 From Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Covering LiveWorks 18, brought to you by PTC. Welcome back, we're at the Seaport in Boston at LiveWorks, PTC's big IOT show. This is theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. I'm Dave Vellante with my co-host Stu Miniman. Doug Smith is here, he's the CEO of Tech's Market. He's joined by Linda Salinas, who's the VP of Operations. Folks, welcome to theCUBE. Great to see you again. Thank you for having us. You're very welcome. Thank you for having us. So what do you think? So this is the first time we've been at LiveWorks. A lot of good energy. Keynote this morning was like an Olympic opening ceremony. How's the show been? The show has been fantastic. And again, thank you for having us here. For us at Tech's Market, being able to see all the different technologies that are being employed here in the United States and around the world has just been fantastic for us. Yeah, that's been really exciting. I enjoyed the keynote speakers in the opening session and I got a lot of inspiration from that. I just wanted to go right back to the plan and use some of the things that we saw early on already. So we do a lot of these tech events, as you know, and we talk a lot of tech, but people process technology. It's the process and people in process parts that we don't spend enough time on. We kind of give it lip service, say, hey, those are really important, but let's talk tech. Let's talk about people and culture. Maybe in the start, from an operations standpoint, how do you get people to think about change? Well, we don't think of it as change. We think of it as we are doing something now and we need a tool to do whatever it is that we're doing and better. And early on, when we partnered up with HPE, and they said, hey, we have some IoT solutions to introduce you to. I thought, oh, that's great. And they said, well, why don't you and Doug come out to our innovation laboratory in Tombaul and take a look at the lab and see some ideas. And I said, well, that's great. Can I bring some friends? And they said, sure. I said, can I bring 15 friends? And they said, sure. So we rented a party bus and we loaded up people from our ops and maintenance and engineering and lab and admin and we went there and we first sat in on a lecture about what IoT was. And then when we saw the lab and the smart city and the medical applications and so forth, we thought, oh, these all look familiar. But then we saw the demo of the censored pump and that just saying to everyone, they said, wow, we have 100 of those in the plant. Let's go do that. Tell me about that. And so it wasn't about us implementing change and saying, hey, here's this new thing, go use it. It was about them seeing what they wanted to do and bringing it back to the plant and saying, this is what we're going to do, boss. Yeah, so Doug, you guys are actually heading out to discover shortly, right? Yes, sir. Talk about your relationship with those guys. It sounds like it's growing. How's it going? Sure. So once again, it's all about people. As Linda said, this journey began with a conversation with HPE and now we have a collection of 13 different ecosystem partners who are helping us with these five different use cases that are built on top of this technology foundation that was supported by HPE. So we have CB Technology, we have a Deloitte, we have FlowServe, we have any number of people that can help PTC. I mean, this is a PTC event, certainly, how they are helping with these different use case solutions. And so going out to Las Vegas, Nevada, we are going to continue this story about people. I think the strongest part of this story is that it has been, we have encountered bumps along the road where we've had to work together. It isn't like the movies where the IoT saves the day. We have to deal with it and struggle with it. Would you agree? Yeah, and it has been a journey, but going back to the people, it is about having the partners come to us and say, this is what we need to do to implement it. We need to install these sensors, we need to install the antenna, we need to have line of sight to the wireless access points and so forth. But from the beginning, it wasn't about a contractor or two or three or all of the partners coming in to text mark and installing everything and then giving us the key and say, turn it on. We included our employees in the installation process so they know how the sensors went in. They know how to adjust the antenna. They know on a first name basis, all the tech contacts within all of our ecosystem partners. So this is not a Linda and Doug project. It is their project. They have ownership. And what's been fun to see evolve over time is that now the refinery of the future has become a noun or a verb. So they will say, hey, let's ROTF this problem. How can ROTF help us make this process better, more efficient? So it's really been exciting to see that come back at us. Yeah. So I wonder if you could bring us inside a little bit. I hear 13 partners and worry a little bit. There's the integration, there's the training, there's the support. Sounds like you're happy with it, but for those that haven't gone through it, what did you learn and how does that work? Sure, and this is kind of colloquial talk here, but what we say at TextMark is the first thing that we've learned is you have to get naked. You have to say, here are the problems that we have. How can we all work together? You have to have this honesty and you have to feel comfortable with the partners. And we have set a standard from the get go of here are our expectations, clearly stating those expectations. And we have had some partners that have come in and it just hasn't worked out. So this clear communication, setting achievable goals and when we encounter problems, address them immediately. And I think that's one of the things that's made us successful. Can we talk about the refinery of the future? Paint a picture for us. What's the refinery of the past and what does the refinery of the future look like? Well, I think the refinery of the past and the future at its core is still refining. We have at TextMark chemicals, we're a petrochemical manufacturer. So we primarily produce through distillation and reaction, but at any refinery or petrochem facility, you've got your utilities, your boiler, your cooling tower, your distillation tower, your crackers, your reactors, loading, tank storage and so forth. So that's a refinery past, present and future. But the future one, I think employs IoT and technology to do what we're already doing today better. You know, I think about when I get a coupon in the mail and it's like, hey, buy one, get one free on potato chips. Well, I don't need potato chips, but that coupon's going to make me go buy potato chips. Well, it's not that way with IoT. We don't see a solution to go, oh, let's go start doing this in the plant because this IoT thing is really cool. It's just the converse. We're already have connected workers. We're already using two-way radios and clipboards and spreadsheets and whatever, but the refinery of the future uses IoT to connect us with technology so that we're doing it better and faster and safer. How about the data agenda? You got 13 partners, as Stu said. You've got a desire to capture the data and analyze it, make things better. Your partners do, how do you guys approach the analytics side of this and the data side? So I'd like to think of data. One of the meetings that we had when we started down this road, I was sitting in my office and we had three different groups in there and there was one gentleman I was watching and he was shaking his head and he goes, this is a gold mine. And I immediately focused in on him and said, what is this gold mine of what you speak here? And just being able to have, for example, one of our main processes is for a chemical called dicyclopenadiene, DCPD. As we move along in this project, we want to be able to censor the seven pumps that are involved in that process from putting it into the feedstock tank to putting it out on a rail car and being able to tweak it and find that sweet spot and to monetize that. Linda, could you go into it? Yeah, I think also too, from a contract manufacturing standpoint, we'll have one of the super majors that are refiners or chemical manufacturers themselves and want us to produce product for them on their behalf. And I think that the data, part of our competitive edge is to be able to offer an IOT adder, kind of like, would you like fries with that, to add IOT onto the project that they're approaching us with and say, hey, would you like IOT with that? Super size it. Yes. That's exactly right. Yes, and they're like, oh, tell me more. And in fact, we had a one-on-one meeting with a potential client when we were at Discover Madrid and so now we're having commercial conversations with them about contract manufacturing, but because they're so interested in IOT, they want to add an IOT element to that. And so then we can either surcharge or upcharge for that contract manufacturing by the pound. We will learn to optimize our processes on their behalf and then we share or sell the data to them. They become the owners of it. That's a direct monetization. That's a value creation for the customer that they're willing to pay for. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Well, I think one of the altruistic aspects of what we're trying to do at TextMark is within multiple industries, you have this grain of the population. So if the workforce is retiring out and with them, they're taking years and years of tribal knowledge. So you may have an operator who knows when you're doing this process, you need to turn, you need to adjust that valve this much and to be able to gain that information and pass it on to the younger people coming in. And then to show within the Petrochem facility that we are utilizing technology, this isn't the technology, excuse me, the refinery of the past. This is a job in which you can use cutting edge technology. Is this, this feels like I was talking, we were talking earlier one of our guests that this whole IOT space, it seems like it's not, I mean, it's disruptive in the sense that you seem to be doing a lot of things differently. But as you were saying, Linda, refinery is still a refinery. So the ecosystem of that refinery, to me anyway, seems to like largely stay intact. It's just a matter of embracing these new processes and changes in culture and obviously technology. So the incumbents, it feels like they're in a pretty good position. Is that a reasonable premise or am I missing something? No, I think, I think, I think you're right. You have, did you want to? Yeah, I think about one of the things that I heard in the keynote was that we are one of the early adopters. And so I feel like it's part of our responsibility to share our story and to share the lessons learned, right? Absolutely, Linda. And so she hits on something that humbles me is one of the things that we offer are these showcase tours where we have super majors come to Texmar and we have two censored pumps and they are so enthralled about us showing it to them that to us, we just say we want to show, we want to be inclusive, we want to be leaders and so it's a great feeling. So anytime we talk about IoT security, something that comes up and in your line of work also, I would think safety for your workers but something that also, I wonder if you could talk about those dual S's. Paramount, would you? Yes, my eyes get big and that's where my heart is and I've been with Texmar for 23 years and I spent about 18 years doing environmental health and safety compliance and the thing about our five use cases is I can, in my mind anyway, tie them all back to reducing risk and improving worker safety and reducing our risk, our environmental risk and impact to the community. So connected worker, they're connected. We either know where they are, we know what they're doing, we provide them information to make informed decisions. We have safety and security to be able to direct them in case of an emergency, either to go towards emergency if you're a responder or away from it if you are not or if there's a person that fell from a height. We know exactly where they are so we can go render aid because they can't raise their hand and say I'm hurt. So all of these use cases advance video analytics to know if we have a hydrocarbon leak or if there's someone crossing our property line, whether it's a coyote or a person or someone that doesn't belong on our side of the fence. They each have their own application but they all have some sort of tie to reducing risk and improving safety. So it's sensors that can detect that type of movement. You're not instrumenting humans, right? It's just your sensing activity. Yeah. What about, now you've got everything connected now, is there any concern that rogue agents could somehow do something malicious? So we take a great deal or we pay a great deal of attention to security of data because that's our secret sauce. That's how we are profitable within the world. So we have put in all sorts of security measures from the sensor to the I walk to the compute and what I continue to learn is it's a constant battle and so it is something we have to be vigilant about. So what's next? What should we look for from text mark, this whole space? What are some of the milestones maybe that we should be paying attention to? In terms of milestone, I'm really excited about the connected worker tool which allows different personas to approach, for example, an asset like a pump and Linda could be the CFO and I could be a millwright and we'd be looking at the same piece of equipment and I as a millwright would be getting data what type of service that pump needs and then Linda as the CFO could get financial information about when that pump fails or we're predicting failure in three months that pump will cost X number of dollars. And the downtime will cost X month. Exactly, to the whole production procedure. And the other thing is I'd like to see us develop this use case to the video as a sensor. We're working with Intel on that one and so they're excited about testing their equipment as well so and that's another area because we're looking at putting on our rail car loading area involving our rail car loaders on exactly where we should put them, what we should look for, what they think are the risks in the rail car loading area and so it's really just more of the same kind of continuing to involve our employees and having these projects become theirs. Great, well Linda and Doug, I have a great trip to Vegas, say hi to our friends from HPE and thanks so much for coming back in the queue. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having us. You're welcome, all right, Steve and I will be back. We're the next guests from Boston at LiveWorks. We'll be right back.