AI Won't Replace Automation Engineers, but It Will Change Everything with Rylan Pyciak

Everyone’s talking about AI, humanoids, and the “factory of the future” but plenty of plants are still held together with undocumented panels, obsolete PLCs, and the same hard production constraints they’ve had for decades. Nikki sits down with Rylan Paishack from Cleveland Automation Systems to sort out what actually works when you’re responsible for keeping equipment running and delivering automation projects that survive real life.

We get into Rylan’s path through manufacturing, Rockwell co-ops, OEM work, and system integration, then the leap into building his own automation business. Along the way we talk about why the integrator role forces nonstop learning, how good vendor relationships and honest communication save projects, and why a site assessment and full line walk can reveal the “missing truth” that never shows up in a scope document. If you’ve ever inherited a machine built in the 1950s, you’ll recognize the problems instantly.

Then we dig into the tension between shiny new tech and the basics: modern connectivity, new HMIs that still talk to PLC5 and SLC systems, and what has to happen before advanced tools can deliver value. We also talk about CodeSys adoption, subscription fatigue across industrial software, and where AI can genuinely help controls engineers with debugging and repeatable work without pretending it can replace human judgment on a production line.

If this conversation helps you think more clearly about modernizing legacy equipment, choosing technology that will be supportable long-term, or building a healthier automation career path, subscribe to Automation Ladies, share the episode with a teammate, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

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Welcome And New Office

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Automation Ladies, the only podcast we know of where girls talk about industrial automation. So welcome to another episode of Automation Ladies. This is just Nikki this time. I guess it's becoming kind of a recurring theme. We're trying to split us up in terms of just having more bandwidth. Most of us hosts have a lot going on these days, including me with moving. And I think last week I recorded an episode that was the last one in my old house. And now I am in my new office, which has a door, and I'm very excited about that. It's not quite set up yet. So not that it matters because y'all won't be seeing this in video, but I'm hoping to have this a little bit more of a like a podcast studio vibe eventually. But here I am, uh recording the first episode in my new house with a guest that um like last week's guest. Actually, I would say I'll probably be waiting even longer to have him on the show because I think, as we discussed a little bit before we got in the studio, our guest today is Rylan with Cleveland Automation Systems. And I think, like many people, when I first saw that, I was like, oh, it's Rylan from Cleveland, and he's not in Cleveland. Uh, but I remember him from LinkedIn like three, four years ago. We connected a long time ago. And I was, you know, at that time, especially like me and Allie really love meeting other business owners in the industry, people growing companies. It's kind of a lonely place to be sometimes. And knowing other people that are doing that or have been doing it is is a cool like networking thing for sure. And I probably in passing invited him on the podcast. And I think we were not cool enough yet uh that he didn't make it a priority, but here he is today. Uh, welcome, Rylan Paishack. Thank you for coming to Automation Ladies. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, definitely. Thank you for having me, Nikki. Um, yeah, no, it you've definitely been cool enough. You know, I think the thing here is just it's always timing, right? It's always trying to figure out when we all have time to do things, making time, right? Calendars tend to get pretty busy pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

So nobody's got the time for this.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

I absolutely I'm thankful that you have me. Definitely looking forward to having a conversation and talking through a little bit more here in terms of automation.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Very cool. So, where are you today?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Uh, right now I'm actually out west. Um, you know, been traveling a little bit. We've got client calls, so a little bit of travel right now. Um, but yeah, pretty much been bouncing around the country here the last couple weeks and uh hopefully heading back to uh maybe Chicago here for Automate in the next upcoming weeks.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Okay, well then maybe we will be able to bump into each other at Automate. Um there is the extra innings party. I don't know if you'll be able to make it to that, but it's on Tuesday uh after the show. Would love to see you there. We're one of the sponsors there with uh Chris's party that has always been a blast. Yeah, so there's my on-air invite. And I guess those the rest of you, if you're coming to Automate, if you haven't seen uh the post for that party, it was one of those things that like I think it was new. I think they did it for the first time, maybe my first Automate. Uh so that was about four years ago when Allie and I first met in person. I think we went to that party. And now it's become one of those things that sells out like in a hot second. Um, so you're no longer able to just find out about it last minute

Automate Chicago Invite And Networking

SPEAKER_00 3:10

and walk in. It's a whole like ticketed situation. You got to go online and get a ticket. Um, but I think that it is possible to get a ticket still. Um, so go look up the extra innings party at Automate if you are gonna be there and wanna hang out with us on Tuesday night. Um and then also plenty of other opportunities, I'm sure, for after hour stuff. Um, I have a couple of other friends that, you know, have some parties and things like that. So if you're gonna, yeah, if you're gonna be at Automate, hit me up. You can come probably meet us in the wine tech booth. We're right on the way to the humanoid pavilion. So if you're gonna wanna be weirded out by some robots, like just head there and then see me on the way and then tell me how weirded out you were or not. And uh I'll be doing some automate live interviews as well. So I'm gonna have to figure the schedule out for that, which is why, like Ryland, we were just talking, like even at even when we're at the same trade shows year after year, it's like really hard sometimes to see everybody. Um the fact that we haven't actually bumped into each other in person yet, I'm a little bit surprised. But it's you know, huge groups of people and whatnot. So those of you in the audience, come to automate. If you're not, think about it. Chicago is pretty easy for a lot of people to drive to. I'm jealous. Um coming from Houston, I have to fly. But that is my next, my only next uh official scheduled travel because of this whole moving situation. It's been terrible. Um, but I it's nice not to when you have kids and stuff, it's nice to have periods of quiet at home, I think. Although it does like eventually I get store crazy just being at home all the time. Um, what's your situation like that with that? Do you, you know, being a business owner and traveling a lot, that must be hard on the family and stuff a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely I think it's a balance, right? It's like everything else. Um, you know, finding time to enjoy when you're traveling, also making sure you have the flexibility to be home. So, you know, definitely as a business owner, I think we all go through it. Um, I what I would say nice thing is obviously as you grow and you find good clients, usually it comes down to scheduling. And if you find good clients that don't um pick up the phone and want you to be there tomorrow, that always helps. So usually it's talking through that, making sure we have chunks of time when we're scheduled to travel, when we're home, and and also just having that additional flexibility. I mean, that's kind of been a key competency and core thing of who we are as a company is making sure, you know, myself as well as all the employees enjoy that. So uh yeah, I mean it's it's one of the things you gotta enjoy it. Plus, you know, sometimes you get to travel to cool locations. So I think there can be a perk whenever you're traveling for business. Obviously, going to Iowa too many times in a row may not be fun, but you mix it up, you get to go to Chicago, somewhere else cool. It's a good work-life balance.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

That's good. That's good. I've always struggled with that um because I, well, my kids are young still. They're five and or six and eight now, so they're getting a little older. It's a little easier to leave them. But I always used to struggle with taking any extra time because the trip was already like a lot. And then you, you know, I had a lot of guilt about trying to take any extra time. So whether it was in like an extra night in a hotel or even just, you know, an extra four hours at the end of the last day to try to go like see something. So I've been to a lot of cities that I really haven't really been to. Um, and so I always think like a lot of people that they look at that, they're like, oh, that's so glamorous. You travel for work, you get to go to all these places. I'm like, yeah, I got to see the inside of a hotel and a factory and a, you know, an Uber or a conference center. Um, so I'm trying to be a little bit better now, also about like scheduling in a little bit of time if possible, to try to make it make the trip feel like you actually went somewhere. Um, but I'm sure it's a balancing act. And as you get better at your job or your company gets more mature, like you your

Work Travel And Family Balance

SPEAKER_00 6:50

customers get better, you can balance all that a little bit better. Um before we get into too many, I'm gonna have all kinds of like all over the wall questions. Um, I should probably let you introduce yourself and tell us your story, which is kind of the point of the podcast, is to learn everybody's different stories, how they got into automation or controls engineering or whatever, because typically very not linear path for most people. Um, and I find particularly for me, uh, the business owners in the industry tend to have even more interesting origin stories than some of the people that go straight into corporate or something out of college. So I'm very curious to hear. Uh, tell us about yourself. How did you get started and how did you get to be uh where you are now?

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Yeah, absolutely. I so main thing honestly was just um, you know, I stumbled into manufacturing after high school. It was always an interest. I was very hands-on, mechatronics, always taking things apart as a kid.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

So I think that was kind of one of the main directions of hey, manufacturing be cool to get into and doing engineering. So obviously after that, went to the engineering school, went through all the fun courses, you know, calculus and mathematics and physics. Never really good at them. So, you know, after going through that at in university, I basically went and started working in a manufacturing facility. So really got to go through that piece of it working for a manufacturer. Um, also did a little stint at Rockwell at co-ops. So got to see the flip side, right? All the hardware, the software, all the cool things that most people were buying. Um, and then from there worked for an OEM, worked for a system integrator. And then really at that point in time, I kind of, you know, I got to a point where I got to see a lot of what integrators were doing. I had interest. Um, you know, and quite honestly, I would say the integrator is working for the owner. Definitely encouraged you know, really encouraged the more business aspects. Um, so I think that encouragement as well as you know, just being inquisitive of how businesses operate was really the first thing where I said, hey, what's this gonna be like if I go out and start doing it myself? Um, you know, so really kind of took the jump, honestly. It was, hey, I'm gonna travel around, you know, a little bit younger, had more flexibility. Um, I just traveled around, did a lot of programming, a lot of integration, um, pretty much a contract controls engineer for hire. So started doing that. Um, and then yeah, we've evolved into right scaling up and down a little bit, doing system integration, doing custom automation, doing robotics, uh field service. So yeah, really in the manufacturing world, it's just been pretty much anything and everything. Um, you know, I think a lot of businesses and a lot of people that work in our industry tend to see that, right? Is one day you're working on a machine that may be making roof tiles, and then the next day you're making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So um it's fascinating to me. I enjoy learning and also being able to walk in a different factory every day where it's not the same thing. I mean, really that was probably the biggest push for me is just having that uniqueness and variety.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

I think that a certain personality type definitely lends themselves well to that. And the role of integrator keeps you on your toes in that sense that like you're always looking at a different system. But I think it's also like such a necessary glue in the industry to have somebody that goes between the different customers and sees the different processes in different plants, and you can kind of like then not like take anybody's IP and transfer it, right? But you're constantly learning from different types of systems, different types of manufacturing, different types of OEM machinery that you work on, and then like honing that competency and becoming a real like problem solver that you just work in the same plant your entire career, or you're just working for the same vendor, like your kind of solution set is a little bit more limited.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

And honestly, it it almost feels like as much as there are you know competitors, we all do the same thing with different companies. I would say this this industry is very supportive of that, right? Of I don't think there's any engineer, any company that said, hey, I know everything, I own everything. It's always this constant evolution and growth. Um, you know, and and and engineers by far are very you know team oriented when it comes down to that. Of hey, I saw this person over here came up with this really cool add-on instruction, or you know, another integration firm solved it by doing this unique thing with a robot. So you kind of, you know, like you said, you're not really taking it, but it's just adaption and absorption and then kind of building on top of it. So um, yeah, I mean, I think it's really cool. And honestly, I think like social media, LinkedIn is something else too, where you tend to see that a lot, right? People put questions out there or they display something they did, and they really you don't have that like that competition mindset. It's more of a a growth and encouragement of hey, which is really cool. How can I evolve on that, or how can I also implement this, maybe to my system? So yeah, it's it's very much a learning, learning kind of industry, and it's it's cool to see how many different people have that mindset.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah. It's also, I mean, it's not a job for people that I think don't

Rylan’s Origin Story In Automation

SPEAKER_00 11:50

enjoy learning because you get thrown like how many times would you say at this point in your career, like do you still walk into a plant or a problem or whatever, and like you know exactly what to do? Like, do you still run into the times where you have to go like, okay, now I gotta figure this one out?

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Uh it's every single project, you know. And if it's not one thing, it's another. Um, you know, communication protocols, reverse engineering something. Machine was built in 1950. Yeah. Uh, you know, honestly, I mean, yeah, it's it's one of those things. Again, you get to see the evolution over X number of years and what each individual person's done or hasn't done, right? Go open up those control panels and there's wires everywhere. Um, we actually showed a picture of a vendor the other week and they were mind blown at how messy it was. And it's we're like, yeah, it's just another day for us. So um, but yeah, it's it's definitely an industry where if you're not learning, it there might be an issue because there's always something to learn, always something to evolve on, you know, and honestly, you know, growth as well. So I think if you're you have that mindset to be able to tap into that to see what others have done and adapt, that's gonna make you a great engineer and or any kind of support individual or operations person in manufacturing.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, there's always also something, yeah, always something to learn. And and I I have to be careful with this because I have like in the last few years, I've worked with a lot of integrators and people kind of doing similar work as you. And and the same thing, like my LinkedIn community, right? So I I see a lot of posts and I learn from them and so on. And I've helped a lot of people like with projects and parts and like depending on what role I'm in. And so I've grown like a very like that stuff is very used. I'm very used to seeing the the stuff that you wouldn't think, like you walk into a plan and they show you all the panels that are not documented, and they're like, I don't even know where this goes, right? Like, and and then I then I talk to the vendors of the technology and the latest and greatest, because sometimes I I host panel discussions or webinars or whatever. And you have like X, you know, business development person from big brand Y that wants to sell the the latest and greatest. And and you're like, Yeah, okay, but how does that help the guy that doesn't have documentation for his panel? And they're like, Oh, that's not. I'm like, yeah, that's that's a thing. That's always a thing. That's like and and I and so I I feel like I've grown a healthy skepticism, but maybe a little bit too of a pessimistic view of like all the cool new technology. So I'm like, yeah, great, in a perfect world, everybody could use this. Yeah, but in reality, like so many people are struggling with some of the basic stuff that like you're not even you're glossing over that now, and it's so not done with. Like we're still we're still struggling with basic shit over here. And definitely do you do you find that like with your customers, are they like up and up on the on the new stuff and they're really kind of balancing the operations of existing equipment with trying to also gain the competitive advantage of some of these newer technologies? Or like, because I I've also read and heard like some engineers just kind of going like, yeah, you know, plant management wants to throw X amount of money on the new AI thing when when really like we need the budget to, we need to upgrade these like obsolete PLCs running these like machines or whatever. Do you feel like there's a lot of like disconnect there in in kind of the way that you know technology is sold and budgeted on the on the upper end of like management and to what is actually going on on the ground? Or is that more of I don't know, a perception I get out there?

SPEAKER_02 15:24

You know, I I I think it's to varying degrees. Um, I would I would say, at least in our instance, it's client by client based. Um really, you know, I look at it, I think that's one of our roles as integrators and integrators and/or any kind of engineering firm you hire, is to obviously not only provide a service, but also educate. I'm super, you know, super for education. And really that's kind of where we like to step in even before we look at a line for upgrade or do a quotation, is just say, hey, where are you at? Right. I mean, to your point, exactly, compared to a car. If you have an automobile built in the 1960s, you're not gonna be able to necessarily use the cycler truck in the same situation. So you know, at that point exactly, yes, we have a lot of clients that are running, you know, PLC5s and Flicks and just processors that are 20, 30 years outdated and obsolete. So typically what we're doing there is really guiding them and saying, hey, you know, that nice new fancy widget that you just saw, it's great, it's awesome, whatever. But you know, you're not being you're not gonna be able to use that necessarily until you actually migrate some of your other systems. So really it's I I would say usually what we see is somewhere in between. We do have some interest, again, typically coming from upper management of, yeah, I want to push AI, I want to do humanoids, I want to do whatever the buzzword is. Yeah. And then to the point manufacturing on the floor where they're like, yeah, it's duct tape and zip ties holding our machine together. How do we actually get this to a functional place? Um so yeah, I mean it's I would say it's varying degrees. And again, a lot of it's just kind of guidance and education and and you know, really doing an assessment of where people are at as well, if you're ready to start doing some of these newer things. Um what I'd say on top of that, or maybe elaborating a little bit more, is you know, technology, it's just like everything else. I mean, you know, I was around before the phone was invented, and you know, up before there were cell phones. Things evolve, things change. So you see these fancy new things coming out. We always warn our clients too hey, you're gonna go to automate, you're gonna see all these cool new things. Let's make sure that that is around in the next one, three, five, ten years. If you got to invest in the newest, latest, and greatest tech, that company may go out of business, or they may not be around where you've rolled out, you know, this massive deployment of whatever their hardware or software is. Well, now how do you support it? So it's definitely it's definitely balancing eggs. So it could be a challenge, but uh yeah, I think it's it's a fun challenge to get into.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, manufacturing is kind of an interesting place for startups, right? Because a lot, I think a lot of startup folks see manufacturing as a really ripe, like low-hanging fruit industry because it hasn't adopted so much technology. But what they don't realize is that there's a reason, like the reason that they haven't adopted all this technology is because A, like you can't afford to have this startup go out of business and you're stuck with a bunch of their stuff.

unknown 18:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Um, and or B, like a lot of times, yeah, you're just you have so many other things that you got to get your ducks in a row for first that like the manufacturing client is often gonna be too slow to pull the trigger. And your runway as a startup may be up before I've worked for startups, right? And like as much as you may even have the best idea that your customer actually needs. But if they're not mature enough to use your idea until they're ready, then you better have the runway to stay in business until they are ready. And that's a tricky thing because and and I will say, like, in my experience, people want to see you around for a while too. Like somebody oftentimes, if it's the right time and the right relationship, maybe you know somebody from a prior job, right? You you trust that they're gonna treat you right and make a good decision or whatever. Like you'll have your first adopter customers usually. But then there's often like a very big gap between those people that will trust you because of the timing, or they really had they needed to solve that problem like right now, and you you have the thing. And then those that are like, yes, great idea. We need this, and I'm gonna sign on it five years from now.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

But it is it is tricky because you, as a manufacturing business, you got to be very careful about not throwing your money into technology that then is going to leave you screwed because nobody will support it, the software doesn't work, it's not getting patched, it's not whatever.

Why Integrators Never Stop Learning

SPEAKER_00 19:30

And I will reference maybe like the graveyard of bots out there that many people have tried and that are no longer being supported, or somebody else has bought the IP and it's just minimally like keeping him alive. That's a rough place. And I think most technologies kind of go through this hump where like half those companies are gonna die, and that's just how it happens. And I I feel like we're in that kind of cycle with the humanoids, like everybody's investing in them. Some of them will just die out before they ever become useful. But the industry needs that level of investment just for the general maturity of it to get enough to where they are useful.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

But like if you're the customer that went with the wrong one, oh, sorry for you. And if you're the startup that, you know, didn't survive, then oh, also sorry for you. Cause like, man, it's a rough place to be to put everything on the line to build a company and then just lose it, you know. Sucks.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and that's yeah, I've seen graphics out there too. I mean, they're the hundreds, if not thousands, of you know, especially when you talk about humanoids.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

To your point, it's it, I think it's definitely healthy for the market a little bit, um, at least competition-wise. But yeah, it's you know, tried, true, and consistent. I think manufacturers are definitely risk averse by far and large. So, you know, no one's really out there trying to hit a home run and spend a ton of money. It's let's figure out what works, let's keep it running. And yeah, I mean, obviously, what we've seen too, I mean, some still have PLCs that, you know, predate a lot of this stuff. So they've been running for 50 years, and we hear that a lot from clients. Hey, it hasn't broken so far, so why fix it?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yep. I have this really embarrassing thing where like I work for a company that makes HMIs, and we're one of the original graphical HMI manufacturers. Um and so, but and our stuff lasts a really long time. So there's we have an installed base of millions of units, and some of them are like 20 years old, 25 years old, and they look terrible and they're awful. Like for what you can get now, they're really awful because they're 25 years old. Um, but they still work. So it's like, oh, I have a great on the one hand, it really works. On the other hand, you say you saw that, you know, old wine tech out there, and it looks terrible and it's cheap and it's you know low feature. Yes, yes, it is because it was 25 years old. Um the other thing that we do is is we support drivers for all the old PLCs still, um, that the manufacturers themselves don't. So Siemens drivers for old Siemens PLCs, old Rockwell PLCs, unique. It and so you can actually throw uh a brand new Wine Tech HMI onto a slick or a PLC5. And and you can get that data out and and you you can take it to wherever you want with like MQTT or OPCUA or all these things. Uh so which is a good and a bad thing because now you're like, oh, you actually can like take this machine data to the cloud if you want to. You don't actually have to replace your PLC. Doesn't mean you should. No, you really should, though. Just because we're making it possible, doesn't mean you shouldn't plan to upgrade that. Because as much as you can talk to it, it's still obsolete. Like it's still really obsolete. But there is this like play-in-between area because sometimes you really have the opportunity to maybe get a big lift off of getting a bunch of stuff connected. And like if you don't have to simultaneously or prior to starting some project like that, like overhaul everything, I think it's great to have those options. But like you really gotta know, you know, kind of like what the trade-offs are, right? And plan for those properly.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Definitely. Yeah, and that I mean that's the one too. I don't know what you see, Nikki, but a lot of what we're seeing too in the market now is you know, there's so many traditional, you know, pillars that have always been in automation, right? Everyone thinks of Rockwell and Siemens and you know, robotics, fanic, right? Um, but we're seeing a lot more of just like, I don't know if it's maybe a generational shift, but more interest in, I'm gonna say everything else besides the the key players, right? And natural controls. And it's one of those things now where it's like, do you, you know, let's let's use legacy hardware. Are you really learning DeviceNet and PLC5 and Rise Logics 5500, whatever? Or people are moving into, hey, now I can run code assists on any number of these different platforms. It doesn't matter what the hardware is, it's one, it's one code set. I don't have to learn five different softwares, even a step further where we have some individuals that are like, you know, I'm doing stuff in C, I'm doing stuff in Python. So it's kind of an interesting time in the market that we're seeing where some clients are very much they haven't made that transition from machinery built in the 60s, 70s, 80s. And then we have other clients that are more software-focused engineers that are writing stuff where they're like, I don't even know what ladder logic is, or I don't do that. I just I want this little box that controls everything with inputs and outputs in motion, and I'm gonna write it in whatever language I want. Um, so yeah, it's a it's a weird and interesting time that we're seeing. And I don't know if you guys are seeing that too, but uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

We are. I feel like codesys has been something that um has gained a lot more popularity lately. Like it's been around for a good amount of time. When I worked at Festo back in like 2012, um, all of our controls, like we because we would do motion controllers, right? And so it's like PLC programming, but not for the entire machine necessarily, more like for the motion subsystem. Um but instead of reinventing the wheel with the you know PLC programming language, they're not a PLC comp controls company at the core of it. They use Code Sys. And so I learned about it back then, but like most people I mentioned it to, I would have to explain to them what it is. Now I feel like almost everyone I talk to knows what it is. They may or may not have used it. And I think what I'm seeing more is the aha moments when somebody finally tries it and they've been like a hardcore Rockwell or Siemens or you know, some other propriet insert proprietary name here, and they go, Oh, oh, this is actually really good, and this is easy. Like I didn't I thought this was gonna be a much bigger deal. Like, why didn't I do this sooner? Because I don't know if it's an industry

Legacy Machines Versus Shiny Tech

SPEAKER_00 25:40

perception or if it's a training thing, or like for what reason people think it's gonna be like, oh, I don't want to switch because it's gonna be hard to learn the new thing. And it's like, well, Codesys is using all the same, it gives you all the same options of all the different languages, right? That any most other standard ones do. But then yeah, like every IDE has its quirks. I get that. Um but so far, everyone that I know that has like actually tried programming in Codesys over the last three, four years has been a pleasantly surprised, and B were like, no, I just want to use it because like why would you pay? Do you think that it's I've also heard a lot about like price increase and subscription fatigue, right? So it's like everybody and their mom is trying to get more recurring revenue, which makes sense because it's it's easier on the books, you know. You get more, you know what's coming in and you know you're gonna get it over and over rather than like capital one time purchases. So for the vent for the person selling thing, I get why you want recurring revenue. But for the person buying, and I only know this like a little bit more, yeah, for my business, um, but also my personal life. Subscriptions are the bane of my existence at the moment. Like just I literally subscribe to something too unsubscribe to other things that I forget about. And I hear it on the business side as well. Just the number of like licensed subscriptions that you have to pay, it just keeps increasing and increasing and increasing. And I think a lot of companies are kind of trapped in this like oh, we they either they already pay so much for all these subscriptions that they're like, we might as well only use that because we're on the hook for so much money anyway. That if we use something else in this one or two projects, like we'd just be shooting ourselves in the foot because we're already paying for all this support and subscription from you know one of the big brands.

unknown 27:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

The other one is, and I you know, and this is also kind of, I guess, like a thing between like there's a difference between like the end users and systems integrators in OEMs and how they make decisions. But I know with OEMs, they're they're telling me, like, oh yeah, we don't want to pay for all these licenses, like this is just cost on top of cost on top of costs, and every customer wants to beat us up on the price of the machine. But then when we say, Oh, we could use a cheaper component or whatever, they're like, oh no, we just want this is our environment, like this is all we want. Yeah, they're like, we don't want to pay for these subscriptions anymore. Do you feel like it's more of a generational shift of like there is cooler tech? Or also a, hey, we want to stop paying out the nose for all of these things instantly influencing some of the openness to look at other things.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Yeah, I I think it's a bit of both. I mean, we hear both, right? Obviously, there's yeah, this software cost X, and that cost is not cheap. Um, yeah, you know, main players that are out there, and you know, not only PLC programming, but SOLIDWORKS and all the other fun stuff you use.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Um so yeah, I mean, I think cost is definitely one. And again, for some of these companies that their budgets may have shrunk, and or they're more of a startup company, they're in that phase where they can't go out and spend $50,000, $60,000 on software costs. That's definitely a concern. Um, so but also the subscription thing, too, I do think comes up. I mean, honestly, then you know, to your point, looking at it too, right? Yeah, I don't know how many subscriptions I have here personally that I paid for. Probably way too many, and I don't use half of them. And even business operations, again, you're like it, it's another, you know, $5.99, $10.99 thing you're paying for. Realistically, those things add up and tend to cost quite a bit. So I mean, I think it's the subscription model, at least it's it it's a little bit more of a maybe like a try before you buy, or you're not on the hook for that one big chunk of change.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Yeah, yeah, it'll definitely be good for that. If you have the option to like change to buy it out once you're ready or get a perpetual license or something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Yeah, but I mean and I think it also just it it opens up more avenues too, right? Of hey, you you're walking in and you might want to try a new piece of technology. You know, I don't have to go over and fork over the whatever number of thousands of dollars you might have to pay for different type of software. So I think it gives you more flexibility. Um, I think we're also seeing just again that kind of more of the openness of the software integration into industrial controls now where, hey, I can go to GitHub and pull things down. There's repositories, somebody else wrote, you know, this really cool add-on instruction or function block they want to use. It's kind of cool because you can go out and get it, you can share it, you can swap it around, you know, elaborate on it and make it your own. So I think that kind of more honestly, probably just the generations that are now under the market that have grown up with the internet and the accessibility to what's out there is just kind of elaborating and allowing more individuals to start looking at that. So I mean, we're doing it ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

We are getting more people into our industry from more traditional like computer science backgrounds and software engineering rather than just coming from like the technician side, which is obviously the difference between like going from the lateral logic side to kind of the software engineering type of side. I know that at least all the controls engineers we have in our office um at WinTech are soft, like they come from a software engineering background. So they're much more also, I think, creative in how they think about like connecting stuff up. And it's not always like, oh, this gotta do this and you gotta do that. It's like, oh yeah, we can do this and we can do that, and we can write a script for that. And so for us, even if like the the core, it's not a like a named function immediately in the software. It's like we have open scripting though, so then you can make up whatever functions you you want. Um I'm actually kind of really excited. Uh, we're getting a gentleman named James Joyce as one of our speakers at OT Skatacon this year.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Oh fun.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Um and he's kind of one of the voices out there in like the new software stack for industrial automation. Um I wish I had had more time to like ingest his content so far, but I'll I'll wait for him to come speak at my conference. I guess we're putting some anticipation in that. Uh but yeah, I think that that's a really fun like evolution of things. And it's good to be in not just in one camp or the other, but to like sit in the place I'm sure that you do, which is kind of like you see, you can see the the drawbacks and benefits of both because you've helped customers with because I think sometimes there's a whole shiny new object syndrome, and you don't if if you come from the the traditional software engineering side of things, you may not understand and or know all the trade-offs that come with like, yes, it's open and yes, you programmed it yourself. But yes, it's open and you programmed it yourself. And what happens when somebody else has to take over that code? Like, is it properly documented? Are they gonna know what to do? Can a tech come in there and do something? Like, what is the environment in which this machine is gonna go into? How is it gonna need to be supported by who and for how long? Those are all different questions. Like my dad is a uh is an electrical engineer that does controls, but he never did it for factory automation. And so he's always written his own stuff in like C. And so why is it like I would call it, I guess what I know now, it's more of like an embedded controls engineer. So he writes a particular program for a controller and just builds as much IO as he actually needs on the board. And then maybe he'll throw the board into a housing that makes it look like a PLC, or maybe not. Depends on what the application is.

unknown 32:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

But it does essentially the same thing. And he does motor control and I mean all kinds of stuff like that, right? But he's never programmed a PLC in his life because he just he knows how to write the the actual code kind of behind it. Um myself, on the other hand, having I was a machine vision and sales engineer coming from a business background, I've never written a line of code in my life. And I was really good at visual programming, like drag and drop, make decisions, look at logic, do this, do that, loops, you know, if-thens. And so I I could probably figure out fairly quickly how to program a PLC if I if I wanted to, um, from in some ways, but like I'm not, I'm not gonna become a programmer. But I think also the the the modern way of programming also opens up like AI application to what we do a lot more so than than the old way of doing things. Are you starting to hear in those discussions at all? Have you looked into that? What are your thoughts on AI when it comes to actually writing code or co-piloting you writing code, that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, AI is I I think it's an interesting, interesting word, right? I think it's thrown around a lot for things that isn't. Yeah. Um, it's also used in hey, it's a buzzword, right? Everyone wants to talk about it, they want to sell their AI, whatever. Um, you know, we look at it as a tool. I mean, it's a tool on the tool belt just like a screwdriver or you know, your multimeter or anything like that. Um, you know, we've we've definitely tried it, we've used it on certain applications. I don't think it's going to walk in and you know design and program an entire pharmaceutical line. Um, but in the same thing, you know, it is a good troubleshooting tool, right? I mean, we've all been there, you're writing code at 12 o'clock at night and you figure it a semical and throw it in there and it goes, hey, silly, you forgot this thing over here. Um, so things where you know you might be doing things that are rinse and repeat, you have more modular structure, you know, structured text definitely lends itself a little bit more than your traditional ladder logic. Um so yeah, I mean we've we've definitely we've implemented it. We have clients that are using it. Really, what we like to do again is is take a holistic look at exactly where you're using it. I don't think it's necessarily replacing engineers, replacing controls, technicians, manufacturing maintenance. Um, you know, at least at this day and age, it's not gonna be able to walk out to line and find a broken sensor. You know, that's still gonna take a human interaction there. Um but I think it there is beneficial uses for it within reason. Um I think it again, like the other technology we talked about, it's it's going, it's going really fast and it's definitely growing. But I think we also need to be kind of conscious of like how much of it do you want to use? Where are you gonna use it at? You know, are you gonna blindly trust it to make a, you know, if you're filling a medication, are you really gonna blindly trust it, or is it something you need human interaction? So it's it's interesting to say the least, but we're we we are, you know, I would say cautiously optimistic and dabbling in AI, at least from what we do. And then probably most of our customers are there as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

I think that's a general sentiment I hear also where where we're at, both within like this environment, the automation lady

CodeSys Momentum And Subscription Fatigue

SPEAKER_00 36:10

stuff. Like I'll tell you, I've I've on and off tried like AI to make clips from the episodes. And it's always been a giant waste of time. It has never picked what I would think are interesting snippets from my episodes. And I don't know if it's because our subject matter is niche and like we're not just you know general inspirational talk, like, oh, pick a moment where I say something controversial. I also like none of these things. I wish it was it seems like a fairly simple feature, but I want clips of my guests, not me. And most of the time the AI picks clips of me saying stuff, and I'm like, no, that's not what I'm looking for, which is why now we have a human person, Veronica, behind the scenes, that will do all of that because it takes uh yeah, it takes a person and their judgment, I think, for most things still in this world that matter. Absolutely. But yeah, debugging at night, like stuff that is just so tedious. There's lots of things that AI can be much, much better at than we are like that. Um so yeah, within our like uh programming environment for the PLs for the HMIs in our legacy software anyway, it's like copilot. Like if you're scripting, it can help you write script. More importantly, it can help you debug your script, right? So it's not gonna create your program or write your HMI. But I do think it's kind of maybe like it can shorten the learning curve a little bit. Um, maybe give people that have a little bit less experience, like turbocharge them a little bit more so they can do a little bit more advanced stuff without having to like have as many years of on the job. Um, I see you nodding a little bit. So it seems like you may agree with me. But yeah, talk, let's talk a little bit about people development. Because from a lot of the engineers turned business owners I know, particularly in the systems integration space, and and something you said about the earlier makes a lot of sense. So the first SI that you're the uh systems integrator you worked for, they really kind of focused or wanted you to take some view of the business and how it works. Um I think there is some different skill set between like doing the work and then running the company that does the work.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Uh and and hiring and and developing people is a huge skill that may or may not be in a an engineer's tool set already. What are your thoughts on that? Was it easy for you from the get-go? Was it something that made a ton of sense, or is that like a skill that you've had to build along the way?

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yeah, I think people development, especially in industrial automation, um, you know, it it takes patience, right? It's not something, again, what we do by nature is it's custom automation. And especially as an integrator, it's usually unique every single time. So, you know, it's not like you're doing the same task over and over and over where you get really, really proficient very quickly. Um so you know, really what I found is it it takes a lot of patience. It takes investing in individuals and allowing them, you know, first and foremost, like anything that you learn in the world in life, you have to be able to be able and be willing to make mistakes to learn. So same thing whenever you're doing design, you're doing coding, it is having that structure and allowing, again, you're typically individuals that are just entering the market, the ability to come in, to mess up, to try things, you know, and and really give them that, you know, high-level bounds of this is where you can play, this is what you're supposed to do. But really allow them to kind of ping pong between both of those as well. Not be so rigid, so structured where it's hey, it's my way or the highway. No one learns that way. It doesn't encourage growth. And honestly, back to the team mentality, you allow somebody else to also look at the same problem. They might have a unique solution that you can also utilize as well. So, really, I think that the talent development on industrial automation as a whole, it has to be pretty open-minded. You have to be willing to allow whoever you're hiring, whether it be an integration company, an OEM, if you're an end user or a manufacturer, allow those individuals to really get in and play and also have the flexibility to support products as well. And again, what we talked about, right, is you have an entire production facility. You might have 10 different machines designed by 10 different system integrators, and maybe 20 different engineers worked on each of those lines. So to kind of take all that and adapt really quickly could be a challenge, especially if you're in the end user manufacturing setting from that standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Yeah, that's a good point that you brought up. It's not only you as the systems integrator and then your employees, like because if people are they're having to learn on the job and they're having to make mistakes, where do they do that and on whose dime? And I think it kind of the reality is it's kind of spread across everyone. Somebody's gonna pay for that mistake. Um and hopefully you have a good enough relationship that everyone understands, like the end user, they may end up with a few things like that that can come up, and then like you cover for it as a business owner as much as you can, but somebody's gotta have a little grace on that other end. Um then I've also heard, I mean, man, not every integrator does a great job on every project. And I know some end users out there that have sunk a lot of money into some stuff that didn't quite work. And I wonder sometimes like, where is that learning curve and how big are the projects in which you can like learn on? But I guess uh the answer like that to everything is it depends because it has blown my mind like the amount of money and high profile projects that people like literally would go on podcasts and talk about, like they were huge successes, and then I talked to the end user and they're like, Yeah, that was a total nightmare. It's like you know, but every I think everybody knows that these are like realities of business, and so they don't go like you know, slinging mud and putting people out of business. It also kind of probably depends on how you deal with it on the business end, but it's like it's complicated stuff, you know, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Oh yeah, it's it it's definitely not black and white again. I mean, it's it's design, it's custom, it's unique. Uh, you know what I will say there too, I don't want to I don't want to paint the picture that we hire somebody with zero years of experience and throw them on a you know a multi-billion dollar project.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

No, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Some of a structure there, right? Of you know, typically you have maybe an entry-level person underneath the senior engineer structure. Um, you know, also what we do too, right? Vendor relationships are huge. We work with all of our vendors, we buy different hardware, we set up, you know, basically little test stands and toolkits where you can play, you could actually work and kind of go through that debug. So I think part of that too is adding that ability. Again, kind of it it's an evolution, right? You're going to look at what the senior controls engineer did, adapt what they're doing, maybe go out and say, hey, here's five different projects we did that are all, you know, whatever, end-of-line palletizing. We did it these five different ways and start pulling those different strings and bringing in kind of making it your own flavor. You know, so really, I mean it it it is that little bit of balance there for sure. Um, I also think it's one of from a business standpoint, making sure you're identifying it, but also encouraging it so again, this next generation can learn because obviously in another 50 years, industry is going to be at a completely different place than where it is now, and you also want to be able to adapt to that. Um, you know, so I mean I think that it it does apply, you know, not only to our side from the integration, but also the end user, the manufacturers as well of how do you how do you support the 1950s machine and the one that you just bought here in 2025?

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Yeah. And when I say like some of these big numbers and stuff, they obviously are much bigger. They're they're big systems integrators and big end users. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking such big like numbers. It just blew me away that it can happen even at those levels where companies supposedly because like with a smaller company, I think there's a perception that maybe you have and I think it's kind of the opposite, maybe like big companies hire. A lot more entry-level people because they can and they like can develop more talent in that sense because they have bigger budgets for training and things, you would hope. Um, whereas like smaller companies, it's like you've got less room for error, so you got to be a little bit more personal about your hiring and then like really support those people individually. And then it's a probably bigger lift for you, but more of a necessity to invest in the in the learning abilities of those uh people that come in and they reflect more personally on your reputation, right? Like your entire company reflects a lot more on you personally than on the CEO of a PE-backed owned company that's gone through like three iterations of buyouts. Like it's no longer that one person and their kind of reputation that that those projects rely on. And so now having seen like all these different levels, it's like sometimes even the the bigger companies they can coast more on like a bid and a reputation for being big, whereas like the small ones, I think it's a lot more word of mouth than like personal trust that the owner's gonna handle their stuff when something goes wrong.

unknown 45:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

How would you say, are you at a point where you're picking up like business from people that don't know you from your marketing or like things like that? Or is it still very like referral-based?

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Um yeah, I would say, I mean, I I honestly I think for any system integration company, it it's probably a balance between networking, between referral as well as, you know, cold outreach, both both directions, they're right, marketing, sales, and whatnot. Okay, yeah, I mean, I I think anywhere from somebody that's just starting out industry, you know, whether it be you're currently employed somewhere and you're just trying to learn all the way to the largest of the large integrators, doing the right thing always goes beyond anything else. Um, you know, we have some good relationships with very large integrators we've worked with in the past. And really what we've learned there and what you see is you know, these companies that have been in business for how many years, end of the day, whether they win, they lose, they're profitable, they're in the red on a project, they're doing the right thing, they're communicating, they're making sure they're having honest conversations, even if they're difficult. But having those honest conversations and trying to find a resolution. Because yeah, I mean, sometimes you get into this, and maybe you quoted a project the wrong way, maybe you underbid something, um, you know, maybe, maybe you had an issue internally where you're not able to deliver on time or on budget. Um, but other times you may run into it where it is this collaboration where maybe a customer's part, you know, we've all been there. You get the draw, you get the spec, you have it in your hands. Six months later you go to run FAT, and the part is a little bit different shape or size, or you know, you know, all the levels of automotive, it came from 15 different levels away. So really, again, kind of back to those relationships and doing the right thing, being able to have that transparency and honesty. I think that go goes a very, very long way because it allows you to go, hey, you know, we can adapt here, we're gonna give a little bit. We may need you to give a little bit here as well, so we can figure out how to solve this problem because your part that we have version one of is evolved to version six. So I mean, I think it's uh, you know, what we're doing, again, being custom by nature, we're solving problems that people really haven't solved before. I mean, most of the exigs you see in bid manufacturing facilities, there's not a U-line catalog where you go through it and say, hey, I need the you know, XYZ machine maker thing. So it's uh it's very much a two-way street there with relationship building with clients.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Yeah, I learned that in my first job selling machine vision for Keynes, I was in the Bay Area, and most of the smart people that I knew, they could either buy a catalog sensor from Banner or they could build their own, you know, camera system with some national instruments USB thing. But they would only call me when A, the the the sensor didn't work, or B, hey, we built this thing in our lab, but now it doesn't work on the line, right? We don't know how to solve it. So now now here's your chance. Like I never got to sell a thing out of the catalog. And and vision is always one of those things where you have to like you have to custom engineer every every single thing. I mean, it's a little bit less hard, I think, now with AI, maybe, but it still really comes down to the installation and the lighting and everything like that. And it's like, yeah, I would, I would get all the worst projects that somebody already couldn't solve, given all the established methods of just buying something that would solve the problem. Yep. Especially because condition systems were insanely expensive and really difficult to do. And so it's like you don't want one unless you really need one.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Uh and then half the time, like the stuff I would try, I'd be like, I'm sorry, I can't sell this to you. Like, this is just not gonna work. Uh which is very frustrating and very rewarding at the at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Certainly. Yeah. And part of, I mean, part of it's kind of you know, I don't say scope creep, but scope definition, right? Sometimes you walk in and it's just the wrong fit or application, and you're trying to say, hey, really, you're trying to solve this problem. You might need to go back to the drawing board. Or I mean, sometimes it's just you a customer has a product that they want to design, but it's not really built for automation or manufacturing, or it's you know, it's very human involved. You're trying to stuff a bag inside of a little container or something crazy like that. So I guess it's back to some of the education there, too, of saying, you know, you should either look at your process, maybe change it. And I mean, really, it's it it does evolve quite a bit depending on what kind of client you're working with.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah, if you're working directly with an end user, I would assume like do you pretty much insist on like doing a full line walk when even if they bring you in for a specific thing, because you kind of want to know what's going on upstream and downstream from that.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

Yes. Yeah, pretty much any client we work with, we do a free site assessment, right? So that's traveling out to the location, walking the entire line. More often than not, to your point exactly, you're finding things that either it wasn't documented, maybe it's not spoken work. Quite honestly, sometimes you don't even have spoken work, so you're writing it on the fly. Um but yeah, we always like to do site assessments because you can collect so much information. The other thing I think is paramount that a lot of people miss, you know, typically you're getting this documentation from upper management, from operations, from engineering. Usually there's not much buy-in from the operator or the individual working on the line. We always like to have that conversation because it can be anywhere from something simple of like, hey, I'm turning around 15

AI In Controls Without The Hype

SPEAKER_02 50:20

times a day to do something, all the way to insight that that individual knows because they work on the line, you know, five days a week, eight hours a day. That typically isn't captured in the scope of work. So we always like to do that just for the fact of there's so much information that you're able to absorb when you're there and collect that data, obviously get measurements. We've all went to install a machine and there's a pole right in the way. So yeah, the site assessment piece is paramount for us.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Yeah, the worst project I ever worked on was somebody remotely spec'a uh a vision system for one of my customer sites, and it got installed on a robot arm at a systems at a different place, and then finally the whole thing got shipped to my customer and it was put under a skylight in a 24-hour facility.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

Fine.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

And it wasn't properly spec'd for that condition.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Like, yeah. You wouldn't have known that from afar, but like, why would you consider specing a vision system in a place you've never been to and you have no idea what the lighting is gonna be like, and then you're not enclosing it? Like, if you're gonna do that, then at least you gotta make it a black box. Like, yeah, yeah, but you you know, you live in somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

It's even more of a challenge, right? Is it yeah, it's not a one size fits all there at all.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

No. What other I guess, yeah, we're we're running uh close to time here. So I want to make sure that we capture any of the good wisdom that you have to share with our audience, whether they're end users or people coming into the industry. What do you want to talk about that I haven't asked you, if anything?

SPEAKER_02 51:50

You know, I'm I I think we covered quite a bit. Um, this industry, what I will say, I find it fascinating. I think it's an industry that, again, having the next generation come in is something we really need to push. I know a lot of people talk about it. They're trying to figure out how do you get how do you get the next generation into manufacturing. I think it's one we need to start having honest conversations internally of how do we make it more lucrative? How do we make it something that people are actually interested in being in? You know, I mean, cost of living, there's all kinds of fun challenges in today's day and age of what we're going through. But I think manufacturing also needs to have that that conversation amongst themselves with, you know, the manufacturers themselves, the end users, the integrators. How do we push it where people actually want to go and work in a factory instead of working, you know, a different job or a different career path? Um, some of that I think comes down to pay, into compensation, into you know, flexible solutions, whether it's, hey, maybe you're working unique scheduling. Um, I know some progressive, more progressive customers we have, hey, they're working like 312s or 410s, or you have rotating shifts, which could be beneficial, especially in the summertime. Um, so really just kind of having more of those conversations of like manufacturing is can be dirty and and boring and you know, maybe not the most appealing thing. How do we make it a little bit more appealing? And how do we make it a little bit more this is exciting, this is cool, you're actually doing something. You're not just on a dirty factory floor that you know tucked away in a dark corner somewhere. Um, but I yeah, I think it it has to start with a lot of us internal here that are uh already in manufacturing to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

I think you're right. We try to, I think we try to do a good job of uh those of us making content and stuff too, is like to make it. I want to get the word out because I think there is a lot of great stuff that just people don't in general know about at all. Um one of the segments my girls just came up with, uh, we're gonna do on TikTok because like I've I'm not a social media person. We don't have a TikTok presence, but we talk to a lot of people in the industry and we talk to each other and we're like, yeah, great, let's make this more attractive to people. And it's like honestly, I think automation ladies, my whole thing with the show is more people that are already in the industry, but maybe early in their career, I want them to find something of interest, more like more job paths that they can learn about, ways that they can upskill, maybe find their passion if they haven't found the thing in the industry that like really makes them tick yet. Uh but it's still conversations between people already in the industry, right? And I I also really want to make sure people that come into the industry and have a really crappy employer or a bad experience at a customer or something that they know that there's like all kinds of options out there and they can find better companies, they can find better situations, they can get out of that customer, whatever that is, right? And that's like how what I feel like some of the conversations we have help people that are already in the industry. But we're not really reaching people outside the industry. Even when people ask me, like they're like, Oh, I'm like, oh, I have a podcast. And they're like, oh, what is it about? Can I listen to it? I'm like, oh no, you're not gonna be interested. Oh, it's this thing called automation, ladies. And like, you don't, if you don't know what that is, like, don't worry about it. To me, it's like, how can I get a person, a lay person that doesn't know what we do at all to find any of this interesting? And like listening to some of our episodes, you you might, but honestly, we also say a lot of stuff that nobody has any clue what it means. And so, my my new team with automation ladies, they're they're brand new to the industry. Like, they don't know any of what we talk about, and they listen to our episodes and help us make content from them. But they were like, we learned so many things about automation, and like we're not in the industry. And we think that people on TikTok might be interested to know this stuff, and they want to talk about it from the lens of not knowing what it is, and they learned something. And I was like, that actually might work, that might actually reach a few people that aren't already here. Either because they're younger and they're still looking for stuff to do, or they're just somebody that, like, just like them, was like, hey, I do social media, but I heard about this cool thing called a PLC or whatever, and I didn't know what that was, but maybe that sparked somebody's interest. If we could bring like five people into manufacturing from our TikTok presence, like I would be super stoked about that. Um I found something cool, I think it was on YouTube, but uh, I think Walmart did a series of like they have a day in the life kind of like reels on their YouTube page. And a couple of them were automation like operators. Now instead of like warehouse, you know, associates or manufacturing, like just people doing operations, these are now people doing like robot maintenance and they oversee an automated machine or a line. And they did a cute little like, oh, look at my day in the life as a machine like automation operator person. And I was just like, Oh, this I could totally show to people that don't work in automation.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

My brother-in-law was like, oh man, there's an Amazon warehouse by here, but they like never seem to be hiring. And when we used to live in Washington State, he was like, There was always Amazon jobs open. I was like, Yeah, it's probably because they got a lot more robots in this one. Like, they're not hiring the same, they're probably hiring robot technicians and not warehouse associates because that is evolving very fast. And yeah, people do need to not just come into this industry in the lowest jobs because they're not gonna stick around. The the turnover rate is horrible, the work life balance is awful, the pay is terrible. And so, yes, we do a good job of saying, like, oh, this is really cool, this is really fun, come here. But then when it comes down to it, can I say that like all these jobs are super well paid and that you're not gonna burn out from being like traveled to death and stressed out because you know, a lot of pressure's on you as the controls person or whatever. If you're doing startups, like these are grueling long days, a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure, a lot of on-the-job learning, not always pleasant. Um and I don't think that the pay is necessarily commensurate with that in a lot of cases. Yeah, it can be

Hiring, Training, And Site Walks

SPEAKER_00 57:50

in certain areas in certain companies, but for the most part, I think seeing the jobs, the job posts that I see, and especially a lot of these contract roles and stuff, they're like, oh, we want you to come on a three-month contract and work your butt off for crap money and then have no job after that. Like, how is that a thing? How is that a thing? What kind of people is that supposed to be attracting? And for how long can they realistically do that?

SPEAKER_02 58:15

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's big, right? And and you you kind of compare it to the other side, right? At least Silicon Valley back in the day where it's hey, there's cafeteria's and free food, and you know, we've all seen the the Facebook and Google where there's you know, you're you're kind of hanging out at work. So, you know, not to necessarily say we need to be that extreme, but I think it needs to be a little bit more creative in that mindset. And also, yeah, reaching out of like, how do you show people this is what you do? How do you you know? I think about it when I was a little kid, I watched how it's made, right? And and even looking at a robot, like it's cool to watch it move. How do we just say this is a cool thing that we use in this industry, you know, without going on to, you know, bladdling about what the part number is and how it works and all the fun, nerdy engineering stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's something I think we can all do a better job at and uh, you know, need to need to all be more advocates of as well.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Absolutely. Well, if anybody out there wants to help us produce any content that is more relatable to the general public andor young people, whether that's girls or boys or any uh anyone, like I just want everyone to know that this is an option, this industry. There's a lot of cool stuff that can be done here. Some of it can be really well paid. Um, great companies out there, not all of them are, uh, but you gotta just look for the ones that actually care, the ones that talk about their culture, that talk about plenty development, that come onto shows like this, talk about, you know, people that don't want to talk about what they do. There's either an NDA or, you know, some dirty laundry. There's a reason that they are not willing to put themselves out there and talk about how great their culture or their company is. So honestly, you're pretty, pretty good bet, like following the ones that do. Um, the ones that show pictures of their facility or their staff, or you know, there's their, you know, people are out there just having real conversations. I think, especially in the age of like AI and all this pretend stuff everywhere. Social media too, people highlight all their highlights and then their real life is a total disaster. Uh I think the people that are willing to kind of come out and have real conversations, those are the ones that you can. I mean, I wouldn't say trust them blindly, but like it's a good signal that they actually care about what they're talking about, what they're doing. They're willing to put their name and their face on the line. Um, and especially if they're like accessible on LinkedIn, you know, these are real people that you can reach out to. So with that, um, I guess, yeah, we'll finish up with my last question, Rylan. Tell people where what they should contact you for and how. Um, and if there's anything coming up that they need to, you know, kind of be aware of or on the lookout from you.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

Yeah. So they can definitely reach out to us at our website, which is Cleveland Automation Systems.com. Um, obviously, as you said, we're very active on LinkedIn. So again, search Cleveland Automation Systems and or myself rather than PyChack. Always willing to have conversations. Um, you know, to your point, Nikki, as well. I mean, I as much as what we do from a business perspective, I'm on there. Also, I want to be an advocate and or resource. You know, hey, you're moving to a new part of the country where we may have had a client. Feel free to reach out, send me a message. I mean, I love connecting individuals, networking, you know, and and and I think that's again kind of to the point we just talked about, you know, being able to be a resource and be there for free. Um, always willing to have those conversations.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

And what I would say to my audience, if you're going to be one of those people that's going to reach out to Rylan, um, don't do so selfishly. Don't just tell ask him to give you a job. Or, you know, we people that are willing to give of their time when they're extremely busy, like business owners, they do it because there's a drive, like an internal drive to help people. But it's really hard to help people that are not willing to help themselves or put in the effort to be a good ask, right? So if you can't offer some value, at least be the type of person that will actually use the advice, you know, do some work with it and then come back and say, here's what I did. Thank you. You know, stuff like that. Just be a good human and don't be a grabber and a taker. With the age of social media, it's so easy to send someone a

Making Manufacturing A Better Career

SPEAKER_00 1:02:10

really selfish message and be like, read my resume and give me a job. And I'm like, I don't know you from Adam. Why would I do that? Like, I don't have the time for that. Um, I think our community in general is very cognizant of that and they also like to give. And so, you know, when you're, I think when you're a giver, you you realize when you ask from other people, you know what you're asking. Um and then finally, I guess uh the types of people that should reach out to Cleveland automation systems, you would say integrators looking for subcontractors, end users looking for integrators. Like who who is your kind of sweet spot um to do business with if somebody wanted to reach out to your company and find out if they would be a good fit to work with you?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

Yeah, we work in pretty much every manufacturing industry, right? Anything general manufacturing, your food and dev, uh plastics, automotive. So, you know, any industry, honestly, that's out there, we're willing to work with. We do a lot of custom, unique, cool things, anywhere from controls, robotics, just general integration, machine building. So I mean ultimately I'd say reach out if you have an interesting project you want to talk about. More than likely, we can either look at it and make recommendations and or come up with a solution.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Yeah, and you know a lot of people, so referrals, I'm sure, are also kind of part of it. If you if it's not a good fit for you, you probably know somebody, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Absolutely. Always willing to make referrals as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

All right. And then if you're gonna be at Automate, you can maybe wrangle Rylan to meet you there. Um, and for me. So with that said, uh thank you so much for joining. It was wonderful to finally get a chance to speak with you. And I look forward to hopefully meeting you in person soon. So thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to Automation Ladies. If you like our content and you want to stay in touch, please connect with us on LinkedIn, follow the show page, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and you can send us a message or a copy on our website, automationladies.io. We look forward to getting to know you. Our producer is Veronica Espinosa, and our music is composed by David K.