 Hello, and welcome to JSA TV and JSA podcast. We are the newsroom for tech, telecom and data center professionals. I'm Keeley Dory, a media relations manager here at JSA and joining me today. We have Ian Goulter from Kohler. Ian, welcome to JSA TV. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you here. We're really glad to be chatting with you today. We're here to talk a little bit about backup power generators for data centers and how they're designed. But before we get into that, would you mind just giving us a little bit of background on yourself and what you do for Kohler? Yeah, absolutely. So right now I'm in outside sales specializing in data centers. So we're really on developing proposals and responding to inquiries for data center customers. And so far it's a date, I've been with Kohler for years and helped put in about 200 megawatts of data center power. So a little bit of time in the field. That's incredible. I know you guys stay very, very busy and doing some really great work over there. So let's start with some of those general concepts. Like we said, we're here to talk about backup power generators and data center design. So from that design perspective, what are some of the pain points that Kohler is striving to solve for data centers? Yeah, so there are a couple of key requirements in the industry, obviously. Reliability is key, right? You need to have your power online and then performance. You need to have your power be able to handle what you ask of it, right? And so reliability and performance are key in our design philosophy. And we approach those by really mitigating failure points with redundancy and then eliminating failure points and then making the units so that you can monitor them. So if anything does go wrong, you can study that remotely and address any problems that arise. So we've got a couple of features that have made that possible, but we've really eliminated a couple key and critical points of failure. So we've got redundancy in the starting system and the fuel system. And then we've really designed our units ground up to be monitored remotely. So from a single ethernet connection, you can monitor really the entire enclosure, the generator controller and how it's performing. Yeah, definitely a lot to think about there and a lot of working and moving parts all at once. So I'm curious to know how does Kohler's design process work to keep all of these considerations in mind and keep everything working as it should all at once? Yeah, so our design process is very much customer driven. We take a lot of feedback, both from direct customers that we have ongoing experience with case studies, as well as specs and standards that are available throughout the industry. And we'll collect that all when we're establishing a new product and we'll lay out the criteria for it. And so really that leads us to design our product with reliability in mind, really from the ground up. And then also we have the benefit of a really well-tenured engineering staff and an ISO 9001 organization. And so we've got good processes in place to vet that development and design. So really from the beginning of a product's life, it's reviewed with reliability and performance, those criteria in mind. So, and then the last thing I'd say is that we really try to exercise a strong level of control of our supply chain. So while we're developing the product, we have supply in mind. And so we have some vertical integration where we'll produce engines, enclosures, alternators, or we'll work hard to source and integrate purchase parts. Very good. Now I know that testing is a very big part of Kohler's model all through and through. So talk to me about how testing comes into play here and does the in-house design approach create an improved testing process? Yeah, so with any new product development, testing is an integral part of your quality control. And so as products are developed, they go through thousands of hours of testing just to verify that they can perform in harsh conditions and that they can meet their lifetime expectations. But in addition to that, every production unit's tested. So it's not just during development, but every unit leaving the floor. So we have an ongoing quality control feedback loop. So nothing's leaving the factory without having been tested. But in addition to testing during development, we also have in-house enclosure production and the capability to test that. So that allows us to put the units in an environment that they would be in in the field and really test them in a complete enclosure assembly. And then having that capability within our own facilities lets us have those engineering and quality feedback loops communicate more clearly and more quickly. Yeah, it's absolutely such an important part of the process. And I know something that Kohler does extremely well. So next question for you here is data center backup generators are all tailored to meet certain specifications. So the question is how does Kohler's in-house design approach or the approach that you take rather, how does that enable the ability to meet specific customer specifications? Right, so going back to our design philosophy and how we take customer feedback really, we gather a lot of industry standards and again, case study feedback into that design. And what that does is it leads us one to a very kind of a broadly compliant design. And so the base product is gonna be, it's gonna meet most of the specs that are out there. And then it allows us to have a good platform for upgrading and modification. So when you get to accessories, your enclosure, the sound level, the environment the units in and switchboards, other accessories, that's where the specs really differentiate themselves. And we've prepared a unit and an enclosure that can accept a wide variety of spec requirements. So it's easily upgraded and we have what we call our engineered specialist process that allows us to really seamlessly integrate the entire assembly to meet those specs. Very good. Now how about individual components? How does Kohler's process approach the sourcing of parts that can be a challenge sometimes? Yeah, so supply chain, as everyone knows, it's been a huge challenge for the last several years. And we're no stranger to managing that. And so really from again, from the design of a product, supply chain is heavily considered and factored into design. So when we can, we'll vertically integrate that allows us to wholly own the process from production development to production out through sale and then lifetime management of it. And then where that's not possible, we'll bring vendors on, but we'll very closely tie them into our process. And so we'll get engineering involved and establish specs for our vendors to adhere to and then we'll do quality review. So we maintain a team of supplier quality engineers that helps us control vendor quality. So throughout the entire purchase component, purchase component or supply chain process, it's all looked at through a lens of quality analysis and performance. Yeah, very, very good. You've talked a lot, as we've been talking here about the in-house design team. So I wanna give you just a moment to boast a little bit and say some good things about the team. So can you give me an example of a new innovation produced by Kohler's in-house design team? Yeah, so I'd have to say probably the eFrame, that's our one of our in-house enclosure offerings, but recently, and we're in the process of releasing a new iteration of that enclosure that has tier four retrofit ready features. And so that allows us to feel the product that is cost effective and doesn't need necessarily to meet tier four. It's the standard kind of tier two, EPA tier two emissions throughout the industry. And then we all know that emissions requirements are getting stricter if your site had requirements to retrofit for tier four. We've pre-engineered kind of a plug and play solution that allows you to purchase that I see our system directly from its vendor and we can assist with that. And then you can just crane it on site. So really it just drops right on top of the existing unit for a quick and seamless cost effective retrofit. Yeah, those are some really great examples. Thank you so much for that. And thank you for hanging out with us here for just a few minutes on JN Stay TV. Before we let you go, is there anything else that you wanna leave our viewers with? Yeah, I'd say tier four is probably that tier four compliance and emissions are not going anywhere. And they're very much on the forefront of our design process and our thoughts. And so as we look to the future design readiness is a big consideration for us. And so those aren't going anywhere. And I think being prepared is a good place to a good opportunity to set up products for success. Yeah, we look forward to watching what you guys are doing and of course look forward to talking with you again soon here sometime. Where can our viewers in the meantime go to learn more? Yeah, so cholerenergy.com, cholerpower.com we've recently rebranded, but that is where you can find all the information about our products. And we have spec sheets and design information available at your fingertips. All right, very good. Thank you, Ian, very much for joining us here on JN Stay TV and thanks to our viewers as well. And as always, happy networking.