System integration success: Lessons learned from 10 years in automation

Greg Martin is founder at Equip LLC Automation Consulting, a software and electrical service provider in South Bend, Indiana, that works specifically with automated systems. Greg was in Chicago recently to explore the IMTS 2024 trade show, and met up with Thomas Wilk, chief editor of Plant Services, to trade their observations and reflect on the past 10 years of systems integration.

Listen to Greg Martin on Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast

PS: Let me shift the conversation a little bit away from IMTS. One of the things we're doing this year on Plant Services is looking back over the past 10 years at changes in this in this field. I was curious to know when it comes to system integration, looking back over the past 10 years, are there one or two things that you have put your finger on as having changed significantly? And maybe contrast that against one or two that maybe haven't changed so much?

GM: There are a couple of things that come up. First of all, the interoperability between the different layers of automation. Alan Bradley is the top dog in the United States from a PLC perspective, everybody and their brother’s HMI will interface with it, that just makes business sense.

As far as what you said though, like what major changes have I seen? My thoughts took a different route because even though I've done system integration full time since January 2002, my company's only 8 years old. The interesting thing to me is how interested academia is at every level in filling out the skills gap, the systems integration skills gap. You have the community college level, like Ivy Tech, developing new degree programs. You have people on the level of Notre Dame that have classes that are built around these types of things. I was talking with a tech in Syracuse, NY at dinner the other day and he went to Drexel, which I hadn't heard of that school, but it was one of the highest end that I'd heard of from a cost perspective. They don't do the full on university degrees, they do, what sounds like brass-tacks tech courses. And really, whether it's cooking or systems integration, they’re building out students that actually can relate to what's going on in society. 

I went to Purdue University myself, graduated back when Drew Brees was there. That ages me, but it was nice to have a good football team then.

PS: Ah, I'm going to age myself, I was at Illinois when Jeff George was there, so we're not too far apart.

GM: OK, that's great. I do think especially in the world of technology that the two things that lag is the education system and the law behind what's appropriate and how to apply it. But now education systems since I've been in academia, and I teach at a local community college, I see the competition that the different schools have to actually pull students from high schools. The majority of the students that I've seen are not high school students, they’re maintenance guys that are on a career path that want to build out their skill set and move towards systems integration.

To be a part of that is a privilege, but the fact that it exists and now they're trying to find students, meaning education has this product now, this mature place that it's coming from and they’re trying to find out where the people are going to come from to actually fill this thing out. And being in Indiana, I mean manufacturing per capita in just Elkhart County and Saint Joe County, there's a thousand manufacturers between the two counties, so it makes sense for academia to move in that direction in this region. It's just now they're just trying to find the people.

PS: That's really good to hear that the programs are catching up. That's been a huge discussion point, of course, on the maintenance side. You've got the program down at UT-Knoxville headed up by Klaus Blache, and you've got a couple of other universities and a lot of community colleges focusing on this. But that's a big open question when it comes to maintenance skills, is where are we going to get these people? The apprenticeship model is still maybe the primary pathway to train new maintenance techs. When it's comes to systems integration, it sounds like schools have a lot better handle on what to teach and how to teach it.

GM: Yes, yes, and they're interested in the data. When you start looking at like just the simple ladder logic, that is a remnant of the old relay logic that electricians had back in the day when they were working with the older manufacturing systems. So we come in today with PLC programs, looking at continuity from left to right, just the basic ideas, but also now in the Rockwell world, I can program structured text if I want to. I can do sequential function charts, I can do function blocks. It's no longer the guy on the floor that just has an interest. There's enough tech there, there's enough flexibility in the tools, there's enough to where people really will do themselves a lot of good if they go to a lot of these programs.

And I'll say flat out, Ivy Tech has done a great job building this. That's my side job, right? So they've done a great job, they literally have a program and it's a two year, so you're not having to do a the lot of the fluff that larger universities require, the generals (I probably shouldn't call it fluff, I should probably call it the general courses!) They literally have a smart manufacturing degree where you're starting to deal with networking topics and connectivity topics. It’s high end – I was impressed, let's just say that. And they’ve got big players like Lippert in the area investing in it.

PS: You mentioned trying to find the people to fill these programs. In my experience, part of what changed for me in the past 10 years when it comes to maintenance is that when I would go to conferences on the coasts, I would go to PTC LiveWorx in Boston, I would go to PI World in San Francisco. Those were the conferences where I saw the greatest number of younger workers moving into industry. It wasn't like there were not younger people, younger workers at conferences like the SMRP conferences and at the Reliable Plant conferences. But the sheer number of people who started their career in data science, and say in CAD drawings, and then who recognized the opportunity to apply this knowledge in manufacturing. That's how they were entering manufacturing industry. There were an equal number moving into places like healthcare for example. 

So I was just curious to know, do you think that to get younger people into these programs, they do have to come from the data science side to move them in? Any thoughts on how to get people in these programs?

GM: That’s a good question. You're looking for the Luke Skywalker type, right? I mean, you're looking for that person, not necessarily some sort of unicorn that has the force, but someone who has an interest enough that they're pursuing these things on their own. One of the major industries that are out there that I think kills young people that are interested in tech coming into manufacturing is video games. How in the world do you compete with the kid that can sit there in his bedroom, and just develop a passion for and build his friends around this online gaming world that did not exist. I was the Mario Brothers generation; Pong was ancient to me. But what I grew up goofing around with, man, kids look at it and laugh now. Entire systems around like $5 units that you can buy or something like that, that that I grew up with. 

I guess the question is, how do you intrigue a generation to look into something to where we're using – I don't know if the Rockwells, the Schneiders, the GEs can come together and build out these types of fascinating tools like ED Emulate. Emulate is a company that. Rockwell bought a while back (I do a lot of Alan Bradley integration, so I’m kind of in tune with what they have). Literally you could build an entire manufacturing cell to where not just you’re operating a robot, but you could be the operator and start pushing those buttons in those worlds and stuff like that.

It would need to be, I think, more promoted in today's school systems. You have guys like Mike Rowe that are out there with Dirty Jobs that's promoting trades and things like that. I'll say this, I was actually at a trade show. it was my first trade show where I had a booth, and it was in South Bend. It was Notre Dame’s Industrial Labs, working with Purdue, Ivy Tech, different groups in the area. There was one day where we had students come in, and it does seem like that there was more of an effort towards … I guess by nature of sales we sell and promote what we like, right? So if we left that to just teachers, and they have an absolute education requirement, they're naturally going to do, “hey, go to college.” I actually heard coming through students mouths that, yeah, they're looking to go into the trades.  When I say trades, I don't necessarily think pipe fitter or electrician, even though that’s definitely a large part of that. 

A little bit about myself: I was kind of an underwhelming student. When I was in high school, I barely graduated. I was not interested in the classroom environment. I went to ITT before I went to Purdue. But here's how I got hooked. There was a lady that came to our home and she was she was trying to get me to sign up, and she looked at my life and she looked after talking with me as an individual, and she knew that from a grades perspective that I wasn't an attractive thing. But she said this: “Greg, we know that not all screwballs are stupid.” And I was like, sign me up!

So I went in, I tested in for mechanics and then I had another person challenge me on that, if that was what I really wanted to do. And I actually made the transition to electronics and that was before I ended up at Purdue after I got that two-your degree. I think there's a contingent of students that have their head on straight and they come out, and when it’s their senior year they're looking at hey, either I'm going to do college or I'm going to do trades, but not everybody's there yet. If they could somehow like this lady did reach out to the “not all screwballs are stupid” crowd with not just interest, but like “hey, if you're a hands-on guy, then tech is the way to go.”

So you were coming from a perspective of data science, where people are looking at what can I actually do, how can I influence with this, how can I look along those sides? I think I'm coming from a perspective of, “look, this kid's got potential, and that's about it right now.” How do we draw that person in? Having 1000 manufacturers, there's a massive, massive skills gap. It's closing and the area in Indiana since it's such a large part of our workforce, a lot of education groups have come together to work on that.

PS: You remind me of a conversation I had, I'll bet it was 10 years ago, coming back from Rockwell Automation Fair. I was on the plane with an integrator, we were flying back from the West Coast (it was out in California that year) and he was from Indiana, and he had sort of discovered the potential that manufacturing and heavy industry had for integrators. And he said, “I didn't know about this when I went through my classes. I just learned the technical side. But now that I know there's this field of opportunity. I'm going to retire. I'm going to retire early, and I'm going to retire well, based on this work.”

That sort of dovetails with what your teacher said about not all screwballs are stupid. The enticement was that he figured out there was a place for him, and it was an attractive field of opportunity. And sometimes I think that's half the battle is like, you covered the motivation side, getting people who haven't always been told to believe in themselves that that, yes, they do know a lot and they’re smart people. And then the other half is, not only that, here's the field of opportunity, look what you can do.

GM: It's interesting too because I didn't really know what I was capable of as a kid, and a lot of kids don't. And to give them that opportunity, what I like about what the Ivy Techs and some of the tech schools have done, is they've gone the cert route in a lot of things, where you're not having to commit to a four year degree, you don't have this overwhelming feeling like, oh my gosh, we're going to a university and oh, this university is Notre Dame or Purdue, and I went to Purdue, I'm not down on it. But if you can come out with a 3- to 6-month certification and just start getting your feet wet in the field, that's a good starter.

I remember when I was coming out of college, I was like, there's two things I didn't want to end up doing. Because I had heard so many harsh things about automotive, I didn't want to be in the automotive industry. And then I was like, I don't want to work at a diaper factory. That was just the young guy in me, right, and so I can tell you as a systems integrator now that I've had projects with both! 

Even in some of those industries that maybe have bad juju out there from a reputation perspective, it’s work, it's honest work, it pays well. There's a lot of opportunity and there's a lot of room for lateral movement. And then you also have some companies that understand the power behind taking their groups – their teams, their maintenance guys – and training them for the next level. And there's always that risk that you're going to lose them; I’m a small company and I've had guys poached because it's visible and people like it when you're the guy that brings the goods. They don't like it when you're the guy that brings the invoices, but they like it when you're the guy who brings the goods.

PS: But that's the thing, at least in maintenance, Greg, I've noticed that that there's a general attitude that a rising tide carries all boats, right? And that more or less people are willing to do their best to train their teams, whether they get poached or not because it’s the old truism, like if you don't do it, you're going to lose them anyway, or you're going to have a less trained team. There’s a certain reputational value in making sure that when people know they come work for you, they're going to get trained, they’re going to have good work, and they're going to learn from whatever job they're on.

GM: Yeah, and I've started to see that culture in manufacturers and academia really partnering on that right for the larger firms. So they’re saying, hey, “I’ve got five people, I see your new program you just developed over our conversations, I'm going to send them to you and I'm going to pay for their education.”

I think that's kind of how you get a lot of guys that were like me, because I was hands-on, I grew up twisting wrenches down in a diesel shop. But now I've programmed multiple languages, I integrate in the area. On any plant floor, I know that I can step in and be a value add because someone at some point said, “hey, let's give this guy a shot.”

PS: Well, I'll tell you, when print finally dies out, now I know where I'm going to retrain.

GM: If you need a reference, let me know!