from Boston Massachusetts it's the cube covering LIBOR X 18 brought to you by ptc welcome back we're at the Seaport in Boston at live works PTC's big IOT show this is the cube the leader in live tech coverage I'm Dave Volante with my co-host to minimun Doug Smith is here is the CEO of Tech's market he's joined by Linda Salinas was the VP of Operations folks welcome to the cube great to see you happiness you're very welcome having us so what do you think Big Show here the first time we've been at live works a lot of good energy keynote this morning was like an Olympic you know opening ceremony how's the show been the show has been fantastic and again thank you for having us here for us at texmarq being able to see all the different technologies that are being employed here in the United States and around the world has just been fantastic for us that's been really exciting I enjoyed the keynote speakers in the opening session and I I got a lot of inspiration from that I just wanted to go right back to the planned and use some of the things that we saw early on already so we do a lot of these tech events as you know and we talk a lot of tech but people process technology it's the process and technolon process parts that we don't spend enough time on we kind of give it lip service say hey those are really important but let's talk tech let's talk about people and culture maybe the start yeah from an Operations standpoint how do you get people to think about change well we don't think of it as change we think of it as we are doing something now and we need a tool to do whatever it is that we're doing it better and early on when we partnered up with HPE and they said hey we have some IOT solutions to introduce you to I thought oh that's great and I said well why don't you and Doug come out to the our innovation laboratory and Tomball and take a look at the lab and see some ideas and I said well that's great can I bring some friends and they said sure said can I bring 15 friends and they said sure so we rented a party bus and we loaded up people from our ops and maintenance and engineering and lab and admin and we went there and we first sat in on a lecture about what IOT was and then when we saw the lab in the smart city and the medical applications and so forth that all of these all look familiar but then we saw the demo of the censored pump and that just saying to everyone they said wow we have a hundred of those in the plant let's go do that tell me about that and so it wasn't about us implementing changes saying hey here's this new thing go use it it was it was about them seeing what they wanted to do and bringing it back to the plan saying this is what we're going to do boss yes so Doug you guys are actually heading out to discover shortly right yes sir so I've talked about your relationship with those guys it sounds like it's it's growing how is it going sure so once again it's all about people and as Linda said this this journey began with a conversation with HPE and now we have a collection of 13 different ecosystem partners who are helping us with these five different use cases that are built on top of this technology foundation that was supported by HPE so we have CB technology we have a Deloitte we have Flo serve we have any number of people that can help PTC I mean this is a PTC event certainly how they are helping with these different use case solutions and so going out to Las Vegas Nevada we are going to continue this story about people I think the strongest part of this story is that it has been we have encountered bumps along the road where we've had to work together it isn't like the movies where the IOT saves the day we have to deal with it and struggle with it would you agree yeah and that it has been a journey but going back to the people it is about having the partners come to us and say this is what we need to do to implement it we need to install these sensors we need to install the antenna we need to have line of sight to the wireless access points and so forth but from the beginning it wasn't about a contractor or two or three or all of the partners coming in to texmarq and installing everything and then giving us the key and say turn it on we included our employees in the installation process so they know how the sensors went in they know how to adjust the antenna they know on a first name basis all the tech contacts within all of our ecosystem partners so this is not a Linda and Doug project it is their project they have ownership and what's been fun to see evolve over time is that now you know the refinery of the future has become a noun or a verb so they will say hey let's ROTF this problem how can our OTF help us make this process better more efficient so it's really been exciting to see that come back at us yeah so wonder if you could bring us inside a little bit I hear 13 partners and worried a little bit there's the integration there's the training there's the support it sounds like you're happy with it but for for those that haven't gone through it what what did you learn and you know how does that work sure and this is kind of colloquial talk here but what we say at text mark is the first thing that we've learned is you have to get nekkid you have to say here are the problems that we have how can we all work together you have to have this honesty and you have to feel comfortable with the partners and we have set a standard from the get-go of here are our expectations clearly stating those expectations and we have had some partners that have come in and it just hasn't worked out so this clear communication setting achievable goals and when we encounter problems address them immediately and I think that's one of the things that's made us successful did it can we talk about the refinery the future paint a picture for us what's what's the refinery of the past and what was the for finery the future well I think the refinery in the past and the future at its core is still refining we have at texmarq chemicals where a petrochemical manufacturers so we primarily produced through distillation and reaction but at any refinery or petrochemical entire your distillation tower your crackers your reactors loading tank storage and so forth so that's a refinery past present and future but the future one I think employs IOT and technology to do what we're already doing today better you know I think about when I get a coupon in the mail and it's like hey you know one buy one get one free on potato chips so I don't even put a tow chips but that coupons gonna make me go buy potato chips well it's not that way with IOT we don't see a solution to go let's go start doing this in the plant because this IOT thing is really cool it's just the converse we're already have connected workers we're already using two-way radios and clipboards and spreadsheets and whatever but the refinery of the future uses IOT to connect us with technology so that we're doing it better and faster and safer how about the data agenda yeah 13 partners as Stu said you've got a desire to capture the data and analyze it make things better your partners do how do you guys approach the analytics side of this and the data side so I like to think of data I one of the meetings that we had when we started down this road I was sitting in my office and we had three different groups in there and there was one gentleman I was watching you is shaking his head and he goes this is a goldmine and I immediately focused in on them and said what what is this goldmine of what you speak here and and just being able to have for example our one of our main processes is for a chemical called dicyclopentadiene tea DCPD as we move along in this project we want to be able to censor the seven pumps that are involved in that process from putting it into the feed stock tank to put in it out on a railcar and being able to tweak it and find that sweet spot and to monetize that Linda could you go in yeah I think also too from a contract manufacturing standpoint we'll have one of the super majors that are that are that are refiners or chemical manufacturers themselves and want us to produce product for them on their behalf and I think that the data part part of our competitive edge is to be able to offer an IOT adder kind of like would you like fries with that to add IOT on to the project that they're approaching us with and say hey would you like IOT with that supersize it yes exactly yes and so and they're like oh tell me more and in fact we had a one-on-one meeting with a potential client when we discovered Madrid and and so now we're having commercial conversations with them about contract manufacturing but because they're so interested in IOT they want to add an IOT element to that and so then we can either surcharge or up charge for that contract manufacturing by the pound we will learn to optimize our processes on their behalf and then we share or sell the data to them they become the owners of it that's a that's a direct monetization as a value creation for the customer that they're willing to pay for yeah yeah that's cool well I think one of the altruistic aspects of what we're trying to do at texmarq is within multiple industries you have this this grain of the population so of the workforce is retiring out and with them they're taking years and years of tribal knowledge so you may have an operator who knows when you're doing this process you need to turn the that you need to adjust that valve this much and to be able to gain that information and pass it to the younger people coming in and then to show with in the petrochemical 'ti that we are utilizing technology this isn't the technology excuse me the refinery of the past this is a job in which you can use cutting-edge technology use this this feels like I was talking we were talking earlier one of our guest it but this whole IOT space it seems like it's not I mean it's disruptive in this in the sense that you seem to be doing a lot of things differently but as you were saying Linda refiners still a refinery so the ecosystem of that refinery to me anyway seems to like largely stay intact it's just a matter of embracing these new processes and changes in culture and obviously technology so the incumbents it feels like they're in a pretty good position is that a reasonable premise or am I missing something no I think I think I think you're right yeah yeah I think about one of the things that I heard in the keynote was that we are one of the early adopters and so I feel like it's part of our responsibility to share our story and to share the lessons learned right absolutely Linda and so she hits on something that humbles me is one of the things that we offer are these showcase tours where we have super majors come to texmarq and we have to censored pumps and there they are so enthralled about us showing it to them that to us we just say we want to show we want to be inclusive we want to be leaders and and so it's a great feeling so anytime we talk about IOT security something that comes up and you know in your line of work also we think safety for your workers but something that also of wonder if you could talk about those dual lasses paramount would you yes my eyes get big and that's where my heart is and I've been in with techsmartt for 23 years and I spent about 18 years doing environmental health and safety compliance and the thing about our five use cases is I can in my mind anyway tie them all back to reducing risk and improving worker safety and reducing our risk our environmental risk and impact the community so connected worker they're connected we either know where they are we know what they're doing we provide them information to make informed decision we have safety and security to be able to direct them in case of an emergency either to go towards emergency if you're a responder or away from it if you are not or if there's a person that fell from a height we know exactly where they are so we can go render aid because they can't raise their hand and say I'm hurt so all of these use cases advanced video analytics to know if we have a hydrocarbon leak or if there's someone crossing our property line whether it's a coyote or a person or someone that doesn't belong on our side of the fence they each have their own application but they all have some sort of tied to reducing risk and improving safety so it's sensors that can detect that type of movement you're not instrumenting humans right it's no no that's right same activity yeah what about now you've got everything connected now is there any concern that rogue agents could you know somehow do something malicious so we take a great deal or we pay a great deal of attention to security of data because that's our secret sauce that's how we are profitable within the world so we have we have put in all sorts of security measures from the sensor to the I walk to the the compute and what I continue to learn is it's a constant battle and so we have to it is something we have to be vigilant about so so what's next what should we look for from texmarq this whole space what are some of the milestones maybe that we should be paying attention to in terms of milestone I'm really excited about the the connected worker tool which allows different personas to approach for example an asset like a pump and Linda could be the CFO and I could be a millwright and we'd be looking at the same piece of equipment and I as a millwright would be getting data what type of service that pump needs and then Linda is the CFO could get financial information about when that pump fails or we're predicting failure in three months that pump will cost X number of dollars in the downtime will cost homesman exactly to the whole production procedure so and the other thing is I'd like to see us develop this use case to the video as a sensor we're working with Intel on that one and so they're excited about testing their equipment as well so and that's another area because we're looking at putting on our railcar loading area involving our railcar loaders on exactly where we should put them what we should look for what they think are the risks in the railcar loading area and so it's really just more of the same kind of continuing to involve our employees and having these projects and become theirs great well Linda and have a great trip to Vegas say hi to our friends from HPE and thanks so much for coming back in the cube really please so much you're welcome I keep it right there everybody stew and I'll be back where the next guest from Boston at live works we'll be right back [Music]