Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To... Be Unsupported

Are you confident your employees have the knowledge and skills to help your business grow and thrive? 

Knowledge is power! We're starting Season 3 talking about training and leveling up.

By providing technical training for your employees, you're fostering a work environment that promotes self-confidence knowing that they have the knowledge and skills to perform their daily tasks to the best of their abilities.

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the benefits of training and support, and why it's so important for manufacturers and end users.

We then delve into the different types of training such as online courses, technical community colleges, universities, and other industrial automation companies. Each has their merits and also their glaring distinctions.

How the training is done is where elliTek University stands apart from the rest. elliTek Universities instructors focus on real-world problems and how to solve them. The training is meant to EMPOWER the students to be capable of maintaining systems and equipment. The courses can be troubleshooting, programming, or a mix of both.

The philosophy is the best way to troubleshoot a system is to break it and have the students figure out how to get the system back online and as quickly as possible.

The types of courses offered at elliTek University include IoT, Motion Control, Vision, Robotics, and Industrial Hygiene. These courses are typically offered to manufacturers and end users. A calendar of courses will be available soon at www.ellitek.com/technical-training.

Stick around to here about Brandon's workforce development initiative for manufacturers in the East Tennessee region. The Maintenance Troubleshooter Certification programs last several weeks and are true LEVEL-UP programs. If your manufacturing facility is in East Tennessee, our instructors can put together a specific plan just for your facility!

Empowerment through training is elliTek's way to better our local workforce as a means of bettering our community.

Reach out to us with any questions or future topics!

• LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/company/ellitek-inc
• Instagram:  www.instagram.com/ellitek
• Facebook:  www.facebook.com/ellitek
• Twitter:  www.twitter.com/elliTek_Inc/media

If you don't want to click on those links, pick up the phone and call us at (865) 409-1555 ext. 804.

Transcript

Industrial Automation - It Doesn’t Have to be Unsupported.

Brandon Ellis 00:00

Today the topic is training. Leveling up. So, join us. 

Hello everybody, and welcome to Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have to... In case you're new to our program, I'm Brandon Ellis and I'm your host and also the owner of elliTek. Before we start today's episode, I just want to ask that you consider hitting the follow button and the subscribe button, depending on the platform you’re listening upon. Also, if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts and you enjoy what you hear, please go to the show page and scroll to the bottom and leave us a 5-star rating and review. Now that we've got the marketing out of the way, I want to say thanks for tuning in. So, let's get started with today's episode.

It’s season 3, so welcome everyone. We took a brief, little, off time, but this is Brandon Ellis, your host, and I'm here, of course, with Miss Beth Elliot.

Beth Elliott 00:58 

Hey Brandon, hey everybody, I'm glad to be back. How about you?  

Brandon Ellis 01:03

You’re glad to be back? I'm glad to be back as well. We’ve got a little bit of an off time there. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time outdoors, though. 

Beth Elliott 01:12 

No, it’s way too hot. 

Brandon Ellis 01:17 

Swelting hot. And also floods, we’ve had some horrible floods in our state, in the mid part of our state, so our prayers go out to those folks as they recover from that. That was crazy. They got 17 inches of rain across the course of like 7 hours.

Beth Elliott 01:31

Yeah, it was incredible, and I don’t think they had a whole lot of a warning at all either. Those poor people in Humphreys County.

Brandon Ellis 01:39

It was definitely flash flooding, which I've only ever seen on... you know… documentaries.

Beth Elliott 01:44

Movies, yeah.

Brandon Ellis 01:46

Yeah, and that’s usually in deserts and things of that nature. It was a horrible thing, there was a lot of, unfortunately loss of life and all kinds of damage. 

Beth Elliott 01:58 

But there were people that were able to survive and thrive and help each other out. We’re the volunteer state. 

Brandon Ellis 02:05

That's right. 

Beth Elliott 02:07

People are stepping up to that and living up to that.

Brandon Ellis 02.10

Certainly, they are. So, we’re glad to see that as well. We certainly want to keep those folks in mind. 

So… season 3. When we signed off on season 2, I think we said there was going to be some new and exciting things coming… so we're going to wait, those are in store. Instead of just telling you what all those are going to be, we're going to let you stick with us this season as they kind of unfold. But we do have a few things we want to share with you. We've got some new partners that we've been dealing with, they’re exciting; Smartshift Robotics. If you're not familiar with Smartshift Robotics, go to our website, www.ellitek.com, and you can read all about them there. We use them a lot with robots, they're not robots themselves, but especially with our collaborative robots to be able to move those robots quickly for a lot of our customers. If they're using a collaborative system in one place and they want it remove it at the base level and move it to another position, they have these locking dovetail slides, that are really, really cool, that allow you to do that and still maintain all of your datum points for your tool spaces and your cartesian systems and whatnot, tool center points, and those kind of things. So, it makes that very easy to do. Also, it's a mechanical end-of-arm quick tool change system. There's a lot of quick tool change systems out there, most of them are pneumatic, but theirs is mechanical, so when you take all the valving and the porting and all that kind of stuff out, they become pretty doggone affordable, and very easy to use. So even if it’s a manual change, with a collaborative robot that can be done quite easily by pretty much anyone. 

Beth Elliott 04:04

Yeah, their videos seem like they can switch them really fast. 

Brandon Ellis 04:07

That’s their automatic system if the robot does the switching. But even if you don't want to spend the money on the automatic equipment you can do it by hand and you don't have to use special tools or anything like that. Suddenly, when special tools are required, usually specialized training is required, and there is a push to try to simplify in automation, and rightfully so, because it takes time, usually you have more operators; material handlers, machine tenders, things of that nature, then you do maintenance folks... So, if it's something that's so easy and simple and repeatable that it's just a matter of click and unclick, then the operator, especially in a collaborative system with a collaborative robot, the operator could be involved with that as well. So, it keeps us from having to devote maintenance time. And changeovers count toward... We talked a lot last year, last season, about ROI. 

Beth Elliott 05:05 

Okay, okay. 

Brandon Ellis 05:06 

Walk time, takt time and things of that nature, so changeovers have to come into play, because that's down time. So, if it takes an hour or two hours to switch from a product or a line or a machine from running one part to running another, that's a lot. To be able to do that quickly and efficiently and come right back up and run, under a new program but still come up and run, is a big deal. 

Beth Elliott 05:34

They’re compatible with a lot of different robot types aren’t they? 

Brandon Ellis 05:38 

They are. And not just the ones we represent. So certainly, FANUC and Yaskawa Motoman and Hanwha, which we are partners with, but even so far as that, they go with some of our competitors, but we still support them as far as the Smartshift goes. So other collaborative's, other industrials... if you have a line other than FANUC, Yaskawa Motoman and Hanwha, give us a call and let us know which your models are, and we can tell you if they’re supported or not. 

Beth Elliott 06:12 

Sounds good. 

Brandon Ellis 06:13

So of course, I mentioned Motoman and FANUC… Yaskawa Motoman has some new and exciting products that they are rolling out this year, we can't wait to get that word out. Both in robotics and advanced motion. Yaskawa of course is known for Servo Motors and VFDs, but also, they were branded for years as Motoman, so everyone knows the Motoman brand, but it’s actually Yaskawa. Motoman has always been Yaskawa owned, so they started referring to themselves as one company now, so Yaskawa Motoman is what we call them, or Yaskawa. They’ve got some new products coming, we'll be talking about those as the season goes on. And also, Hanwha, we’ve talked about them, we're doing great with that collaborative line, it's my favorite one so far.

Beth Elliott 07:08

Yeah, you’ve been working with some welding stuff with them.

Brandon Ellis 07:11 

We’re getting ready to start some welding, we’ve done just general material handling, we're looking at machine tending, and those kinds of things with some customers. Just the ease of use, again, even from a maintenance standpoint, it's so much easier to use the direct teach capability but their interface is second to none as far as simplicity. Now, I don't want to talk down the other collaborative lines that are out there, but they really have done something special and it’s getting a lot of people's attention. We're excited about that as well. If that’s something that you’re interested in or you want to see a demo or something, let us know, we can schedule a demo at your place or ours and go from there. 

Beth Elliott 07:53 

Sounds good. 

Brandon Ellis 07:54

So, let’s get back, really, to today's title. 

Beth Elliott 07:58 

So, today's title is Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have to Be Unsupported. 

Brandon Ellis 08:05

Unsupported. What's that mean? 

Beth Elliott 08:08

That means that we need training. 

Brandon Ellis 08:13

So, unsupported. Support is always a big deal. I know, through twenty some-odd years of being involved with customers and supplying equipment to customers, that a lot of times they ask us. It usually starts as an after-thought and then all the sudden it’s an occurrence, usually about the time you're delivering... But for some it's a question from the beginning: How are we going to support this? How are you going to train our guys to be able to support this piece of automated equipment, this robot? It’s extremely important and it's overlooked a lot. It does fall on the company, the end user that’s getting the equipment to make sure that they have their people trained. We are very much about training. We try to start these conversations earlier than later. But also, because we have the capability to do a lot of the trainings. Why is it important? You’re spending a lot of money for equipment on your floor. Now, your machine builder or systems integration company that you work with, be it us or others, usually the builder is going to be required (if you don't do this, you should) to provide support, usually for free, for a certain amount of time, and it varies from company to company based upon the product that they're selling. But if it's a custom piece of equipment, then certainly so many months of free support. But you should make training part of that. You don't want to just say I've got 12 months of free support, so I'm not going to worry about it. You need to utilize that time to train your people up to support it. 

Beth Elliott 9:55 

Is that support typically through the phone or how is that done? Is it based on whatever company made the machine, or…? 

Brandon Ellis 10:04

Well, it’s based upon the company. Now, you’re jumping into the cybersecurity big battle, and that is... you know, most machine builders would just assume you let them remote into the machine and do remote support now, especially today, and we've done that in some way, shape or form for a decade or more. I'll tell people... A decade ago, two decades ago, decade-and-a-half or whatever, back, back then, I'm old enough to say way back then, parents also said to their children, you know, in the morning on a Saturday, go out and play, just make sure you're back in time for dinner. We don't do that anymore. So, with cybersecurity, with 2021 becoming the most profitable year for hackers, it's a booming industry now, so doing remote support is risky. So suddenly, if your 12 months of support, or eight months of support or whatever it is, is built into being remote support only, even more so you need to make sure you can get your folks trained up, because the ROI starts going to pieces if the machine’s down all the time and won’t run. So, here you got a situation where you’ve justified your return on investment, you’ve done all your math, you’ve worked all your numbers, and suddenly you can’t keep the machine running. And that’s because you may have top-notch maintenance folks, but they don’t have the skill set to be able to connect up and basically use the laptop to figure out what's going on with the machine. Training is a big part of that. I tie it together with our mission statement, our mission statement is to empower our clients. Empowerment through training is a great way, you've heard the adage: “give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, he’ll never go hungry”. That's training. It's about how you train, is how we kind of take a different stance. 

The other thing I hear a lot of people talking about today is the lights-out factory, especially in the midst of a labor shortage. And that’s not a new term, I think we mentioned in season one... We’ve talked about a lights-out factory. Well, it used to be started back up this year, History started repeating itself, and I kind of chuckle on that, because you should have, if you can, if you can afford it and justify it, you should have automated systems. But a lights-out factory, meaning nobody's there, it's just the robots doing what they need to do, is not feasible in my mind. If for no other reason, because robots are going to break one day, the tooling is going to break, it needs to be maintained. You need to have a trained maintenance staff. The other thing is that it can't go out and shop for raw material, whether it's food, you know some kind of industrial substance or whatever... I mean, somebody's got to keep the stuff going in. You're always going to have logistics, and then somebody's got to get it out of there. Maybe one day Amazon will figure out some way for it to swoop in and pick up everything and swoop out.

Beth Elliott 13:53 

They’re going back to the brick-and-mortar now. They’ve been talking about it. 

Brandon Ellis 13:57 

Are they? Well, it's just tough to, I mean... I love automation, we had a conversation just at the beginning of the week... it is tough to take an automated system and when you really look into what the person's doing... Truly emulate the human being, emulating touch, not just the feeling of touch but how ambidextrous the human is, the human hand, getting rid of the human eye, the brain. All those things make it very difficult. But then there's also just relationship, face-to-face kind of stuff. I'm getting off topic… Lights-off factories. I think, from an automation standpoint, we can get too closer as far as machines that work more efficiently automatically, but especially when it comes to trained individuals, they're always going to be a need for that.

Beth Elliott 14:59

So, what is elliTek doing to help with the training? 

Brandon Ellis 15:05

We founded, right before the pandemic, we founded what we call elliTek University. When I say founded, I mean we’ve got our training center. We've got our website, www.ellitek.com/technical-training. elliTek University offers a lot of things, but again specific courses largely based upon the products that we represent and partner with. I mentioned a few of them already. I don't know if we’re going to have a training on Smartshift Robotics. 

Beth Elliott 15:56

Because they’re so easy to use, I don’t think you’ll need a whole lot of training.

Brandon Ellis 15:59

But we would have a training on Hanwha Robotics or FANUC or Yaskawa Motoman, Yaskawa Motion. Those would be examples.

Beth Elliott 16:08

Red Lion…

Brandon Ellis 16:09

Red Lion, IoT with our IIoTA, things of that nature. They’re specific courses based upon products. There’s also topical courses that we are offering. So, Industrial Networks would be a course that we offer. Cybersecurity is one where we're working with to try to decide if we really need to fit that need or if it's being met otherwise. And that's the thing, there's other outlets for training. But for us, for the products that we represent, we consider ourselves experts. We’re supposed to be, we support them. We sell them, we support them. Whether or not we’re involved with the integration or building or anything like that, we are the experts, and so at the times we were we’re working directly with the machine builder, custom machine builders or the systems integrators themselves, then we need to be experts. Our engineers and our trainers are those experts, so we can deliver a very effective training in that regard. It's kind of different than the other courses. 

Beth Elliott 17:11 

Yea, so how is it different than online courses?

Brandon Ellis 17:14

Well, online courses... Now online courses have gotten a lot more creative. 

Beth Elliott 17:17

Yeah well, especially now, with the pandemic and stuff. But you don’t get that hands on.

Brandon Ellis 17:25

You don’t. You know, Yaskawa started a remote training some years ago. 

Beth Elliott 17:30

Oh, so you could remote into a machine, like a simulator type thing?

Brandon Ellis 17:36

Yeah, you would reserve time on the unit and then, they have webcams, so you can see the motors turning and spinning and you can see different things happening, and if you have errors, it’s like you're sitting there in front of the device. And that's part of their coursework that we offer to our customers and users and it’s certainly available. Some of it is free, some of it is not, but yeah... The difference is:  most of your online courses, the curriculum is already done. 

Beth Elliott 18:09

Okay, it's preset, it's not specific for the individuals and their needs. 

Brandon Ellis 18:15

It’d be the same if you went there, but you’re taking a class. And so that class may be more focused on programming their system versus troubleshooting, or it's too much of a technical deep dive for someone who just wants to support the machine or support the product, and then they're usually quite lengthy. 

Beth Elliott 18:36 

Oh... Like months? 

Brandon Ellis 18:37

No, no, no, days. Rarely are they one day, sometimes rarely they are even two... Many times, they’re three-to-four-day courses. And, of course, remote’s better than having to go there from a monetary standpoint. It's a lot more relaxing to go home every night, who doesn't want to do that? So, the remote or the online courses, it’s according to who you’re doing. If you’re talking about online courses through the manufacturer of the product, that's one thing... Again, they try to make that as closely matched to going there. But I still feel like going there is more effective, because it is actual hands-on, and number two, you get this conversation. If it's an online coursework, even if there's a live instructor… You don’t ever get a chance… There’s not a “We’ll take a five-minute break” and you have a chance to go talk to the instructor and ask specific questions, you don't have someone walking around the room if you're having trouble, that kind of stuff. I still applaud in-person classes, but, again, that is if we’re classifying online coursework as training through the manufacturer. There's also online courses that are really part of educational folks, so community colleges and universities and things of that nature. I haven’t really seen a lot of those. I know everybody went online last year because they had to, but I don't think we should use that as a measuring stick, because that was an absolute have-to case, because of the pandemic, and not necessarily something they had been planning this whole time. Now, from that, I think some things have derived, but I don't know enough about what those are, and haven't had that experience to really be able to say good or bad on that. 

Beth Elliott 20:30 

What's the difference with the Technical, the Community Colleges? 

Brandon Ellis 20:34

You mean if you’re going there?

Beth Elliott 20:37 

Yeah, yeah. Like in person

Brandon Ellis 20:38

Usually, the community college that’s a semester or multiple semesters that’s part of a degree program and so... From my experience, again, between the University level type courses and the Community College type courses, is that Community College type courses usually have donated products, and so you may actually get your hands on PLCs and robots and things of that nature. But the curriculum is going to be fairly basic. And University.... I don't know, I haven't been to a university in quite a number of years, as a student, but it's more theory. We actually have our intern program, which is just a small program, we don't really promote it that much, because we usually only have one or two openings, and again, Covid has made that interesting. Usually that's across the summer months. We try to work with students, with local universities, to help turn the theory into real-world application, and that is worth its weight in gold as far as finding jobs, and not just finding jobs from the student’s perspective but from the hiring entities’ perspective. To be able to hire a young engineer, which means they're ready to go, they've got more energy than us old folks, hopefully. But they've had some level of application, and while they're not having to have those “aha” moments. Because, honestly, the “aha” moments that I had as a new engineer were because of the influence of the now exiting baby-boomer generation. But they're gone. 

Beth Elliott 22:28

Yeah, they’re leaving fast.

Brandon Ellis 22:29

And our generation didn't do a good job learning all of the reasons why that happens or putting that together. I think with some of the younger folks we’re seeing that now, we're seeing that with, you know, PLCs. I go back to PLCs. PLCs are programmed with ladder logic, but students aren't being taught ladder logic, not in universities and largely not in Community Colleges. But yet 99% of all equipment on the globe still runs from a PLC that's programmed with ladder. So why does this make sense? It doesn't. But as a result, what we're seeing is students coming out... They are being trained in web development languages, programming languages, and so… XML, Python, all these kinds of things... So, they're trying to do what they know and what they were taught, and so they're trying to figure out how to do automation systems with a very structured text-based web language, while it's just like a tool in the toolbox as far as programmers are concerned. But every tool… I heard a guy say one time just because you only have a hammer doesn't mean everything's a nail. You need screwdrivers, you need saws, you need various things in your toolbox. So, everything's not going to be accomplished by a single language, and those languages were developed for web-type environments, and not necessarily running machines. And it really comes down to... I don’t want to get too delved into it... But ladder logic actually runs and does its solving as far as how it's processing the code in a close to, or, we say, parallel environment. Whereas web-based is very much sequential. So, it becomes not a very good tool at times for controlling machines. And it needs to be taught. But if we have not taught them that, so now you're starting to see this younger generation trying to find ways to... They're still expected to get the machines to run, they’re trying to program but the only way they've been taught, which is web-based languages in my example. Or maybe it's more advanced, high level application type development languages. Maybe C-sharp, or something along those lines… Dot Net type programming. It’s still just not… It works. 

Beth Elliott 25:01

But it seems like it would be more difficult.

Brandon Ellis 25:04

It’s more difficult. 

Beth Elliott 25:05

You’re trying to take this one thing and fit it into something that is not meant for it.

Brandon Ellis 25:13

You can drive a screw into a wooden board with a hammer. It's not fun. So, it's much easier to drive a nail into a board. But if you have a screw, it's much easier done with a screwdriver. So, I don't feel like that my generation has done a good job convincing the Universities, and of course a lot of my generation are the professors in those Universities, to teach the things they need to teach. Now, don't leave me bad comments, I'm being general here. I'm sure there are some Universities out there that are doing some of this, but I don't think it's a focus. But I don't know if it should be either. Because Universities are preparing, especially in engineering, they're really preparing engineers with the theory. The “aha” moments were me saying “Oh, that's what that professor meant when we did all those equations and talked about how this works and that works and all this theory”. Then, when you realize that that theory is happening, it makes sense. That's what Universities should be doing, because they're really preparing... They're not just preparing people to go out in the workforce, they're preparing the professors, the researchers of tomorrow. Researchers and professors don't need to be really ingrained in real-world experience, because that could actually hamper them in their creativity. It's like training an artist, you know, someone taking art classes, but only learning to draw other people's paintings, and then they never learn to express themselves through art, and so you would never have any new art, you would only have modifications of what other people have done, and certainly, we assume, there is still new art to be had out there. Same thing comes with researchers, I mean, we want them to find stuff that we hadn't thought up yet. So, theory is where all that starts, down to the little bitty pieces of energy. The physics part of it. But not every college student is going to go into research and development or Academia, they're going to go out into the world. So, we’ve got to find a way to get that together. So, some of the classes… our internship program, but some of these classes we’ve worked closely with a few folks from some of the close universities about exploring options there. Now we don't have anything officially done, I'm kind of ranting here, this is a rant, sorry. But I do think that we're seeing the effects of this, because I don’t feel like… if I thought a machine could run much better with Python, if it was programmed in Python for example, then I would be singing its praises. But I know Python, and I know ladder logic, and I'm telling you, ladder logic will win in a machine, and it's easier because it's built for that. But in web-based stuff, it doesn't have a place. So, we need to keep things classified where they are. But, nevertheless, getting back to our training, that's where I think we're different, because we try to give... Our focus is certainly real-world. Not academia. Not theory. Sometimes if I’m teaching a class I'll go back to the theory, you know, “that's why this happens” or “that happens”. Newton's law, for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, this is what that looks like. If we're doing motion, or motion sizing, those kinds of trainings, but still, we focus on real-world problems and then the solutions that go with them. And it's because we're trying to empower our customers, but to be what? What are they trying to be? Well, they're trying to be capable of maintaining the systems that are on the floor, capable of maintaining systems that even don't have anything to do with us but fall in the same guidelines as far as our classifications. We may be training on a motion platform and they're using someone else's motion platform, but the theory, the concepts of that are the same. But at the same time do they need to be programming, or do they need to be troubleshooting? So, we kind of try to pull those together as well. Maybe they need to do a little bit of both. So, we try to do that. But that’s really the difference between an automation company, is specifically going to train on their stuff. The university should be more theory, book, knowledge. The Technical Community College is going to be more hands-on, but less of the theory behind it. More repetitious or just memorization, if you will. “If this happens, do this” kind of thing. Then, online courses, I think, are kind of up in the air, but it's according to where you're getting the online course, or I don't know enough to comment. But especially, we are able to also offer what I call a cross-platform training. 

Beth Elliott 30:24

So, what’s an example?

Brandon Ellis 30:27

Of a cross platform? If we’re doing our IIoTA training. So IIoTA, its job is to connect the OT, the Operational Technology, with the IT. Well, there are certain things that we can say we assume you know, but that's not what we want to do. We don't want to assume; we want to make sure you know. And so, I'm not going to delve into it in the course, but we're going to make sure that you know that if there's a PLC out there it needs to have this network setup. So, it needs to have an IP address. It needs to have a subnet. What do those things roughly mean, and more importantly, what's it mean when they're not right? Will it work, will it connect, will it not connect? What does it mean if the IP addresses are the same? Will that work or not work? How can you sniff that out if that's the issue? And then also, on the database side, what's a database really look like? Let's boil it down to its most basic pieces just so we can visualize what we're doing when we’re moving stuff into the database. You may not be the database person, you probably aren't if you’re in our IoT classes, but you're being asked to interface with it, and so it will always serve you well if you understand what the other person's job is, what they're dealing with on their side, and you can kind of converse with them a little bit more. Otherwise, you're speaking two different languages and that's not productive at all, so we try to do this cross-platform type of deal. So even if you’re here for IoT training, or even specifically, IIoTA training, we're going to touch on, this is an Allen Bradley PLC, or this is a Siemens PLC, or whatever PLC you might be talking about, Omron, whatever, and this system, this is how you would set this up. Because some PLCs are set up a little bit differently than others. But just having those quick couple of notes can make all the difference, but actually seeing it connected, because we would have a PLC of some sort there in the training... Red Lion. So, Red Lion HMI development, well if you’re troubleshooting and doing things and wanting to add some visualization and tools... That’s usually what we teach with the Red Lion, you're not necessarily starting from a new program, but you’re building upon something. But you may have to set up new tags, you may have to set up some new connections to new memory areas on the PLC, so we're going to want to set that up, and make sure you know how that connection is made. But it also… a Red Lion, any HMI must communicate to the PLC. So how can I troubleshoot when that communication stops? Where the problem is? So, you can talk about that all day long, but to demonstrate it, to actually troubleshoot it, you're going to have to have a real PLC and a real HMI there. And then I’m going to do something to it to make it not work, and you're going to figure that out. The best way to learn to build a house is build a house, and the best way to learn to troubleshoot the system is have someone break it, and you figure out how to get it back online. That also comes down to that training, the more efficient that your maintenance crew is, as far as bringing things back online, that's downtime reduction. And that's a big word right there.

That’s the kind of stuff we offer. I might have spent a lot of time on that, I apologize. 

Beth Elliott 33:53

No, not at all. So, what other courses would elliTek University offer?

Brandon Ellis 33:56

Well, within our courses we talked a bit about the IoT courses; and so, that’s the OT IT. (I’m not going to say it again because you can rewind if you want to know what that acronym says, I’ve already said it.) And data visualization, visualization of course we would use probably our Red Lion product for that, and then Motion Control. So, Motion Control comes in all kinds of different shapes and sizes, but in our case, that's going to be Yaskawa, and usually servo motion so we might be talking about, you know, if you have to change a motor out, how do you re-tune it. How do you reset an absolute encoder, what is an absolute encoder versus an incremental encoder and how do you figure out which one you might have...? What do these moves look like, what's the difference between a relative move and an absolute move, and how to kind of glance through an existing program and narrow down, you know, size up what's happening. And so, when there's an issue, the more you understand how the system works, the more you can understand what things are suspect in the troubleshooting. So not everything we do is just about troubleshooting, it can also include programming, but troubleshooting is always going to be part of it. And, again, when we come in and we set up, usually I don't have to do anything, usually I encourage them to play around and stuff and inadvertently they break the system, and that becomes “class, let’s jump in and figure this out. We got a machine down kind of situation”. That’s just as important for engineers, it's just as important for maintenance, it's just as important for brand new on boarded employees. To be able to know how to think through a problem, troubleshoot it, and what tools they have on their laptop to make that happen. So that's the Motion Control. 

Vision. Vision is a big deal. Vision is kind of a magic. So, the type of cameras you got, the type of lighting you have, what you're looking at, what you're trying to see, what tools are available, how you use those tools, sometimes vision systems... Vision systems are finicky, not because the equipment is necessarily finicky, but because the environment absolutely is. A lot of times in vision systems on the machine, if it's a custom piece of equipment, we’ll actually shroud out the entire thing so we can control the lightning if it’s critical. You have to, because the ambient brightness in the room can change with the clouds, with a cloud cover. There’s certainly day and night, but even with the cloud cover, or they move it, or they install a window, or they put a skylight in or new lighting or whatever, and so that can affect vision systems. Being able to quickly assess and try to think, if it's even possible, try to think like a vision system thinks is good, good skill to brush up on. 

We also, of course, do the robotics training. We kind of are dividing that to programming, but with our industrial robots we really focus a lot more on maintenance and troubleshooting. How to use different parts, the different menus on the pendant, where to go for what, for determining the status of things, but also controlling certain things. Jogging the robot, reteaching points, touching up points, resetting faults, looking at fault histories, those are important, and we just have a lot more customers in our region that are asking for maintenance level up type, specifically, you know, with specific robot brands within our university, so that's what we offer there. If you want intense 3–4-day programming classes, then we would set you up with one of the many training centers that FANUC has or Yaskawa Motoman, the Hanwha training, being that it’s collaborative, there are advanced trainings, we offer those here. We will be offering more and more of those. But there's no point in reinventing the wheel. Now, if we get a huge push for, you know, we want Yaskawa Motoman robot training specifically to do this thing, you know, from a programming standpoint, then we certainly can add that to our curriculum. We're always listening. But we got to have the right components in place, the right equipment, the right training in place and instructors and things of that nature. But we can’t do it all. The last thing, I guess the technical term is Industrial hygiene.

Beth Elliott 38:40

Yeah, explain that.

Brandon Ellis 38:41

It’s really safety. It's making sure everything's safe. There's a lot of talk on safety, and what's safe and what's not safe. And in the United States, as we learned in season one, we talked about it doesn’t have to be unsafe, and had Dave Rice on from Datalogic. We talked about safety categories, we talked about onus and who’s responsible and that kind of thing. In the United States, the onus falls upon the end user. So, the end user must decide what is and isn't safe, now that doesn't mean that if you’re the machine builder that you're shedding liability. You should not put a machine or a robot in place that's not safe. You will find yourself in court. And you can't just say that they said it was safe and walk off. You have responsibilities, but it still falls upon the responsibility of the end-user. Our job is to know when to say no, that's not safe. So, understanding what options you have when it comes to safety, comes down to that. How can you take something that wasn't safe and make it safe? What does that mean as far as safety categories and those kinds of things? You know, a light curtain gives you certain level of safety, especially with robot cells, but then suddenly light curtain won't meet your requirements, you kind of have to go with the safety scanner, or hard guarding, or both, and hard guarding with a safety light curtain doesn’t get you this category, whereas hard guarding with a safety scanner does. Those kinds of things and understanding how they all put together. And then, safety scanners themselves, how to set them up. They have to be programmed. Light curtains. Light curtains are fairly simpler, but how to do muting, how to do blanking, what’s the difference? How can we set that up, how do we make a moving blanked area? Those kinds of things, and how that ties in with your robots, or your motion systems or just your people and interfacing with the thing. That's the industrial hygiene part of things. Those are the primary courses.

Beth Elliott 40:47

Yeah. So, what else is elliTek getting into? What do you got up your sleeve there, Brandon?

Brandon Ellis 40:54

Well, we have a bigger version of this. So, all of these are meant for individuals, or individual companies, and again, they're meant to be... We may have a classroom full of 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, pre-Covid we had 24 seats, we'll get back to that one day, after we’re a little bit further outside of this Delta variant, for maintenance crews, first, second, third shift maintenance crews, or engineers or whatever end-user type folks. We've also brought in engineer groups from the machine builders that we work with, that are interested. Even some from out-of-state, that we don't have a relationship with but they're looking for training. And that's what those classes are for, but specifically we have a larger training... Really, it's not just a day class, it's weeks, and it is a true level up program. It's a program, it's not a course, and right now we're doing it specifically for East Tennessee companies and manufacturers and end users in the East Tennessee region. It’s those types of companies that whether they are seeking a means of leveling up their current folks, or maybe an on boarding process for new hires. It lets us focus on developing… Really, it's a certification. We call it the maintenance troubleshooter certification. It’s a multi week deal, we work very closely with the hiring HR departments, the engineering departments, the production maintenance departments at specific customers here in East Tennessee. And the goal is to build up, within their organizations, build up a skilled workforce that is skilled at to what we call the maintenance troubleshooter level. So, what's the difference? There's plenty of very, very, intelligent maintenance folks out there, and they know how to wrench like nobody's business. They've got all the wrenches and the special tools and everything they need for all the mechanical side of things in the machine. It's all in their toolbox. But usually my experience is there's one, maybe two, maybe none, that are able to pull out their laptop, connect up to... you name it: the robot, the vision system, the PLC, the HMI, the IoT system, and connect to that and begin to use the laptop as a means of troubleshooting, not necessary modifying, but troubleshooting the system. Again, the goal is maintenance troubleshooter; get out there, be able to handle it whether it needs to be wrenched or whether it needs to be connected to, and bring this piece of equipment, assess the issue, fix the issue and bring the equipment back up and online as soon as possible. And so, we call that a maintenance troubleshoot. So, it’s kind of a level up position. So, it’s a certification through this multi week program, but we do it very specifically with our curriculum, and so that specifically is involving companies, manufacturers in the greater East Tennessee area. It's a little different than just the courses. Just the course calendars. And that’s really something as we go out and talk with area manufacturers... If we haven't spoken with you and you're in the Greater East Tennessee area and you are a manufacturer, whether your HR, engineering, manufacturing, production, maintenance, give us a call and we'll talk and see how we can put it together. Because it's very specific to that company. Now there's things that are cross company as far as beneficially, but we want to make sure that they're getting exposed to the things that they would be exposed to, we want them to be able to hit the ground running. It’s not just about “I’ve got a certification, now I got to get experience”. We want them to come with experience, and that's what we're trying to give them, is that experience. 

Beth Elliott 44:52

So, is there an application process and vetting and all that good stuff?

Brandon Ellis 44:56

There is… Again, if we’re going through the manufacturer, they kind of know who, if they’ve already got the people, they're doing their own vetting. But if there's openings, at some point, I imagine, this will be opened up to the general public, especially retired military, who have skill sets that... They got all the goods; they just need to add the laptop to the toolbox and have the capability to do that. So, you can do that through some of the technical community colleges, but usually those are two-year programs, three-year programs, four-year programs. We're talking about, you know, 4 to 6 to 8 weeks program according to what we're trying to do. It's not the end of the world, it's a summer. But being able to do that and have that opportunity... There's no other opportunities like that, and so bringing that to the East Tennessee region, we see that is mutually beneficial, all of this training is mutually beneficial, because we’re not only training on the products we sell, but by getting our customers trained up and getting that skill-set that they need, that's just going to result in more business for us as a company, from an elliTek standpoint, using these automated products that we sell and promote and implement. On the one hand it may seem like it's a giving back, and it is, and that’s a priority, but it's also we know it’s going to be mutually beneficial. It’s going to come back around. And so that's what we're supposed to do, right?

Beth Elliott 46:34

That's right, that's right. Help our community. 

Brandon Ellis 46:37

That’s right. So that’s basically it. 

Beth Elliott 46:40 

Sounds good. Do you have anything else? 

Brandon Ellis 46:42

Season 3 is under way. We did it. 

Beth Elliott 46:46

I think this is going to be our 25th episode. 

Brandon Ellis 46:5049

25th. Well, that’s a good divisible by-5 number. So, yay. I haven’t done a sound effect for season 3, which one should I do?

Beth Elliot 46:59

I don’t know. It’s been so long.

Brandon Ellis 47:03

Twenty-five.

Beth Elliot 47:04

Season 3.

Brandon Ellis 47:05

Season 3. Well, speaking of which, I want to thank everybody for continuing to listen and download, and all of our subscribers and followers. You probably heard at the beginning of every podcast that I tell you, I ask you, to consider following or subscribing, so please do that. Also, if you like what you hear and you’re on Apple, go ahead and give us that five-star rating. Our website is…

Beth Elliott 47:34

www.ellitek.com 

Brandon Ellis 47:41

Alright. Telephone number is 865-409-1555 and we are in Knoxville, Tennessee. We serve the state of Tennessee, North and South Carolina, we kind of go around, but with our training, usually, that's beneficial to people here in East Tennessee. However, the last training that we had, we were going through Florida and Pennsylvania and everything, so wherever you are on this globe, if you're interested, certainly check us out. Check our website out, we'll have our training calendar updated and up soon, and we'll be going from there.

Beth Elliott 48:17

Yeah, sounds great. 

Brandon Ellis 48:18

Facebook, social media, LinkedIn, Instagram. Look for elliTek and you’ll find us. And then search for elliTek in your favorite streaming app and you’ll find Industrial Automation- It Doesn’t Have to… Beth.

Beth Elliott 48:30

Yes, Brandon.

Brandon Ellis 48:31

Happy first episode of the third season.

Beth Elliott 48:34

Happy first episode of the third season to you as well, that was a mouthful.

Brandon Ellis 48:38

Yeah. Have a great day guys. We’ll see you.

Beth Elliott 48:40

See ya.