Talking Automation with Rylan Pyciak of Cleveland Automation Systems (P238)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to the Automation Podcast. My name
is Sean Tierney from Insights and Automation. And
in this episode, I sit down with Ryland
Pychak from Cleveland Automation Systems, a system integrator
house, to talk about all things industrial automation,
including
how do we get more people involved in
controls engineering as well as, like, what are
the latest products and technologies people are using.

(00:23):
So with that said, let's go ahead and
jump right into my interview with Ryland Piechak
from Cleveland Automation Systems.
Ryland, it's great to have you on the
show. Now before we jump into our conversation,
can you start by telling us a little
bit about yourself?
Yeah. Certainly. Well well, first and foremost, thanks
for having me as well, Sean. Definitely appreciate

(00:43):
the opportunity.
Yeah. To give a little bit of background,
I'm Radom Pyshak, founder, president of, Clearwater Automation
Systems, as well as a controls engineer.
You know, we've we've essentially been in business
for ten years now.
And, ultimately, you know, my background has been
controls engineering through and through. Actually started the
manufacturing floor myself.

(01:06):
You know, a lot of maintenance technician role,
a lot of day to day kind of
supporting troubleshooting equipment and whatnot.
From there, obviously, went off to college, got
a controls engineering background,
did a little stint at Rockwell,
also worked at an OEM
as well as a system integrator.
And then from there, kind of saw the
entire picture of manufacturing and decided to go

(01:29):
out and start cleaning automation systems myself.
You know, so since then, like I said,
we've been in business going on ten years
so far.
And, yeah, it's been been great. You know,
there's a lot of unique things we've come
across
in the manufacturing industry, and, I'm definitely very
passionate. And it's,
something that's very interesting from my perspective.
Well, I appreciate you coming on the show.

(01:50):
And, really, that's our audience, the controls engineers,
the,
really, the automation electricians, those electricians who just
really get into automation and do that as
kind of a specialty, as well as the,
maintenance technicians and control technicians,
you know, maybe have an electronics background, a
mechatronics
background, and then get into automation.

(02:11):
And so,
really great to have you on. And it's
you have a great pedigree. They have different
companies you've worked with. You've kinda seen the
industry from different angles,
which, you know, a lot of people don't
get that get that chance to work for
a vendor and a integrator and an OEM
and on the plant floor.
So what really, tell us about your company,
Cleveland Automation Systems. What do you guys do?

(02:33):
Like, what was the purpose and found doing
it? And and, really, what's your what's your
focus?
Yeah. Yeah. Certainly. So click on automation system
is probably the best, you know, term for
us as a system integrator.
Right? We typically have various clients that come
to us to solve unique problems.
That's anywhere from simple, you know, field troubleshooting,
simple service calls we get to complex equipment

(02:56):
development,
a lot of custom automation, as well as
a lot of integration.
You know? So, really, we work
pretty much with every clientele
across the board. I would say the main
one, pretty much the only thing we don't
do is oil and gas.
But we support clients across various manufacturing industries.
And, really, you know, we essentially got into

(03:16):
business to solve a lot of these complex
problems.
What I saw from my perspective was a
lot of,
you know, lack of support for various legacy
systems,
you know, other challenges that our our clients
would have where, hey. How do we integrate
various components together? So really going into business
kinda to solve a lot of those problems,
and that's still what we do today.

(03:37):
You know, anywhere from upgrading, you know, obsolete
components
and hardware, software control systems,
all the way to developing custom unique, you
know, different kinds of equipment and machinery. So
very interesting industry,
and our client base is pretty wide as
well.
Now I know with your background, right, there's

(03:58):
probably a focus on,
like you were just saying, on helping people
migrate to the latest generation or to a
platform that's gonna be stable for them. I
know in the pre show we talked about
some of your clients have,
like, just a mishmash of controls.
And so, and I know a lot of
people in the audience, they have to deal
with all different types of vendors. And so,

(04:21):
just a, you know, a minute and not
that not you know, we're gonna be preaching
to the choir here. But when you're when
you have a a one of your customers
come to you and say, here's what I
got.
What's the best path forward? What's some of
the things you tell them about? Maybe
not having every vendor on the planet
every control system on the planet in your

(04:41):
plan, well, that would be great for a
museum,
is not really great for your your people
because it can be difficult. I mean, people
struggle understanding an iPhone how to use an
iPhone and an Android. Right? Because it's so
different. And if you take that times five
or 10,
it really just puts a lot of stress
on the,
the maintenance staff, the electricians, and and the

(05:02):
engineers on-site. So what's some of the advice
you give when when you're working with your
your,
vendors? Your I'm sorry. Your, customers.
Certainly. I mean, I I I think you
hit the nail right on the head there
with the, you know, the iPhone to Android
comparison. I use that as well.
You know, the biggest thing is what we
like to do. First and foremost, we usually
do a site assessment for our clients, and

(05:23):
that is coming in and understanding everything within
the facility. Right? That is, you know, what
control systems, hardware, software, motors,
kind of everything that makes automation run.
And really from there, it's identifying and saying,
hey. You have these, you know, five, six,
15 different vendor
hardware, software platforms

(05:43):
in your facility.
You know, which route do you wanna go?
Obviously, there's some name brands that, you know,
all of us understand are are primary here,
you know, at least in The US that
most people use.
And and, really, it's more of an educational
thing than anything else with our customers
of outlining and saying, hey. You know, to
be able to hire somebody, you know, to

(06:03):
fill a maintenance technician role, to fill a
controls engineer role, you know, not only do
they have to bring the skill sets of
actually doing
that work, they also need to bring along
the skill sets of how to support these
systems.
You look at something such as
DeviceNet versus Ethernet IP.
Right? There are, you know, different I'm gonna

(06:25):
call it generations, different
demographics that grew up supporting that versus what
is currently used in the market.
So, you know, really, it's sitting down, talking
to our customers,
kind of looking at that list we've developed
with them and saying, hey. This is everything
you have within your facility.
Which route do you wanna go? What does
your current maintenance

(06:45):
staff look like? What can you support?
As well as what does your infrastructure look
like? Because end of the day, it's you
know, one, obviously, obsolescence
is huge.
I'm sure we've all been there. Right? You
have a an obsolete hardware
software device that goes down. Now you're scrambling
to go and find another one, right, typically
on eBay, pulling it off the shelf,

(07:06):
potentially opening up and soldering things. Nobody wants
to go that route. So it's more so
understanding
this is the route you should go and
a lot of guidance education on, you know,
one, why you should migrate as well as
two, what that's going to look like, you
know, from your support and maintenance perspective where,
hey. Now you only have one software license
to manage. You only have one platform to

(07:28):
manage, and it's not, you know,
five, six different platforms and somebody's old Windows
XP sitting on the shelf that you have
to clean dust off of every time. So
that's, you know, I'd say in a nutshell,
a lot of education,
you know, goes into a lot of these
conversations.
Yeah. You know, I I I think about
over the years, all the peat times people

(07:48):
upgraded
and the reasons for upgrading
and just the the cost of upgrading.
There was a lot of people who upgraded
in, for y two k when there was
no reason to. And but they would there
was a fear factor there. You know? Fear
and certainty, doubt. Right, FUD? And so they
would do upgrades, and they spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars. And I was just sitting
there as a technical person being like,

(08:09):
you're wasting your money. You don't need this.
And, you know, I often see, like, an
end user where they have a, you know,
they have a a storeroom full of every
IO module and every terminal block and every,
processor and memory card, and it's like,
should we update the entire plan? I'm like,
why? You not only is everything running smoothly
and everybody's trained on it,

(08:30):
you have all the speeds you could ever
use, and this stuff will last forever. Whereas
when you're sitting down with an OEM and
they're like, well, now I need to do
six axes, and I have to do, you
know, coordinated motion. You're like, well, yeah, you're
not gonna wanna use that old stuff. Right?
You we need to get you into the
latest stuff where we have these new text
test axes,
commands and different things we can do that

(08:51):
will just make your development so much easier.
Plus, you're gonna want tech support because if
you go into the new generation,
you're probably gonna have some questions because you've
been using the old generation. So it can
really be case. And then I I see,
like, a lot of the the sensor vendors
we have on, they come out with this
new sensor that has features that no other
sensor on the market has. And so I
can see an end user saying, well, we

(09:12):
usually use brand x, but brand y is
really killing it. And this is the application
brand x couldn't solve, so we're gonna go
with brand y. And so it does make
sense to I mean, you know, you can
come at this from every different angle, but
at the end of the day, I guess,
like you were saying, you don't wanna have
a plan with 15 different things in there,
15 different software licenses.
And, you know, it's like, just because you're

(09:33):
good at Word doesn't mean you're an expert
at Excel or PowerPoint. Right? And just because
you've learned brand x does not mean you're
gonna be able to pick up brand y
quickly. I know when I started working with
Siemens,
it was like a huge just, it was
like going from, you know, Photoshop to PaintShop
Pro or you know? It was just like
a huge,
huge

(09:54):
change, and you really just you're not as
efficient when you first start off. So definitely
definitely a lot of considerations there. You know,
I think one of the things we're talking
about, in the preshow was the you know,
how do you attract young people? Because
so many people like us who are getting
older. Right? And then the people who taught
us who are retiring,

(10:14):
you know, there's a a lot of
a lot of the younger,
audience, you know, they they've been using a
touch screen since they were. My grandkids have
never known,
devices without touch screens. Right? Mhmm.
It's so and so,
you know, how do we what do what
can we do to help get that younger
generation in? Because we need to bring

(10:37):
before everybody retires who has that that, you
know, that knowledge. We're gonna we're gonna get
that the younger folks to keep coming in
and, you know, maybe we won't have as
many because, you know, systems are more mature
and the you know, when I first started
PLCs, we're still relatively new. So programming PLCs
with software was still relatively new, only a
couple years, three, four years old. And so

(10:58):
but today, we've been doing it for, you
know, thirty five years, forty years. So,
we may need less people as as as
the knowledge is easier as a and and
the products get easier, easier to use too.
But how do we attract,
younger engineers into this? I think we would
both agree is a phenomenal,
industry of, you know, automating manufacturing and other

(11:21):
and other
things? Yeah. Yeah. No. That that's a great
question. You know, honestly, I I think some
of it from my perspective, manufacturing is almost
like a black sheep. Right? A lot of
people haven't heard of manufacturing.
They typically look at it of, hey. It's
something either I see on TV or it's
how cars are made.
But I I feel like there are a
lot of younger generations that may not just

(11:43):
fully understand what we do day in and
day out. You know, from the technical aspect,
from problem solving, from engineering design,
you know, all of the things that go
into manufacturing a product, both on our side
as integrators,
programmers, things like that, but also from support,
from production, you know, on the flip side.
So, you know, I think there's some of

(12:03):
that of actually drawing an awareness to what
our industry is and what it does.
You know, if I'm being frank, a lot
of my first introductory
really was just talking to friends of friends,
you know, and primarily, you know, older generations
of, hey. You're really hands on, really like
to do things like this. You should look
at this industry. And if it weren't for

(12:24):
those conversations, I probably would have never ended
up in this industry either.
You know, so, really, I think it's it's
kind of opening up and saying, hey. You
know, First Robotics,
other, you know, kind of vocational
or technical, you know, trades kind of situations
when you're in high school, even middle school
of identifying people that are interested in these

(12:45):
industries or interested in more, you know, hands
on designing things, building things,
and getting in front of those younger generations
and showing them, hey. Manufacturing is something you
can get into. And, right, you could pick
up a teach pendant and move half of
a car around with a robot. That's really
cool.
So I think it's a lot of kind
of, you know, not only educational

(13:06):
from a sense of educating people, but also
just, you know, getting in front of younger
generations,
showing them what's out there,
you know, things that we like to do.
There are a lot of career days at
schools if we can go in and do
things like that.
Any kind of, you know, I guess, community
involvement or outreach

(13:26):
where you do have middle school, high schools,
you know, even vocational schools
of having introductories.
Definitely love to do that. I mean, I
sit on a couple advisory boards. Anytime we
have professors that wanna invite us in, absolutely
would jump on board and say, yes. I
will sit down,
show everything what we do, show Dawson pictures,
kind of walk them through what you can

(13:47):
do, you know, as controls engineers, as mechanical
engineers, and really get a better sense of
of this is what this industry looks like.
Yeah. You know, I think, when my kids
were growing up they're all grown up now,
have kids of their own.
When I was when I was when they
were growing up, there was really no inexpensive
way

(14:08):
to to they nothing inexpensive I really could
put in front of them to let them
let them learn,
you know, electronics and programming.
We had, you know, we had PCs, but,
beyond that, that's not the way it is
today.
Today, we have, and we've covered them on
the channel is, you know, I think one
of the best places to start is with

(14:29):
the Arduinos.
And you can buy kits from kits with
lots of electronics. It's kinda like when I
was a kid, they had a thousand and
one experiments. Right? So you can buy buy,
you know, kits that are, you know, $20
or $30.
And we've reviewed a lot of the kits
and and and the what comes in them,
but they they come with all kinds of
electronics and then the world, you know, the

(14:49):
the world's your oyster from there. You can
do so many things. But even before you
get to that point, I loved and I
used to coach legal league. And for those
younger middle school kids, right,
legal league, you know, you can I was
I had kids in there in fourth grade,
right, learning to do the Lego League stuff,
and they they do a great job
of trying to make it fun?

(15:11):
You you're plugging the like, motors into into
bricks, onto a a computer, and then you
program it graphically,
you know, with, you know, moves and, you
know, if you're into motion, everybody you know,
you got a gut moves and how far
you're gonna go and sensors that tell you
when to stop. And, I mean, it's just
I think it's amazing. But the one thing
I found, though, that that is difficult

(15:33):
is that, you know, most most parents these
days, they're working, they're both working, they don't
have a lot of time, they come home
exhausted, and so they they have, an Xbox
or a streaming surface that is their babysitter
just so they can have some some alone
time. And and I I would just recommend,
you know, limit that time. You know, the
especially with video games these days, everything's a

(15:54):
season. You don't wanna miss the next big
thing that's happening and and you would think
from roadblocks to to, Destiny or, you know,
Call of Duty or whatever. But don't limit
your kids' time
so when they're bored, they have to they
have to pull out that kit and stop
playing with it. I was with my grandson
recently, and he got grounded. And I said,
well, I bet your mom well, you can't

(16:15):
play video games. I bet your mom will
let you create your own video games. It's
like on her computer. He started, you know,
designing his own levels and whatnot. It's like,
you know, if they if, you know, people
are gonna go for easy. Right? But once
easy is not there anymore, then they'll they'll
look for something else. And,
now talk to me about how how have
you worked with the young have you done
anything with the with the first robotics or

(16:36):
with training?
You said you're on advisory councils.
Yeah. Yeah. So we've, you know, we've sponsored
a few high school competitions
as well as some other local high schools
that essentially, you know, they're they're just looking
to do introductory into
robotics
design.
You know, I think it almost goes back
to the educational standpoint where, you know, your

(16:57):
typical curriculum
is is pretty standardized now.
And a lot of, you know, shop classes,
I feel like don't exist at many high
schools like they did, you know, ten, fifteen,
thirty years ago. So some of it's conversation.
Some of it is honestly just where we've
engaged with, you know, either prior high school,
you know, where I went or other high

(17:18):
schools that are interested in that and supporting
it. Right? Like you mentioned, the biggest thing
is is funding and finding opportunities.
And to your point, yes, nowadays,
it is hundreds of dollars. It's not thousands
or tens of thousands to do that.
Exactly. But that that's something I feel like
us as, you know, us as companies in
the integration world,

(17:39):
and just speaking kind of at in general,
being able to identify those things, you know,
from anyone listening, if you are on the
integration side or even if you're on the
manufacturing side of maybe having conversations
with, you know, what your your current
layout looks like, potentially your your children or
high schools that you worked with,
you know, and then going to higher ups

(18:00):
and maybe asking for a little sponsorship.
I mean, a couple $100 can get quite
a few different pieces of hardware and software,
and you could start building these things that,
you know, allow for that aptitude and that
intriguing,
you know, design and and doing hands on
design,
you know, I think opens a lot of
doors from that perspective.
Yeah. I mean, definitely having good conversations with

(18:22):
with, like I said, high school students,
as well as trying to find other opportunities
where you can work with these generations
and allow them to have that curiosity.
You You know, I think that's the biggest
thing. Once you get that spark and that
curiosity,
really just continuing to run from that and
seeing what other options are out there in
the world.
Yeah. And and if you're gonna sponsor as

(18:43):
a company or as a group or as
a, you know, organization,
I would definitely put a put a requirement
in there and and maybe go and and
see the final project.
Because my wife's a principal, she's been teaching
for twenty years,
and, people have sponsored different different,
you know,
things that she's tried to implement in her

(19:04):
school. And I think the one thing they
fall down on is, yeah, they they have
you fill out a form. They give you
the money. Then so you can go buy
the kits, but and then they don't get
involved. And it's like, you know, people get
busy. And if there's not, like, this requirement
that,
hey. They have to show you know, at
the end of the at the end of
the season or year
or course, we're gonna come in and see

(19:24):
what they did. Just to try to hold
their feet to the, not hold their feet
to the fire, but just to give the
teacher or the instructor some accountability,
some
some, reason to make sure that this stuff
gets used and covered because there are so
many mandates. Hopefully, this will change, but today,
there's so many mandates that it's difficult. They
really have to make an effort to

(19:46):
teach,
outside of what's mandated, which is and and
like you said, unfortunately,
shop class shop class,
and, you know, basic electricity, those type of
things are not mandated anymore
or not mandated today. But, you know, as
we're talking about this, let if you don't
mind, can we switch over and talk about
smarter manufacturing?

(20:06):
So we've talked a while about how we
get youngsters involved,
but
as you go to work every day, right,
and you work with your people and you
work with your customers,
I mean, what are some of the trends
you're seeing out there where people are doing
things maybe smarter or adopting new newer technologies
that, you know, we didn't have maybe ten
years ago that are really making a difference

(20:27):
in their plants?
Yeah. Yeah. Certainly.
You know, there are quite a few different
things that we've come across.
You know, there there are some buzzwords definitely.
You know, I think that you kind of
have to sandbox exactly what they are, AI
being one of them. Right? I think in
the general sense, a lot of people may
not understand.
But there are some I'm gonna call them,

(20:48):
you know, AI such as vision systems where
essentially you're teaching it, hey. Here are, you
know, passable or passing products. Here are failing
products. And it's not necessarily how vision systems
traditionally were, right, where it always has to
be the same picture if it doesn't line
up. If it's not good, it's bad. Right?
That that's kinda more of the traditional sense
where some of these newer

(21:09):
AI, you know, learning systems that are out
there are actually able to detect and say,
hey. You know, I may be looking for
something to be right side up, and it's
within that plus or minus 10 degree window.
That's gonna be a pass. If I see
something flipped upside down, that's certainly gonna be
a fail.
So we're seeing some newer technologies like that
definitely being implemented out there.

(21:32):
IoT,
smart sensors,
IO Link are other ones that are huge.
We're seeing a lot of deployments, especially in
food and beverage where you're no longer having
to run analog sensors everywhere, but rather, you
know, you're basically implementing
IO Link and other similar platforms where now
I'm actually getting that process data over Ethernet
IP. I don't know if they're about scaling

(21:53):
other things like that.
They make field installation and setup time a
breeze. We do a lot of that as
well.
So definitely some newer technologies. And then some
other things I'd say are pretty unique too
are more maybe around the robotics where we're
seeing a lot of your ROS and ROS
two development where, you know, again, it's kind
of more of a
open source platform

(22:15):
that essentially allows you to run the control
kind of independent of what we would traditionally
look at from a controller where, hey. You
may have a Fanuc or a KUKA robot
that is essentially now running, you know, from
a ROS perspective
versus your traditional, you know, picking up the
teach pendant and programming points.
So it it it's definitely interesting.

(22:37):
I'd say, you know, we're working on a
quite a few different applications that are kind
of
bridging that gap between traditional
and newer technologies,
you know, where
there's a lot more dynamic going on. You
know, for instance, an application we're currently doing,
essentially, we have, you know, a product coming

(22:57):
into an area,
a couple scanners doing a three d point
cloud, and then robots that are actually going
over top of that. That product that's coming
in is never the same
from one product to the next.
So there's a lot of kind of, you
know, ongoing smart technology that's feeding in there,
vision systems, three d systems,
and that's actually using one of the the

(23:17):
ROS, you know, approach as well. So,
yeah, it's definitely something that
I think
as our our industry grows, there's a lot
more,
interest in it, and there's a lot more
funding coming in, private equity, venture capitalists,
that are are starting to try and solve
some of these more complex problems.

(23:38):
And I think from that, it it does
allow us to now look at this. Hey.
Traditionally,
you would program with a PLC ladder logic.
And the teach pendant. Well, that way you
might be able to use more software based
controls and engineering
versus, you know, ladder logic programming and things
like that. So,
yeah. I mean, it's interesting.
Again, from our standpoint as a system integrator,

(23:59):
we get to see so many of these
different things going on,
that you walk in and you're like, this
it's pretty neat to see what other people
are trying to do out there.
Yeah. You know, we talked about AI quite
a bit last year in in robotics.
AI, you know, we and and I asked
the audience to help me. Look. We gotta
spread the the the knowledge about AI

(24:21):
as far as what it really is.
Couple years ago, I was on vacation,
and we were on a tour, and we
had these dinners every night. And this older
man, he's he's like, AI is self aware,
and they're programming itself, and we don't need
people anymore. And I'm like,
that's a great science fiction book you just
read, but, I mean, I think if you

(24:41):
know? You know, you try to explain to
them. It's like, look. It's like they published
this. IEEE does a great job covering this.
They've literally spent
millions
every year, like, 10 of the millions every
year
programming these AIs. They're not self aware.
They're not then
that people still are needed. That's why they're

(25:02):
paying people, you know, millions of dollars to
program them. And,
you know, it's it's it's basically you know,
as we look at the
I always go back to, like, voice activation,
and I should mute my, my device here
so I don't accidentally
trigger it. But,
you know, if we think back, like, I
bought Dragon Natural Speaking back in the day

(25:23):
because I wanted I I my old job
for twenty five years, I spent half or
more of every day driving. So four hours
driving, seven hours working, or eight hours driving,
four hours. It was just it was just
a for somebody who likes to do for
a doer, it's just demoralizing to be on
the road that much. For a driver, that's
great. I mean, they love that. But in
any case, long story short,

(25:45):
it's
90%
and, again, I have an accent. But 90%,
you think that sounds great until you go
to edit what you said. It's not good.
Right? It's, like, too much work. I could
just type this from scratch. And we we
also see that with a lot of transcripts.
Like, if you're on a video streaming site,
the transcripts,
the, automatic English captions, right, closed captions,

(26:07):
A lot of times, they're not that good
either. But we've seen that grow. I know
when I first got my,
my iPhone and it had Siri,
and I would be like I would talk
to it and be like, I can't answer
that. Today, I can talk to it, and
it does a great job. It's it's
the the database that has backing it up
is so much better. And so I take
that and I go into, like, the vision

(26:29):
system example you gave. Right?
Now in the past, like you were saying,
we had to have the lighting perfect. We
had the gauges and the tools, and the
the product had to be in the spot
all the time, and there was no way
to for it to float around and find
the product and and most early on.
And today,
you can shoot it, like, a 100 products

(26:50):
and say these are all good, and it
can the algorithm
can figure out, hey. What are the minor
variances
of these so I can understand what falls
into the good bucket? And then you can
shoot at a 100 bad products and say,
okay. These are bad. And they can actually
build
some, some, tables or or value sets to
know, to really know really well, you know,

(27:11):
much faster than any person could,
what's good and what's bad. And it's amazing.
Even one vendor said, hey. If you need
to give it train it do even more
training, we you can upload it to our
website. We'll do it offline and send it
back to you, which I just think is
amazing.
And I know it's revolutionizing,
you know, cancer treatment or or detection and
all kinds of other things. But, yeah, no.

(27:33):
This is not data from Star Trek.
Right? Yeah. This is not Al from 02/2001.
And,
and,
yeah. And so so go ahead. Go ahead.
Yeah. No. I I was I mean, you're
you're spot on, Shauna. It it it's a
good balance. Right? I mean, you know, I
even look at it. We've all been there,
right, especially from the controls perspective where something
isn't running and you walk out and it's

(27:55):
that slight little turn of the photo eye.
Right? So as much as I think a
lot of people may look at it of,
hey. It's taking over the world and it's
taking over what we're doing,
It still requires people, you know, in in
at least in our world, technicians to implement
it, to program it, to set it up.
And, again, a lot of our equipment too
doesn't even have that smart that technology.

(28:16):
So, you know, it's something that as we
move forward educationally,
I think, you know, generations that that still
have a pretty good length of career left,
it it's making sure you're educating yourself on
it, understanding what it is, how to deploy
it, utilizing it as it becomes more commonplace,
but definitely not you know, I I wouldn't
be intimidated by it because it it's something

(28:38):
that it it's like anything else. It's a
tool that's going to be used.
You know, and I think it's making yourself
aware of it, understanding how you can actually
deploy it in the future.
And and something else, I guess, you know,
a thought that they brought up from my
standpoint
is actually investment in this new technology.
It's something else that we have a lot
of these conversations with customers. You know, I

(28:59):
know automate just happened. Right? You go out
and you see the latest and greatest of
everything.
Lot of cool technology, new technology.
You know, we always caution our customers to
be,
you know, cautiously optimistic
and consider what you're investing in,
because one of the things you have to
look at
you know, there are all these these crazy
new technologies that are out there. I'm gonna

(29:21):
use collaborative robots as an example. Right? When
when they first came out, it was universal
robots.
Now you watch the show, you know, there
are probably 50, a 100, I don't know,
500 collaborative robots.
The thing you have to really consider is
not only are you purchasing this technology,
you're investing in education,
you know, from an internal standpoint to to

(29:41):
bring your teams up to speed. But you
also have to make sure that technology still
exists in five, ten, twenty years.
A great use case, you know, we actually
did case study on it. You know, Ready
Robotics, I thought was a great platform, works
really well,
you know, kind of made
robot programming agnostic.
And and they had a really, really valuable,

(30:02):
you know, use case, I thought. And, you
know, they went bankrupt. They went out of
business. So you have to look at that
too of, hey. I'm gonna go and spend
this money
as a decision maker for my plant, for
my company, for my process.
You have to also make sure that that
hardware,
that software, that firmware, that company that developed
that is also there in the long term.

(30:23):
So you kinda have to do a pros
and cons and make sure, really, our our
biggest things, you know, how long have those
companies been in business, what does their technology
look like, what does their tech support look
like, Right? Do they have a team? Is
it one individual?
Are they writing firmware on the back end
as these bugs come up?
But it really is a holistic picture.
And and, again, I I really recommend having

(30:45):
conversations
with your personnel that are on the floor
supporting this. Reach out to integrators,
reach out to individuals within the market.
You know, ask a lot of questions before
you make those decisions.
Yeah. But, you know, it's does it work
with your existing architecture? So there are so
many great cobot and robot manufacturers.
And,

(31:05):
quite honestly, some of them work better with
brand a and some work better with brand
b. And if you have brand b, you
probably want one that works really well with
it. You know, if you have brand a,
then, you know, that's gonna be and I
know they all try to work with all
they try to be vendor agnostic as far
as the control systems, but some do a
better job with you know? A lot of
times it's geographical

(31:26):
or it's just, you know, the the mission
of the company internally.
But, and then there are there are companies
out there who do just just do a
phenomenal job or try to with all vendors.
But, you know, I think Cobot's, that's one
place we talk about the younger generation.
I mean, you think about it. Right? And
and I worked in a machine shop one
summer when I was, in high school, and
it's it's a job that young people do

(31:47):
not want. Right? If you're if you're if
you're machining products, right, it it's similar to,
like, if an injection molding facility. People don't
wanna work there either. Right? Younger generation, a
lot of them don't because they want something
more,
you know, twenty twenty five ish. Right? And
so,
if you can have a COBOS sit at
that machine
and put the pieces in and out instead

(32:08):
of a human being, and I could tell
you that was very boring work. And I
and and and most of the people there
were not college graduates. Right? They were there
because they were you know, it was the
best paying job they could find without having
any experience.
And so as those people retire, if if
you don't have enough people to fill those
roles,
that's where the Cobots, I think, could do
a great job. And this

(32:29):
people even have innovative uses for them. Like,
this one company was it was a three
d printing company, and so they like to
work eight to five like most people do.
They have families. They wanna enjoy their evenings.
And, the problem was, though, the printers would
finish the print. You know, they would take
custom print jobs.
They'd finish, like, in the evening. Right? And
nobody wanted to drive back to work and
switch out the trays so they could print

(32:50):
something else. Right? Expensive machines printing expensive products.
And so they bought a Kobo. Now all
that Kobo does is it goes around and
replaces the trays on the three d printers
when they finish their job so that you
can print something else. And it gives them
another, you know, theoretically, another
sixteen hours worth of printing they can get
out of their machines
while everybody's at home, you know, spending time

(33:11):
with the family and and and sleeping.
And so there's a lot of innovative ways
to use cobots. Now have you guys done
any work recently with cobots?
Yeah. Yeah. That's it it's definitely something,
you know, we've deployed quite a few collaborative
applications.
Yep. You know, really,
when when it comes to I'm gonna say
collaborative versus noncollaborative.

(33:31):
More so, we're we're kinda back to, I
guess, what you just touched on is identifying,
you know, what are the problems that you
could potentially solve? Or, honestly even just walking
in and saying, hey. There is a potential
solution here that maybe somebody's never thought of.
You know, that's identifying, like you said, that,
right, the three d is dirty, dull, dangerous
where people just

(33:52):
it's a boring job. People hate it. It's
high turnover.
You know, really kind of finding those applications
where
it's something simple. You know, it it it's
low cost. It's something you could implement very
easily. And then being able to walk in
and replace that with a robot with a
collaborative robot,
you know, with an automated solution that actually
solves those problems.

(34:13):
Right? And then it takes those individuals
from doing that that high turnover, boring, or
dangerous, or, you know, mind numbing kind of
position
into something that that opens up a lot
more doors, and now they can be technicians.
They can, you know, kinda move into a
higher position where they're doing more from the
company perspective.
But,
yeah, I mean, in terms of collaborative applications,

(34:35):
definitely a lot of opportunity that's out there.
You know, I think the biggest things are,
you know, obviously identifying what you're trying to
do,
making sure you do proper risk assessments to
make sure that application is actually collaborative,
as well as, you know, really finding
what are you trying to solve at the
end of the day. Right? Is it a
labor problem?

(34:55):
Is it, you know, just just an ergonomic
problem is definitely a big one we see
a lot of.
Time saving problems.
We deployed one two years ago, actually, that
essentially just mixing the solution. Right? In every
fifteen minutes, operator would have to stop, open
up the door, go in there and mix
this this solution, essentially, to keep it mixed,

(35:16):
shut the door, and hit go.
That essentially removed that where now that operator
is no longer there and actually doing the
other pieces of their job.
You know, it was a slam dunk for
everyone involved. So definitely a lot of opportunities
out there. You know, I think, really, it's
it's identifying what you're trying to solve.
But you can definitely utilize them in quite

(35:37):
a few different locations.
Yeah. You know? And I that kinda brings
another thought to mind is, you know, we
hear a lot of people say, well, automation
is bad because it takes away jobs.
And I I usually, it's a boomer when
I see somebody saying this on TV and
not to pick on boomers. Okay?
But, typically, it's a boomer. Right? Mhmm. And,
they're holding a, like, an $800

(35:58):
smartphone,
and they're standing next to a a, you
know, a $5,500
big screen TV.
And I'm just like
I'm I'm like
or with those products you love to use,
the car you like to drive, that smartphone
you love, you know, None of those can
be made without automation. Impossible.
Literally impossible to make your modern devices without

(36:19):
automation.
Technology, and I like to just say technology
technology gets rid of
the lowest level jobs. Right? So from the
day we learned to tie an ox to
that wheel to turn it so we could
either pump water or grind, you know, grain
or whatever, right, or harness it harness the
wind with the wind with the winter a
wind wheel,

(36:41):
a windmill.
You know, that where people are always trying
to find smarter ways to doing thing. And,
you know, not that mixing a container by
hand is extremely difficult or
but I don't know how many times I've
gone to the local,
home supply store, and they've mixed my paint
wrong,
literally.

(37:01):
Or
I'll say this too. Same place. Have my
keys made wrong. I've I have, like, half
a dozen keys I've paid them I had
made, and they mess them up. Right? And
so I'm not picking on people. They're they're
stressed out. They got lots doing. But if
I if if if I need a key
now, because I know there's one,
department store nearby that has the automated. You
just put your key in. It does everything

(37:22):
automated. I will only go there because I
know it is done correctly every time. And
quite honestly, I don't have to listen to
the to the the sales guy go, oh,
I don't like making keys. I can't believe
I gotta do this. You know? It's just
so funny. Yes. I I wish you didn't
have to do this either because you keep
doing it wrong. So Uh-huh. I mean, do
do you agree with me? Or I mean,

(37:42):
the technology I find is elevating. It's giving
people better jobs. It's not it's really eliminating
the jobs that most people don't want. Am
I right about that? What what are your
thoughts about that? Yeah. I I you know,
honestly, Sean, I think I think you're spot
on with that.
You know, really,
automation and and I would say this. You
know, the last couple years, a lot of
our customers,

(38:03):
they're asking for automation because they simply cannot
find enough people to fill their roles. It's
not that, hey. We wanna, you know, necessarily
improve a process or, you know, replace people.
Nobody's actually filling those roles where they don't
have enough resources to do that manually. So
it's a, you know, it's a labor shortage
issue, honestly, of what we're dealing with.

(38:24):
But by no means is it actually taking
over, replacing jobs, anything like that. I mean,
exactly what you said. Right? You look at
at jobs that are very labor intensive,
that are, you know, very stressing, ergonomic issues
that, you know, it it's honestly it's backbreaking
work.
And I definitely understand that I wouldn't wanna
do that kind of labor myself day in

(38:45):
and day out, five days a week.
And that's where automation is key. Right? So
you now walk in and a robot,
a control system, you know, whatever it is
is replacing those things that are, you know,
beating up your body
or, you know, other things, you know, very
toxic locations,
locations that you don't wanna deal with chemicals,

(39:05):
things like that.
Now those same persons that had to go
in and do that are now actually supporting
it. And kind of back to what we
were talking about before,
right, now those individuals are learning how to
operate the HMIs.
They learn how to recover the robots. They're
learning how to do basic troubleshooting on PLCs,
you know, robotic systems, things like that. So,

(39:28):
you know, from from an employment perspective, from
a technology and educational perspective,
I think it's taking them from doing a
repetitive,
laborious job, and now it's opening up more
avenues where you could walk in and say,
hey. You know, I have background,
you know, programming, doing basic troubleshooting
on this system
that has, you know, phanic robot, Allen Bradley

(39:49):
PLC.
I made edits. You know, we may be
maybe that system, you've put in five new
part variants since you purchased it.
You know, so now you you have more
applicable skills
that I think, in general, our industry needs
to head that rate. Right? As you mentioned,
one, to be able to be competitive with
the prices
of what we pay for the cost of

(40:09):
goods sold in general.
But two, just from a standpoint
of, you know, if corporations and companies are
going to try and remain competitive,
they certainly are going to have to automate.
You're not going to be able to replace
and do everything with manual, you know, human
labor, and you need to start implementing automation,
you know, in the right locations, but also

(40:31):
making sure you're implementing it so you can,
like I said, obviously, fill those labor gaps,
fill the labor shortages that you have,
you know, high turnover positions or dangerous positions,
replace that with industrial automation.
And, yeah, I mean, end of the day,
I it it is definitely not taking people's
jobs.
I can't say I've seen any project where

(40:52):
we walked in and said, hey. Here's a
machine that runs x rate. These five people
are now gone. Usually, they're moving into higher
level positions,
technician positions, and and, honestly, getting more education.
So, I mean, I I'm absolutely on board
that automations
automation is nothing but a good investment from
a company perspective.
Yeah. And, you know, I think back to,

(41:13):
BeachNet, they make baby food. And, I was,
working with them when they were building a
new plant,
and, the old plant looked ugly. It was
like an old brick building, multistory.
Yeah. It
I like, I walked through it, and I'm
like, I don't know that I could ever
buy this baby food again.
But their new plant was just beautiful.

(41:33):
Beautiful. When you walk into the lobby, it's
huge and beautiful.
You walk in the lobby, they have a
mural
on the wall. It's like endless
mostly ladies in hair nets, endless table of
ladies cutting potatoes and carrots, and and, they're
all happy. They're like, yeah. This is great.
The kids are in school. I can make
some extra money. Maybe we'll buy a new
car. You know? They were all pretty happy.

(41:55):
It was like they can sit there. They
can chat. They can cut the carrots and
potatoes, and they're making healthy baby food for
the community. And so it was great.
Today, I don't think my granddaughter would wanted
that job for a a, you know, million
dollars. You know? She's never known a time
when it hasn't been, you know, high screen
high resolution touch screens in her hand or
in her mother's hand or, you know, in

(42:16):
her house, and it's
like, why would we do this manually again?
Mhmm. Why would I spend all day repetitively
getting carpal tunnel
tunnel syndrome or whatever? You know? You know?
And and so that's just where we are.
I think most of us see most people
most people who who are paying attention to
what they're doing, they wanna do it better.
They wanna improve. You know? It's that continuous

(42:38):
improvement, CAN ban, all that stuff
that talks about, you know, let's let's keep
making changes to make the process better.
And, you know, you're not always not every
change is is for the positive. But, you
know, I think this kinda this brings us
full circle too because, you know, I there
was a technologist recently who was saying,
we can import a lot of engineers because
we don't have enough engineers. And it's like,

(43:00):
I replied to him, like,
we have tons of engineers.
What you're really seeing is the schools are
not teaching what you want them to learn.
Partner with the schools so like, my youngest
son and all these other software engineers out
there are not unemployed
because the schools didn't teach them what you
wanted. You need a you need a thousand
engineers. Go to the local go to the

(43:21):
local school. Tell them this is why I
need your people to learn. Trust me. They'll
start teaching it. Because the last thing that,
you know, a competent school wants to do
or college or university
is, you know, put people out there who
can't actually get a job. They they love
being able to brag about people getting jobs.
They love to be able to brag about
hey. I'm working with company Y,
and, we send them a thousand engineers over

(43:41):
the last four years. So we kinda come
full circle. I think we all need to
think about that. How can we
encourage our local educational institutions?
Maybe it's our kids where our kids are
going. Maybe it's where our grandkids are going.
Maybe it's where nieces and nephews or siblings
are going.
How can we get involved
and help those local you know, everything from
grade school through high school through through,

(44:04):
junior college, technical, you know, community colleges, and
so on. We we gotta help them understand
what we're doing and what's valuable
so they can stay away from, you know,
maybe saying, hey. The Raspberry Pi is gonna
take over the world, so that's all you
need to learn. No. Sorry. Yeah. No. I
hate to bring it to you, but there's
a reason why we have major vendors, and
they've been in business for over a hundred

(44:25):
years because they make the what the customers
want. But, yeah, that kinda brings a full
circle to what we were talking about at
the beginning of the show.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I I
it it definitely
it
it's an entire ecosystem. Right? I think from
from that perspective, right, from the large corporations
that are manufacturing, it is having those conversations

(44:45):
and saying, hey. These are the kind of
technicians,
the controls engineers, the, you know, whatever roles
you're trying to fill. This is what we
do day in and day out. And those
individuals
and corporations need to have conversations
with, again, the the local vocational schools, the
community colleges, the technical colleges,
even, like I said, even high school and

(45:06):
middle school and outline Yeah. This is what
our career path looks like. This is what
you know? Right? This is what our process
looks like. Honestly,
you know, doing site tours, facility tours, understanding
how things are made,
looking at equipment and working with equipments where,
hey. We may have,
you know, humongous boilers or, you know, I
grew up in Southern Ohio where steel at

(45:28):
one point was was very large before it
went overseas.
You know, understanding what that looks like, how
electric arc furnaces work and function, and actually
working with local community colleges of, hey. This
is this is the kind of technical resources
of what we need. Right? That's low rates.
It it's electricians. It's hands on labor, whatever
that is.
And then, you know, aligning

(45:49):
both
what you're trying to fill from a technical
perspective
with what is actually being taught
in those vocational
technical community colleges
even back again to high schools where, you
know, hey. Yeah. PLC programming
is great. We actually utilize, like you said,
we utilize Siemens or Allen Bradley.
We don't do Arduino

(46:10):
for, you know, a a $100,000,000
production facility. So
I think a lot of it is honestly,
it's more community involvement.
Quite honestly, it's conversations like you and I
are having, but on a on a bigger
scale of understanding, hey. These are the skill
gaps. This is where we're currently at, and
these are the roles we're trying to fill.

(46:30):
Because a lot of it, like you said,
it's it's
I I feel like a lot of people
in our industry
more often than not, kind of stumble upon
it or at least have some in. But
if it weren't for that, people really wouldn't
know what manufacturing does.
So I I mean, I would definitely encourage
that. Again, kind of back to the advisory
boards that I've talked about, we have a
lot of those conversations

(46:51):
with the local community colleges
of this is what we do. This is
what's good.
Your training systems,
this is awesome. We don't use any of
this.
And just having those those two way conversations
and making sure you're staying involved. I mean,
end of the day, communication's key, and I
think that's what we all need to do
more of. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

(47:12):
Rylan, I really appreciate coming on the show.
I'm just looking at my list of bullets
of things I wanted to talk about. Was
there anything that you wanted to talk about
that we hadn't gotten through yet?
I I I don't think so. I mean,
I think we touched on a lot of
great topics.
You know, in general, Sean, I'd say, you
know, really, one of my passions is definitely
bringing in younger generations'
education into this industry.

(47:34):
You know, end of the day, we're all
engineers. I think by default, we like to
collaborate and have conversations.
And, really, I'm just trying to encourage more
of that, right, of of all of us
being able to have open, honest conversations.
I know you get onto the forums and
you get onto Reddit and all these other,
you know, areas of the Internet, and it's
great because there's a lot of collaborative energy.
And I and, honestly, I think it's something

(47:55):
we just need to do that more, be
more supportive of other individuals,
of others in the industry, and keep having
these conversations. Right? Because the more collective minds
we bring together,
I think it's gonna open up more doors,
and it's gonna allow us to have, you
know, more exciting conversations like this.
Yep. Yeah. Absolutely.
Well, Rylan, I really appreciate you coming on.
Now if people wanna learn more about Cleveland

(48:17):
Automation Systems,
where would they go to find out more?
Yeah. Definitely. You can find us on our
website since clevelandautomationsystems.com.
I know it's a mouthful.
You could also look look up myself on
LinkedIn, Rylan Pyshak,
Cleveland Automation Systems as well as on LinkedIn.
But definitely feel free to reach out. I'm

(48:38):
always open. I love having conversations like this.
So definitely you can find us, like I
said, website LinkedIn.
Send me a direct message if you wanna
talk about something. I'll definitely share my contact
info, and, you know, we can connect any
which way you want. Yeah. And we'll include
all those links in the description
so you guys,
wherever you're listening or watching, you'll be able

(48:58):
to have access to that so you don't
have to type it all in.
But in any case, Ryland, thank you so
much coming on. I really enjoyed our conversation
today, and, just thanks again for coming on.
Definitely. And thank you for having me, Sean.
I definitely appreciate the opportunity.
I hope you enjoyed that episode. I wanna
thank Rylan for coming on the show and
talking about all things industrial automation. I really

(49:18):
enjoyed our chat. I hope you did too.
And I will put his
link to his LinkedIn profile and to his
company in the description. I also wanna thank
Cleveland Automation Systems for sponsoring this episode
so we could bring it to you completely
ad free. So if you're talking to Ryland
or anybody over there, please, tell them thank
you for us. And, with that said, I

(49:40):
just wanna wish you all good health and
happiness. And until next time, my friends,
peace.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Talking Automation with Rylan Pyciak of Cleveland Automation Systems (P238)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

All Episodes

Talking Automation with Rylan Pyciak of Cleveland Automation Systems (P238)

Stuff You Should Know