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

This is a special crossover episode with CSIA, Control System Integrators Association.  Lisa Richter, host of CSIA's podcast "Talking Industrial Automation", sat down for a chat with elliTek's Brandon Ellis.

CSIA is a global trade association that strives to advance the control system integration industry.  CSIA has more than 500 member companies that they provide many benefits for, one of which is a guest interview for CSIA's podcast.

During this episode you'll learn how Brandon got into automation.  You'll find out how elliTek began and how elliTek has evolved over the years.  You'll also hear about trends, challenges, and predictions for the industrial automation segment.

Whether you're a manufacturer, supplier, system integrator, or end user, you'll be sure to learn something new and insightful.

Links referenced during the show:

• Control System Integrators Association, CSIA:  https://www.controlsys.org/home
• CSIA Exchange. elliTek's page:  https://www.csiaexchange.com/213607/elliTek-Inc
• CSIA Featured Interview:  https://www.csiaexchange.com/podcast.aspx 
• Talking Industrial Automation podcast:  https://talkingindustrialautomation.com/

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Today's Episode
• 1:31 Introduction to "Talking Industrial Automation"
• 3:16 Why Brandon Chose a Career in Automation
• 6:07 History of elliTek & How the Company has Evolved
• 12:10 What is the Smartest Decision elliTek has Made Recently?
• 15:16 What is Unique about elliTek's Approach to a Project?
• 18:59 The Challenges Customers are Facing Right Now
• 22:05 Trends and Challenges in Industrial Automation
• 29:43 What Makes Brandon Optimistic about the Future of Industrial Automation
• 31:59 Why elliTek Became a CSIA Member
• 33:57 How Should Customers Choose a System Integrator?
• 37:31 Why elliTek Started a Podcast
• 43:20 Parallel Universes

Transcript

Brandon 0:01  

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 upon 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, leave us a five-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.

Beth 0:39  

Hey, everybody, welcome to "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To". We have a special treat for you today. elliTek is a proud member of the CSIA, the Control System Integrators Association. This is an excellent organization for integrators and partners, and we encourage you to check them out. And we'll be sure to have links in the show notes for you. One of the many benefits of CSIA membership is collaboration. And Brandon was recently interviewed by Lisa Richter, their Director of Industry Outreach and Growth for their podcast titled, "Talking Industrial Automation". So, today's show is a crossover podcast that we're going to be sharing with you. So, the title for elliTek's episode is "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To... Be Uncooperative". So, stay tuned and enjoy.

Lisa  1:31  

Welcome to "Talking Industrial Automation", a podcast where you get to know the people who make modern industrial automation possible, you will get to hear from CSIA system integrators and industry partners to get a better understanding of how they help their clients and solve process challenges, and while they've earned success in their careers. Along the way, we will touch on system integration best practices, technology, trends and challenges. Whether you are a manufacturer, end user, supplier, or system integrator, you will enjoy the insights these industry professionals bring to this podcast. Let's get started.

Lisa  2:16  

Hi, my name is Lisa Richter, the host of "Talking Industrial Automation", a podcast where you get to know the people who make modern industrial automation and processing possible. In today's episode, we're talking industrial automation with Brandon Ellis, who is the founder and president of elliTek. Having worked in various capacities within the industrial automation market for nearly 25 years, Brandon funnels his experience into developing elliTek's Data Commander MES gateway appliance and Industrial Internet of Things Appliance which are designed to simplify secure data movement between plant floor machines and enterprise level databases. Brandon also founded elliTek University's training center where he builds workforce development programs because he is passionate about both teaching and learning from others. And if that's not enough, Brandon is also co-host of elliTek's podcast "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To". Brandon, welcome to the podcast.

Brandon 3:12  

Hey, Lisa, longtime listener, first time caller.

Lisa  3:16  

That's the first time anybody said that I can't believe it. So, let's start at the beginning. Why did you choose a career in automation, or maybe the career chose you?

Brandon 3:28  

Well, straight out of college, I actually started in quality assurance. And so, there's that a good reason to switch to something else for me. Actually, to be honest, I really appreciated all the experience I gained from my QA experience. But you know, I also love that there's QA people that love QA so that they can do it and I don't. So as my career switched, I happened into a job where I met my first PLC, and honestly, I hated it. I hated PLCs. I hated ladder logic. You know, straight out of college, you know, I didn't understand what this archaic looking thing was. And so, the truth is, looking back, you know, my teachers really didn't understand it either. At least they didn't give me a viewpoint of that. And so, I just didn't understand the reason for this thing. And basically, said they don't teach in college, so it must be useless. So, I guess that was my mentality. So, I left PLCs behind went into motion control, linear motor systems and things of that nature, it was spot on, because that's all text-based programming, and none of this crazy ladder logic stuff. And so, it kind of hit there but later, you know, now motion in the last decade or two, maybe I don't know, time flies and motion began to come back into the ladder environments. So I was kind of forced to migrate back into it, and it was then that I said, you know, I want to find out with all the hypes about and, and so when I really went into it with an open mind and honestly some maturity that I didn't have at a younger age, and some good teachers and mentors, I realized that there was a definitely, definitely a place for ladder logic and automation and the PLC in automation. And so of course, today's systems combine that with structured text and function block and all these different flavors. And I realized then that, you know, you really need more than one tool in the toolbox, especially when you're programming. And so it was really, you know, once I kind of got that, you know, I didn't look back, and nowadays, you know, for the last decade have been mentoring the younger folks to kind of try to help them gain that new perspective that it took me about a decade and a half to really, really get to so I guess it wasn't so much a choice rather than a love hate relationship early on.

Lisa  5:38  

How do you describe to lay people what you do?

Brandon 5:40  

Now, that's a good question. Was it Einstein that said, if you can't describe what you do for a living to a ninth grader than you're a fraud? So, we should be able to keep this fairly simple, right? You know, in a nutshell, elliTek is about moving process information relayed from the machine level, you know, to the data servers via cloud based or hosted and vice versa. So, we move the little bits of information in an automated fashion between the plant floor and the IT side of things.

Lisa  6:07  

Share the history of how elliTek began and how the company has evolved in the automation industry.

Brandon 6:13  

Well, as, as I mentioned earlier, in all of my fighting various programming languages, I was always looking for tools and platforms, I really didn't want to use ladder. And so, I wanted to find other ways to make this easier. And what I didn't realize was I was kind of Mr. Miyagi myself, because I was going out and learning all these new platforms, these new languages, and honestly developed quite an arsenal of programming tools, you know, for my toolbox. And, and so at one point, then, really 2009 when elliTek began, I struck out, it was just me, I struck out on my own, and my emphasis was to develop what we refer to as black box solutions to really, really link desperate systems that wouldn't normally talk with each other. Now, that was primarily on the OT side, the Operational Technology, plant floor side, so you know, getting a PLC to talk to a CNC. Nowadays, that's, you know, not as farfetched, but this was 20 years ago. And so, has it been 20 years ago? 2009. Yeah, it's been a while, it's been a minute. And so, you know, robots to PCs and things of that nature. And so that's what I was doing. And, you know, each of that, you know, they work well enough on their own, but they didn't communicate well. And so that's what I was trying to do was, was I started kind of pulling that together and having all those languages kind of helped me get into that. And, but, of course, I stayed far, far away as most controls engineers, even today, some stay far, far away from the IT side of things, it's just scary, scary stuff; kind of like ladder logic was out of college. And so, but I was encouraged and kind of forced there by some customer relationships and, and I got into what's called SCADA systems. And so, SCADA, of course, is an acronym. We get in acronyms a lot on our podcast, so SCADA Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. And so, I started the SCADA stuff. And it was going well, but then basically almost ended my IoT career because support was just nightmarish. Because we would put these systems and I would validate them, I would check the box, I would invoice the job, you know, it was it was done. And about three to four weeks later, I would get a call saying the system's down, it's no longer running, come here right away, and I'd have to drop what I was doing, and go over there. And it would happen about every, about once a month. And you know, as most integrators probably know, the end user pretty much always asks for a year of free support. So, you're supposed to include that support. So, this was getting expensive. The key is to try to not have to support it, you do your job, right, you don't have that support, but it was going and going and going. And in almost every case, the call was the reason was because there was an updated firewall or they updated the virus engine or a Windows Update or in one situation, they uninstalled my software all together because it didn't meet the software requirements list. And it was just, it was just incredulous. And so, I was so frustrated with that. And I decided there, there's got to be a better way, there's got to be an easier way than this. And so, I went out to look for that way. I didn't find it. And so, in 2013, I set out to do it myself. And so that led to our Data Commander, which is an appliance. Appliance being the key term. It's not a PC, it's an appliance. And so, from the IT world, they're judged based upon their IT assets, which basically is spelled PC, they are not judged by production and how it goes they're judged by making sure nothing gets ransomed and, and viruses don't go. And whereas production, they're judged based upon production, and they could care less if they've got security credentials and things of that nature. And so, I realize there's this competing philosophy and when you get into competing philosophies, things get really interesting. And so, that gave way to the Data Commander which could stand in that position. It was a secure representative, a secure means of transfer. And more than that was very easy to use point click, and so we empowered. That's our company's mission statement to empower our clients and to meet them where they are. And so, it helped empower them to be able to, once we train them to kind of takeoff, and it really became a partnership and a whole lot of fun again, at that point. But up to that point, wow, it was, it was a lot. And so, you know, in 2000, we released the data commander in 2014. And then in 2019, its big brother, our IIoTA, which stands for Industrial Internet of Things Appliance, which you mentioned earlier. And so, we've kind of not looked back from there, you know, we, we, it's, honestly, it's been really amazing to watch what some of our clients have accomplished. And, and, and honestly, what they've been able to do for less cost than they imagined. So those are the kind of things that make me feel like I've done a good thing.

Lisa  10:51  

I'm still stuck on the fact that you started a business in 2009. That was like, right, like the whole world was blowing out. Remember that big recession we had in 2008?

Brandon 10:59  

You know, it was interesting, it was the recession that caused me to do that. The company I was with at the time was there was talks of layoffs, and I was like, you know, I really don't like, you know, fine company, but I really don't like what I'm doing. And who knew, I mean, who knew it was going to get to that level, but I decided I would go ahead and self-sacrifice to save some other jobs and go after this, this thing I've been wanting to do. And so, it kind of spurred me to do it. But now, we made it through the 2009-2010 downturn, and now we've made it through a pandemic. And hopefully, you know, they say bad things come in threes, but hopefully there was one before 2009 that I missed.

Lisa  11:37  

Do you specialize in any industry product or discipline?

Brandon 11:41  

Well, you know, globally, we like to say that we've been, we've been become known as the iPhone of MES data movement. And so, again, empowering our clients, you know, to really reach and transfer data between their OT systems and their upstairs ERP and data base systems, and of course, back down to the OT side. So, but you know, those discussions nowadays move more toward cybersecurity then anything, but that's a podcast all together, right?

Lisa  12:10  

Absolutely, what would you say is the smartest decision your company has made recently?

Brandon 12:14  

Smartest decision? You know, the, the, we've always I guess I would say it would be to, I'm going to call it focusing on external partnerships. And let me let me tell you what I mean about that, you know, we've always, we've always worked well, with the PLC manufacturers that we talk to we talk natively to, to the PLCs, which means that, you know, we're it doesn't know, we're not their own language. And so, we have to work closely with PLC manufacturers to make that happen. And then on the database side of the ERP side, you know, with those, the database manufacturers, Microsoft SQL, Oracle, those folks. But recently, we've made a move to team up with to, to kind of complimentary, but different types of companies. One of those is this really software companies that create, some in particular, that create what's called Computerized Maintenance Management Systems or CMMS software. And that's your maintenance software. It's kind of the DRP for the maintenance department. And then the second thing is there's a, there's a huge marketing push, and I'm not big on marketing, but unless it's unless it's legit, right, from an engineering standpoint, but, of course, we, Lisa, you gotta agree, IoT is probably one of the most over marketed term terms ever. Right? But, you know, condition monitoring, and predictive maintenance is, is the current big ticket, Google search item, I guess. And so, there are companies that make these really cool devices, though, that will monitor vibration, temperature, humidity, you know, the whole environmental type stuff. And they can do what we refer to as the EKG method, which we stick the sensors on different things, bearings, robots, you know, gearboxes, those kind of things, chillers. And they kind of give a picture of what's going on, and that pictures across time. And so, we actually talked about this in one of our podcasts about I mentioned that there used to be a commercial I'm sorry, I don't remember the company, but it was about, the guy was, the character was a credit monitor. And so, he, he said, you know, somebody's taking your identity, and the person in the commercial says, well, what do you got to do that? He says nothing, I'm just a monitor. And so, it seemed like condition monitoring was just that. And so, by being able to bridge the gap between the sensors that tell us there's something and then of course, with the IIoTA being edge based with edge-based database capabilities, we can establish an even longer trend plot and do that the AI and that's brand new, so it's nothing we're selling yet, but that the artificial intelligence, machine learning part is what we're working on now. But ultimately, to have that connect with these MMS software's so that the sensor can automatically not just tell you about it that something's going wrong, but go ahead and create a work request, go ahead. And then the CMS software can go ahead and order parts and those kinds of things, schedule the resources automatically, and just have it done. And so that's one of the I guess that's, that's one of the smart decisions we've made is to kind of start branching out into that kind of stuff. 

Lisa  15:16  

What would you say is unique about how you approach a project?

Brandon Ellis  15:20  

How we approach a project? Well, you know, this goes against I tell my engineers, don't be engineers. And my wife would say, basically, don't be male, either, because I tell them to listen first, and advocate second. And so, engineers, specifically, and probably men as well, on the on the whole, we tend to talk more than we listen. And so, you know, we've been doing this for quite a long time. You know, what about six years, I guess, yeah, six, seven years. And so, we've seen a lot, and it's very easy (and I'm guilty of this as well) for someone to come and tell me what they want to accomplish. This is my goal. And before they finish their initial sentence, I've already decided what they need, this is the solution you've got, this is the problems you're going to encounter those kinds of things. But I urge, that and the fact is, that's totally nearly 100% false, because everybody's situation is different. And they're their processes are different, their data needs are different, their, their hesitancies are different, and fears. And so, we try to listen, and then advocate but the other thing is we do a what then, I teach them to do what then analysis. So, for example, the customer comes and says, you know, we our goal is to pull process data, that's machine data, you know, just the kind of easy stuff to pull the machine states and put them in a database. Well, the next question should be okay, what then, and it helps them because a lot of times they haven't thought that through, because just slamming a lot of data into a database server is, it's like a spreadsheet full of numbers, and somebody hands it to you. And there's 1000s of things there, and you've got to figure out what it means. So, you know, and sometimes more is just more. You want quality data. And so, the what then helps us really get to the end really kind of, you know, pull the layers off the onion until we help them really help us steer into what they need. And then at that point, you know, it's about getting it done. But you know that early part of the project is the most key part.

Lisa  17:22  

Had a boss used to say God gave you two ears and one mouth. I think about that a lot.

Brandon 17:29  

Yeah, I probably should think about that more. You know, I just I feel badly though, because a lot of times folks are, are kind of sold a bill of goods and if you don't ask those questions, you're probably guilty of doing the same thing.

Note from sponsor 17:45  

Lisa  18:59  

What challenges are your customers facing right now?

Brandon 19:02  

Marketing. I'm sorry, I apologize in advance. I would say that the thing I see the most and this is kind of a hot button for me is salesy type unrealistic marketing that's, especially in the IoT industry, and this has been going on for quite a few years. Especially with companies with these huge, huge, huge, oversized marketing budgets. They kind of come up with stuff and even if it's somewhat realistic, it can kind of payment largely incomplete picture, you know, a lot of a lot of and I'm not bad mouthing our competition, but a lot of we try not to do this. A lot of our IoT vendors, you know, they began selling these beautifully marketed systems and they all start with a wonderful, nice dashboard and it just looks fantastic. And the term I use is a lot of times customers, it causes them to hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see. And unfortunately, a lot of times it fails to measure up. And so, you know, the, the main thing that handwave, in my opinion is the need for easy connectivity across the plant floor. If you can't collect the data, you can't have a dashboard that's that nice. It just, you've got to have, you got to have the stuff to show. And then of course, there's the old saying, you probably heard garbage in garbage out. And so, if the data is not quality data, then what are we talking about here? Why are we spending the money? And so, you know, it really bothers me, when, you know, they fail to mention that, you know, this system is going to require a multi-million PLC dollar, PLC controller update to all your older legacy systems are going to be to be replaced, and we didn't figure that into our budget, that's your problem. And, you know, or they fail to mention that it violates basically every IT cybersecurity, you know, thing that's going, you know, that's in the plant, and, and, you know, they do some cellular-based system that bypasses the mean ole IT folks, and, you know, they're the problem kind of thing. And the fact is, you know, it's kind of all fun and games until the budget's spent and IT shuts it down. You know, where have you been? Where have you come from and where are you going? And, and so, all the sales fodder that that's, that's really what bugs me, and, and I think a lot of our customers are facing that now, because four or five years ago, there was a huge wave of IoT. We got into it, we were kind of the leading, some of the among the leaders, but then the big boys got their marketing budgets and their stuff and their solutions, and they all wanted, you know, their percentage of the, the estimated billion-dollar IoT, you know, landscape and that kind of stuff. And a lot of a lot of really bad products were created or not so bad, they were just incomplete, because they missed the basics of you got to be able to, your whoever you're selling this to has to be on make it work, number one, and number two, they don't need to have all these hidden costs. Nobody likes hidden costs. And so again, that bill of goods kind of concept is what I'm saying. And it bruised a lot of people, I guess. And so, a lot of management's of kind of hesitant about going down that road again.

Lisa  22:05  

What kinds of trends and challenges are you seeing in industrial automation right now?

Brandon 22:10  

Well, I think we we've got this labor shortage going on. And so, the labor shortage, if you're not experiencing labor shortage out there in podcast land, congratulations. Because a lot of people are, not just industrial automation, go to a restaurant, you know, they're not seating right now, not because of COVID separation or capacity requirements. They're not seating because they don't have the people. And you know, the statistic I saw was 41% of all able-bodied workers in the United States anyway, are now reevaluating their career choice, and deciding what they want to do. And who knew this was going to happen? So, what that does in automation is we've been, well the industry has been, as Jose had put in his latest post on CSIA a thumbs up, you know, 87%, I think of the members, the integrator members are saying things are looking up. Well, we have to because we had to do this labor creation, not labor reduction, not labor reclassification, which is still valid, but labor creation, we have to be, we've got ample demand. We've got, well, we got fantastic demand, we've got ample supply, and we don't have the labor to get it out. And so honestly, I think that's part of what this semiconductor shortage is all about, as well. So, it's not that we've run out of, we've run out of silicone or, or whatever thing, tree or whatever produces resin that it's not the trees are gone, it's that we were not able to get it out efficiently. And I just didn't see this coming from the pandemic. So that's one thing. So, if you're in automation right now, you absolutely should be busy. If you're not busy, you're not trying hard. The second thing is training. I think as we talk about reclassification, we just recently did a podcast on, I talked about return on investment, ROI. We used to look at ROI and calculate, you know, pre-COVID, that, you know, we look at, if we install this automation or automated equipment, what's our production rates going to be and that kind of stuff. And labor, you know, reduction of labor does come into play on that. But in our recent podcasts, we're talking about ROI and how you really, you really need to look at it differently, because this labor shortage has kind of turned that on its head. It's not about reduction of labor. Right now, it's just about keeping your head above water, because you got to make the truck. And so, automation now has, it takes the ROI on automation, and it pulls it way down. I mean, like go to your local bank and take a loan if you have to, because money is cheap, and it's going to pay for itself in a month kind of way back. And then you've got these, but you haven't let anybody go. If you're listening to this podcast and you're working at the factory, don't worry, you're not going to lose your job, you need a raise. We're going to reclassify you and that comes down to training. And so, how do you retrain those folks effectively? You mentioned elliTek University, that's how we tried to do that, and it's a regional thing for us here in East Tennessee. We work with regional manufacturers on doing that. But I'm a proponent of trying to help people level up, that want to. But right now, it's a need, because we've got these projects over here that are more advanced, or these processes that are more advanced that if you figured the ROI, even on the old basis, it just wouldn't make sense at all. Reclassify the labor. Let's automate the easy ones and move them over, retrain them, even bump them up a little bit in their rate, and you're still gonna have, you know, these great returns because you've got a process over here that now you don't have to automate. And you've automated this other thing down here that's going to keep on giving, and you've created labor, and you're still making the trucks and so it's a good long-term investment. And honestly, money's cheap right now. So, it's a good time. But, you know, those are the trends that I'm seeing is, is really a push for automation, and a push for training.

Note from Sponsor  25:55  

Lisa  27:19  

So, if we're looking at the biggest challenges facing the automation marketplace today, I mean, there's the labor shortage that you mentioned, are there other challenges that you see in the marketplace?

Brandon 27:28  

I think we're dumbing down our kids. You know, I talked about the condition monitoring, and the AI. One of the primary reasons and pushes for that, and we've been approached by a couple of large, large companies to help with this, is the baby boomers are leaving, and a lot of them are gone. And, you know, I'm just south of qualifying as baby boomer. But, you know, in my career, quite honestly, when I was there trying to learn from the baby boomers, sometimes a lot of times they would tell me, you just don't worry about it kid, you go do your stuff over there and punch on your computer and we'll take care of this. But that capability to be able to see something and know or hear something and understand, and just the way it's acting or way it feels, or even the way it smells, they can say, you know, you need to change your, your, your throw out bearing or you got it, you got this gearbox is going bad, you know, something like that, that experience is exiting. And we have done a very poor job, my generation, our generation at forcing them to teach us. Now I've had a lot of experience, so I'm lucky and I got to work with a lot of fantastic folks that were happy to teach and pass that knowledge down. And so that's what I try to do now. But we're largely we've largely underprepared the those that are below us, the generations below us that are coming into the workforce now. And so, the whole condition monitoring and predictive maintenance thing is really -- the AI is to try to make it emulate the 30-year veteran, so that the young person can use this app, if you will, or whatever, to tell them what to do, so they don't really have to understand it. And now while that sounds fantastic, it's a dumbing down. The scenario would be teaching someone to use a calculator so that they don't have to learn math. But if you don't have the concept of math, how innovative are you going to be? And honestly, the ones that decide to overcome that and learn math anyway, those will be the innovators of tomorrow, they'll be changing, changing the world. And so hopefully, a lot of them are entrepreneurs and they'll go out and start new businesses and do some fantastic things and make us all look bad.

Lisa  29:43  

What makes you optimistic about the future of the automation industry?

Brandon 29:47  

I've been talking a lot of doom and gloom, haven't I. That's good. Let's talk about the positive, always extenuate the positive, that's my mom always told me. You know, for me, being able to work with and teach this younger Generation, you know, and really watching them suddenly make, you know, connect the dots and kind of like me years ago, kind of realize that, you know, the light bulb will go off. This ladder logic is horrible, and then suddenly, oh, wait a minute, this makes a lot of sense. There's no way I could do this restructured text, you know, those kind of things. And then, you know, the possibilities begin just roll out. And, and, and so, you know, being able to relate a few, what I call old guys bit of bits of wisdom, and having them get, you know, and I'll tell you that there are a lot of smart kids out there, they're much smarter than we are. But it's a different type of energy. It's a different type of push. And, and as a business owner, some of them have been very difficult for me to learn how to manage, and, and then others have been just like, wow, where have you been my whole life, you know, that kind of stuff. But each one has, has something to contribute. And so, I think, you know, again, watching in our podcast, our producer, my co-host, Beth Elliott says that I have the ability to explain things, complex things in simple ways. And I do that with a lot of metaphors. So being able to use a mechanical metaphor to, to explain to someone who's a mechanical engineering student, an electrical phenomenon, or an electrical thing, or vice versa, and having them you know, suddenly get it. Yes. Wow, that makes sense. You know that that's really, that's really what makes me smile. And so, of course, teaching is, is a need, I think we need to be doing first, especially in my age group. And then, you know, we tend, especially with social media, we tend to put people down, we tend to be negative, we tend to do those kind of things. And I think, you know, the Bible says love one another, I think we need to focus on really trying to teach and our age group teach the younger ones. And then the younger folks, of course, hopefully, they're open.

Lisa  31:59  

Why did elliTek become a member of CSIA? 

Brandon 32:02  

Well, because Jose told me to. Actually, I did have a great conversation with him, I remember. You know, but honestly, to teach. I really like teaching and, and we had the opportunity, we were invited to speak at the New Orleans, the last in person, scheduled in person get together. And so, I was going to be part of an IoT panel, and it was scheduled to be part of that meeting, of course, it was cancelled due to COVID. So, we didn't have the opportunity. But before the cancellation and speaking with Jose and others, at CSIA, because we had kind of a panel, it was a panel. And so, we were talking and kind of preparing. You know, just with our experience in the industry and IoT, and, those kind of things, you know, Jose especially said, you know, you need to join, you need to be a partner. And, and you really should anyway, but you've got a lot to offer our group. And so, I don't know how good of a job I've done - offering, you know, information to the integrators and other partners and CSIA. But there's a lot of smart folks, I don't know that I can offer very much but, but I was flattered by that. So, if it was a sales tactic, he did a great job because we were on board, and we have been ever since. And so just being able to evangelize really, for me the simplified secure IoT type solutions and potentially open the door to maybe some new integrator partners for us to work with and things of that nature. And so that's really, really what it was about. But I kind of see that more as a teaching kind of moment.

Lisa  33:35  

So just for those of you, for those listening who may not know who Jose is, Jose is my boss, and he is Jose Rivera. He is the CEO of CSIA, so just for context there. 

Brandon 33:46  

Doesn't everybody know who Jose is? 

Lisa  33:48  

Actually, I think they do and when I travel with him at trade shows or whatever I mean, everybody knows Jose.

Brandon 33:54  

He's a great, great guy, very smart.

Lisa  33:57  

From a supplier perspective, how should a customer go about choosing a system integrator?

Brandon 34:02  

Ooh, that's a good question. How would you choose somebody to build a house for you? You want to see references, right? You want to kind of see what they've done. I don't think there's anything wrong. We encourage people to tell us to make us prove it. Now, we're doing IoT systems and if integrators, you know, integrators may be doing stuff that you can't really prove as easily. But if there's a way, an integrator should want to show their stuff, prove it out. You know, we would, we would, I would love I used to love and still occasionally get invited to, to go on site and take our IIoTA product and just say, you know, let's show you what it can do. Tell us what you want, and we'll just wing it. And it might not work and if it doesn't work, let's dig into that and the why of that, you know, let's learn from it again, that whole teaching training thing. Let's see what the situation is. Let's see what the horizon looks like, before you've spent $1 you know, that that kind of thing. And then, you know, hopefully with our product, we let we set it up and let it roll, and, you know, we, we can actually be moving data in two minutes or less. And so, it's just like, wow, that's great, let's go have drinks, you know, that kind of thing. It's, it's that kind of deal, hopefully, you know, high fives and the whole nine yards. But that's kind of what I think. I think if you can ask them to prove it or at least show you some of the things that they've done before. And of course, they're CSIA. I mean, you know, those members are, look, it's an investment. CSIA is not for the faint of heart. They expect everybody to... Everybody does benefit a lot. We've benefited a huge amount from CSIA; we're huge fans and totally worth the membership fees and things of that nature. If someone else is in this group, it's because they mean to be and they probably are worthy. So that alone is quite a reference. But yeah, that that's what I would do is again, if you wouldn't if you would want somebody to add an addition on your house, how would you ask them to deal with it? Do the same thing with systems integrator machine or whatever.

Note from Sponsor 36:09  

Lisa  37:26  

So, a couple times you've named dropped your podcast throughout our session.

Brandon 37:29  

I haven't name dropped it. I didn't say the name one time.

Lisa  37:31  

Okay. You've mentioned it; you've slipped it into the conversation, let's put it that way. And it's totally fine. I want to hear about it. Tell me about your inspiration for starting it, what kind of topics and audience you're trying to reach and that kind of good stuff.

Brandon 37:48  

Well, the name of our podcast is "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To" and I'm actually in our podcasting studio now. We're recording this from our podcasting studio, while we're doing this interview, and coincidentally, the co-host and our producer, Beth Elliott is here with me as well. And so, Beth, do you want to say quick, hello? 

Beth 38:07  

Hello, everybody. 

Brandon 38:07  

So that's Beth. And so, she's making sure I don't miss this interview up. No, I'm kidding. She is our producer; she has a fantastic job. And again, she's our marketing manager. So why don't we start the podcast? Quite honestly, Beth is our marketing manager. And so, as you know, what do you need for marketing, for websites, for blogs, you need content, right? I am horrible at sitting down and typing anything. Writing, she couldn't read it if I did. And so, she and I, first couple of years, she was here, we kind of she would gently remind me that she needs content, she needs what's in my head to go, you know, to be put into not just the websites and social media also copy, pre copy and things of that nature. And it was such a struggle for her, I know, and I apologized a lot. And so one day, I just walked into her office and said, You know what, I can talk a lot easier than I can write, type and do all this other stuff, so why don't we start a podcast and we'll just be talking about all these things that -- because every time she said every, I should just record you every time you come in, and somebody mentions something you got an experience or, or a thing that happened or something like that. And so that's how it kind of started, she came up with the title, which I love, which was "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To" and we insert the kind of the antonym of what we're going to be talking about. So as an example, we're talking about, well, I'll let you guess it was "Industrial Automation - It Doesn't Have To... Be Colonial Pipeline". And so, we're probably talking about you know, cybersecurity and that's the way we kind of... we weren't throwing, we're not throwing any kind of shade at Colonial you know, they had a had a real problem there but it's a good thing to learn from for the rest of us. If it could happen to them and they're fantastic systems, then you know, it can happen to a lot of folks, especially in the industrial segment. And so, that's really what it's about. So, it's about, it's not so much about selling, it's about learning and teaching from experience. And we also always challenge our listeners to hit us back in one way or another with a problem that they're facing. And then if we don't know the answer, again, it's kind of like me going on site and the IIoTA doesn't work, you know, that's just an opportunity to delve in and see why it's not working, and those kind of things. And so, to be able to do that, in the podcast, you know, hit us with, with what you're dealing with, and if I've got any experience, I'll be happy to share. And we talked for everything from, you know, mainly automation in the industrial world. But we've also even gotten to RPA's. What is that Robotic Process Automation? And, and that has nothing to do with a robot. But it has everything to do with automation. And as we're dealing with this labor shortage and things of that nature, you know, the office is a place where, remember, there's a labor shortage across the board. So, we get into those kind of topics.

Lisa  40:59  

You mostly, is it you talking, or do you have guests on? What's the format?

Brandon 41:04  

We have guests when we can. We occasionally have guests, I like to have guests, but we like to have a guest that that really ties to the topic. And so, for example, we, you know, a lot of times, those are partners that we know, anyway. So as a company we partner with a company called Datalogic. And Datalogic does a lot of barcode scanning systems and vision systems, but they do Safety Systems. And, and so one of their representatives that we work with, our rep, I guess you would say, is a long, long time safety guy. And so, I'm IoT, remember, not safety. And so, we had him on specifically to talk about it just bear his knowledge about safety and safety requirements, especially safety in the US versus safety in the, in the EU, and you know, overseas and things of that nature. And so, it's a very interesting podcast for me, because I learned a lot. And we think that's beneficial. It's beneficial to integrators and machine builders alike, but also end users. And, you know, if they're trying to decide because in the United States, we learned a term called onus, and onus is a lawyer term that I'd never I wasn't familiar with. But basically, it says, basically, who's responsible, and in the United States, the responsibility of safety classification in the plant falls upon the plant, but in the EU, it falls upon the integrator or the machine builder. And so, there's some differences like that, that I, you know, questions I would have never asked that we think it's beneficial. So, it's not just on IoT. It's all things industrial automation, because again, I started as an integrator hating PLCs, but ultimately fell in love with them. And, and we've done quite a few systems. 

Lisa  42:51  

So, if somebody wants to listen to the podcast, how do they find it? 

Brandon 42:54  

Well, I think the correct answer to that is basically whatever podcast app that you use, just search for elliTek, e-l-l-i-T-e-k, and we will pop up in that regard, or elliTek.com is our website and on the main page. Beth has that beautifully done, you scroll to the bottom right above our mission statement, you can see our podcasts. So, if you if you hit the mission statement, you've gone too far. 

Lisa  43:20  

Alright, so we're gonna switch topics completely now. And I want to ask you about parallel universes. So, I'm reading a book. It's a fiction book, but they're really exploring this topic of quantum physics and the idea that we could be living an exponential number of lives in different universes, right? So, I'm going to ask you if there is another Brandon in another universe, and you get to choose what he's doing, what is he doing career wise?

Brandon 43:45  

Well, first of all, I'm going to say, Wow, quantum physics. I'm sure that he's in marketing. He's, that's what he is. He's a marketing person.

Lisa  43:54  

No, actually, it's Jodi Picoult. I don't know if you've heard of her. She's a pretty popular novelist, and she tends to take one topic and then each character in the novel will have a different perspective on that topic. So sometimes it's a very controversial topic. Sometimes it's like this really, you know, quantum physics. So, it's a meaty topic, but it's very, I mean, it's a light read.

Brandon 43:55  

Well, I wasn't talking about the author. I was saying that the other Brandon in the parallel universe. 

Lisa  44:19  

Oh, I see. 

Brandon 44:22  

I'm kidding. Of course. And I have a lot of respect, a lot of respect for marketing. So, Beth's giving me the stink eye over here. You are too. I can see you can't see us. Now, honestly, I'm sure it would be to be a teacher. I really enjoy teaching and when I almost left my freshman year in college, University of Tennessee, Tennessee Vols. This is our year, just kidding. I went to the University of Tennessee here in Knoxville and engineering and almost switched majors to physics because I wanted to be a physics teacher. Then I found out I had to take organic chemistry and I was just like, nope, let's stick with electrical engineering. And so, stay away from that chemistry stuff. And, but, but I really have come to enjoy teaching and I get to scratch that itch now in my career, and I'm happy about that. So that's probably what I would have done, teaching or I don't know, I'm a business guy, too so I enjoy that. I don't know. Would I have failed out of college if I had majored in business? Probably. I don't, I don't know. I learned a lot of that through mentoring. People that mentor me and so, but I would say probably teacher.

Lisa  45:34  

So, if we are going to go back to that younger Brandon, and you can travel back in time, what would be the best advice you could give your younger self just getting started?

Brandon 45:43  

Well, you know, and honestly, I see this, I see myself in a lot of young kids today. So, you know, there's, there's not necessarily anything new under the sun. I came out of college, not as a know it at all, but thinking I was supposed to be. You know, it's the age-old thing we call pride. And I would say, resist your, your, your push to be the know it at all, and, and really try to, you know, I guess try to try not to be intimidated by those that know more than you and embrace that, be approachable, and approach. I said earlier, my generation didn't do a good job approaching the baby boomers to say, please share with me. You know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say I know more than you. Because if you do that at any age, you're done. So be approachable. I fought a lot of battles that didn't need to be fought. And my career probably would have been easier. And probably every manager and boss that I've ever had if they're hearing this, they're like, they're shaking their heads up and down. You know, just I wish I could have been more approachable and more open minded and less about being intimidated about not knowing the answer.

Lisa  46:58  

Well, that's it for today's episode of "Talking Industrial Automation". If you are interested in learning more about Brandon Ellis or elliTek. You can find them on the industrial automation exchange at www.csiaexchange. com. Thanks for listening and thank you Brandon for joining us today.

Brandon 47:14  

Thanks Lisa. You're the best.

Lisa  47:18  

If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also help others find us by leaving a five-star review and sharing your favorite episodes with colleagues. Thanks for listening to the "Talking Industrial Automation" podcast. Thanks also to Bensound.com and Wistia for the music bumpers. Until next time.