 Hello, and thanks for joining us for this discussion about the use of robotics, remote access, and virtual factory acceptance testing in the food and beverage and consumer package goods industries, and how those trends affect OEM supplying these industry segments. I'm David Greenfield, Director of Content at Automation World, a part of the PMMI media group. And joining me today are Glenn Long, Senior Vice President of PMMI, Tom Egan, Vice President of Industry Services at PMMI, and Brian Griffin, Director of Industry Services at PMMI. You know, another technology area that's seen a lot of increased attention because of COVID is remote access. And here we're talking about the ability to remotely access plant floor equipment or specific devices and systems, either by in-house engineers or operators or even third parties such as OEMs and system integrators. And like co-bots, this technology has been around and developing very quickly over the past several years now, but it's really seen an accelerated level of interest due to COVID in the past year. And I know, Glenn, you've been very focused on the trends around remote access between OEMs and consumer package goods manufacturers. You know, what would you say things have been changing here in the past few years? It's funny. It's near and dear to me because I come from that side of the business, the technology to have remote access to equipment has been around for years. But the willingness on the two sides to allow that to happen has not really been there. So all of a sudden to enter COVID, and very quickly it becomes a necessity versus whether the capability existed or whether it was wanted or not. So tremendous adoption in different types of remote access. And I think when you talk about remote access, you think about three different areas. Certainly there's a service aspect of it, and I believe that that's where a lot of the companies were first thinking to be able to access a machine remotely for the purpose of fault diagnostics or program fault diagnostics and so forth. So it was more of a service thing. But the other two elements that we see a lot now are training. We went with the OPEX Leadership Network and our Industry Relations Committee on a field trip to Emerson last year, and that was certainly something that they were a proponent of. And it's possible now to conduct training in a way that we've never been able to do it before through augmented reality, virtual reality. There are training elements that can be conducted with staff remotely that just were never possible before. So I think that's a second element of remote access. And I think the third one is predictive maintenance. And the ability now to get into a piece of equipment remotely to see what's happening with motors and drives and temperatures and loads and things like that is just a tremendous leap forward. It's been around in other industries for some time, and there's a trickle-down effect. I mean, certainly the cost of the equipment has a lot to do with the ability or the viability of that kind of predictive technology. But certainly remote access now has become a needed technology. And there are a couple of really interesting things that are going on. First of all, the OPEX Leadership Network published a document on best practices for allowing that connectivity between the CPG and the OEM supplier. So that's always been a roadblock. Again, that's coming down, but there are a number of different ways that you can look to see how that can be done safely. And it's really up to a collaboration between the OEM and the CPG as to how they go about that. Certainly the CPG can turn that on and turn that off as needed, but that's a big element of making it happen. We've also seen instances in the service realm where we're now out of necessity. There are trained professionals on one side being able to walk less trained or less skilled employees of CPGs through very complex tasks. So that not only saves money in terms of that service element, but there's that training element involved as well. And certainly for the CPG in the time of need, as we've seen over the last nine months or so, that uptime, being able to keep that equipment up and running as necessary. So there's tremendous benefit that we've seen in the short term. And I think Tom would actually be able to quote you a statistic that leaves me at the moment, but there has been more progress in the last year with this kind of thing than there has been in the 10 years prior to this point. So you're seeing an accelerated adoption and tremendous benefit on both sides. It's beneficial to the OEM to be able to conserve that limited resource and not spend so much time traveling back and forth between places, and they can actually direct their attention to the area of most need. And for the CPG, there's cost savings, there's speed involved in fault diagnostics and remediation. So just tremendous benefits on both sides. So I think all of those things are playing into what you see. And it's, again, a trickle down effect. A lot of the suppliers of this type of equipment are seeing this happen and they're being pushed to adopt it more rapidly. So you're seeing not only innovation, but adoption in this technology. Now, it's been to your point here how quickly it's not only the technology is advanced, but the acceptance of it in multiple industry verticals in these past couple of years really has been really amazing because I can remember first hearing about this 20-some-odd years ago in the oil and gas sector where it was first installed with cellular networks too because of these remote wellheads in the middle of nowhere that people would have to visit all of the time just to see if they were still operating properly. But then with the remote access, they only had to go out there if they could indicate they saw failure. And that's the same thing. But it's now coming as the realization of cost industry is that this can be used for any type of company that operates equipment anywhere. Even if it's in a factory or a facility you go to regularly, it's still a great advantage to be able to access it and see that information so easily and readily. And I know there was all of the cybersecurity concerns, which has been a big hold up for a lot of industry and rightly so. But a lot of that's being addressed and can be addressed through a number of factors. So it's not quite the concern that I think it once was, say, four or five years ago among many an industry. Anything else to add, Tom? Yeah, in September of 2020, PMMI's Business Intelligence Group published a study on trends in the adoption of remote access. So that's a great reference document to see some of the different things that people are doing and how it's being deployed. Because I think it's interesting to see the innovation and the imagination in some of the suppliers and how that technology is being deployed. I think beyond just the great applications that Glenn mentioned, which really justified the need and the cost for doing these technologies. We also have to look at how we do remote access to make sure that it's safe, it's secure, that we avoid the cybersecurity issues that you brought up, Dave. And OMAC, the Organization for Machine Automation and Control, is just now releasing a new best practice document on how to implement remote access technologies in factories. There are a few key subjects from the guide that merits some comment here. Perhaps the biggest component to a successful remote access solution is not necessarily the technology, but the people that are involved. One of the biggest things that we have seen over the years as we've tried to implement remote access is the conflict between IT and OT. IT is all about cybersecurity and maintaining control of those networks, and they do a fantastic job of it. But OT is all about we need to manufacture right now. We can't stop for doing a patch, for example. Because stopping right now to do that patch means we throw away the batch, which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost product. So there needs to be a point where those two factors come together and discuss what are the needs of both sides. Understand what each side of that equation needs in order to successfully implement remote access tools. Then once all of the players are on the right page and they're communicating well, then they can turn to the task of developing the remote access solution, which type of remote access they want to use. Assessing the current situation within the factory and what the needs would be from a technology standpoint. And then getting everything to play well together. But it all starts really with that human aspect of the solution, not the technical one. Yeah, and for me, I'm going to take off from what Brian said there for a little bit, still with that OMAC report, which I agree, I thought was very good, some real success ideas for implementing remote access. I learned a new term there when that ITOT police, first time that I saw it in a report anyway, which was for, it was CIA and AIC. And Brian, I hope I have this right. But the CIA element was that the IT groups looks at confidentiality, integrity, and then availability, meaning the availability of whatever resources, whereas the OT group looks at availability first. They look at AIC. And I thought that that was an interesting piece. The production group, the OT people are looking at that need for availability, meaning the remote access. I need it dated now. I want to see what's happening on the line. And I just thought that that was a really good, for me, an easy statement to look at and say, they're looking at the same problem. They're looking at it through two different facets of the same problem. And so that's why, until that discussion takes place, sometimes we have the conflict. I think that that was a good takeaway on that piece. The other, just the overarching part for me on the remote access, Dave, is that I just don't believe that there's an option. Glenn alluded to the point that there's a benefit for both groups now. There's always has been, perhaps the pandemic has really pushed that to the floor because of the restrictions on travel, for example. But the benefit is that the cost of downtime is just too high. It's too high for the company that's trying to make a product to get into the marketplace to sell. And it's too high for an OEM that's trying to support the equipment and has to get a human resource to the location. So if you're able to at least go in and take a look at whatever the issue might be on a production line, or even to be monitoring that in the ultimate as a way of accessing and utilizing beneficially that remote access, it's that understanding that just downtime is just too, too expensive now. What can we do to reduce that time frame? Remote access is one approach that will absolutely work. Dave, I think we've always looked at this as the OEM and the CPG being the two sides of the remote access question. And I think for the CPG in and of themselves, there's tremendous capability for being able to remotely access equipment in different facilities or for supervisors that are in big plants that have the ability to be notified or even outside the plant to be notified that something in the line is not functioning correctly or it's not functioning at its optimum efficiency. I've been with CPG employees outside the plants on visits when they're notified via their cell phone that something in the line is dropping below a certain point. And they literally excuse themselves to be able to go in and get a hold of the plant and address it. So there's definitely that OEM and CPG connection and it's that remote access part. But for the plants that have multiple lines and multiple facilities just within their own organizations, there's tremendous capability and promise in the development and the machinery world for that data to be gathered and then output. So remote access I think has two connotations. There's the outside connotation where you're talking about the OEM and the CPG, but then the inside connotation where it's being used within a big group. So you're seeing tremendous now appreciation for the ability to do it and finding ways that it can be done safely and just beginning to realize the benefit because there's a lot of data that's available there and the question is now how do you gather it and how do you use it properly? Absolutely. Yeah, I think to both of your points Sarah and what we've been talking about here in just the past couple of minutes about it's been both cultural issues, organizational issues and bottom line cost issues. And I can remember when I first started writing about remote access technologies several years ago the big factor was the cost issues, the bottom line benefits to end users who adopted this but that didn't seem to be able to overcome the cultural and organizational issues that existed in these companies and have for years for obvious reasons but it's interesting that what's happened in the past year is kind of forced industries hand to rethink how things have to operate and so I think at this point they're starting to see those bottom line benefits that have been talked about forever they're being able to see like not having the amount of downtime or virtually no downtime, the reduced cost of travel and having to send someone to these sites all the time or to go physically check out these various facilities or piece of equipment that they don't have to travel there to do now. I think all of that is that falls to the bottom line and they see that, that it's kind of coming full circle back around again now that we've gotten over some of those cultural and organizational issues that have always existed. So that's been an interesting development for that for sure. And Brian, just before we leave that Dave, Brian, I think Apex did a fantastic job talking about the different technologies involved in remote access from this perspective and that might be something to comment on. Yeah, that's the document that Glenn referred to towards the beginning of his discussion was Apex put together a document on different technologies that can be used for remote access and it compared those to having a technician come on site. And it did it in a very graphical way that's easy for anyone within the business world to understand, using some icons to show what are the relative benefits of one type of technology over another type of technology across various axes such as the cost of the OT infrastructure to do it, the cost of the IT infrastructure to do it. The training required for maintenance and operators to be able to utilize it, et cetera. So it's a very good document with a very simple chart in it to give the CPGs and OEMs at least a starting point to start those discussions. No, absolutely, thanks for pointing that out, Brian. So one other technology area associated with remote access that has seen a big boost in this past year has been augmented reality for preventative maintenance. And much of what I had seen in terms of application examples anyways over the past few years it almost always been in the discrete manufacturing industries but I've been seeing more and more references to it in food and beverage. For example, through Cisco's project with the dairy farmers of America that we covered recently. Are any of you hearing much about the use of augmented reality for preventative maintenance and or training as you mentioned, Glenn, with food and beverage and CPG producers? Yeah, there was an article in this month's pro food world magazine about using it for training for sanitation which is a very specialized thing and through the use of augmented reality and virtual reality technology that they were able to walk a, like I said, a lesser skilled worker through the very complex process of sanitizing a particular piece of equipment. So surely that technology is out there. I think it's also very helpful for operators and maintenance people in food plants to be able to deploy that in terms of maintenance and repair, even without the OEM being involved. I mean, there's a tremendous amount of information from OEMs on simple things like threading film, for example. I've seen it used for that when they have such turnover in the food plants with the operators for the equipment. Even what you would consider relatively simple tasks are difficult because the training isn't there to pass that knowledge from worker to worker and with the turnover, this technology allows, again, even lower skilled workers, the ability to walk through a step-by-step process and get that job or that task accomplished. So for sure, it's becoming more widely available again as the price drops and the technology advances. Dave, you're the article that you referenced about Cisco. I was reading for the first time and I really liked what Cisco was looking at which is they have a technology and there is a need. How do they partner with organizations to do that? So I thought the use where Cisco said, we're going to give you or provide at a very reduced cost a full suite of tools so that you, the workers, the managers and the corporate can really understand just what's happening with those. Excellent, excellent example. It involved all parts of the organization. The individuals that are down on the plant floor are getting information to help them do their job. The managers are then getting information from what the workforce is doing in terms of handling an issue or doing a solution or as Glenn mentioned about the sanitation work, they're understanding what can improve that particular project from the workforce and then on a corporate basis just being able to manage overall. I thought it was a great example where a whole suite of tools was brought in. Again, it wasn't just here's a whole suite of tools you should learn to use them. It was let's start with the workforce on the plant floor having to get something done. How can we build up from there? I thought it was very good. I think one of the other interesting things that we're seeing as a use of these sorts of augmented reality and remote access being combined is where we can take a technician who is the premier technician on a particular piece of equipment but maybe tied up at somebody else's site and we can send another technician to the site that's in question and that technician can connect remotely with the premier technician and get online real time assistance for solving whatever the problem is. So effectively you've turned your standard technicians all into the same level and quality as your premier technicians by having that connectivity. If you've enjoyed our discussion here today I encourage you to keep an eye on the processing zone which is returning to PAC Expo with the PAC Expo Las Vegas show taking place September 27th through 29th of this year. So if you're a food and beverage or consumer packaged goods manufacturer this is a spot to watch for information on advances in front of line systems such as for homogenizing, mixing and blending forming and sizing and encoding. And for those involved in processing technologies the processing zone is a great place to check with regularly to keep up with advances here and you can get more information about the processing zone via the URL shown here. So thank you Tom, Glen and Brian for joining me for this discussion and thanks of course to all of our viewers. Thank you for joining us.