Post Conference Reality Check

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to Automation Ladies, the only podcast we know of where girls talk about industrial automation. Welcome back to another one of our automate series episodes from Automation Ladies. We have Dylan from Lightstream with us today. Welcome, Dylan.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hi. Hi, Nikki.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I'm very good. Very good. Uh the weather is good here in Belgium. Uh a little bit for some forest fires, but we're okay. We're okay. So good.

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Okay, good. I know there was I I try not to pay too much attention to the news these days. There's always something on fire somewhere. Like our good friends in Canada. I don't know if they're still struggling with the forest fires over there, but I've been completely uh just heads down in OT Skatacon the last week. Uh we had a little bit of a chat here off-air before we got started. But for those of you that are familiar with us and uh OT Skatacon, it just happened. It's Monday after OT Skatacon, which is why I had to make myself a second cup of coffee um before we started recording here. And we survived it once again, and uh we didn't screw it up. There will be more content to come um about the con and how that went and why we are insane enough to do it again. This is not that conversation, but I did just want to set the stage that it is Monday morning, no, Monday noon-ish my time, um, the week after OT SkataCon, and I'm just emerging from basically having slept or trying to sleep all weekend to catch up uh after last week. And then of course, it seems like it was just yesterday, but we also just came back from Automate a few weeks ago. Um, what has it been like three weeks now? Four weeks?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Uh two weeks. Three weeks, three weeks, three weeks it was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

So uh and then of course we are insane enough to throw our own conference the week a couple weeks after uh Automate. And then I was also in Wichita, Kansas for the PM and my road show two weeks ago, um, the week before OT SkateCon. So I've been on the road a lot. I'm really looking forward to having a break in August. So this will be my first consecutive four weeks at home. Since I well, I guess since May. I didn't go anywhere in May because I was trying to, well, I was moving. Those of you that have heard some of the episodes, I was like, this will be my last episode recording in my um in my old house. And this is not the first episode I've recorded in my new house. I think the previous automate um series episodes that we've recorded uh were up in my office, which was home to Albert Fernandez, our IT guy for OT Skatacon for the last two weeks or so, and I haven't even been up there in a couple of weeks. You know how it is with an office slash guest room, right? So right now it's still the guest room. So I'm in my living room today. Um, if you catch any of these videos, you'll see some of my plants. But anyway, uh I will ramble on for forever. And this episode is about Dylan and about Lightstream and about we found out that we were like super close to each other on the floor at Automate this year, and neither one of us had a chance to go see the other because Automate is crazy, busy. Wonderful, wonderful, huge show, only getting bigger. Um, I'll say for me, the WinTech booth has never been busier. We upgraded and upsized from a 10 by 20 last year to a 20 by 20 this year. Um, and we'll keep that same footprint for Vegas because we're not quite sure how Vegas goes. We haven't done that one before. And then we're gonna go even bigger in Chicago the following year because it just really is one of the largest concentrations of our types of people coming together um to talk about the stuff that we do. But it is also completely impossible to catch everything and everyone. So one of the speakers that really caught my attention was Dylan and his topic. And so I wanted to bring him on um selfishly to learn what I missed, what he's got, and then for the rest of you as well to get to know him, um what they're doing.

Why Dylan Stood Out At Automate

SPEAKER_04 3:52

And they're actually a family-owned company. They came over from Belgium to present and to uh exhibit. And so, Dylan, if you could tell us, just give us your background, tell us about yourself, what you're doing, and how did you get there?

Building Lightstream From Frustration

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Okay, my background. Uh, let's say over uh pretty close, 27 years uh being busy with uh electrical engineering. I think in 2015, started Lightstream out of frustration. No, you won't I the entrepreneurial spirit caught me. Okay, no, no, no, this is not going the way I want to do it. Uh for instance, what we did a lot was we did electrical engineering, so electrical design, and we did a lot of processing of us built uh drawings, keeping electricoschematics up to date, and you know, everything was still on paper, paper stacks, yay high, and god, you know, uh change over change, and nobody actually knew anymore. Okay, what is the latest version? I think in 2015 was no the first uh Microsoft surface tablets came out, you know, with the smart pen. Like, hey, this really writes nice now. This is not not feeling too plasticky. Said, okay, guys, this is it. Sorry, I'm gonna build live stream. We're gonna do still we're gonna we're still gonna do electrical engineering, we're still gonna do what we call digitalization as a service. So we will still be processing your build drawings. But I have a really cool idea what I want to do, and was actually making a platform for technicians where they could easily, you know, consult their schematics and update them accordingly, which then would come or be presented easier to towards us so we can do the digitalization a lot faster. Fast forward till 2026. Boy, was I wrong in 2015 thinking thinking, yeah, you know, within two, three years every every technician will have a tablet, and then uh when in two twenty twenty eighteen, no more paper. Well, we're 2025 of 2026, and they still work on paper. Uh and we've been since 2019, we're actually building cabinet manager as the go-to digital Swiss pocket knife for the technician, and we're finally getting there, actually. People starting to throw away, oh, you cannot see the pen, uh, and moving towards tablets. And well, the downside is of course, we're 2026, and my bold statement is now within three years we're gonna throw throw away the tablets, and everybody will work with the augmented reality.

AR Adoption Moves Slower Than Tech

SPEAKER_00 6:40

So, uh, and that was my where my talk was uh was about on on uh automate, actually, is how augmented reality can help retain experience on the shop floor.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

So I always find this fascinating when people like ask me to predict or give like what I think is gonna happen in in time. I've never been able to confidently say in any way, shape, or form how quickly I think any given technology is gonna be adopted because I've just never really seen anybody be very right about it. And I I have I have such little point of reference, and I think also like neither do we, right? It's like you you have a rate of change in the past, and then you have a rate of change in the future. And technologically, I think we're moving a lot faster than we used to, but the the people side of it, the adoption, and particularly the the manufacturing industry is such a very long tail of small businesses of all different shapes and sizes and with very different cultures, right? And and and it's not a given that just because we have a technology that'll be adopted. No, and then in the time, what what is a realistic time frame for it to be adopted? And then if you think about there's adoption within like early companies that are willing to take a risk and be an early adopter of something, and then you have kind of that middle and then the laggard. And I think that in our industry, the distribution, particularly of the smaller companies, like really tends towards the laggard side.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

So it's really hard to say with any kind of certainty when something will be adopted. And then the other thing is when it would be adopted at the front end versus actually kind of travel through to the long tail. Um and this is one of those things that AR, uh, I've been, I remember running a panel about um AI and AR at CES in 2016, where one of the executives on that panel ended up going on to be in the C-suite of an AR company um in the industrial space. And it's like good 10 years later, and we're still not even near no regular, like full-on adoption of these technologies across plants, at least that I've seen.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I think from our experience and our surveys that we did, I think the main problem in industry, if you look at Europe, but I don't think in the US it will be different. If you see the average age of a technician in in Europe, it's around 45 to 47 years old.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

And even older. So these are actually the bottom level. So and then uh so let's say 45 is the average, but let's say most of them are above 50. For instance, my my son who who he who is 15, he helps uh in in the company as well to to learn and stuff like that. There they you know they're they're very fast. Oh, this is something new, bada bing, bada boom. Oh, it works like this. Perfect. It's it's it's improves my life. We're gonna use it. Wherein what we've noticed with let's say technicians around let's say 52 years old. Ooh, yeah, but this is weird. So uh we're not used to that. We we we we have been doing it with pen and paper since yeah, I know, since 1957 or something. Uh but grow over it, and and I think the the the lowering the threshold will improve the adapt

Proving Value With Faster Troubleshooting

SPEAKER_00 10:15

the adaptation. Uh this is what we we have seen as well. I still remember, for instance, the the first proof of concept we did with cabinet manager. This was with the the revamp of a blast furnace, so they were around big, a big uh wharf actually think around 1,000 technicians who were working there uh on a very short time frame and a very pretty much uh small surface, and they were using it to, for instance, do their uh input-output testing and uh troubleshooting their installation and just making by the end of the refaction, what they called it, is that everything was pretty much as built. So we we thought, hey, but this is the tool, very simple. You could go, they could just simply walk up to the electrical cabinets, scan the QR code, boom, they got the electrical schematic, they could highlight whatever thing they tested or made make small adaptations to it. And then we asked the guys, okay, what do you think about it? Thinking, wait, we've done a good job, we just uh simplified your life. Then the then the guy said, Yeah, pen and paper still works better, and then we start asking why, but yeah, it works always. Yeah, of course, it works always the pen and paper. Uh and for me, in my job, it doesn't give me more value, it's just another tool, and this is what we all we I think we often see uh the the way every problem is trying to be solved with a new tool, but we always forget forget the the people who okay. Here's a new tool. Yeah, another new tool. Uh, I need training for this, I need training for that. This is not helping my job. Find me something that helps my job, actually. And this is what we try to uh improve with cabinet manager. Okay, okay, let's give you value. If you use our tool, you will get more value. You'll have to you will have less administration, which you don't like, you you won't have to find for manuals, and then we saw okay, but now they're starting to wanting to work with it because it's not just another tool, it actually gave them value. Um and what we're seeing now with augmented reality, of course, we're now uh I think it's now the third year we're working with the Apple Vision Pro, for instance. It gives amazing results. If we we we over the course of three years, we have like troubleshooting the game, it's something we use on our trade shows where they can try out and solve a complex problem, and they can choose either by okay, you can solve it by paper, you can solve it with the tablet, or you can solve it with augmented reality. And the cool thing is uh so every pot so the solution is in all three of them. Yeah, that's not the thing. So uh and uh what we can show, for instance, with uh troubleshooting the game, when they did it on paper, the average solving time was 12 minutes. When they did it with the tablet, it was already two minutes, so that's six times faster. And when they tried it with augmented reality, 45 seconds. So if you think about uh from going from paper to augmented reality, it means that you're on average you will troubleshoot 12 times faster, and it's pretty simple. You don't have to look for your information, it's all present in your point of view, and you have your hands available. Where in paper or tablets you still have to put it down, yeah. Second guessing starts again, and you take it back, and this this loses a lot of time. But of course, we're not there yet with augmented reality. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

No, but that's really cool, like just to and that's a really good concept to show somebody, like just do them all side by side then if you want, you know. Because like comparing one experience to another when they're not right next to each other, there's always some, I think, cognitive dissonance between like your there's your kind of your preference and what you're used to and what you remember and how you remember it. Um, but it's like doing the wine tasting, right? Like you want to try the different ones right next to each other rather than one from a dinner last week with a certain type of food and then another one from a different situation with a different type of food, you're gonna get an entirely different experience. Um, that's a really cool way to like, I guess, kind of level set one versus

Cabinet Manager Explained In Plain Terms

SPEAKER_04 14:34

the other. Um maybe I'd like to back up a little bit. Can you give me kind of the the overview of cabinet manager and exactly what it is?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yeah, basically it's very simple. We call it the digital Swiss pocket knife of a technician. It's very simple. Cabinet manager knows who you are. Are you an electrician, or you're a mechanic, or you're a PLC programmer?

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

You just approach the machine, you scan the code, and it automatically fetches all the relevant uh information for you. For instance, if you're the mech the mechanical guy, let's say you have to troubleshoot a valve or service a valve, you will get the procedure, you get you will get the manual, maybe the mechanical uh diagrams, the PID. Close this manifold, do this, such and so. Same for the electrician. But the thing is, it's presented in one dashboard, so they don't have to look for the information. It's very we always always designed cabinet manager, said okay, you have to give it to every kind of person, and you don't want him to follow like a four-hour training for it. Our basic design was very simple 20 minutes, done. One scan, three clicks, and a save, and you should be doing everything. This is how it's actually built. And it saves a lot of time. So, as I said, they go six times faster. Um they don't lose information anymore. And more important, uh maybe I want to make the bridge to AI. We all we we ever think every every solution provider uh oh, it looks very nice, and then probably the next question is you get and is AI involved, or what does it do with AI? And I always think, yeah, but okay, AI, I strongly believe AI will be the next thing, definitely, definitely. But in my opinion, what what can AI do for a technician now? It's very simple. He can extract uh information from manuals and provide it in a small overview. Hey, maybe it's this. But that's okay for uh a small machine or a small part. I fully agree. But what happens when complex installation? How will you harvest that? AI? Let's let's say we have uh we have customers with production lines of 400 meters in length. Motors, pumps, you name it, PLCs, safety plcs, hmis, name a technology, a robot, it's in there. You will have a ton of manuals, but not AI will won't help you with the experience that your technicians have from servicing that production line for 30 years. Okay, if that if this happens, it's probably we have a on on the talk. We had a very cool uh video about that, just a small joke, and just it was uh how how the movie went very quickly. Uh you just imagine production line, everything is going haywire, you know, uh alarms going off everywhere, and then you have like the whole junior team of PLC experts. Oh man, probably it's probably this. No, no, it's it's a a it's a program, it's it's a PLC logic malfunction. It's it's a this, it's a that, you know, everybody shouting, and then you had Mark. Every installation has a mark, what you call so Mark is like in the in the movie, he was like the old technician, just watching these guys running back and forth, and then at one point just give up, put his coffee down, stands up, walk, walk through the gate, adjust the screw, done. And you said in the movie, the older PLC guys, hey, how did you know that? And Mark just says 9098. And that this is for me what it's all about. How will you harvest Mark's experience, you know, from the production line? And this is something that we try to harvest with cabinet managers because asking Mark, hey Mark, this was the problem. How did you solve it? What did you do? Did you need to order something? Do we need to do something? And just that that's uh information is captured, with that in my opinion, that this is the most relevant data that you can put into a database where AI can start finding solutions in and not in manuals.

Capturing Tribal Knowledge Before It Walks

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Uh and then the thing is, of course, uh, remember we were saying uh the average age is 45, but in typical, let's say in my company it's 52, it's very simple. You still have 10 years to capture that experience.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

How do you go about training? So let's say the customer for cabinet manager is a plant that owns automated equipment. And if they're if they're lucky, they have a long line of interconnected machines, right? If if they're a smaller, maybe more old school manufacturer, they have a lot of standalone machines fed, set up and fed by people and they're moving stuff manually, right? But some there's at this point, I would say most factories are they've got either islanded automation or they've they're fairly automated. Um, but there typically is a mix of mixed vintage equipment, a lot of different manufacturers. So you may have a robot from FANIC, you may have a filling machine from some company, you have like different OEMs. Um, you may or may not be fully standardized on one PLC manufacturer, right? Again, depending on how big you are and how much influence you have over uh everything that you buy and so on. So, do you work with the plant to get all of the different equipment in there and how long of the process that talk to us a little bit about how that works?

Turning Paper Cabinets Into A System

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Oof. Well, we have actually so I think here our biggest customers, our biggest projects, of course, being Belgian-based, are in Europe. Actually, we have a very good mix in that, actually. So we have like, let's say we have even the digital laggards saying, Oh, we really need a digital tool. Cabinet manager looks very promising for us, but for instance, we we did it. Uh the only thing we have is paper, and even worse, it's the paper schematic drawer in the in the cabinets and stuff like that, spread out everywhere and in like in seven different kinds of versions. Yeah, actually, we okay, perfect. Let's start from that. And for instance, uh, in that case, what we did, we just went over there with the whole team, started investigating investigating the auditing the cabinets. Okay, this is probably at this point the best schematic. We just started scanning those paper versions in, put them on on PDF, and they could already start digital annotating what for instance. What we did then, of course, because in terms of budgets, there's not there's another thing. Okay, what's the budget? Okay, getting, of course, a plant that is 30 years old, uh with a backlog of I don't know what, digital going from paper. Uh in terms of budgets, it's it's massive. So, for instance, with the the the solution that what we did there is okay, let's build for every cabinet the most clean version of the schematic and the manuals, and so forth. And what we said then is okay, because we track each change, the moment we see that the document is really becoming. Unreadable through all the changes. Let's focus on digitizing that schematic. Not like for instance, you ever and I think every plant has them, you know, the electrical cabinets, power distribution cabinets, who haven't changed in 20 years. There's no point in digitizing a schematic that hasn't changed in 20 years because it's very likely that it for the next five or ten years it won't change as well.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Okay, yeah. So you kind of prioritize based on what's being touched the most.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

And then we have the other ones, of course, the let's say the fully digital ready already. These are the easiest ones. So um, but typically um let's let's say a production facility, we can put it in live stream in what in one week, typically.

SPEAKER_04 22:48

Wow. I know Ali really wanted to be here. She's uh she's feeling sick today, and she uh but since we already had to reschedule, I was like, no, no, no, I got I got this.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

I got this.

SPEAKER_04 22:58

But I know that this would be super interesting to her, and maybe we would love to well, I'll see. Um, maybe we can get together and do a demo sometime or something where we see a little bit more hands-on, we can talk a little bit more about the specifics of that. Because I know that uh part of um I walked a plant with her a couple of years ago, where I think yeah, big part of it was just to to update all of their cabinets and see what what the heck was in there and where was it going. And um, because yeah, there's a lot of plants out there that really don't have a good handle on this.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Um, and and and even more, and we we see this in Europe as well, because we always I get it. At a point, I get it, because of course digitizing is is not budget friendly, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Not very it does not give extra value to your production plan because not in the short not in the short term, anyway.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Not in the short term, but yeah, not immediately.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

When when sh hits the fan, yeah, that's what it matters. Then then then it matters. But even more, you could say, okay, in terms of okay, let's say we have a shutdown and it it it will help us troubleshooting faster. In my in my point of view, this is not a reflection that you should make. In my point of view, it's actually the wrong one.

Safety First And The Real ROI

SPEAKER_00 24:17

For me, it's about personal safety of your technician.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Okay, let's talk a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

So, this is this for me, more this is actually the the main reason why I built cabinet manager, not because, ooh, it's nice, and of course, it now is everything is digital. It's it's it's more you know, uh during my career. I I I don't think I can count the electrocutions on one hand, for instance, which happened due to uh wrong intervention, wrong lockout tag outs, or just yeah, plain mistakes. Sorry, I flipped the wrong breaker.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Behind you in your background, it says engineer it, maintain it, and work safely. And then work safely is highlighted in yellow.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

That that's a really good point. And um hopefully that's how people are thinking about budgeting and stuff as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

But I feel like you know, if it's not gonna yeah, I don't know what I should say on this topic not say it's it's it's it's it's what I I always say uh uh let's say uh to talk, let's talk about budget. Let's talk about a 50k budget, which I to give an idea for 50k we can already do a lot.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Let's say let's just suppose 50k. It's fair I can explain this very simple.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

You have a shutdown. Okay, some some component failed or whatever. Okay, your technician rushes to it to solve your problem because the production manager, of course, is already tapping on his shoulder. And he's doing he does something wrong. First of all, let's say he makes a short circuit and he blows up a frequency in work. Yeah. 20k? But more. It blew up in his face. He got injured. I know how much it costs in Europe, but I think it's a times ten in these in the States or something.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

That plus probably it's your most experienced technician who is out for months or may not even come back. 50k.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

Yeah, it's a it's a no-brainer if you think about it in the if if you plan for it in advance or like the ROI calculations. I've talked about this. We had an episode with Christine um from Schneider. And you know, the simple ROI calculations don't really account for most of the factors that actually have to do with like cost and ROI that are unrel that are that are indirect, right? There's so many indirect things that really play into the ROI of any particular type of project, and and the labor cost savings is typically kind of just is is the tip of the iceberg, if not even not the most important thing. Yeah, and I think I don't know if like the finance people really understand or if if it's if it is commonly making it up to their level.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Um I don't think it it it's let's say it escalates to that point, actually. For instance, we we we have customers, uh fortunately now they're on the digitalization train, as I call it. But in the past, uh they had they had a team of around I think they had around 20 technicians in that production line. And everything was based on paper. But to be fair, they did it proper, meaning when a technician made an adaptation or he changed something, it was immediately noted on the schematics at the installation, and they Xeroxed it to the archive and an extra version even for the digitalization office. So perfect. But think about it. So he did it on paper, then he had to walk over to the Xerox machine, had to copy it three times, put it in some distribution boxes, and then put the schematic back into the installation. That's the first time uh time was lost, in my opinion. But there was a second time as well, because then the digitalization office put everything properly in order, provided new schematics, they had to be printed out in threefold. And because it was a let's say the the uh the atmosphere where the installation was was really oily and stuff like that, so it'd forget paper version the moment you touch it, it's it's gone. So every sheet of paper had to be put into a plastic sheet.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

There was uh at so they they had a um three shift system. You have the early shift, the the the afternoon shift, and then the night shift. There was in the night shift, there was always one technician. His sole job was to put the changes of paper into plastic sleeves.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

That was his job. I would say in a world where I think everybody uh is looking for uh technicians, preferably with uh expertise, but yeah, you just lost one on that. That's the that's the one which you didn't have to train. That's the one you already had. So I always say if you can make the switch from paper to digital, it's very likely that you will gain one extra technician.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Huh. Yeah, that's really interesting. And right now, especially, I I don't know how if it's the same in Europe, but here in the US, uh our manufacturing industry is really, really under pressure. We have been for a long time with a lack of skilled labor, right? And people that know this stuff. But secondly, now we're competing with data centers for every trained and skilled like blue-collar worker. Uh, and and you know, they're using a lot of the same technologies, not exactly the same, but the building automation, the automation that they're putting in there, and the SCADAs and the like everything from the people like pulling wire to the people running control systems, they are hiring and they're offering better money. And so I was at an event a couple of weeks ago where uh the end one of the largest CPG companies in the world was like, we're we're having to pay like $20 more per hour for contract technicians that we get in because the data center people are offering so much more money now. So not only are they harder to get, they're harder to retain. There, you now have to pay them quite a bit more. And and I think that a big portion of our industry is probably in for a really big shock. If they haven't already been shocked this year, the next time then they need to hire, um they're gonna be needing to pay a lot more than they have been in the past. And I think our industry has struggled for a long time with this mentality of, you know, oh, we, you know, why should we have to pay more than X, you know, per hour? And I think a lot of a lot of these companies, they haven't been keeping up with the inflation, right? And the increase in cost of living. And they're lucky if they've kept somebody around because typically people that are have been in a position for a long time, you know, hopefully they're maybe they hopefully own a house or their mortgage is stable, right? They haven't had to deal with as much of an increase. But as soon as you need to hire somebody new, all of a sudden, you know, that catches up with you real quick. That the numbers that worked last year, even the year before, five years ago, they don't work anymore. You're not gonna pull in the quality people, you're not gonna pull in people with the experience that you need. And it was hard enough already. Um, so you really got to figure out how do you make the best of and get the most out of the people that you do have and keep them.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:54

If you're losing these people, like you are paying so much more in training cost, um, and you're gonna have to pay the people more and they're gonna be less experienced, and then good luck keeping them around, also. I mean, if you're not doing a really good job with onboarding and giving people a path forward and training and you have a good culture, like I think, yeah. Depends, of course, a little bit on you know where regionally where there's demand for this other stuff. But um I I think it's becoming more and more and more imperative, not just for your own cost of operations, but for your ability to stay in business. Yeah, and expand to be able to, you have to be updating and upgrading the ways of working um to get more value out of the people that you have there and make sure that they stick around and that they don't get injured.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

It's what what I'm I'm saying to a lot of customers as well. It's what they're saying as well. But for instance, we have very similar problems uh in Europe in finding, you know, I always say everybody's every parent wants his son or daughter to be a doctor, I always say, but yeah, uh a good technician, I think he can make a lot of money

Labor Shortages And The Skills Pipeline

SPEAKER_00 33:10

as well. Um so you you see the the whole shift, for instance, stems, science, technology, it's something very close to my heart as well. Uh for instance, if I if I look to so my son, he's now in high school, he's fifth, has still one year to go, and um they're with hi hi, we become an electrician, trust me. So, same thing, and then if you do look at their classroom, we're we're actually we're sponsoring their school with material knowledge. For instance, we have a yearly uh STEM project wherein uh they do a project together with our engineers. Okay, and to give an idea, there's still they're only like ten persons anymore in that classroom.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

So it's it's shrunk like every year you have less people.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah, yeah. So so so so ten, and then from those ten, let's let's say uh five go to uni.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Yeah. Are any of them girls?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

Uh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Same same problem here. Um but I think the emphasis was in the past, and it still is. Oh no, no, no. Don't do tech a technical jobs. Now they will disagree with me or agree with me. Uh uh my generation was do something in IT. Become a web designer.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

Oh now those people are hurting because AI AI can do a lot of what they can do.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Yeah, I think they just became obsolete. So uh, but that electrician.

SPEAKER_04 34:57

If you're not at the high level to where you are orchestrating now agents to do what you used to have to do, right? Then I think those in almost any profession today, if you have become strategic enough to where you're more of an architect than a than just a a I don't know how to say this, just like a doer of a certain subsection of the thing, um, you're probably safe. And as long as you're actually also figuring out right now how you utilize AI to do what some of your team, if you used to manage a team or you would work with other contractors or whatever that is, right? If if you are figuring out how to architect agents to do your things that you can tell them to do, right? And and I think at this point, like nobody has to have a perfectly uh agentic system that does their job and you know they they run a you know 100-person company with two people, there that there's unicorn startup founders or whatever that are doing that, that that are starting companies that are valued in the billions that have like a team of less than 10 that you used to would have required hundreds of developers, right? Um, but I think on a on a more you know normal people level jobs, right? You you gotta be at least starting with that and figuring out, okay, how do I make myself more efficient and what parts of the job that me and my team used to do are going to be agent-based now. But you gotta be the person to a know what you want, what to specify, how to review it, make sure that it works, right? But like the a lot of that stuff that's that's in between there is gonna be gone. And so you could be you could be a uh a UIUX designer and be perfectly set for the future, but I think, you know, I don't know. Uh and this is a I'm just making up whatever number, like 85% of them are gonna be completely obsoleted because they were doing the job part that the AI can do now.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

It's it's what I always said as well, because you know the the the entry programmers, what were they? Very simple. You had the delete program, say, okay, you will program this small module, it has to look like this, it has to function like that. This is how they grew in their job. Yeah, but that job is now AI. So forget having experience or getting experience due through normal typing and coding. You don't have that anymore.

SPEAKER_04 37:18

So um the other thing is like traditional IT, you know, there's still definitely still like somebody's gotta be on the other end of that phone. Um, and just honestly, it's become, I'm sure, more of like a counselor type position than it is a pure IT position.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

I think it's more like like a psychologist.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Um, but I'll I'll take it from like uh I asked somebody the other day. I was like, oh, they were having trouble with something. And I was like, oh, do you need a good IT person? Like, I know one. And they're like, oh, they're a dime a dozen now. Everybody, like you can like I can throw a rock and hit a good IT person. I don't need a I don't need one. Nobody, you know. But um, then you have somebody like Albert Fernandez, who who is our IT person for automation ladies and OT Skatacon, he's an OT IT person. And that's where like that is a skill that the understanding, and it's like part tribal knowledge, it's part having understanding of how OT systems work, OT networks, and how they relate to IT, like that, I think is now the new not new, but like that's a skill that is not going to be abstracted away or or taken by uh by AI anytime soon. Although, again, you better be using AI, I think, at this point as that type of person, um, under the hood in what you're doing. Um so technicians. I think if if technicians and and I wish more people would come into this, this is something that Allie is really passionate about too. She got an engineering degree and she was like, honestly, I learned so much stuff that was like useless when I got out in the field. And I had to learn from technicians so that I didn't blow myself up and other people, right? Um, and I think that there's like a weird, obviously, like a respect hierarchy thing, like you're less educated. But honestly, I think um, yeah, technicians are gonna be much more future-proof for the next, I don't know, until we'll see whether the promise of the humanoids coming in and actually having hands in things is the physical AI, how quickly that gets to that point. What are do you have any thoughts on that?

Humanoid Robots Hype Versus Useful Tech

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Do you think we're we're humanoids for a while uh against you know the physical work in the plan?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

To be honest, so so automate, of course, in uh in terms of robotics, I think it's the best show there is. Uh for instance. We do we we do, for instance, we do uh a couple of trade shows, and we always are looking for uh interesting trade shows to to join as well. So we for instance we have Indomation. Indomation is a Belgian uh two-yearly uh trade show, very good, but this is typically based Benelux, so Belgium, Netherland, Luxembourg. Yeah, then we have, of course, the I always uh uh maybe you ever been there, Hanover Messe.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

This is one I have not been, but I've seen coverage, it's obviously the next year.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Come try cabinet manager on Hanover Mess. We have an amazing boot over there.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

I would love to. My dad actually used to, so I'm from Iceland, and my dad is an electrical engineer, and back when I was younger, um he would go to Hanover Messa every year because it was the only way, because it was like pre-internet, right? It was the only way he could go see what the whole works was available for his profession, right? Yeah, uh and I I didn't know that until later. Um, how much of my what I do now kind of overlaps with with my what my dad used to do.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

But that's cool. That's cool, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 40:47

Yeah, but I would I it is on my bucket list to eventually go uh in person. So we'll see. Maybe it'll be next year.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

I'll send you an invite, no worries. So no, but coming back to humanoids, so yes and no. Um do I see them doing pick and play stuff? Still do. Do I see the humanoid walking around in an industrial production plant? I don't see it. I think it it it's it's still in my point of view, it's a marketing gimmick. It does not have to look like a human. I don't get it. No, no, no. Why why do you why do they keep giving them legs? There's there's nothing efficient on about legs, given the wheels or or tracks or whatever that they can go over every kind of of terrain, but not legs. Why why do you make it so difficult?

SPEAKER_04 41:42

I saw one last year that I thought was pretty cool uh from Hexagon Technologies. They're they're making an inspection, uh, so they have a lot of inspection like um equipment that is typically mounted on robot arms or different things like that. Uh, and they own also like a lot of brands, including like Leica, and so they'll do all the uh scanning for like digging tunnels and all kinds of stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

And they made a humanoid actually that hexagon robot was around about 50 meters from our boot atonos.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Well, really, okay, okay. And I I thought it was like, you know, at least they're coming up with something a bit unique, but so they put legs, but legs with wheels. So it rolls, and and it's a lot faster than I think than than taking like bipedal steps. Yeah, it's it and then it can kind of you know step up if it needs to, and things like that. I thought that was a pretty unique and interesting design. But then what I also liked about theirs was they weren't necessarily saying, hey, it's just a general purpose robot that has arms and legs, right? And yes, the arms and legs, it can pick things up or can do things, but their area of expertise is inspection. So typically, if you have a a case where a human has to pick up a part, put it underneath uh some sort of inspection station, or they have to move around an arm with the camera, right? Then that use case to me says, okay, that kind of makes sense. Then now you have a humanoid robot instead that can manipulate the same things in the same ways, but then the inspection stuff can be built into the face of, I don't know, in the face. It could be anywhere, honestly. Um, but then it what it does is the manipulation and the inspection at the same time. And so I'm more interested also just in like, okay, what unique use cases does your humanoids support and where why does it make sense then for it to be in that form factor versus just oh yeah, we made another robot that looks like a person?

SPEAKER_00 43:31

The thing is, I have with the humanoids, I think we pretty much had the the the same thing with domotics. I don't know how it was commercialized in the States, but for instance, uh so uh house domotics I'm referring to. It was uh in in in Europe, it was everybody saw the movie, you know. Ooh, I can uh go stop from work, jump in my car, call to home, and my bathtub is filling up with water. Who's doing that? And then then everybody say oh the modic oh yeah I I I know this. I don't want it. I don't want to fill my bat up through a call. No, it's not about that. And I think we have to be very careful with those humanoids that we get in that that you know in that same framework. No, okay. I think uh we we saw them on Hanover as well. They were they looked really nice, very fancy robots, and then they started moving, and I oh my god, he the the robot has Parkinson, you know?

SPEAKER_04 44:36

Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

This is not helping, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 44:41

Uh and I like to think of this sometimes. So I used to work for a festo. You I'm sure familiar with the journey company.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

They have an amazing boot, by the way, on Honover Festo.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

I bet they do. So they have their whole division that just creates robots that look like animals. Completely, there's not really any kind of commercial purpose for that specifically. Like nobody's out to buy robotic jellyfish. But the point is that the RD that goes into those produces actual innovations that end up going into uh a gripper inspired by an elephant trunk, right? You're not gonna actually have you know a whole arm thing that looks like an elephant, but now you have a gripper at the end of a uh a robot that the that enderbarm tooling is inspired. And so, like, same thing with like, oh, uh, I don't know, the temperatic mattress, right? Like that memory foam was developed for astronauts and now it's in mattresses at home.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

Granted, is it a good thing now, now that I know about like the materials and the off-gassing and things like that? I'm like, oh, maybe let's maybe let's roll that back and I want to sleep on some wool, right? Um but the point being, a lot of this is not necessarily it's not the first wave of innovation that actually ends up being what it gets ingrained into our its systems. It's it's really some form of the innovation that came out of it. So I kind of understand the humanoid thing right now. It's like it's such a big opportunity that every VC, like there's a lot of money going into that because somebody wants to solve that. And whoever does solve it will probably make a lot of money. But my perspective is I think a lot of very useful technology will probably come out of it that will still end up being served in a different form factor to us in the practical sense, what we end up keeping and and how it integrates with what we do now. A lot of it will probably still not be that form factor. And I will say, behind the scenes, having talked to a couple of the humanoid companies, they're also developing a lot of other form factors at the same time. And it's like the humanoid part is kind of the PR, it's the draw to the investors, it's the draw to the people that want to write about them. And then behind the scenes, they're like, Yeah, and we're also putting this technology in like five other form factors.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 46:45

We put the upper body on a pedestal and like that drives around, or we're doing mobile manipulators, or ultimately we offer, you know, less cool-looking solutions that kind of rely on some of the same technology that we're developing and investing in. Um, and I know one of my earlier like kind of looks at it was also just like, hey, we're very constrained by the components that are on offer, and how do we take those components and put them in a humanoid? So a lot of these companies have had to develop a lot of the underlying components that make it possible to make you know that sort of form factor. Um, and that's also brought the cost down quite a bit. Uh, because a lot of these are very cost prohibitive for the amount of extra uh productivity that they bring to the table, which is currently probably not much.

Where To See It Next

SPEAKER_04 47:34

Well, we are uh uh up on time. Honestly, these episodes are supposed to be short, but we're uh coming up on here almost 50 minutes. So this is gonna be somewhere in between a short episode and a standard one. But uh so we're gonna okay. If you're in Europe, go to Hanover Mesa and see you guys.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:51

If if you are in the US, are you planning on walking Vegas at all, or are you gonna be back in Chicago in a couple of years?

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Well, we definitely will be back in Chicago, and then I'm not sure about Vegas yet, but it has not been decided. Uh first first glance, uh maybe not, or maybe look into another trade show in the US. Um but yeah, as a small company as well, you have to I always say you have to pick your battles wisely, and and uh as as it goes for trade shows, pick them very wisely. Uh absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 48:27

So I will say to our audience, we will be at Automate 2027 in Vegas for sure. And that'll be a new experience for all of us. I've never been to a show in Vegas, so next year I'll be at Automate and Pac Expo in Vegas. Um, but I think we're all kind of like, I wonder how that goes. Is everyone that comes to regular Automate gonna come? Is it gonna be a different audience? Is it gonna be a different crop of exhibitors? Is there gonna be like a different sort of slant to it because it's gonna be in a different part of the country? Um, I think we're all very interested to find out. And then certainly, if you you know are on the fence about Vegas next year, everybody seems to be everybody's like going big for uh Chicago 2028, I guess. Um so if people are interested in what you're doing, um, how do they find you? Where should they follow you? How do they get in contact with you if they want to learn more before they get extended for you at another show?

SPEAKER_00 49:25

So definitely check out our our website, I would say, uh Lightstream.be. This is the the parent company. Then of course we have cabinetmanager.be. Uh also actually our brand new software. It's all about lockout tag out systems, really intuitive. Uh we we actually we uh it uh we released it on automate.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

Um really really nice. So where are we next? Uh definitely in Europe it will be Hanover. Uh we're always at hall 17. Um I think next year we'll have a very big boot because now we're gonna show uh cabinet manager with augmented reality, but also uh lockout tag out and how that will work with uh augmented reality. So that will be a good one. Uh think next year being said, maybe in Vegas, maybe not. I think these these things will be decided in the coming weeks or months, I think so. Um but it will definitely stop by in Vegas. That's that that that's I because I'm curious as well.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

So yeah, yeah. So even if if you're not gonna have a booth, you'll at least be there on the floor somewhere and people can find you, maybe connect with you ahead of time, plan to have a conversation um or see a demo. I'm sure since you're you know, this is all software, tablet-based, AR, you probably have some stuff with you to where if somebody wanted to see it, you could set up a meeting.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

If you're interested, just hit me up. Uh just connect through the website or through LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Uh and typically I'm three to four years, three to four times a year in in the States. So I'm always somewhere. So there's no problem in that. So um Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Well, thank you so much for joining us. I would be very interested um to see to see uh isolated and and uh cabinet manager at some point in person, maybe through our demo series, which we haven't done this year. We've been too busy with catching up and getting our team together and getting the show back on on track and getting OT SkateCon accomplished, which is now in the books for this year. So we'll see when we start those back up again. Um, but we would love to have you on another time and have Allie. I would love for Addie to really see uh what you're what you're doing, because I think she would be very nice. So thank you so much for your time. Um, we look forward to seeing you again. And everybody that if you, you know, if you're gonna be at Automate, um definitely consider this on your list of people to connect with and uh yeah, reach out to Dylan on LinkedIn. And that that's kind of how keep in touch with each other in between these things.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Um about the network, I always say. So uh exactly.

SPEAKER_04 52:06

Well, thank you so much. I know it's like 8 p.m. uh uh over there, and it's time for you to end your day. So we appreciate you spending um almost an hour here with us. And uh we'll catch you next time, guys.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

Thank you. Bye bye bye.

SPEAKER_04 52:20

Thank you for listening to Automation Ladies. If you like our content and you want to stay in touch, please connect with us on LinkedIn, follow the show page, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and you can send us a message or a copy on our website, automationladies.io. We look forward to getting to know you.