Better Together: 2026 TAPPICon Live! - Episode 1

We're excited to bring listeners this first of two special episodes recorded at TAPPICon 2026, April 26-29 in Columbus, OH.

We had a great turnout for TAPPICon 2026 and the new program format made it easy for people to engage, learn, and grow. TAPPICon’s multi-track program is planned and executed by real working papermakers, and 2026 brought Mill Monday, Technical Tuesday, and Workshop Wednesday to the forefront.

As TAPPI's official event podcast, Better Together is happy to bring you the opportunity to experience a taste of what makes TAPPICon special. We've assembled three interviews recorded with attendees at the event. Our guests for this episode are:

Brian Mock, owner and president of Event Capture Systems:
"International Paper came to us and said, 'We need you to help us develop a camera-based safety system to add an additional layer of safety'... and it's been transformative."

Joe Braun, division president, process industries and Wilson Monteiro, global  business line manager, Pulp, Paper & Fiber, ABB:
"Reliability comes from the design of the plant, then the way that you are managing your asset, then (from) how you are operating your plant. If you have a stable operation, you have a direct impact on reliability."

Abigail Hickman, third year dual major in ChemE/PSE at NC State University:
"The opportunities are endless and industry professionals I meet... are really excited to see where I go with this."

YOU can get in on the conversation! Mark your calendars for April 24 – 28, 2027, and join us in Indianapolis, IN, for TAPPICon 2027. We hope this podcast captured some of the excitement of TAPPICon but to really get it, you need to be there.

Thanks to our amazing guests for sharing their knowledge and stories. Be sure to check out our second TAPPICon 2026 Episode as well, where we meet three more of our TAPPICon attendees.

Transcript

Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Better Together, Tappy's live event podcast. Each new episode includes short interviews with the movers, the shakers, and the industry innovators who come to Tappy conferences to network and knowledge share. I'm Jan Bodilari, editor of Paper 360 magazine, and I'll be your host as we try to capture and share some of the excitement found at in-person events. Recently, Better Together traveled to Columbus, Ohio for Tapicon 2026. It was a fantastic, high-energy event, and this is the first of two episodes we'll be bringing you. Today we will be speaking with Brian Mock of Event Capture Systems, Joe Braun and Wilson Montiero from ABB, and NC State student Abigail Hickman. Let's dive in.

Brian Mock, Event Capture Systems

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Well, now on Better Together, I am really excited to rewelcome someone who's been on the podcast before but has been up to some exciting new stuff, particularly with safety, and that's Brian Mock. Brian, welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Thank you, Jan. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

So tell me about your title, your company, what you guys do, and what you're really excited about.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Awesome. So, Jan, I'm owner and president of Event Capture Systems. We're a machine vision company. So we're the ones with the cameras reducing human-based quality control, making sure your product is the best it can be before it gets to your customer from the chip all the way to the final pallet. We're based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, and we've been doing this since the mid-90s. But just recently, within the past year or longer, International Paper came to us and said, We need you to help us develop a camera-based safety system to add an additional layer of safety to safety systems that already exist on the paper machine that have been around since paper's been doing what they do.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

And that's it's been transformative that you can now understand that it's not a safety iceberg as much as it's the safety triangle, which we've all known it to be. So the safety triangle states that there's a certain amount of percentages of bad behavior that lead to injuries that then may lead to a death, and there's a statistical number that they know, whether it's 1,000 leads to one. The problem is that that's all based on self-reported incidences. And the 1930s is when they came up with the safety triangle. And it's really a safety iceberg. You don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

And so what the camera technology allows you to do, in addition to the existing safety systems, is you can see every machine-human interaction that happens, and you get the context around what that behavior is. And so then you can correctly communicate back to the operators what they should and should not be doing, because in many cases, they may not have been trained in a way that they understood. There's travel knowledge involved. There's there's behaviors that just go on that are never corrected. And so this is a very easy and effective way. Easy may not be the best, but it's an effective way to correct and then ensure that new maybe SO uhs as standard operate standard operating procedures are developed based on the behaviors that they see between the human and the machine. The data just simply wasn't available before.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Right, right. I love what you said, you don't know what you don't know. Because when it relates to self-reported behaviors, how can I report myself for doing something I didn't know was wrong? How could I report myself for not noticing, even though I knew it was wrong, I didn't notice I did it.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

That's so so true. Uh and it forces conversations between the safety team, the production team, the operators that have never really gotten together to talk about it because the data, to your point, wasn't there. Um, even in interesting now with international paper, as we're laying out every international paper machine now, from the wet end, excuse me, the dry end to the winder to the roll handling, has a camera-based safety system that's interlocked to the PLC, and that's a new innovation. There's two things that IP did that were novel in terms of camera-based safety. Cameras a couple years ago were great for compliance and also just human interaction, but they weren't fast enough to actually stop a machine if the operator was about to do something that could hurt them. So IP stretched the envelope and said, you know, we're gonna tie in the camera signal to the PLC. So if they get into a red zone that they're not supposed to be on and the cradle is lowering or the slitter is inactive or the low radar is going down, they're going to stop that machinery or slow it down.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

That's completely no other company I know of on this, as far as the research would show, has connected the camera to actually closed loop control the machine.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

That's very brave to do that because if you misidentify a human, you're stopping production. So then it becomes a production problem if your safety system isn't working right.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah, or if you haven't trained your operators not to do it in the first place, of course. You stop production. If you if you don't have your contractors up on, you know, where the safe zones are, you stop production.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Oh, but let me tell you, um, the communication about so we now see operators being interlocks for other operators. All right, so we have video work.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Oh, okay. Let's say I'm around uh a cradle of a winder and I know that there's a red zone, meaning there's a camera that says if I step into that area, it's going to stop something. Wow. So another operator starts to get close and the buddy goes, Back up. Oh that's what I'm saying is that humans can also be their own interlocks to other humans and and not know that their behavior is possibly going to go into an area that they shouldn't be. Humans helping other humans. That's the thing, is that once you once you change the behavior because you have the data, I'm not saying you don't need these safety systems.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

But it does develop the data to then help humans help themselves with other humans.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

I mean, is that something you were expecting to have that extra third layer?

SPEAKER_02 6:08

No, no, it was not. And it just kind of came because the the technology of of cameras has come so far, so the accuracy, the AI model that's required to understand it's a human and not a piece of paper. So we use words like false positives, which means that you know it's a human and not something else, or false negative is where you don't know the human was there. We can get the model so accurate that that level of imprecision can be very close to zero. Wow. Um, but that wouldn't have been possible. And another part of this that IP did is that these are all edge devices. So, and that's a that means that the camera has the computer built into it to understand it's a human and it communicates directly to the control system. Camera systems a couple years ago would have to take that video, send it to a server, and then maybe send it to the cloud for some of it work, and then another computer will talk to the PLC. So you have all these points of potential failure. A safety system needs to be as robust and less complex as possible. Right. So an edge device means that there's no single point of failure. Um, if that camera fails, only that zone uh is affected. You can get another camera up there and it starts working again. So that those two things IP did that were novel from the start edge device and machine control.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

And so we're going to the box plants.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

You know, we're going to the woodyard now. We're going to all these other places in the paper industry that still need the data to understand how humans are interacting with the thing they do every day.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

That's a that's amazing. I I really see in this safety knowledge just this mirror of where we are with automation. Like, you know, a hundred years ago, our safety knowledge was, oh, that guy died.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Then we we were like, that guy died, but we see it happen, maybe we can figure out when it happened. And then it's, you know, now we can see it happen and we get information about why it happened. Now we can maybe prevent it from happening. But you're telling me we are now in we have because the data is tied into the system, it's become an intrinsic part of my job to understand that I have that control over not just my own safety, but the safety is of others. It becomes part of my caring attitude towards work. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

So it was Eric Wright from International Paper who told me that story of a human being in interlock, because interlocking permissives is the safety term of whether you're gonna stop something in motion or keep it from getting in motion. And he gave a talk here at uh TapyCon and mentioned at the end of his talk, and it was like humans can interlock humans. Humans can help humans be safer between themselves. Wow. Because the data is there. And I'm like, wow, that just I know I got all tingly, I'm maybe a little teary-eyed, because at the end of the day, everyone deserves to go home safe. A thousand times we work in a paper industry where there are things that will do very bad things to your body, and they're right there.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah. They're right there. And you know, we've come so far with technology that it just makes sense to be able to apply that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Well, we can now say that production isn't the most important thing. Yes. Because in these safety systems, as they're set up, there is going to be a drop in production as we understand where these zones need to be and how humans interact, and the camera may make a mistake, but it's like it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

I'd rather it make a mistake um but get the other 99% right.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

And maybe I'm a half percent lower on that particular type of production, but that is the price that you have to consider is worth the benefit of I now know that it's as safe as it could possibly be.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Well, because you can have an acceptable range of production. You cannot have an acceptable range of death or injury.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

That's correct. It's people, then it's the production and quality. However it is, people is always the first thing that has to be identified. And if you can get that right, your quality's gonna be fine and your production's gonna be fine. Get the people right.

SPEAKER_04 10:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

I mean, that's I mean, we know we've been talking about this um in the industry for a long time. It's just neat to your point that the technology can provide that, and now with the PME safety committee.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Oh, yeah, tell me more about the city.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Yeah, so that's the ability to to get people from different parts of the paper community together, whether you're from tissue or whether you're a chemical supplier or whether you're from a brown board facility, vendors and the industry on both sides, and have a panel and talk about safety in one place and come up with a tip is incredible. And a tip would be something that writes out the terms of how you're gonna talk about it, what the definitions are, talking points. It may not exactly describe the total end result, but it gets you into the right context of what's important and suggestions on how to get there. And and so any other mill can can pick up lessons learned from one and apply it to the other. You're not reinventing the wheel called safety.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

I mean, how frustrating would that be? So that knowledge is there available through Pima, through the tip, that anyone now can learn from the benefit of others.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

I love it because uh again, Tappy is 110 years old. We were exactly founded for this kind of knowledge sharing.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

Ah, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

So for 110 years, this has been our goal to to share the knowledge that helps us be better and what way what what more important way to be better than through safety.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Than through safety. So, like you remind me last night we had the round table and there's a lot of discussion, discussions going on, but the table that had the safety one with with Kurt and with the Pima group, people didn't want to leave the table because it was every 20 minutes you had to like speed date, you had to go to another table. You had to like pull the chairs out from underneath them because everyone wanted to have a story and had a story. Yeah, and that we even had co-op students at the table who's the next generation of people that are gonna be running our paper mills. Hey, and they've g and and we're trying to and they're like, wow, this is really cool. Like they care, they even and you had the older ones that are retired that are still at the table. So you had both ends of that workforce.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Yeah, and I I I have to say that is still a little bit of a misperception among our industry for sure, all manufacturing industries, that it's unsafe. So what parent is gonna want to support their kid going into career that they feel is dangerous? What student is gonna say, Yeah, I don't mind if I get hurt doing it. Paper is just cool. Like it's an important making our industry safe is an important part of being able to attract young people to our industry. I really believe that.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

It's a beautiful industry that we get a chance to work and be uh involved in, and I love it every day. And so I'm just so honored to tell your passion for you. I know I do I yeah, I get all teary out on your Jan. Um the because it there's always new challenges, but you know, we've been making paper for hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Um 50% or more of the paper machines we have in North America are fifty years or older. Yeah. Right? And so how do we innovate, you know, on a machine that it it was not designed to do what it does, but we make it do these things.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Um we continue to go to new new places with paper, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

And we continue to attract really good talent.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Yeah, I agree. And doing it safely is away. And I'm gonna ask a leading question because I think I know the answer to this question, um, and it's gonna be the basis, I hope, of a really cool article that we're planning for. Oh my gosh. And so let me ask you this, Brian. So this is a really brave and interesting and sort of experimental project. So IP is is trying it out at one or two locations?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

All of actually that's the thing with the safety, is you can't just give it to one.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Um, you have to, you can't, it's like you get on the train, you can't stop it. Right. And IP's attitude about this was like, we're gonna figure this out. Because as the project started to where it's at now, we have definitely changed and understood different things. Because again, it's novel. They did things no one has done in any industry that I know of in this world. And so here we are. So every one of their facilities has this.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Everyone's everyone.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Everyone.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

So it's not just part of mill culture, it's part of the company culture of a great legacy company like IP.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Saying, look, no one is going to die today. What a f no one's gonna get hurt today. Or we're gonna minimize that to the absolute lowest number humanly possible because we're gonna throw everything in the kitchen sink at it. And then we're gonna talk about it and more and more because the data, you can't unsee these things.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

And no one wants to do these bad acts.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

They just don't it's just no one goes to work and says, eh, I might show up for dinner.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

No. I agree, Brian.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

So there there is an article that is going to talk about that journey.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

I'm excited about it. We haven't started it yet, but I know it's coming.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Start with the technology, go through the methodology and go through the results, get some testimonials from the people that actually use it from international paper.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

That's and and hey, they say a rising tide lifts all bows.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

It does.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

It we have to be able to feel good about sharing safety information, even with our potential competitors, because there is no competition over who can be, you know, who can get their people home the safest. The answer is always all of us want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

When you talk to the mill managers, the lead line managers about the safety system, you know, they almost get teary-eyed because they can say uh it's just great because I know that I can keep my people safe.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

It's it's really cool to be part of that.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

I love it. Thank you, Brian. You've done a great job. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Safety is important, and I'm really glad you were here on Better Together.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yes, good to be here.

Joe Braun & Wilson Monterio, ABB

SPEAKER_03 16:04

I'm here with Joe and Wilson from ABB. Gentlemen, thank you for coming on today at Better Together. I'm happy to meet you.

SPEAKER_05 16:12

Thanks for having us. Uh I'm Joe Braun, Division President of Process Industries at ABB.

SPEAKER_06 16:18

And thank you, Wilson Montero. I am the Global Business Line Manager for Pulp and Paper and Fiber.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Terrific. Well, first thing I have to say is I love to see the ABB truck parked on the exhibit floor. It's always interesting, it attracts a lot of attention. And um tell me what's going on for you guys in the truck this year.

SPEAKER_05 16:41

I mean, first of all, I have to share that with you the truck is probably the one of the best ideas I have ever seen, and it was so good that we started emulating that in other parts of the world. So we now also have one in Europe. Um, and I'm still begging Wilson to have one in Asia as well.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

Yeah, the idea today is having more of this type of trucks running and becoming closer to customers. Okay, now for instance, we have one in Europe and we are upgrading that that truck because it started competition. The US truck today is better, then we need to invest in the other one. It in a certain way it's creating a bit of a problem to me because I need to invest more money on trucks spreading in that in the world. But it's it's it's obviously it's much easier for us to show what you have, our capability, when you are closer to customers, and it's a key too for us.

SPEAKER_03 17:33

That sounds great. That sounds great. And is has having the truck here helped you have a better Tapicon experience?

SPEAKER_05 17:40

Yeah, definitely. I mean, the the truck is an eye catcher, and like Wilson said, I mean, the day-to-day use for the truck is um to pull it into our customers' yard so people who couldn't attend uh Tapicon can still have a look at what ABB has to offer. So we're just reaching an incredible number of people who are a bit more on the operational level uh in the factories, but who are also an important part of the decision-making process against or in favor of a specific supplier.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

Yeah. So speaking of of process industries and that factory floor, um ABB has always been a leader in automation, right? Um so one of the sessions that I've been here at Tapicon, you know, one of the hot topics was sort of this autonomous uh automation, autonomous operation of of mills. Uh what do you what's your opinion on that? How is ABB approaching that idea?

SPEAKER_06 18:39

Well, autonomous operation today is uh uh a trend that you see globally. Why? Because in a certain way it's trying to solve the different problems that the paper industry is facing today. Uh most of the paper uh companies they are struggling with energy, with cost, uh, with the workforce. In some areas in the world, it's very difficult to find good people to work on mills. Then this is becoming uh uh uh a very problematic issue that they need to solve. Then when we start moving the direction of autonomous operation in a certain way, uh we can uh try and impact all these issues. Yeah. Then autonomous operation means uh for us something that makes sense to solve the key issues that uh paper industry today is facing.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

Yeah. So it means that to you, but it might mean different things to your customers. You you mentioned several different um problems that it solves. Do you find that some customers are interested in um more automation for different reasons?

SPEAKER_05 19:46

I think the customers are facing all of these problems concurrently. So while, you know, the emphasis might be rather in one area than the other, uh, but there's hardly a customer who wouldn't be facing um cost issues at at the same time as availability of resources at the same time um as um simply getting more reliable output out of their existing equipment.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Yeah, so that that reliability factor is something I've also been hearing a lot about here at Tappy.

SPEAKER_06 20:19

Yeah, everyone used to discuss about reliability, but uh it's interesting because uh uh some people they are trying to attack uh reliability in a single shot is impossible. Reliability comes from the design of the plant, then the way that you are managing your asset, the maintenance approach, then it comes how you are operating your plant. Yeah, if you have a much stable operation, you have a direct impact on reliability. Today, most of the companies they are trying to minimize, to reduce inventory, okay? Then uh reliability is becoming even more important because you have no uh spare time to react to the problem. Yeah, yeah. Then uh reliability becomes a very important uh point for us. Then uh how to approach and how to improve that is a key element uh when we are discussing mainly automation, digital and autonomous operations.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Right, right. So uh can you give me a little customer story? Just uh how how have you helped um say someone in the pulp paper packaging industry um maybe do more than they thought they could do with their automation?

SPEAKER_06 21:35

Oh, I believe that we have in many cases. Uh, yeah, we we we could use for instance the the QCS. Uh QCS this year is doing uh we are uh uh reaching 75 years with QCS. Okay. Uh this is a a fantastic achievement because at the end, we start in the past many years ago, only doing measurement yeah okay right then later we move to control trying to close the loop then we start integrating more uh more sensors different sensors uh to face and help the the customers uh play with different grades yeah in in in in the in the in the paper then now we are going to a solution that moves from end to end trying to really move to an uh process optimization using the qcs uh uh uh an story that we we like is exactly when we can put uh this solution and we can see the face of customers how they react when they see that they can control the quality they can see the benefits there I would say that is not exactly one customer but most of the customers when you have the experience to see the startup of the factory and when they start looking a lot of things that they had only in theory uh it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

I I love that and I love that you you use the term play with different grades. I think that's where that creativity and innovation comes in when you give a customer room to experiment room to play right room to try new things through the automation and control. And I love that story I definitely think 75 years serving the industry is a milestone to celebrate and the way you described it Wilson you've changed with your customers needs.

SPEAKER_06 23:34

Yeah we learned from from your our customers no uh if you see today we have the the the the paper industry changing to different materials yeah they are increasing the the the recycled content okay uh and they are evolving their production uh process then uh all this combination uh requires uh a different capability for our q qcs then we are improving our qcs to not be tied for for one single material but be applied for different materials uh different uh level levels of uh recycled material okay then I believe that it's part of the process.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Yeah that that must have been a challenge for you though to you know to realize this trend in the industry uh oh you know they're kind of changing what we're working with not only what our customers are working with but our customers are changing now what we're working with that I'm I'm sure they didn't ask you before changing.

SPEAKER_05 24:47

I I mean in many cases they were actually kind enough uh to ask us as well you have to see that the good thing is that most of the equipment we're operating has long asset life um so an important part of our business is to stay close to what we have delivered uh so you have a pretty good idea uh what is changing on the customer side particularly here in the United States we had and we still have lots and lots of resident engineers out at at customer sites so I think that actually helped us to evolve our offering because we always stayed very close to customers and in fact they often consulted us like okay how would you think we can do this better um you know couldn't we use that technology now to to really make a step forward or maybe we have proposed it to them so I think it it it's really going hand in hand a lot.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

I I think that's wonderful and I think um one burden that has been placed on suppliers during my time writing about the industry um which is not 75 years but but you know I've been writing about ABB for the 30 years that I have been writing about the industry um and ABB has a been a tappy supporter and a supporter of our publications for that long. But I I remember sort of those early days when it was really only about the the the magic of having data right that and that was the first sort of magic that you were able to um provide is just now we have some data but I think you must be farther along now. Do you do you have automation that helps your customers use the data?

SPEAKER_05 26:36

Yes. I mean we have just launched our latest generation of the distributed control system called automation extended and I think what really differentiated from its predecessors is that we have now introduced the separation of concerns meaning that we have the base layer which is really taking care of a very stable reliable running of of your day-to-day processes in the plant and then you have the digital layer on top of that which is designed for agility for quick introduction of new ways of taking more making more sense out of your data helping you to understand what is leading to the best outcome with the least input and helping you to ultimately produce the golden paper roll every time around and not just occasionally.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

I love that idea the golden paper roll where the operators just stand around and kind of you know hear the choir of angels it's perfect.

SPEAKER_06 27:40

Yeah you thought about uh seeing data and you asked me about a story it came to my mind now that my first project in my my life ever was uh we had one thermo mechanical pulp uh company in Brazil and they had all the records using papers then I went there for a week training and at the end I stayed there for almost three months wow I uh they asked me if I could uh connect the the operator station with their system then I did that obviously approved my boss for my boss at that time then for the first time ever they start seeing the trend curves in a in in a screen not in paper it was amazing because a lot of people start coming that that became a an event for for the factory and today after we we start providing them the possibility to see the data today uh the the the key point is about the optimization right not only optimizing one specific equipment but moving to the optimization of the whole plant and mainly to make the plant optimized by itself using uh AI and all the digital side that's a great story and Wilson I can see kind of your passion for helping your customers there what a great first experience to be able to really make that kind of difference.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Is that when you get hooked?

SPEAKER_05 29:10

Yeah when you do not have enough experience I would say that is uh uh uh we have some fears uh when we face moments like that but at the end it worked very well that's terrific and you talked about agility um you know right before we started recording uh we were talking just a little bit about this change from five point oh to six point oh I'm not sure I'm ready how do you guys see that what is uh uh or rather five four point oh to five point oh and then five point oh to six point oh what do you see the difference between Industry 4.0 and industry five point oh and where do you think uh industry six point z or seven point oh will take us in the future regarding automation I think about a a lot of industry four point oh was about um the easy exchange the easy transmission uh of of data particularly um related to wireless technology so um and I think that already offered lots of opportunity industry 4.0 is now taking probably a much bigger revolution um in which which is the AI revolution and I think at ABB we clearly see that first of all um it helps us to create new products for our customers which can unlock incredible value uh but it also revolutionizes the way we're working internally uh it will impact our own ways of of doing business of doing engineering of of of doing sales and so on and so forth so although we're just basically counting one notch up all the time I get a sense that that 5.0 brings um a much more massive change which also helps to unlock even more potential of some of its predecessors because things become very readily available but making even more sense out of these huge data lakes we're we're having available with the use of AI is making a significant difference to what what was available previously.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Joe I completely agree with you that every ratchet up that we make whiten it's like a reverse pyramid right every ratchet up that we make in our technology gives us so many more possibilities and I love that.

SPEAKER_06 31:44

Yeah I believe that one of the consequences of that is that we are going to stop counting 4.0 5.0 because the speed is increasing a lot then uh in my my perception is that we are going to stop counting because uh the the speed of the change is is very high now yeah uh one of the the important consequences that I see for instance uh we are launching a new release of our DCS of our automation system okay and it this is exactly coming to help this process to speed uh to to increase the speed of this change uh the the concept of this new release is to segregate two environments one much more operational environment okay uh and the other one much more digital environment today both sides they have different concerns real in the in the operational side much more reliability concern yeah and a different speed i i would say a slower speed in the in the other side in the digital side much more speed and the customers they are trying to to test and start doing implementations yeah yeah and the uh we cannot let one contaminate the other then for us with this new release it will be important having this concept because we can allow customers invest and try different things different approaches the digital side without the risk of impacting the operational side yeah I mean Joe talked a little earlier about agility I think agility is more and more going to be sort of that defining market factor right as as the customers' customers' needs are also so rapidly changing they're gonna need to be able to respond to that I think yeah and I think another important aspect is that you don't want to over overburden your control system uh with all of this additionally available data either because it makes it too heavy.

SPEAKER_05 33:46

All of that is basically funneled through a very rigid process which is really aimed at um as Wilson said which is aimed at reliably um running your your your process um yeah 24-7 uh and the agility really comes through the separation to say okay let's introduce something here let's see how it works if it works great let's add more to it if it doesn't live up to what what it looked like right I mean let's look for something else and all of that without disrupting your operations I think that sounds like a terrific advantage well 75 years congratulations gentlemen thank you um how many more years do you think you have uh I hope much more okay at least another 75 at least awesome well thank you for coming on to Better Together with me Joe and Wilson ABB I've really enjoyed speaking with you same here thanks for everything else

Abigail Hickman, NC State University

SPEAKER_05 34:48

and now I'm here with Abigail Hickman she's my next guest for Better Together she's a third year student at NC State welcome Abigail thank you happy to be here great so tell me a little about um what you're doing at school and anything new that's going on with the students at NC State for sure I'm a third year dual major in chemical engineering and paper science engineering at NC State University at NC State I'm very involved in our student TAPI chapter I'm now currently the president and we are very involved going to conferences lots of new research NC State has a great supportive faculty and community so through that we're really able to get to know our professors and find connections within the industry through them.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

That's terrific that's how you got in this hot seat girl because it was one of your very supportive professors that put pulled you over. Yes. Well we're we are happy to have you this is not your first Tappy Con.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

No I came last year as well. So uh how's it been going? It's been great. It's I go to student summit every year. It's very different a lot more suppliers and exhibits that you get to see here which I really love and a lot more technical presentations which is really inspiring as I kind of navigate my future plans and see what I want to do within the industry. So it's a great experience great networking so many professionals are here and they're just great to talk to you have quite a a little cadre from NC State too don't you? Yes we had about eight undergrad students and then a lot of grad and professors here so it's great to have this experience with so many of my classmates. That's terrific that's terrific so what attracted you to study pulp and paper um as a as a career funny story I knew nothing of the industry when I came to college I got a bait letter in the mail just offering scholarship money a bait letter I never heard that phrase I love it that's what they call the NC State and that attracted me enough to try it out my first semester and it was one extra class what was the harm in trying it out so I tried it instantly fell in love the community the professors were all there to support me in a larger institution and the research opportunities the lab equipment all just showed me how much the industry network was um there was within my first week an internship offer so that was pretty easy that kind of kept me there and so I just tried my first internship loved it loved the manufacturing process. I grew up with my dad as a contractor so knew I wanted to get my hands dirty getting in the process. So it just kind of fell in my lap and I've never looked back. It's been a great experience.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Oh fantastic well we are happy to have you in the industry you're exactly the kind of enthusiastic person we need to take us forward. What's been sort of the most fun you talk about the research you do at NC State that you guys have such a great pulp and paper program, great community. What's been s one of the most exciting things you've learned uh about the industry and its research I'd say just like learning all about it.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Um one of my favorite classes so far was called pulp and process but we took a log, debarked it took it all the way down to a piece of paper and so got to that whole process and quickly do it. Yeah. So I'd say just like the learning all of there is to know about the industry and seeing what a researcher grad students are doing. Um I'm no expert in any of their research but just seeing them around the building learning like as I'm passing by like oh what are you doing now? It's just inspirational and just shows how much there is in this industry and how much is still how much research there is to do.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

Okay well that your comment makes me want to ask you a question. If there's one thing in our industry you could be the expert on what would you want to be the expert on?

SPEAKER_01 38:38

That's a hard question. There's so many areas I'm still exploring so much um I'm really fascinated by the um I'd say like honestly the wet end chemistry part of the paper machine they had a class on that last year and that was just really fascinating all that there is to do with that and so it's definitely an area I just want to keep look learning and looking into.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

Okay that's really cool. I love that you don't hear that a lot but it's actually you know such an important part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

For sure yeah what was your internship like so I've had two summer internships with International Paper in Franklin Virginia they were great experiences. I spent my first summer in the quality department working on the machine specifically and then this past summer I worked in environmental and power and recovery. So kind of got to see a lot of areas in the mill and learn the process behind that and it's very cool to see how the different departments operate, how they collaborate and just like the difference between them. So big projects and great learning experiences.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Yeah so Ed, you know you mentioned your dad's a contractor how do you folks feel about a young woman um going into engineering in you know sort of like a process industry. How do you folks feel about that?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

They're very excited for me. None of my family's engineers so it's definitely a new area that we're all kind of exploring together but they are amazed by the support I have at NC State, the different opportunities I have coming here being Tappy president like the opportunities are endless and um industry professionals I meet I like will call them and update them and they're like that's insane. And so they're really excited to see where I go with this and I mean my dad's a contractor so has that manufacturing experience and so he definitely likes them pursuing something like this.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Yeah absolutely I'm glad they're excited for you right and I think it really is for our young professionals it really is all about the opportunities. For sure. Do you find yourself sort of ex you know you you you said you had that great experience from you know from shipping to shipping so to speak you know from from the log to the finished product. Do you find yourself like just at parties explaining to people how fascinating it is how papers I do.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

My family's like tired of it by now. Yeah but you can't help it sometimes when you're excited.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

I love that about the pulp and paper industry though that that it touches our lives in so many real ways.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

It really does. And I don't think I really realized how much it is still a part of our lives until I started diving into the industry and seeing how many products are made of paper or paper products.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Yeah well you you said your story is a funny story but I have to tell you I speak with a lot of students and young professionals and that concept of I never thought about it, never heard of it but I got hooked is very familiar to me. Yes yes what do you see what do you see ahead for yourself Abigail as a as a career in our industry? Where do you see yourself going?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

I'm still exploring options. I definitely like the manufacturing part of it and think I want to spend my early career in that area but eventually I'd like to move up and more into a manager position. I would like just to see the different options out there maybe in research maybe more corporate uh path but I think just like early career spending my time in the um mill seeing the getting actually the experience a hands on process there and from there advancing on and seeing what options are out there for me. Yeah so you've already had some leadership experience as the president of your Tappy chapter do you see you know how do you feel about the importance of that hands-on experience for leaders I think it's great I think it's definitely good for leaders to know what they are leading yeah and to have that experience behind them so they are not like leading blind. I think it's great to just have that experience and just have like if I have any different leadership roles throughout my time at college and so able to like use those connections and um just be more well rounded.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

Yeah I think that's a great approach. You know I think that's a great approach for future leader. I I hope you'll remain involved you know eventually you're gonna have to leave your Tappy student chapter. What's next for you in your Tappy life?

SPEAKER_01 43:13

Well I'm the Tappy Student Summit student chair and so helping plan that conference so I think that will help me definitely keep involved with Tappy that I've definitely loved my time at Tappy and plan to stay involved either through like the young adults or young professionals, the women um women in industry does some fantastic programming. Yeah so I definitely want to stay involved there come to the next TappyCon, stay involved in the Tappy Student Summit because that's really how I met everyone here.

SPEAKER_03 43:42

Well we are happy to have you in the industry Abigail I've really enjoyed speaking with you for Better Together. Thanks for stopping by the podcast table. Of course thank you so much for this opportunity safety, automation and industry leadership. You'd think we'd covered everything but we have one more TappyCon 2026 episode of Better Together for you.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

So be sure to be on the lookout for more industry conversations from professionals like you hi I'm Lawton Roberts president and CEO of Tappy the pulp paper packaging tissue and converting industry's trusted resource for the publications, training standards and networking that are so vital to our industry's growth. Tappy conferences are an excellent way to build both your knowledge and those lifelong relationships that are so critical to your career. When you come to our live events please stop me and introduce yourself. I would love to hear your story. In the meantime check out tapy.org for more thank you for listening