh
kind of fun work environment and, you know, whatever.
Of course it's like extremepressure too, um, but that's a
whole lot more attractive fromthe outside than showing
somebody a guy like hunched overa bucket for 14 hours in a dark
(46:11):
manufacturing plant thatdoesn't get a ping-pong table or
free drinks or free lunch whilethey're doing it yeah, okay, so
so I I know the the, thepayment is no reason to come to
US.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
It's not better than in.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Europe for a PhD programmer.
I think again, though….
For Siemens, though, you candemand more money.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Maybe I have to talk with Siemens, maybe.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I don't do Alan Bradley.
You guys can get your AlanBradley people wherever you want
, but I can do Siemens likeGerman- can get your Allen
Bradley people wherever you want, but I can do Siemens like
German-style Siemens.
So what do you want?
You want or what, but also inEurope.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
It's also a big difference.
If you work for the processindustry, yeah, if you use a
PCS7, there's a different youearn.
Well, I think of course morePCS is more expensive.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Yeah, if you do machine PLC stuff, that's never
going to make as much money asplant controls or PCS, because
it's a higher liability, soeverything is just pay scale up.
Just because everything's ahigher liability, so everything
is just pay scale up.
Just because everything isinsured different.
Everything is just such adifferent money amount that's
(47:30):
lost when mistakes are made,small mistakes, huge mistakes.
Speaker 3 (47:34):
So yeah, but I also program or work with PCS7 15
years ago, but I know it's quiteeasier yeah excuse me.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
I said are you even 50 years old right now?
Oh, but.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
But you know.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
I was born in.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Oh my god, that's true.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
His experience started at zero.
Yeah, yeah that's it.
Wait, how many years ofexperience I have to my age you
got me there.
It doesn't say born into it.
She says it's a curse on herbloodline.
But either way, yeah, you kindof started way before most
people, so I have no otherchance.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
yeah, you kind of started way before most people,
so I have no other chance.
Yeah, my father said I have todo this and I do every time what
my parents said yeah, no, justkidding.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Well, but it's.
Did you ever like leave and trysomething else and come back,
or did you stay kind of in thefamily business?
Did you ever leave and trysomething else and come back?
Speaker 3 (48:43):
Or did you stay in the family business?
I studied electronic andautomation and then I worked two
years for two differentcompanies and it was not clear
that I would come back to thecompany of my father.
(49:04):
But there was a time when Iwhen I worked 80 hours a week
and the payment was well, not sogood and I I learned a lot of,
and there I said, okay, well,now I'm ready to go to the
(49:27):
family company.
I saw the automation world andnow I have the experience to do
the family business.
Cool.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
I see that, like a lot of successful people that
work in family business, they'llgo elsewhere first because it
gives you some perspective, itgives you outside experience
yeah, um, yeah, it's less thanit's or, I guess, different than
just kind of staying in thatenvironment and then not making
a choice.
Like you made a choice to goback because you felt like it
(50:04):
was a good fit, and I respectthat.
I think that my dad kicked meout when I graduated from
college.
I worked for him from middleschool to college and then he
said I can't afford you and gofind you know, go get some
experience.
And then we work together nowon this and that, but like I
don't work for him full time,which is which is great, but I
(50:25):
can imagine you went and workedfor some strangers and didn't
you know?
You put in 80 hours of work andyou realized at the end of the
day who was making the money.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
And then you kind of come to realization, like some
of us well, if I'm going to workthat hard, at least it should
be for me or people that I careabout, or you know something
like that, right, uh, because itis hard to be in this industry,
I think, and like work, astraight nine to five, like easy
, um, yeah, if you, if you hadto plant, uh, it's commissioning
(50:56):
time, yeah, you can only gohome when, when the plant is
running, yeah, and there's a lotof pressure, yeah, and then
then, you, you, uh, you chatwith your friends at the weekend
so we go to play, uh, to play,uh, soccer, yeah, um, and well,
I'm in a nice factory.
No, it's not nice, and I haveto finish my work and uh, well,
(51:21):
so, uh, we're not doing a greatjob selling it.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
I'll also say, like so many, but I love the same
thing.
So it's like, why are we justbroken?
Like there is gotta be a way todescribe why we're so fulfilled
even though we're not making,you know, the Facebook money,
even though you can make thefacebook money, but you have to
(51:44):
have your own business, um.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
So yeah, I mean I for me, I think it's something
about the fact that we literallymake the world go around, like
the stuff that we do matters Imean facebook and all that is
cool but like that's differentways of spending our leisure
time, not actually making theworld run.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
The way that everybody… If all we have is
Facebook, we will start a desk.
Speaker 3 (52:13):
Or in automation technology.
If you're an expert, then youcan make the rules.
Then you say no at the weekend.
It didn't work.
That's true.
You picked your way up, yeah,and yeah, I think this is the
key.
Yeah, this, this was also everytime the key, also for me.
Yeah, I'm an expert.
If you want something from me,um, then we make it from my
(52:36):
rules and but.
But to come to this, this isalso hard work.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, because you can demand that, but only after
you've proven something and toprove it.
That's all the work that youhad to put in To get to a point
where they're like, okay, weneed him.
He's the only one.
There isn't anyone else,because we've already tried
(53:02):
other people, because he was notavailable and we failed
miserably.
We need him.
So that's who you want to be.
You want to be that person, butyou also, uh, yeah, a lot of
people, um, overexert themselvesand, uh, you know, deliver.
What is it, um?
If you pull miracles, then thenpeople will start expecting
that as your job.
So so you shouldn't youshouldn't regularly pull
(53:25):
miracles, even though you may begood.
You shouldn't do that, um,unless you know, unless the
people that are requiring thatfrom you are going to give you
more for being able to do that,um, and and to not expect it, or
to expect it, but not from justone person, because you're
going to burn the people out.
So it's like, okay, you canpull a miracle this one time,
(53:50):
but the next one has to be onsomebody else, because we need
to give this person, like, afull recovery of the shit you
just made them do.
Yeah, I don't know, have youever had to pull some miracles?
Speaker 1 (54:05):
you do now.
Sorry, ali, to cut you off, howmuch of what you do now is like
training and supporting otherpeople versus doing things
yourself?
Speaker 3 (54:14):
yeah, uh, so so, uh, we so.
So you mean our company ormyself Yourself.
Okay, so you mean what I do inmy daily business.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Yeah, I guess I'm assuming that your career has
evolved from like doing a lot ofthe work yourself to now you're
creating tools and trainingpeople.
You're the subject matterexpert, right?
So you get that day.
You don't have to work on theweekend or late at night do you?
Still do some actual, you know,programming or something you
know, of that nature for yourcompany, or have you more so
(54:52):
moved into educating or managingor that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
So sometimes I have to do the managing part.
But this is not the part whichI love.
I love the technical part.
I love to create trainings um,I love to try new stuff in
industry automation, to playaround um to create videos for
(55:17):
for youtube channel or also foruh for linkedin um and to to
look what's new at the market.
And uh, well, we are in thetraining business, uh, so we
provide in germany and austriaand switzerland uh, trainings
also.
(55:37):
We do trainings internationaluh for big companies.
Then we do it online, okay, orsometimes we also had a training
for a big steel company inTexas where we put every
equipment together and fly overto US.
We also do this in China.
(55:58):
But this is special and this isbecause we are, well, I think,
one of the company with the bestand deepest experience in
Siemens automation.
Yeah, um depend, sometimes weknow more than Siemens.
Speaker 1 (56:22):
Yeah, because you're you're out there you know more
directly, I guess, touching ityeah, see, yes.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Also, siemens ask us uh, what's what's new?
How can we develop things?
We talk there with siemens and,um, well, I think this this is
the key, that that I don't haveto work at the weekend, but I
also do it because I love it.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
It's pretty hard once you get to this point, I guess,
like we do.
There's so much information tolearn, there's so much stuff to
try.
We have our things we have todo and then things we'd like to
do.
Um, and I I personally have ahard time shutting it off as
well.
There's especially now there'sjust so much development going
(57:12):
on so fast.
I tried for the longest time,like the last three years, to
kind of ignore the ai and this,all this hype kind of stuff, and
focus on, like, what people arereally doing.
But then it's really that gapis really closing faster than
maybe not faster than I expected, but faster than we seen in the
past.
So it's becoming more and moreimportant to stay on top of some
(57:33):
of the new stuff.
So we are coming up on time.
So I'll ask, unless there'ssomething specific that we
didn't talk about, that youwould love to make sure that we
mention.
I would like to hear from you,I guess, where can people follow
you?
You already mentioned likeYouTube, but tell us kind of
what the names of your channelsare, if people can connect with
(57:55):
you or follow you on LinkedInand then your company, where
people can, if there arecompanies here in the us that
need more siemens training fortheir people.
Um can they contact you guys?
Can you do that with themonline, can you?
Obviously you can come here andtrain.
Tell us a little bit more aboutthat so that our us audience
can engage with you if they wantto learn more or follow you or
(58:17):
get trained by you guys, yeah,sure.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
So I already said our new platform Well, I will share
the link, of course I also said, to LinkedIn.
So follow my profile.
And well, our YouTube channeljust put in the search Grollmoos
(58:42):
, then you will find our channel.
The only thing it's in German,but the screencast we do it in
English, but then you have totranslate it with the AI, but
today it's not so big problem.
Well, and if you need trainings, well, in Germany, switzerland
(59:05):
and Austria, there are ouroffices and well, I also said it
, we do it online also inEnglish.
We do it for each Siemens topic, also for back-off topics.
Visit our website.
We also have an English site.
(59:28):
So, growlmoosede and well,there will you find all
information.
Or just send me a message onLinkedIn.
I am every day online atLinkedIn.
I also thank you very much, uh,to you both.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
uh, we also uh get the connection about linkedin,
so this is also a great platform, yeah when I, when I invited
anybody that listens to thispodcast isn't on linkedin and
didn't find us through linkedin,because that's pretty much the
only place we are.
But if you somehow stumbledacross this podcast from
somewhere other than LinkedIn,that's kind of you know where we
(01:00:10):
congregate at the moment.
I've been asking peopleactually one follow up question,
michael aside from LinkedIn, isthere a forum or a website or a
community or anywhere else thatyou find yourself in, your
community or your customers?
Sharing knowledge or makingconnections that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Well, we we decided to go to focus on linkedin.
Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Um, this is the the place to be okay that that's
what we see as well, thatthere's a few people like
there's a few older forums.
That's something frequent, um.
I know our friend, frank lamb,has a community um website that
he started out of his trainings,but it really seems like the
majority of these discussionsand these connections are being
(01:00:59):
made on linkedin and, yeah,inbox, inbox, michael, for work.
I mean, we, a lot of us, haveactually gotten, you know,
contracts, collaborations,podcasts, the connections you
make on LinkedIn.
So if you're listening to thisand you've been lurking on
LinkedIn and you're not active,I would highly encourage you to
become more active.
You don't have to put out yourown content, just engage with
(01:01:22):
other people.
If there's any particular areaof interest you have, either in
learning or something thatyou're learning, share it.
Um, I think at this point,there's enough of us that really
share that.
Let's share what we know andwhat we're learning mindset that
we can all just add to eachother's uh resources and our
networks.
Um, and we can accomplish moretogether, whether it's across
(01:01:44):
the sea or you know yourneighboring state or, in my case
, like even in the same city.
There's people that I interactwith on linkedin more than I do
in in real life, uh, because Ireally don't want to drive an
hour.
It's really convenient to beable to ping someone and have a
conversation and then a videocall or record a podcast so.
Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
So, now that we've done this phone call for an hour
um do we, can we come hang outat your house in germany?
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
of course, I have also a small pool, but the
weather is.
The weather is not so nice.
Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah, yeah we can handle this yeah, yeah, we can
handle this it's, it's, but doyou mean it's quiet?
Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
no, I said we, we will be quiet so we don't make
noise in your house.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,yeah, perfect, so I also have a
garage, oh yeah okay, I meanthat might be so we'll come in
the summer.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Yeah, the closest I've been to where you are is
Darmstadt.
Is that anywhere close?
Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
No, no, this is close .
I think it's a little bit morethan half an hour by car.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
Half an hour by car.
Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
That's like to me, me , that's in my neighborhood, yes
, yes, so, so the, so the big,the biggest is to go to hamburg
or to munich, and this uh um tomunich, I think, uh, about four
hours, uh to to hamburg, aboutsix hours, and that's it, so you
(01:03:23):
can reach everything by car.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
I can drive for eight hours and still not leave the
state.
Coming from somewhere likeIceland, which is so small, to
me, that just is.
It's insane.
So we are up on time.
Is there anything, anylast-minute additions anyone
wants to make?
Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
Yeah, I just want to say that I wasn't in the frame,
but I was listening to himtalking about how even Siemens
sometimes asks them for help,and so you as a company, like
anyone in the US, wants to builda relationship with the
entirety of, like Bro Moose,because there's no reason you
(01:04:03):
shouldn't do that, and uh, yeah.
So I mean, if you want to be onthe forefront of whatever
Siemens is going to do, theseare your partners for that, and
at the same time, they're alsoyour partners for cybersecurity,
which is the most emergingthing right now.
So really, they've goteverything covered, so you
should hit them up.
(01:04:24):
Um, and if you don't hit themup, like I'm going to hit them
up and uh, yeah, so you can buyit through me They'll be
supported by the experts atGromus underneath.
Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
There you go.
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
That's our skills pitch for the day.
Also, uh, that's our salespitch for the day.
Also, like and follow us onYouTube.
We have a YouTube channel andon LinkedIn, and we hope to have
some more videos coming outlater this year as we increase
the size of our team atAutomation Ladies.
Right now we have zero time forit, so if you see our videos,
they are completely unedited andlive and just on LinkedIn and
(01:05:02):
YouTube, where they got streamed.
Conversations like this have novideo out anywhere yet because
we have no time or expertise invideo editing.
If you do and you hear this andyou want to be part of our team
, hit me up in the DMs onLinkedIn or Nikki at
automationladiesio.
Otherwise, yeah, let's sign offand then, michael, just don't
(01:05:25):
leave the studio just yet, bothof you until your uploads are
complete.
But, thank you, bye-bye.
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