I'm kie Alexander account executive here at Glide fast Consulting and I have some amazing guests here today with an amazing topic and I'm so glad that you're here so we wanted to just find out I'm just looking at the poll question myself what is the biggest challenge you currently face in digitally transforming your manufacturing operation we'd love to know that give you a few minutes on that one and before we get started I'd like to give you some background information on glidefast glidefast Consulting is a firm that is dedicated exclusively to service now as an elite service now partner our expert team of developers and Architects have worked on both sides of the table the customer side and the Consulting side our company was founded by service now Architects and we're proud to have team of over 600 I think that number might be a little low um a whole lot of experienced consultants and an average seat score of 4.8 out of five and many more alaladaniela you are getting Best in Class hands on your instance and taking really good care of your business and digital transformation all right so we have our our poll results now wow so the question was what is the biggest challenge you're currently facing in digitally transforming your manufacturing operations and it looks like 50% of you said lack of a skilled Workforce to implement and manage new technologies yeah I can imagine that being a big one and then second came is as integrating new technologies with existing systems and we'll get into these as well and then third Legacy systems and outdated infrastructure thank you so much for your participation so let us get started how can the manufacturing sector take risk and innovate when there's so much at stake as we've observed over the past Century yes the past Century operational technology traditionally lags behind information technology in the manufacturing sector in particular operations are the bread and butter of the business any disruption or issue in production can have severe consequences not just financially but also on customer satisfaction and on reputation considering the variety of factors that play I wanted to invite two leaders to the space to explore the topic the now of manufacturing Trends manufacturing and strategic Investments I couldn't think of two better people to have than my two guests today one of them I get to to work uh shoulder-to-shoulder with so I'm so pleased to have Mark Harper here Mark Harper is a solution sales consultant at Glide fast Consulting he's been key in providing businesses with the tools they need to streamline operations improve efficiency and drive growth Mark's professional empathy and extensive knowledge of the industry has has made him a thought leader in the manufacturing technology and an industry go-to for delivering Sustainable Solutions for manufacturing organizations and we'll get to Mark a little bit in the second half of the conversation but I also want to introduce to you a new professional friend that I'm really excited that I he even knows my name so I want to talk to you a little bit about kicking the conversation off with Alan Hackman Allan serves as AVP and GM of the manufacturing industry vertical at service now Allan is both a Visionary and strategist and empowering manufacturers to embrace digital transformation and take advantage of evolving Technologies as a thought leader his expertise is often sought after for his insights on future on the future of manufacturing and how companies can leverage Technologies to stay competitive in a rapidly changing Market together Mark and Allen will share their insights on the current state of manufacturing emerging Trends and strategic Investments that are driving success in this ever changing industry so listen listen I always like to say we can't hear you but if you could put your your hands together for let's welcome Alan Hackman Alan thank you so much for joining me for this webinar excited to be here let's let's go let's go let's let's do this listen so before we get into it I'm a little bit curious about tell me a little bit about your background how did you get here and kind of like what do you do at service now for the manufacturing sector yeah so I I've luckily had my whole career in manufacturing and started out as business analyst was quality manager on the factory floor so learned the industry from the inside out and in the last six and a half years have the privilege of working in service now of taking all my prior experiences and helping others learn from it and benefit from it um and just kind of falling in love with the technology but really my passion is around business process Improvement is how to do things better more efficiently Drive things forward through technology right and not the other way around and so I spend my days at service now both helping our customers Envision of how to best use the platform form outside of it as many people know service now as the it ticketing tool and we're great at that but my mission here at service now is really to show them the power the platform to expand expand outside of those areas um and then take those learnings and all the ask from our customers and then I also serve kind of the internal AAS on to our product and our marketing teams and training teams of how we can grow and develop the platform to specifically serve the needs of our manufacturing customers so really fun job I'm having a great time and excited to share some thoughts and insights with you today for sure you know I had a really good time reading some of your thoughts in automation world so I'm hoping that we can kind of double click on those but you said something in your bio that I didn't know and I'm I'm happy to hear this you said that you actually worked in as a customer on the manufacturing floor which I think is going to give you a really unique perspective in these conversations because you're not just somebody who's kind of sitting in an office kind of talking about how we can help manufacturing but you've actually been in a manufacturing plant and know the pains from firstand of what's being experienced there I think that's a really great perspective to come from yeah I think I'm pretty lucky and maybe unique I don't like to say unicorn because those look weird but it's um I've had the pleasure of working for manufacturing on the inside Consulting in terms of implementing software and now I'm selling it I don't I'm not really a salesp person but having a full P perspective of all the all the different angles of our customers that's awesome so Alan set the stage for us like what does digital transformation look like for the manufacturing sector and why is now more critical than ever or is it more critical than ever for manufacturing organizations to be considering and pursuing digital transformation yeah and you know as as we all know digital transformation is kind of the buzz word it's been around forever it just became in Vogue right but I just before it was Sigma and continuous Improvement now it's digital transformation but there's three three areas I want to highlight today that is the why now and common themes I'm hearing and and hopefully our audience is the same and so and one of the drivers in terms of back to your question why now so one is around just the digital Factory and so I think like 80% we've done some surveys of all our manufacturing customers have some type of digital transformation in the factory going on right it's called Factory of the future or smart Factory or 4.0 investing in that in in why is is as you hinted earlier right o OT technology are lagging well behind and they haven't really invested in mod izing their factories in many many years and so they're investing in it now why because there's new technologies available because in the survey you know labor shortages Etc how do we how do we drive more automation it's not just to reduce cost and that's that's obviously important but the skills gaps and labor shorters there's no end in sight so how can we be more productive on the factory floor and how are we're going to get there is through digital transformation so that's one of why now is driving efficiencies and cost and and safety on the factory FL um that's one big why now the second why now is again really about the employee and I've seen a really interesting shift of focusing on the employee right retention time to productivity and onboarding job satisfaction um the Warfare talent and we we'll hit on a little bit I'm sure our our employee based workflows and but early on when we started employee workflows it was all about the HR department how do we make the HR department more efficient and that's important clearly but over the last year to two proba it's shifted to how do we better serve our employees and so the HR people are like yeah we can do our jobs fine but how do we make uh the lives of our employees better so there's a second shift around employee retention and attraction skills development and then lastly is this has been a factor since I've been manufacturing probably always was and always will be is is cost out right is how do we reduce our costs especially with inflation they're getting pressure of rising raw material cost um they can't rise prices anymore so they're trapped at the top right so you can't grow by increasing your prices so the only way is to is to improve your margins is to improve efficiencies and reduce cost out especially for example like in the Auto industry they're they're trying to drive out cost so they can take those savings and reinvest in the EV shift and other Industries are doing similar so we're seeing huge huge inies or cost out in the region digital transformation so important in that spot is driving things faster better more productivity right and so I think those three areas are kind of the why because and there's many many more but I think those are the three common conversations that I have in my my days talking to customers for sure and and all those three things I'm like okay I want to talk about each of those and I think we have time to do so but I want to talk about cost because that's always you know people are always concerned about cost and spend and I'm curious from your view when organizations are planning for their digital transformation how should leaders prioritize their Investments to ensure both immediate and long long-term outcomes yeah I mean I think I think the key to is prioritization is they have to align with your company strategy right so hey where do we want to go right and and the technology and the initiatives should follow that it's like where is your biggest pain where can you get us the biggest return and I know is when they're making Investments there's there's typically a short-term look you know hey CFOs will sign off if there's a what typic what a oneye Roi it keeps getting shorter and shorter right like um but I think you need to look yeah shortterm there's some low hanging fruit but also I think looking a little longer term is important as well right because is as as we know as well systems and processes don't change that much and so the time and energy it takes to transform something it's going to be in place for a while so hey I think I think that's important but probably um the other piece would be kind of where the Market's going right for for your industry right so where do I need to be um and make those Investments accordingly sure sure you know you you also mentioned the factory floor and you know in do in prep in preparation for our fireside chat today if this is correct I was like wow this is going to be interesting to see how this is it how this impacts the industry the manufacturing industry I understood understand that 50% of workers in the manufacturing industry are 55 years and older 50% right so I'm curious about like what that impact means for for the the industry and how is technology sort of solving for that yeah um that is common conversation of like oh my God there's been this guy who's running this machine for 30 years and he's leaving so the a big concern is the loss of institutional knowledge right um and so how are they trying to mitigate that and so where we're coming into playing technology is kind of digitizing that knowledge right it's super hard but the technology is there is how do I digitize how I fix things how do I digitize how to set up a machine how to do a change over how to deal with all these issues right so when this happens do this and so they're leveraging Technologies to capture the knowledge and create a robust knowledge base right of howto so it's not sitting in somebody's head who may not be here in a few years from now um and so that that really reduces risk of the company really decreases the time of productivity for new employees but it is a it's a big problem right um and it's I mean it's it's great for these manufacturing companies that wow the longevity they have with these employees is fantastic but um it puts it a big risk as well so knowledge base is cool and the second piece I think it's making that even easier is the was around AI right um yes they forced me to talk about gen so I have to talk about it for a minute worked it in so here's an easy one so so the old days was hey great I want to know how to do something here's a long manual user manual Operators manual or knowledge article whatever and people on the floor don't have time to read that so instead of having to Shi through these assuming it's still digital right that was where we were and now it can zip you right to the piece right summarize maybe multiple documents say oh this is how you do the change over exactly what you need to know so that is super exciting in terms of productivity so not only did you digitize the knowledge but now you may even need easier for somebody on the floor to consume that knowledge you know I appreciate that yeah often times we talk about digital transformation and there is the fear you know the individual contributors and even in management concerns about well what does this mean for job security right so we're talking about an aging Workforce and then we're also talking about an industry where digital transformation is now being a mandate so workers need to have some sense of job security I mean job you know people don't work the 30 work 30 years at the same company the way they used to the way maybe our parents did but still a level of job security is still top of mind for a lot of workers coming into the workforce so I appreciate what you said there and what you said earlier about before when we talked about uh uh Human Resources it was all about making the job of people who work in HR easier at knowledge 24 and I'm going to jump here for a moment knowledge 24 in Bill mcder keynote address Bill mcder CEO and chairman of the board of service now he talked about the employee experience at least five times in his keynote address at least five times and I'm curious from your view uh H how is is service now or how is technology helping to improve the employee experience for those Frontline workers yeah um so it's been a hot topic one of the Hot Topics I brought up earlier so one is um access so if I start with just the initial access is a lot of times and it's pretty common still that Frontline workers don't have access to systems right they don't their own email or log on Etc cost savings Etc but so we're working on ways to just give them access without having to spend money on authentication and then two is just ease of system right A lot of times Frontline workers don't access especially HR systems that frequently so how do they make it really easy just to find out what you need so kind of like a single pane of glasses have been a big thing for us meaning one place to go regardless if you need a payroll issue a benefits issue time off create a safety issue Etc right so just making it super easy in terms of that experience layer so um I think that's the big thing of just making a really great intuitive experience and one place to go and make it easy easy for them to get help and it could be somebody in the factory it could be somebody who's working in a warehouse it could be a field service person somebody in the field or it could even be through a mobile experience and this was a good example I heard not too long ago is Frontline worker isn't at work they're at a auto dealership or a bank is trying to get a loan or something they need employment verification and that may have been a week you know they need to get their car and years ago it's a really frustrating experience or they had to call HR and maybe on Tuesday when they're back in the office and so now they can get it almost immediately through mobile access as well so um yeah those are just some quick examples of what we're doing is making it really easy for Frontline workers to get access to the information that they need yeah I love that you know thinking about how the platform allows for like you know that the employee experience to be like the front door to HR you know whether it's for vacation financing and all these different things there's that employee experience that provides the front door to HR which is awesome so Allan you talked about generative AI you were like I have to talk about generative AI I yelled at if I don't yeah that if you don't right and so I want to talk I want to turn the conversation a little bit to talk about emerging Technologies and and first about generative AI what does generative AI mean for the manufa facturing sector what would that what does it mean and what does it look like yeah well there's so many poent you know it's in the pilot stage and I you know I've talked to my manufacturing customers because it's service now it's all we talk about right from a technology company woohoo but manufacturers are like yeah we're thinking about it we're analyzing it right slow to move slow to adopt which I don't blame him if I was in those people's shoes I'd be careful but um I'll talk about especially the context of service now because there's so many things going on is how we're helping our manufacturing customers and there's a few areas one is around um like just problem resolution right so similar to answer of the knowledge zipping to the right answers how do we help um workers who need answers get them faster right easier so I see it gen for me in manufacturers just kind of the turbocharge behind the digital transformation it's nothing separate and isolated oh I'm going to do this this and oh gen is over here gen is just part of what you're already doing just makes it better faster so like knowledge we already were doing knowledge now we can really get it more precise the other thing could be around troubleshooting so let's take the example of either operator of trying to fix a piece of equipment um Janny I can help them diagnose right well taking about all the other times that similar piece of equipment has been fixed either in that plan or even other plans that you have and so because that all that process is digitized we can serve it up to help them diagnose the problem faster or maybe in manufacturing it's a text support person who's supporting a customer call coming and saying they're having a problem with a piece of equipment imagine that text support person and their and their system that they're looking at that um also get served up ideas and suggestions on how to resolve that thing or gets that use a ni to really summarize what to do and then the other piece we're seeing is when things do get fixed right we're everybody's really bad at typing in notes of how they resolved it especially like an operator can you imagine after he tweaked it a piece of equipment what they did or a tech support person who has 10 calls in the queue spending a few minutes writing down how they resolve the last call but if you don't do that that you don't learn right and other people back to the knowledge thing other people come after you can't learn so we're using gen to help automatically create the summarization which goes into the database and so the next time that problem is uh seen by someone else we can serve that up as the recommended answer so those are just a couple examples of what we're doing yeah that you know kind of references back to what you were talking about earlier with the Aging Workforce and wanting to digitize that institutional knowledge and so now we kind of circle back to that again here and even how generative AI is becoming a part of that so I really appreciate that interconnectedness as we continue to talk about emerging Technologies I have to ask you about the internet of things that's something that I have just a personal interest in yeah and even thinking back to Bill MC's keynote address he invited on stage uh Omar elh Hari I believe that's his name I some by happen St I happen to meet him in the airp several months ago just by chance by wearing a service now hat in the airport anyway and he took the stage to talk about internet of things curious about internet of things and what that means for manufacturing sector and is it too soon to even be talking about this in a in an industry that is maybe slow to adopt digital transformation yeah no no not too soon in fact that's more uh prevalent than the Gen is so let's talk about it so um I'll look at it in two buckets one we do the iot see industrial internet of things which is within the four walls so let's talk about it within the four walls of the company which is the manufacturing operations and um we're seeing a lot of that it's already been out there right so a lot of the equipment now has sensors and data spewing data off of it um and so the question is what do I do with that right so we're working with partners and our manufacturers grabbing that data sending it into uh cloud storage data Lake Etc so now we got tons of iot data and then what is it telling me and how do I do something with it and so for us what we've seen is um and we're we're still seeing the if you read the trade Publications return on investment for iot stuff so great I have the sensors I'm capturing stuff I'm sending it somewhere now they're running predictions and stuff and algorithms and what is it telling me and then it shows up on a dashboard right so great but now what and so where service now is coming in is the the last mile is that system of action so now I know something's happening what am I doing with it so we're working together to complete that whole journey you know we'll call it from insight to action so I get I'm collecting the data I'm analyzing I'm I'm doing I'm figuring out well there's something wrong here or something could be wrong which is really where you want to be and then doing something with it serving having service non serve up is a system of action is now I know what it is I know what piece of equipment is coming from based on before I know what to do about it and I know who to send it to so now I create an incend a task whatever and that's where the workflow comes in and send it to somebody to make sure it was it was it's done give it you know who to send it to you can tell them what to do you know if it was done maybe it's not done in 10 minutes or 30 minutes or bra in priority you know someone else knows about it the long-term future and it's you're seeing a little bit is maybe a person doesn't have to respond to something maybe I know and service I actually automatically make an adjustment on the machine so it could be bidirectional the machine tells you something wrong and then we tell the machine what to change so that's it's just a little snippet of what's happening within the factory super exciting that's really want to be because before you had to depend on an operator to say hey something's something's weird my machine's running slow it's making a noise or the the temperature won't stay in range and so they'll go in and they'll log an incident and that's still valid but we want to couple that with now an incident can be triggered either by an operator human or by the asset itself the equipment telling you something wrong which is the iot piece sure so that's within the four walls right and the second half of that is outside connected products right so I think I I forgot the stat but there really high stat that says the number of companies is is focusing and and creating connected products right cars we know are connected um a lot of other piece of assets if you ever seen a Caterpillar tractor and the telematics on those those are all connected assets so those are all generating lots of information so that same concept except it's the customer site so getting that data of assets that's in the field deployed at a customer again the same concept bring you back to some kind of database storage iot platform analyzing figuring it out monitoring it and then figure out there's there's something wrong here it needs to do something about it then sending information back to a service provider to the customer themselves Etc being that close loop back to the customer again being that system of action so yeah I think that's super exciting space and that to me I like that just because it's really real right now I'm seeing something and I could predict it and prevent it um and and then knowing what to do about it right so where we really helping is taking it from the dashboard that's nice and something's blinking right on a dashboard or something to actually driving action to ensure something gets done about it sure iiot is something again that just really is intriguing to me and what I like about your explanation is that you're not asking the Frontline employees to be technologist right you're talking about technology in a way that helps to that helps them to do their job better more efficiently quicker you know and and that I think is what's really compelling about this because what can be intimidating is if the shift comes to well we're no longer doing the work of manufacturing The Goods the products Etc but now we're becoming technologists right and that's not what the business is about so I'm glad to hear that that system of action as you described works in the way that it does especially when it comes to iot yeah I have a fun story is one of the people I was talking to like Allan I just want an easy button for my operator right I don't want have to figure out what's going on I just want to hit the easy button that something's wrong right it could be equipment it could be the ceilings dripping it could be um there's a potential Hazard it could be the production schedule wrong it doesn't matter in nor the Operator Operator just knows I need something to get my job done so have them hit the easy button and service now or somewhere close system should be able to figure out based on what they're asking what they need help with and who to Route it to to get it done right that's the ultimate yeah yeah something's wrong I need something you guys figure out make sure I get my help as soon as possible sure I love that you said that because it made me realize you know the the value prop is in the name service now yeah yeah I love that I want service now I want service now so you know an iot could be the first step but I'm curious in your view what would be if if you're a customer if you're a a customer look a Manufacturing Company looking to do looking to Embark upon the digital transformation Journey what would you say is the first step how would you start how would you go about what's your recommendation there yeah I think be clear on the problem you're trying to solve right don't transform for transform sake and don't put a technology for technology sake it's start with a problem right is and be really clear about it and then have a vision of what it looks like when you're done right so I always use example if you digitize or automate a bad process you just get the wrong answer faster so you uh I didn't make that that's been old saying um but but have a vision of what kind of this process could look like and then the technology comes to make that come to fruition and so I think I think that's a lot of missing sometimes is yeah maybe they know the problem but they don't quite have an idea what it could what they like the experience to be like before they start implementing technology then it's done they're like yeah that's not really solving the problem right um It's just sometimes it makes it worse sometimes it's more complicated to your point so I think that's what I would start is really clear definition of the problem really clear I guess objective goal like is are you trying to reduce costs you're trying to improve employee experience you're trying to do both make sure you have some clear value pieces of it of of you know kind of financially or outcomes outcomes and then and then also Al The Experience itself what you'd like it to look like um and then and then you start designing and solutioning and implementing technology but I think people miss that early those early steps frequently you know what I'm also you know gleaning from what you're saying is is don't boil the ocean you don't have to fix everything at once the process you know it's it's a it's a process it's not just this this onetime event that happens with digital transformation that's what it seems like I'm hearing you say as well yeah I think you need a big Grand Vision which I like right but Implement in pieces right because you need to know what the what the end looks like when it's all done or have a vision but start small you know the years of having a three-year Erp whatever implementation are gone right short time to Value because you need to you need to um get things done and fixed quickly and see savings quickly so big Vision big wild hairy dreams but Implement in in bite-sized chunks sure I I'm going to ask you about any success stories that you may have seen um we'd be curious about that to make it real for people who are watching I'm going to get to some of the the questions with so much focus on out of the-box capabilities is software like service now able to accommodate unique requirements and use cases this is a this is a good question I was listening to a a a brewery podcast podcast this weekend and they were talking about all this unique stuff around Hops and cans and all this different like things I never even thought about right so we talk about unique cases like how is that accommodated when there's a focus on out of the box capabilities yeah so service not always a platform I think that's the big difference so it inherently is super flexible versus a point solution which is designed and built to do thing one thing we're service now is it is super flexible and majority of stuff can be done by configuration so so I think that's the power of the platform it is so flexible yeah can it do everything no but can you break it probably but I think the the stretch ability never used that word before right of the platform is is is is is super powerful so odds are probably can um so we don't we don't see it I mean people do customize but I think as we've matured the platform it can accommodate a lot of things I think where You' get into trouble is you try to shove uh service now into an area like it just shouldn't be like we are not a financial system right so if you want to do it to manage your credits and debits probably not the thing or some other so as long as you're within the realm of workflow or business process automation we can accommodate most things awesome yeah and and I think also a plug for Glide fast right going with a good partner right can keep you out of trouble as well yeah that's true and you know service now is definitely investment I I love to hear your thoughts a little bit more about that um perhaps you can share a success story you know I'm here at glast and you know I'm definitely here because I wanted to be working with a top the top tier partner in the ecosystem and fortunate to to have been chosen by Glide fast so if you can share success stories to help make this real for for folks that would be awesome yeah I mean it's been fun watching the manufacturing sector grow as we started when I started verticalized here about four years ago still majority of our customers were still focusing on the it piece where we our bread and butter was and seeing successes outside of HR over the last four years has been really fun to watch um so companies like um PepsiCo has really adopted that single pane of glass concept for actually all employees not just Frontline employees so they want to just provide um an easy way for employees to get service right so all back office functions in theory are service providers so it could be finance and accoun in or purchasing or marketing um or HR it if an employee needs service they go to one place to go to request services and they've really adopted um this and I think it's that's being facilitated by a lot of organizations Co WR kind of a GBS or shared service model which helps so there's a shiny example um I love to tell the story of of craft Hines um a couple neat neat areas that they're expanding outside of it one is around their customer service and so they get like a million orders a year a lot of electronic EDI and like 90% of them have exceptions that something needs to change and adjust either the order's wrong or they're out of stock of something etc etc so they're using service now to flag all order exceptions um quickly make resolutions to those orders communicate to the customer is this change okay and then get that order approved and out the door so that customer can get the order on time um they've also actually craft hindes expanded into product development so they're using um they were here's a fun story it started in it right using it for project portfolio management as it decides what projects to fund and approve and manage and the R&D people said hey we have our project process very similar I like what you're doing over there and so they adopted uh the same rigor and methodologies just with a little tweak and moved it over to R&D um I think one last fun story I'll share is around Heineken right you mentioned Brewery right so they're using service now in the factory to digitized processes from setup and change over um and daily inspections and 5s walks Etc using it uh to really improve their oee right which a key measure in the factory yeah they're using it in I'm going to mess up the number 50 or 60 the brewery all the breweries I forgot the number um around the globe to really Drive Improvement and the neat thing the story there is hey when something goes wrong the operator will log an issue and then they'll use service now to help diagnose it great this is the issue and then you serveice now to help tell them how to fix it so now I help you diagnose and I help you make the change right and then what they're seeing values of is the learnings between the plants right their their bottling Etc is very similar across the brewery so helping the diagnosis piece if maybe I haven't run into this issue in my plant but it's the same asset filling machine Etc running on many of other breweries and if somebody else has found it then it's going to show up for me and so that which they love is the learnings between their plants as well so that's just a handful I can rattle on but then we're going to go over our time but I mean just a few examples of of customers um using it another area I just want make sure I hit one around the supply area we don't talk too much around Supply another big push um is around supplier relationship and supplier management so we have companies like like Boeing right is it's really important when Supply management as we've seen lately unfortunately is something somebody makes A Change Is they have a very rigorous process to for review approval and documentation for a supplier change so for example A supplier wants to make a change on a design of a component going an airplane they have to submit an engineering request where before and H I don't know exactly what they're using before but it wasn't super efficient they weren't super happy with it so now they're using service now to make that engineering request so A supplier will go in make this request on an official form it'll route to somebody in Supply engineering and Boeing side to review it gets approved if supplier knows okay your change has been approved now you can go ahead and commence making that new part so just examples like that of all those little cracks and gaps and processes are now being digitized so not only do you make it easier for somebody to submit it approve but also audibility is a big thing now is you know was it done who sign off on it Etc and the visibility of that so just a couple examples those those are awesome examples and I appreciate you know and I'm just kind of putting a a synopsis around this because what I understand you saying is improving processes and basically improving return investment and I appreciate what you said about the request the request management piece another piece that I wanted to call out was how you have these plants that are now able to uh communicate with each other more efficiently in driving and improving processes which I think is just so awesome um we're almost done with our time but we do have another question then I have a question for you before we're out of here okay so this goes back to generative Ai and and emerging Technologies what are the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in Automation and Manufacturing particularly concerning job displacement and Workforce res Skilling you touched on this a little bit if you have something additional to AB be awesome yeah you know I think I think there always in any technology like why you're gonna you're going to eliminate jobs but we're seeing there's such a gap and so it kind of flipped it's like we we and people are being overworked so we can't survive at this workload of the people so we need to improve their productivity just to keep up with what we have so we're not seeing a job displacement we're seeing actually improved job satisfaction is either taking away tasks that aren't super exciting anymore um or or just take the workload off of them um so they can do their jobs even better so I know years ago and that was always the thing you know is eliminating jobs by improving productivity but that's just not the case anymore with this worker shortage and skills Gap shortage I think um we're seeing just the opposite it's TR beneficial and and we're seeing it not replacing but in just making things a little better like hey I don't want to type resolution notes example I told so it's great it's taking away thinking I didn't like to do anyway that's awesome and I what I'd like to do is helping customers and spending you know an hour of my day or maybe in the evenings or staying overtime to type stupid notes up I don't have to do that anymore so I think that's what we're really seeing to be honest with you in this whole concept even though we need to keep it front and center right not forget about it but I'm not seeing as much as as people worried about sure sure okay so Alan Hackman final question yeah let's talk about let's talk about looking ahead let's talk about the future how do you see the landscape of manufacturing evolving over the next handful of years five six years with advancement of digital transformation wow I think it's you know I don't think you're going to see any hacktic I think it's just going to be slow and steady we always see manufacturing right we're always going to have we're always going to want to do things faster with better quality more you know safer and I think that just the trend is going to continue and technology is going to just enhance that I don't think it's going to be any Monumental change I think I think maybe some of the breakthroughs will be around training right the the digital twin Concepts um some of the tech digital Technologies available to improve training um allow us to bring workers up to speed quicker um I'm seeing some stuff I was with Nvidia last week just to see simulations of like building factories before they're even even built right to make sure the design is Right layout is right before they even break ground so I think you're going to see some advancements in in those areas um and just I think improving the lives and the safety of of the workers so I think it's going to be a a slow steady climb for our manufacturing customers um I love I love how you said slow and steady because that's sort of how that's the evolution and the theme of the manufacturing before this so-called digital transformation age anyway yeah yeah I've never been want to jump on buzzwords right I'm like yep let's see how it plays out so I the concept of continuous Improvement has always been the core of manufacturing I think it's just just this just helps us get there right and and I and I think maybe the one change is starting to to be prevalent is using information data even more than we did before right so I think that's going to really help inform and make some better decisions but I think what I'm excited about is now is finally the time I think it's going to help people do their jobs better of how do I fix this how do I do this how do I get trained better so it's I think it's a shifting more about the people which is exciting because things that make equipment better don't excite me that much I mean that's cool it's important but we're affecting lives in a more positive way that's pretty neat yeah that that is pretty neat I appreciate that listen alen Hackman AP and GM of the manufacturing vertical sector at service now I so appreciate your time here for Glide fast on air thank you so much for joining us you bet pleasure I'm excited because my next guest is someone that I get a chance to work closely with here at glast and that's Mark Harper Mark Harper is a solution sales consultant and he has been key in providing businesses with tools they need to streamline operations improve efficiency and drive growth Mark's professional empathy and extensive knowledge of the industry have made him a thought leader in manufacturing technology and an industry goto for delivering Sustainable Solutions for manufacturing organizations so mark thank you so much for joining me here for this conversation oh it's good to the after party glad to be here good to have you good to have you now listen you you work you roll your sleeves up and work side by side with our customers here at Glide fast helping them in their digital transformation Journey so I have to find out what are some of the themes that you're seeing what are some of the challenges that you're seeing with uh customers in the uh manufacturing industry yeah I think the the conversation you just had there with with Alan really sort of hit home on what we seeing on our side of the house as well and a lot of it's coming down to that that poor visibility of their their industry their estate everything has sort of working together with these rather complex systems um and understanding how they actually work together and what the actual operational Health looks like from those various different Technologies and then the thing that was mentioned a good few times with your discussion is that trans transer of knowledge that's occurring is it can be be Rocky you've got at the startat that you mentioned before 50% of the people typically in working in the manufacturing spaces over the age of 55 yeah and the way that they interact be very different to Millennials or gen Z and that's why we're looking to use these advancements in Technologies to help with that that transfer of knowledge and I know J being one of the buzzwords but I really I'm skeptical of applications of gen but in this area this is where I see it being potential for for True success trying to sort of break through that those boundaries of the different generational gaps to be able to make it easier for the new generation coming through that's going to be working on the manufacturing floor to be able to work as if they were a long ten years employee absolutely I thank you for circling back to to the Aging Workforce within the manufacturing sector I want to talk a little bit more about that when it comes com to organizational change management I reflect on how often folks who have been in a particular line of work or at a particular Organization for a quite a long time may not be the most open to the digital transformation change that's a foot right so in your view in working with customers working with manufacturing clients how are you helping with that organizational change piece yeah yeah it's I mean it can pause a significant challenge um what we have to do is is frame it in a way that's going to be mutual be beneficial for all parties involved we're trying to make their lives easier trying to have them focus on the the day-to-day primary function of their jobs rather than the secondary function and which could be creating like completing kisses work orders putting all of those resolution notes in place those things that can be looked at as like more of a burden than what they've signed up for for their level of employment so involving us with that ocm those organizational change activities we can paint that picture of what the future looks like how it's going to be beneficial to their today their own um involvement with processes um and just trying to make everybody feel that they're moving forward together rather than being left behind sure so what I hear you saying is talking about making this a team effort helping to uh communicate the messaging around this is going to help you be able to do your job better do am I understanding you correctly there's there's definitely certain technologies that can be incorporated onto the floor that certain groups certain individuals just going be not interested and that that can be okay we can sort of work with that as part of that that transformation that journey and I was having a a conversation not too long ago about incorporating augmented reality into their their field services so being able to look at a a technology a device and have an overlay on my glasses and be able to see exactly which parts needed to be replaced that's probably something that's very attractive to somebody that maybe on the younger end of their spectrum of their their career trying to get that involved with somebody on the TA end might more of a more of a challenge but that's forward looking about these kinds of Innovations things that we done to lead to that that transfer of knowledge to to the Next Generation coming up and making their easier and reducing the risk of running the plan sure you know I I like the way you frame that about bringing technology in the organization in a way that really allows for the the the plant worker to do their jobs better and and even in kind of a cool kind of a way right I think that that being able to socialize that to employees is is really what's critical so I appreciate you kind of giving that insight and and how to kind of that with with the employees Mark I want to ask you about digital transformation because I know it sounds so fantastic obviously it is but it's not without pitfalls so I'm curious in your view what should manufacturers be aware of and and how can they navigate those when it comes to kind of expanding or starting their digital transformation what are the common pitfalls to be aware of yeah I I think a lot of organizations even outside of manufacturing as well fall into this track of collecting everything from a data perspective without truly taking a step back to understand how am I going to use that data in in an effective way so we're seeing a lot of our customers coming to us saying we need to integrate with tool X we need these metrics from device y on this uh production line but Haven thought about how I'm going to use it once I've actually collected that effect and so I'll end hit on this quite quite well with trying to put forward what the vision of success could look like make sure all mutually agreed upon what that looks like and when we've got there and then start identifying what is my solution to be able to get to to that Promise Land and and then from there we can start getting creative with ingesting data from various different third party sources to address that use case and there is no without a purpose and we want to identify that purpose and then go about it in a constructive and repeatable manner I appreciate your Insight on that and it makes me now have to ask you when manufacturers manufacturers decide to Embark upon their digital transformation Journey they've got to find a partner a trust advisor to be shoulder-to-shoulder with them they're really exposing themselves their processes um this a long history of doing things a certain way and it could be quite uncomfortable I'm curious about what's it like in your role in in how for customers who choose Glide fast as an implementation partner tell us a little bit give us a little bit of insight into that it's actually quite surprising how often a lot of C actually are in regards to some of the shortcomings of their their processes that they're operating with today because 10 years ago it was it was fine it was working there was very little exposure from like Cal vulnerabilities or where it was very closed off to the the it environment now that's that's certainly shifting and they're recognizing that running their business understanding um how these different processes are working together all from a spreadsheet is is not going to scale effectively and the cost of downtime that that we're seeing with it like I think is looking right now per hour your plan isn't running the average is like $250 to $750,000 of downtime that's being experienced that's just something that we just can't deal with just because we're not providing visibility we need and the processes to become digitized and so we are seeing a lot of cooperation from our customers who actively want to be part of this this journey and really pushing the boundaries of of what they need to do to become success sure thank you for that you mentioned Excel spreadsheets how prevalent is that with customers that you've seen starting their digital transformation Journey oh tremendous um it's I mean it's quite scary in a sense how the world really runs on on Excel um but we are really recognizing that they're pushing themselves forward and and what I've been quite surprised by how transparent they are with their what could be looked at as competitors and these different forums different groups coming together to talk about their successes their pinpoints and their challenges and try to move the industry forward all all together um been quite pleasantly surprised by the transparency of the different organizations we work with sharing their success and no better place to see it than joining everybody together at knowledge fantastic week over there and it was just great seeing our customers come together sharing their success so that that makes me ask because I I think it's great to hear how transparent your customers can be and being vulnerable I wonder however what is how is it that you engage with them because I can't imagine that they would be so transparent and so vulnerable with anyone I wonder is the I don't want you to give away too many of the secrets but in terms of methodology and and how are those engagements what does it look like put me I want to be put in the place of someone who's been working on Excel spreadsheet since Excel was was created and H how do I then become comfortable enough with you with glide fast to say hey I want you guys as my implementation partner no that's a great question um fortunately we've had like tremendous success with hundreds thousands of engagements with all different organizations and vles so so a lot of time when we get introduced to the manufacturing arm or the operational technology arm we've already been working with the the it division so we've showcased our success and our expertise in that space sort of Le through their own digital transformation with inside the the it Arena and they've helped broker that introduction into the other areas of the business we've been able to Showcase how we're able to use this effectively with with it the work flows that's been expanded from that potential data set and being able to hang hats on that level of success so that we could paint a picture of how that could be applied in these low levels of of the OT and manufactured and Factory spaces okay you know and we're we're almost out of time but we do have a couple questions how can manufacturers use service now to get a better handle of their supply chain and keep things running smoothly even when the unexpected problems pop up it's good question um so so we do have ties into some of the different like supply chain to um like different providers that may be in place um so using that from like Advanced shipping notices to come in um into the system but understanding where there's going to be hiccups along the way is where you have your workflow in place to be able to understand what the various tasks triages are going to be overcome that to overcome that situation um so a lot of it comes down to what kind of data set we can can get as a feed from your your vendors whoever's going to be a part of that that supply chain and operations and then tie it into the effective workflow but how you can deal with the exception processes because we know it's not always going to run smoothly and we need to have our plans in place our workflows in place to handle that uh that level of Hiccup yeah yeah I appreciate that so finally I want to ask you this final question for manufacturing leaders listening to this what one piece of advice would you give as they steer their organization through the waters of digital transformation I think it's it's a bit cliche to say but don't let the idea perfect get in the way of good we see a lot of times with organizations that set this like Sky kind of vision of what can be accomplished and it takes them a year or two to even get started a continual surface of improvement of taking these different ation of success is going to get you there in a quicker manner than holding off until it can be perfect awesome well listen Mark Harper sales solution consultant at Glide bass Consulting I'm colie Alexander account executive at Glide fast I want to thank you so much for joining us for Glide fast on air and I'll see you next time bye [Music]