What to Expect When You're Connecting
What to Expect When You're Connecting includes interviews with a wide range of industry subject matter experts who share their journey, advice, and the mistakes they've made along the way in IoT. If you're adding connectivity to your products for the first time or seeking to optimize and scale your existing connectivity operations – welcome to the conversation.
What to Expect When You're Connecting
How Oil & Gas Companies Invest in IoT: Guests Jeff May and Scott Kennedy
In this episode, we’re looking at how connectivity decisions are made in the oil & gas industry and the factors that influence investments in new technology.
This conversation is less about what they are building, but why an industry that’s resistant to change and slow to adopt new technology is pushing forward with big investments in tech that’s reliant on connectivity.
To make the most sense of how change happens, we need to address an important question, “Who picks up the phone when the energy companies call looking for answers?” Look no further than today’s guests Jeff and Scott from Logix Sales & Marketing.
thanks for pressing play. Welcome to conversations in connectivity. I'm Ryan Carlson, your host. This is a podcast for the IOT professionals and product leaders, responsible for conductivity operations within their organization. And interested in learning how others are harnessing connectivity, controlling costs and scaling successfully in the industries they serve. In this episode, we're looking at how conductivity decisions are made in the oil and gas industry and the factors that influence investments in new technology. The conversation is less about what they're building, but why an industry that's resistant to change and slow to adapt. New technologies is pushing forward with pretty big investments in tech that's reliant on connectivity. To make the most sense of how change happens. We need to address an important question who picks up the phone when energy companies called looking for answers. But like guests, that depends on who's asking the question, but when somebody is looking for technology-based solutions from an energy company, Look, no further than the other end of that line with today's guests, Jeff and Scott from logic sales and marketing. Jeff is the president and founder of logics and Scott Kennedy, the vice president, they share their deep industrial knowledge and energy sector experience working on behalf of energy companies to demystify how decisions are being made today We're also joined by Kenta Yasaka. the chief technology officer at soar com, who is the one who picked up the phone when Japanese utility company needs your gas needed to connect over a million smart gas meters with some pretty unique challenges. Around the halfway mark of this interview, we opened up the call to our live community audience for an ask me anything or an AMA, and there's really critic questions. And some of them just might be a question that you would have wanted answered. This episode is brought to you by Sora. Uh, global connectivity service provider that believes the fastest way to cost savings in scale is when customers are in full control of their connectivity operations experience, self service pay. As you go global connectivity. Without a contract today at Soracom.io Signing up for an operator account takes less than a minute. And now onto the interview. You sit between the technology companies and the oil and gas industry companies out there. So when someone picks up the phone, why are they calling you?
Jeff May:Customers look at Logix as a consultant within the, energy industry and other vertical, markets, for leading edge components. So when they're building a system or subsystem at an OEM level, they will need, assistance in designing in their products, or the components into their systems. And that's where we come into play is the Logix staff is a technical staff. Generally everybody's has a electrical engineering degree, so they're not only competent from a component level, but they have a good understanding of the customer system requirements, in these systems and new designs.
Ryan Carlson:Scott, you've got a background. In oil and gas. Let us tell us a little bit about what that background looked like.
Scott Kennedy:Yeah. I have a background, electrical engineering. I was hired, in the oil and gas industry to develop technology, to collect the data from the well while drilling and, and create logs for the customer. Before, before I was in R and D my company wanted me to work, out in the field to get a feel for what it is to, be on a rig, to run a job. So I did 15 months, working offshore, mostly offshore Brazil, in the Atlantic ocean. So I would set up, the sensors set up the tools, program them, run the job, collect the data, and then inevitably turn that data into the customer.
Ryan Carlson:They say that product development empathy for the user is a big part of making good products. How did that 15 months out in the field prepare you for the conversations you have today at Logix?
Scott Kennedy:Yeah, no, that it was a great experience. It was with Slumberger oil and gas services company. It helped me while I was there doing development, helped me understand, what it was to be on the rig to have to actually program the tools. So when I developed the, the technology, the receivers were used to collect the data I had been in the end user seat. And it helps me today at Logix to be able to not only have the experience of being on a rig, but also the experience of designing and developing the tools used, to do the job.
Ryan Carlson:Jeff, one of the things, when we first spoke, I asked you, what is it that people start leaning into? What types of conversations. Do they get interested in, and, first was how to make a perfect Manhattan, which I would be interested in hearing that, as well, but, when the oil and gas companies are picking up the phone, why is it that they're interested in talking now? What is it that's unique about our current situation that is pushing them to invest or reinvest in technology?
Jeff May:Today the energy industry likes to rely on, proven technologies that have been around for years. So introducing new technologies is, is a challenge in and of itself. But so some of the care abouts within the energy industry, persist, from decades ago through today, with maybe perhaps a little bit of a different twist. But, big issues that have always been present have is like reliability, environmental concerns like industrial, temperature, well beyond industrial temp, 175 degrees CS, 200 degrees, C environmental issues like salt and, shock, vibration, those have all been around forever. But when we're working with, the, industry design engineers today, they've got a lot of legacy equipment out there that have got, like heart and can and serial Modbus type protocols that we've got to, to interface with. But we're trying to connect up new technologies, whether it be cellular or, other wireless technologies, and those technologies are obviously new. But interfacing, To the existing equipment, could be a challenge cuz that's not always where some of the newer equipment, is theoretically built. So we've got to, if you will bring the component supplier in with the conversation of what our actual customers need and we're good at that. We try to help our manufacturers build products that will actually be implemented, within our industries, particularly the energy industry.
Ryan Carlson:So how much of a balance does it become knowing that you can't upturn apple cart and take a bunch of old PLCs and old legacy equipment versus, replacing it with new equipment. If there's reliability and people trust a particular way of doing things, is there an incremental approach or is it a strip it all out and put something new in?
Jeff May:Ripping it all out would be, probably ideal in a lot of circumstances, but the, inherent investment, that's already there is usually hard to, to just trash. So there's, I would say a little bit of everything involved with some of these conversations. But there's generally newer, attributes that will bring customers around to wanting to engage deeper on the newer technologies, like security. Security is a huge issue. We could probably talk for the next hour just on security, but also like cloud management, which hasn't, obviously been something that was thought of, decades ago. It is relatively recent, has allowed for, a lot more monitoring, in real time and allowing the folks back at the corporate office be able to keep tabs on their remote equipment and how it's operating and et cetera.
Ryan Carlson:So speaking of users, Scott, who is it in the field that is looking to R and D to make their jobs easier. And what are some of those trends that you're seeing right now, given that they're flush with cash and willing to throw money at solving the future problems of oil and gas?
Scott Kennedy:Yeah, the big driver, for, connecting and having, new technology on the rigs is safety. If you, when I worked offshore, I got on a helicopter. I had to do, safety training just to, to fly on the helicopter, to get to the rig. If you can imagine being on a rig, there's lots of heavy pipes swinging around and potential for, blowouts and things like that. So if you can reduce the amount of people on a rig, if you can automate the rig, that's really the driver behind, connecting and upgrading the technology. If you can run these jobs, if you could do what I did, years ago, by flying to a rig, if you could do that from the safety of an office, instead of having to put people in that environment, you're gonna be much safer. You're gonna save cost. So that's, I'd say the big driver to the technology it's to help really the safety and efficiency of the operations.
Ryan Carlson:So this isn't just about remote access for running automated sequences, but is it, is there any aspects, like the construction industry is really looking at connectivity for worker safety. new types of PPE to, someone fell off a building or knowing when someone's in a dangerous zone. Do you see any interplay or any, vertical. Crossover in what's being done in construction and what's being done in oil and gas for the safety side.
Scott Kennedy:Absolutely. Yeah, I think they're very synergistic, very similar both in remote places, not always within cellular, range. Having, environmental challenges in terms of heat or extreme cold, having a long way to get to the project, all those things factor into being to, the advantages of being able to connect and do things remotely.
Ryan Carlson:Okay. Where do you see the actual technology itself evolving? So knowing that there are some things that may be so old, where do you see the first dominoes to fall on legacy technology and the adoption of new forms of technology that may not have had the incremental evolution, but is there anything revolutionary that you see coming around the corner?
Scott Kennedy:Like Jeff said, it's a conservative industry. There's in there's issues with security. Let's say it's a big one. There's reliability is always important. So anytime you introduce new technology, there's a long, that's a long road to make sure it's, it works and it's proven. So it is changing. It is evolving, but it's definitely incremental. I don't see a big sweeping, change overnight in, in the oil and gas industry.
Ryan Carlson:Kenta, you've worked a significant amount in the utility space. Like with Nichi Gas and some of the other, utilities, both just overseas, not here in north America from a security or reliability perspective, like where did connectivity come into that conversation?
Kenta Yasukawa:Yeah, so I, we have been offering connectivity platform focusing on connecting those devices in the field securely to, cloud environment. So what you, what Jeff, you mentioned about the, security and cloud management. These are common, requirement, common demands. We hear from the customers in oil and gas and utility in the industry. As Ryan mentioned, I, we have worked with gas. They have deployed, one million, gas meters, in nationwide in Japan. And they have been using, LP one technology called the Sigfox and also St. LP one LT, cat M to connect those, Gas meters to the cloud and yes, the, the common concern was definitely, one thing is security and they have the, we have, technology to, make sure all those devices are security connected to customers, cloud environment, not necessarily to the internet, so that actually, relieved all the customers concerns. And also since they have, uh, legacy, gas meters, they can't replace as we already, uh, as Jeff and Scott already mentioned. So they took on an approach of, adding an, additional network control unit, attached it to, legacy gas meter so that they can collect data and send that to their AWS based cloud environment. I have seen a lot of commonalities and, in what Scott and Jeff were talking about.
Ryan Carlson:For those of us who are not in the field or even in the oil and gas industry themselves, like what do some of these things that they're doing out in the field? What are they doing and why would they need not even necessarily connectivity, but what's driving some of the research and development or newer products that you're seeing.
Scott Kennedy:What I see is, it, there's lots of different segments within oil and gas. It really depends on, like you mentioned, there's exploration, there's, drilling there's upstream, downstream, the refineries. And so it really, the answer will depend on which segment you're talking about. But if you talk about, just, the drilling side, their main concern, they've always had connectivity. But being able to automate the functionality on the rig, I think is what's driving most of the new development, being able to have not just data being sent back, we've always had data, we've always had satellite connectivity on rigs for years. But how do we now not just have data sent back, how do we have command and control of the rig in real time? And have a central office, in a secure environment where somebody can operate, multiple jobs. If you can imagine one engineer running 5, 6, 7 rigs at one time. So where I was one person, one of per person of on a four person team flying to the physical one rig, I could now do, five or six jobs remotely. That's, what's driving on the, from the drilling standpoint, the technology and the bandwidth needs.
Ryan Carlson:This sounds a lot like the rail industry where they've got their inspectors and the maintainers, and each maintainer is responsible for, 150 miles worth of track and every crossing and all of this stuff on there. And drive time. And every truck roll and every little thing like requires someone to go out there and that's an industry that's just as old So you've got an industry that has got people that have, it's been a highly manual inspection process. So are they consolidating into SOC centers, those like secure operations command centers, like on the movies with all the screens around them.
Scott Kennedy:Yeah.
Ryan Carlson:Is that what it's turning into?
Scott Kennedy:Yeah, really? It is. Yeah. I've, you can probably see it online if you can search for it. There's these rooms with, hundreds of screens and they're trying to run and operate multiple, drilling operations from a central location. And again, the reason is it's safer. It's, more efficient, it's more cost effective. So that's the, really the holy grail or where they're trying to go is where you don't really need anybody at the well site at all. That's really where they're trying to get.
Ryan Carlson:But you still need people that can jump in a helicopter and go out to a remote site.
Scott Kennedy:Yeah. I mean, you're always gonna need people to set up rig up, troubleshoot that kind of thing. But, the idea is to have it, as close to a hundred percent automated as possible.
Ryan Carlson:So let's walk through each of those different pieces. I really like that. So you, if you've got, was it exploration or discovery?
Scott Kennedy:Yep. Where you go in search and you wanna, survey, a piece of land, whether that be land or a sub, surface on, in the ocean, you wanna see what's in the, in the resource that you own, that's like using seismic technology, typically, that's exploration, then you typically drill that's the drilling. Once you decide where you wanna drill and what you wanna produce, then you deploy. Drilling rig, you drill for that oil and gas. And then once you have the well constructed, there may be additional things to do to evaluate the formation there's, wire line tools, for example, that can do a little more detailed formation evaluation to help all help the, the client determine, how to, what they're, what they have down there and how they should produce it. And then once you figure that out and you come with a production plan, then you put your, your production rig or your production platform on the well site. And then you wanna collect that, that asset. And then it goes into refineries and inevitably into products.
Ryan Carlson:So I'm hearing, there's a whole lot of frenetic activity upfront. They're scrambling around looking, then you've got all of the drilling at all the people you all assemble, and then everyone goes away and it's supposed to just work, right? You're just printing money somewhere out in a remote place.
Scott Kennedy:Maybe a better way to say it. There's a ton of investment by the oil and gas companies up front. If you can imagine the cost to, to construct the well produce it, that's a lot of people just look at the profits they're making on the back end, but they forget how much was invested just to buy the asset, take the risk to produce the asset, they don't always produce. And then, the construction of it and et cetera. So there's a lot of upfront work to realize that the downstream profit, but, yeah, it's a high risk high reward game, for sure.
Ryan Carlson:So there's a, there's actually a, a pretty good question here about, if automation's a primary driver of connected equipment in field.
Jeff May:It's really comes down to identifying the value proposition and explaining it in terms of dollars and how to make sure that the client can actually, save money. There's a lot of built in things that I would say that the energy industry's probably not used to understanding is like they could do. Like flexible and future proof, allowing for, updates, in the field rather than having to roll a truck and get a technician out there to upgrade something. They could do it over the air, if you will. Getting alerts about equipment that could possibly be failing soon. Like the motor, if you will starting to go out there's ways to monitor, a lot of this electro mechanical equipment to, make sure that. We're in the know, before it fails, which will save money. If you can do the preventive maintenance on it. There's a lot of things like that, that I think that we, as an industry could do better explaining. And that's where, a typical sales consultant like Logix comes into play.
Ryan Carlson:What are the things that will get people picking up the phone and having a sense of urgency.
Jeff May:I think you better go back to looking at each, sub-vertical within the energy industry, for example, pipeline, there obvious would be a leak detection, right? Oh. But if it, is at the rig, you might be looking for hazardous gas or, detection to make sure it's not getting ready to blow up. But there's other many things that go into it. If you're on a fracking, job you're probably concerned about, having quality control over some of the inputs, water chemicals, et cetera, like that should be monitored. You could have a tank leveling, application and, obviously the dashboard or the alert is gonna be how much is in the tank and that kind of thing. So it, it totally depends upon the sub-vertical and what their care about's gonna be.
Ryan Carlson:It sounds like the value chain is so similar to so many other industries, different commercial industries. Yeah. How much is left in the barrel of this, particular fluid, how much hydraulic pressure do we have? What's the current, operating speed, motor vibration monitoring analysis to say this pump is probably gonna fail in the next two days. You might wanna switch, swap it out on the maintenance cycle rather than on a production cycle. Is there anything that surprises you about oil and gas when it comes to the needs that they particularly have?
Scott Kennedy:I dunno if it's surprising, but I will say once you prove a technology, the industry tends to adopt it and like it, there's not like standards necessarily. And, if you look like a military industry, there's like military standards for, how you qualify a component or, is it a mill spec, whatever, the oil and gas industry tends to, it's kind of part of their IP, how they prove a technology that's kind of customer to customer dependent. And you really have to work closely with these customers to, meet their needs, and understand what their way of qualifying and approving a technology is. But once you get through those wickets, they tend to stay with the, for the long. So I think that's something maybe a lot of people don't realize, maybe that aren't familiar with the industry or might be surprising. It's not surprising to Logix cuz we, we know that market well, but that might be surprising for someone that's never worked there.
Ryan Carlson:In an industry like oil and gas, is it an industry where everyone is looking at what everyone else is doing and they're all learning together or is it a secret? Everyone has their own special sauce on how they do something better than someone else.
Scott Kennedy:I would say it's competitive. And they, people don't like to let their competitors know how they're getting things done in general.
Ryan Carlson:So they all know it's an expensive upfront cost, but I'm hearing their ability to control costs on the back end is maybe how they're more profitable than a competitor or not. Or what are some of the areas in which they're building that competitive advantage.
Scott Kennedy:Reliability, efficiencies, like you said, how are they able to do it? That once they, once an individual company figures it out, they tend to not let that they don't want that to get out necessarily. There's obviously collaboration. I don't mean to say the industry doesn't collaborate, but, when it comes to competitive advantages that's typically not something they, they wanna publicize of how it's happening and how they're doing it.
Kenta Yasukawa:I have several questions I wanted to ask. In terms of the, uh, remote, site monitoring. We have been working with, IHI, for example, they have a control center and they are monitoring gas turbines, deployed in different parts of the world in their case. I think they have already designed those, the facilities and turbines to be able to be. Monitored by sensors and already remotely manageable. But when it comes to working with legacy sites or legacy, oil and gas rigs or sites, are they ready to monitor? Are they, do they already have sensors installed and he just can connect the gateway? Or do you need to install those sensors to be able to retrofit, devices and, facilities.
Jeff May:There's a fair amount of sensors deployed definitely within the energy industry. But then the question is it connected? And then I think probably the bigger question that's being asked now is should there be more edge computing, being done to, manipulate the data at the edge prior to uploading it to the cloud. And then once you go through that Q and a about how the data's gonna travel, and where it's gonna go and how it's gonna get there. Then it becomes, possibly that the sensor could be upgraded and, and or obviously the edge computing deployed, so that the whole conversation kind of gets started, with that one sensor and then other sensors that we could, deploy, to help out with the areas that we talked about, security, safety, reliability, cetera.
Kenta Yasukawa:Yeah. It, that, that makes sense. The edge computing can collect data locally and process it. And just to send out the event, especially when it comes to, remote site that doesn't have a similar coverage. You may have to, work with satellite. We started to also support, satellite, messaging services, but the bundle is, and frequency of messaging is limited. So you can't just always send data out to cloud. It makes sense to do edge processing and apply machine learning Logix and send out events. And that's really good to know. You also mentioned the, hazardous environment, like somewhere that the oil leaks or gas leaks are happening. And, we have also a customer in Japan, Mitsubishi, heavy industries. They have, designed a robot that actually goes into those, dangerous locations and the, work on some things that, human can, shouldn't be doing, because of the risk. Do you see that also, similar, use cases happening in, in your customers or your, client base?
Jeff May:Absolutely. There's hazardous certification areas and there's, classifications and divisions and zones and everything that, the oil industry deploys. So there's definitely a concern there, for sure if they could roll a robot versus a truck and a human I'm sure they would do it. That's very
Kenta Yasukawa:cool. Yeah. And the, I'm sure there, there is something that we can, do, in collaboration. Maybe we can introduce Mitsubishi or, anyway, we are connecting devices, but also we are trying to connect people and our customers and partners will now platform. So that'll be great.
Ryan Carlson:So I've got a question about the level of software development that is now in what is. Maybe typically been a hardware world. Where have you seen software coming in? What are software projects looking like? And how are they bridging those two worlds?
Scott Kennedy:There's lots of software development. Like we talked about the seismic industry, for example, if you imagine it's lots and lots of data, they visualize the data. They have rooms, you can walk into a conference room with monitors everywhere and the immerse yourself in the sub, formation and see, what the asset looks like. That the oil and gas industry's been, very good at software development for many years. So I don't, I think, As far as what's new it's like we were talking about, more of the connectivity, the, edge computing doing analysis at the device to do preventative maintenance or make decisions without having to rely on a high bandwidth, data connection. So that's probably where the new development's, headed, I would say.
Ryan Carlson:Is there just as much mobile app development, is there as web development? Absolutely.
Scott Kennedy:Yeah. Yeah. All the above it all applies.
Ryan Carlson:Is it a build buyer, partner, world in oil and gas?
Scott Kennedy:I think it's everything. They, where it doesn't exist, obviously you have to build and make your own, like we talked about earlier where there's, There's not a lot of off the shelf solutions that meet the harsh environment requirements. They have to, make it cuz it doesn't exist. And then, when the industry can use something off the shelf and it's, and it works great that they, it will, the industry will because, a lot of times it's, time to market, for, if you have a specific job that you're trying to address a specific challenge. And if you can come up with a solution first, you can get the, you can get the job. If you will, in those cases, they will partner or use off the shelf, buy type decisions.
Ryan Carlson:I'd imagine it's just gonna be like the like IPV ratings or heat index or, all of those different environmental conditions. Sounds like the tech stack doesn't really matter as long as it's secure and as long as it meets the environmental conditions.
Scott Kennedy:The environmental's a bit, one of the harder parts of a lot of what they have to do harsh environments for sure.
Ryan Carlson:We got some great questions in our AMA, Jason, why don't you go ahead and kick us off?
Jason (AMA):Yeah. Hi, Jason here and a long time caller, first time listener. But I had a question as it pertain to asset tracking. So one of the things that we see in similar industries is that large equipment theft, is pretty prevalent. Is that something that the oil and gas industry are facing on any kind of city clip? And if so, is there an asset tracking trend that you've seen, that's going to help combat that?
Scott Kennedy:I, yes. The answer question that asset tracking has been part of the industry for a long time. I'm not as familiar with theft issues. I'm sure there are, because of where they're operating. There's lots of companies that specialize in asset tracking solutions specific for oil and gas equipment, designed to help to handle the harsh environment or be integrated into the type of equipment that's used in the oil and gas field. As far as trends, I don't, I think it's just like the rest of the industry, people are trying to more accuracy, more, be able to monitor more granularity, more reliability. Those are probably the trends
Jeff May:I think the biggest thing about asset tracking for the oil industry is just to keep track of their assets. It's a lot of remote work. Equipment's deployed and new managers come and go and they're trying to, keep the keep tabs on it all. And I think it's a challenge.
Solomon (AMA):Yes. Hi, just had a quick question, wanted to ask. So other than like kind of oil and gas, I was wondering if there are any other areas of detection such as like weather patterns, ocean level, changes or earthquake detection that will affect how the day to day, of drilling and just detecting anomalies that, sensors can be introduced.
Scott Kennedy:I know there was a project, back when I was in, working at Schlumberger to have a way to do a quick disconnect from a well head in the event of a hurricane in the Gulf, for example, and that's public on the website now. But, I think they rely on, whether, what's available for, in terms of weather reporting to make those decisions. I can't think of sensor specific development that we're where they're trying to detect weather patterns, local, locally to the unit. There's obviously like detection of overheating and over pressure, those type of things, the only big data I've seen is, seismic, cross log correlation. If you're, if you have, multiple Wells and a certain asset, and you wanna try to get a better view of what's in the formation, you. You can use surrounding well data to then interpret what's in, in the other areas that you haven't, drilled yet. So that's not necessarily weather related, but, I don't know if there's other, environmental, cross correlation data that they, that is being looked at. I'm sure there's projects for that. There's always big data projects. The specifics of it, I'm not sure.
Jeff May:Solomon, you're asking questions about beyond oil and gas. Let's the elephant in the room is the energy. Giants are shifting more towards renewable energy, products and ways to, if you will transform their business. So there's gonna be a whole host of new things that are gonna be coming down from our traditional oil and gas customers, looking at the renewable business and trying to build new products and, capabilities and services associated with renewables.
Ryan Carlson:Sure. That sounds like connectivity is ridiculously important if you're triangulating or you're pulling in sensors from across different regions in the same field, because it is a reserve and, probably gonna see changes in one area it'll affect the other. And rather than driving back home, getting all your USB sticks and then correlating all the data, you can just see stuff live happening right away. This ties into Richard's next question. So go ahead, Richard.
Richard (AMA):Hey guys, thanks for, for sharing your insights today. Yeah, my, my question was really around, I, when I think of oil and gas, I think of a really diverse range of physical locations where, the work is being done. You've got metropolitan areas where you've got, storage and transship points. You've got rural areas where maybe they're doing fracking, you've got oceanic, transport and exploration. So how do companies like this think about, maintaining connectivity and access to and transmitting data in those kinds of diverse environments? How do manage all of that?
Jeff May:With a diverse set wireless protocols to meet all their individual needs? That's, there was a blending of technologies. You can't say everything's gonna be answered with, with a satellite connection or cellular or Bluetooth or. Laura WAN or, ZigBee, Sig Fox. You can't say that it's dependent upon the, the application, where it is, the asset that's being monitored or tracked. So there's a lot that goes into that answer.
Richard (AMA):Yeah. And so I can imagine that would put tremendous pressure on an organization to try to make sure that all the pieces of that ecosystem of communication were working and uptime and being able to monitor and manage that just sounds really complex to. me
Jeff May:Yeah, the, the suppliers or manufacturers that can support that, end to end solution, from satellite down to, Bluetooth, if you will, definitely rise to the top when it comes to, being able to solve, the full complexity of issues related to connectivity.
Richard (AMA):Yeah. Sounds like the perfect application for, blended networks. Thanks.
Kenta Yasukawa:Yeah, we have experienced and learned from that from, by working with customers as well. So the, the customer that I mentioned Nichigas they started with Sigfox and then realized they need to also combine cellular network. So I, we believe in that, the, platform service needs to be able to support multiple connectivity options so that we can cover different, the use cases we have also, talked over, Gas company in Europe, they also need to integrate satellite, but also they need to use cellular That's why we are trying to offer one single platform that can cover multiple options. And one single integration can support all these different options. So it's good to confirm their demand is there,
Scott Kennedy:right? Yeah. You have to meet country, certification requirements too. So what, yeah, what's certified for north America is not gonna work, in Brazil, et cetera.
Ryan Carlson:The issue that faces, the whole, industry 4.0 movement where you've got a thousand different vendors. Actually it's sometimes even hundreds in the same factory setting and each has its own portal, its own log and its only way to manage a device, a different report to look at that has been the growing pains of the, the mid two thousands. And now we're in a world where there are so many solutions tying'em all together seems to be a big challenge. So as someone who sources all of these different solutions, how much does interoperability come into play with these oil and gas companies and the solutions that you're per you're recommending, to, to be built or bought.
Jeff May:It's a big issue, especially when it has to be deployed out into the field. It's architected if you will, out in the corporate environment, if you will, not in the field and then it's deployed out into the field and, the technicians in the field, obviously weren't involved with the design of the device that you're trying to deploy. So you have to make it relatively simple, to do, so it needs to, if you will operate right out of the box pretty quick.
Nikki (AMA):Do you see any trends in cybersecurity developing specifically within the oil and gas industries
Scott Kennedy:want that Jeff?
Jeff May:Sure. Cybersecurity is a big issue for everything, everybody, every industry, especially when you have prized assets that cause world wars, and conflicts that we're seeing today. I'm sure it's easy to imagine. What could happen if, a pipeline was hacked and, natural gas was cut off to Europe, in there could be large geopolitical problems that are a result of such shenanigans. But yes, it's a, it's an issue, for sure. That's why we mentioned security is such a major issue.
Ryan Carlson:That it brings up an interesting point on that adoption curve. I think we've all we all remember when you'd say cloud and anyone, it would go, whoa, unsecured put stuff in the cloud. You'd be an idiot to do that. My perception is that we've, we rounded that corner, but for a more conservative industry, like oil and gas, what is the perception of cloud plus security?
Jeff May:I think you even gotta go back to wired versus wireless at some point, that conversation, because, it was 20 years ago when the old street thought anything wireless was. Gonna be able to be hacked and, or compromised, because the com the communication wirelessly was not, reliable. And the default was that a physical cable connection, was gonna be, more secure, for the obvious purposes. Yes, the cloud conversation actually mirrors that conversation, but as we move forward, we're slowly of being able to address the industry with these new technologies.
Ryan Carlson:So anything that can both address security and put, and de-risk the perceptions of cloud is probably where you're seeing the most advancement.
Scott Kennedy:It's definitely helpful for sure. To get, customers to adopt, new technologies or if you will, a cloud platform.
Jake (AMA):Hi, Jake Martin here in the San Francisco bay area. If we can come back to renewables for a second, I actually had a question. It's really interesting that came up and I know one of the challenges for renewables, is peaks and valleys, in generation transmission storage. It just doesn't work in the same way. And I am curious if you're seeing any emerging technical solutions that can help to smooth that out, and ideally make delivery, of power generated by renewable something that we can experience more consistently and, use more easily.
Scott Kennedy:Yeah. There's lot energy storage is a big, push, where they can put excess, energy in, into a storage system. There's lots of development and I wouldn't say that's unique to the oil and gas industry, there's lots of that being done outside of the oil and gas industry. Just to be able to handle peak demand or, sag and supply. Lots of OEMs in our territory, let alone the rest of the United States and the world are working in that. And that seems to be that the answer most people are turning to is some kind of, peak storage. So they can, handle those, the sags.
Jeff May:And you're also seeing, applications like bid mining, that is heavily power intensive being located at the energy source, for a low demand. Period. And they turn on the Bitcoin, servers and computers and make'em run during those down times, if you will.
Jake (AMA):Awesome. Thank you so much.
Ryan Carlson:So a little bit about Logix, who is it that you would be able to help if there's people out here listening to what we're talking about, and they wanted to learn more who, who should be reaching out to a company like Logix?
Jeff May:Our focus is on the OEM customers developing, next generation, equipment.
Ryan Carlson:All right. And so is there specific verticals other than oil and gas that you find yourself, in, in those circles a lot more and would be able to represent those OEMs.
Jeff May:Yeah, you bet. So the different verticals that we support are, telecommunications, military automotive, medical, industrial in general. Of course we mentioned energy. There's some ver sub-verticals, if you will, within the, industrial world, like metering, we're heavily engaged with, white goods, appliances, if you will, that need to be connected, and, or monitored. What else? What I miss. Scott?
Scott Kennedy:You hit a lot. Aerospace is kind of part of the military, but, yeah, the, in our geography, there's lots of different industries and we try to. Try to help cut, ask who we help. We help OEMs that are looking for technology solutions and we help manufacturers of those technologies, get their product in front of those OEMs. So that's really our job and really just to be a technical consultant. During that development process.
Ryan Carlson:What's the hardest part about telling the story of an engineering led product and then marrying it to a business challenge where do, how do you navigate that process?
Scott Kennedy:I think making it applicable to the, to what the customer's trying to do. If I talk about the great features and capabilities of, some new cellular module, but it only operates to, a 40 degree C and. It requires, an environment with no multipath and, whatever it may be, then you know that's not gonna be interesting. That's gonna waste someone's time. So understanding your audience and understanding the attributes of the technology solution and how it fits, that, that's where I think, we find, our customers find value in how we operate.
Ryan Carlson:I'm gonna channel my professional sales team here. And, as people that are out on the front lines actually selling and getting out in front of people, what types of information do you like to be armed with to make you the most effective when you are out pitching?
Scott Kennedy:I like to have, roadmaps, like where we see, the manufacturer that we're presenting the technology to, I like to have understand where they're heading and what they. Where they see their future. And then we try to make that align with the OEM's future and their roadmap. And if they're not aligned, try to find where we could bridge that gap because, you can't fit square peg into a round hole. Understanding where someone wants to go and where the technology I'm presenting is trying to go, then you're not wasting anyone's time. So I think that's what I like to know is where a manufacturer wants to go with their products and what markets they wanna serve. And that, that makes it easier to find the right homes.
Ryan Carlson:So it's not about having a piece of technology that does something at a single point in time, but it's marrying up companies where, you can show their roadmap aligns with the, that manufacturer, that OEM, right? Like you need to be able to show they're here for the long haul.
Scott Kennedy:Right. That's the fun part. Yeah. Go ahead.
Jeff May:Jeff customers go into a design, or initiate a design because they're trying to add a feature or improve performance of their product. So we, are savvy enough to know what the, what their system is, accomplishing for the current generation. And then we have conceptual and architectural discussions with the customers about where they want to take their new design. And then it's up to us to educate those customers on, Hey, this is going to really add value to your system if you decide to design in this component,
Ryan Carlson:Know that, it's like an average of 7.4 yeses to get anywhere in business these days. Is that number growing? Is it shrinking and who are the typical voices that you need to get involved to even get any forward momentum?
Jeff May:We like to start with engineering. That's what we get out of bed to do primarily every day is just to work with engineers. So sometimes the answer relies that the CTO that sometimes it relies with the technician, to get the ball rolling. But in general, we're gonna work with the full, engineering team from the CTO on down. And obviously business issues come into play, but we like to think that. If a good solution is, is needed. And we're designed in the, commercial discussions, go a lot smoother, cuz the value proposition's been well spelled out and it's understood what they're paying for.
Ryan Carlson:So if you're an OEM, that's got a roadmap and you're trying to get into an industry. And it was one of the many disparate industries that, that, our friends here talked about. How would they reach out to you?
Jeff May:Our contact information's on our website. We're fairly well known in the industry with, with a lot of our distribution partners, and the manufacturers are represent. So we'd love to hear from you, WW sales.com
Ryan Carlson:and that's L O I X sales.com. Kenta, do you have any final questions or final thoughts here?
Kenta Yasukawa:Yeah. One thing that resonated with me a lot is, you need to know the audience and understand their needs and have, provide solutions or products that solve their problem. Instead of talking about cool technology, that one resonated with me a lot. Having said that we also are trying to listen to your customers and partners and understand their need and provide solutions. Do you have any, one, one last question from me, is that, is there any, some missing features or you demand on, connectivity platform or IOT platform that make your life or your, development easier?
Scott Kennedy:There just, I think that we find, especially, if you wanna make it specific oil and gas that making it easy to use, whether that be, pre-certified solutions, provisioning challenges, all the, we call it the iceberg, the tip of icebergs, the cost of the hardware, the underneath it's all the certification regulatory, provisioning, all the challenges that come with all that. I think any solution for connect, I'm talking specifically for connectivity in oil and gas industry. I think any of that, that makes it easier to integrate and then deploy globally, maintain over the life. We didn't talk a lot about the long lifetime requirements for a lot of these products. They don't wanna have to redesign this every two years, every three years, they want something that last, so I think things that can address those challenges are always, good. And, maybe missing a little bit in the industry today.
Kenta Yasukawa:That sounds yeah. Aligned with what we are trying to do and definitely how these are things we are, we will definitely keep in mind. Thanks.
Ryan Carlson:What you guys were just talking about is something that our sales team has been saying for a while about total cost of ownership. It's not just that one thing. Do you have a that conversation when people are picking up the phone and the problem, it sounds like you really have, a great way of looking at the problem. It's not just cost or just spec, but, all those other pieces. So what kind of, what's the total cost of ownership that a oil and gas industry is looking at? Are, is it just those pieces or how do you talk about it with your customers or even the OEMs?
Jeff May:I think it's project by project based. You just gotta yeah. Walk through it and if it's peeling back the onion, you obviously don't wanna expose, a subject if it's not needing to be discussed. It's up to us to kind of surface, what is the customer's concerns and then address them, as they come up. But, and at the end of the day, it's about total cost of ownership and, can they see the cost associated with redesigning their system to. Incorporate what we're suggesting that they, design in and that's the million dollar question, right?
Scott Kennedy:So yeah, some customers, you have to explain it. Some customers you have to, you start with probing questions and where your head is and what kind of quantities are you looking at? Where are you deploying this? The best quality of a good sales person is curiosity. And if you just try to understand what they're doing and what they know and how their approaches, sometimes you don't have to convince them of anything they already know and you show'em what they're looking for. And it's easy, but some customers have to be educated and, they need to be told what, what not to do. And sometimes it's tough cuz they look at just the hardware costs. They don't look at the total cost of ownership and that's a tougher sell, but that's why we hire technical people that understand all those things and can communicate those things.
Jeff May:We're hiring by the way. So if you know of any engineers in a Dallas marketplace, please send'em our way. We're, we're growing by leaps and bounds. So seriously, we are growing a lot and the need, for our ability to be a, like a consultant, if you will, to the manufacturers we represent, but also to the customers we're selling to is a huge thing. Our business model is expensive, because an electrical engineer is basically two X, what a business level person, commands in the marketplace from a compensation standpoint. So we're, we've got a real expensive business model, but we think it's much more highly effective. It's like a Navy seal as opposed to just a Navy, sales, ship board, crew member.
Ryan Carlson:I always think about a lot of that business development roles that, when I'm shopping for something I want answers right away. And the sooner I can talk to someone that can speak the speak, talk the talk, and. Deliver answers. It's usually the it's sooner you get to trust. So is it you're hiring EEs to talk to other EEs then?
Jeff May:Exactly. So we want be able to talk the same language. But we also want to come into the room in the beginning what's the word, have our reputation, precede us so that we don't have to get through the, Hey, is this person know what they're talking about thing. So if we come in and they'd looked on LinkedIn and they like, oh, this person actually used to do design work and they're gonna come in and talk to me about my new design. Okay. This person's probably gonna know a little bit about how to help me. So the customer's looking for help. Just like what you said, Ryan, you don't. You don't wanna, fumble through trying to figure out the answer. You want someone to just come by and just say, boom. Here it is. This is what you should, here's the options, provide an education, of the possibilities and then drill through some questions and, try to move forward with the design.
Ryan Carlson:Don't you ever feel sometimes life is just a movie and you've already seen it it's what's coming in the next scene. You're like, Nope. There's a monster in there.
Scott Kennedy:sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes, but I never try to act like I know it all either, there's always sometimes good reasons for things. And customers don't always want to tell us everything. And so there could be reasons that we don't know. There's a humble way to educate and, ask questions and so I think that's part of our secret sauce as we. We have, a good reputation. We have credentials if you will, which help open the doors. But at the end of the day, we can also, read people well and know who we're talking to and make sure we're not, we're prying, polite persistence and probing
Ryan Carlson:in the right way. Yeah. Jeff, you said something really that I, that resonates strongly, which is sometimes it's just not worth like opening the can of worms for some things. That's a problem that after we've established more trust, we can introduce that to'em rather than distract them and create now multiple problems or create analysis paralysis. How do you know how much to just, tell'em just enough to let'em know, Hey, by the way, I know what I'm talking about versus, not scaring them off with. All of the baggage that, that could come with a project cuz TCO is a hard sale. Yeah.
Jeff May:Yeah. It's really customer engagement and being close enough to the customer to continue the dialogue. It's not a one and done conversation. So you know, the, when the customer, you have a, you gather information as the program matures and you understand where, what the value proposition is that they're looking for and you accentuate on that and you be a good listener, try to make sure you hear what they're trying to say or other people associate with the project. What are they saying? And just try not to oversell it. There's a lot of complexities and engineers are, they love going down a rabbit hole and part of our job is to try to help steer them away from that. So their management can see a completed project.
Ryan Carlson:Do you ever arm them with something like a high quality technology evaluation process, whether it's weighted scoring or, is there anything that you do to your clients to help focus on what's most important if they're evaluating multiple options.
Jeff May:Test data, we give them development kits so that they can verify the performance themselves. We give'em, real applications that, they can perhaps, mimic, that, don't, compromise any kind of, integrity or, IP from a competitor of sorts. But, you just give them that comfort feeling that, they're not the first person to, or first company to do this. And there's, here's some examples and that kind of thing.
Ryan Carlson:Thank you gentlemen, for joining us, and that is our time for today. So thank you. And good luck. If you enjoy these conversations about connectivity and the operational challenges that people face every day. Consider subscribing and leaving a review. We'd really appreciate it.
