DIGITAL MAINTENANCE REVOLUTION

00:00:00 Speaker 1
This episode of The Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar's manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service, and gas compression. With more than 2, 100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions.

00:00:25 Speaker 2
The energy pipeline is your lifeline to all things oil and gas. To drill down deep into the issues impacting our industry, from the frack site to the future of sustainability, hear more about industry issues, tools, and resources to streamline and modernize the future of oil and gas, welcome to The Energy Pipeline.

00:00:49 Jordan Yates
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Energy Pipeline. I'm your host, Jordan Yates, and today I am joined by a new guest, Matt Morse, and one of my lovely co- hosts, Adriana. Adriana, say hello.

00:01:05 Adriana Herrera
Hi, everyone. Good to be back on the second podcast for me. So, excited to be here.

00:01:11 Jordan Yates
Adriana, you know Matt, right?

00:01:14 Adriana Herrera
Yes. So, we see each other at work here and there, so I know some of the bits and pieces he might say, but there's some questions here that I have myself. So, excited to hear of all the fun stuff that he's doing.

00:01:25 Jordan Yates
Matthew, say hello.

00:01:27 Matt Morse
Good morning. Thank you very much for having me today.

00:01:30 Jordan Yates
Of course, not that it was my choice. No, I'm just kidding.

00:01:33 Matt Morse
That's exactly right.

00:01:35 Jordan Yates
No, guys, Matt, so as you know, Caterpillar is a sponsor of this podcast, so we get this exclusive access to some of their really awesome employees to interview, because Caterpillar is such an amazing company and they have so many good resources. So, Matt is a part of the Caterpillar team, which is something I'm excited for, because so far, if you haven't noticed from all my amazing co- hosts, the Caterpillar guys rock. So, Matt, I'm really excited to have you here and get into the Digital Maintenance Revolution episode. How do you feel, Matt?

00:02:10 Matt Morse
The bar is being set awfully high, but I'm here to enlighten and hopefully make people smile. So, let's see how we do this.

00:02:18 Jordan Yates
Wonderful. Okay. Well, if your questions don't work, then we will tell them a joke at the end. All right?

00:02:23 Matt Morse
Perfect. Those I have many of.

00:02:26 Jordan Yates
Okay, Matt, I'm just going to get us going with our first question, which is going to be how crucial is training and ensuring operational efficiency and minimizing site mistakes within the oil and gas industry?

00:02:41 Matt Morse
The big question. I mean, I think everyone would agree it's very critical. I think we are an industry that requires a lot of safe practices. So, you hear a lot of us talk about putting safety first and that is always true in our mindsets, but another way of ensuring those safe practices is making sure that we are efficient and we know what to do on the operational side. When you have a misunderstanding or a lack of knowledge, you take risks that you don't even know. A lot of what we do is risk aversion, whether it's the risk to our people or to the equipment. That's our number one focus of the day. I think the industry's safety record, it is not perfect, but it does speak for itself as we do risky things. So, we want to minimize that as much as possible.

00:03:34 Jordan Yates
Training is a pretty good way of making sure that happens.

00:03:38 Matt Morse
It is. It's a way to get people familiar with something. Training is not the solution. It takes time inside the job. It takes experiences and you also need to be retrained. We'll get into it probably later, but I think one of the common mistakes we have is you learned it one time for 15 minutes and now you're an expert. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. So, yeah, it is very critical to what we do.

00:04:05 Jordan Yates
You guys have... I know I had it at a place I worked once. ... the days without incident and you mark every day that's a green day. Oh, my God. I remember at one of my internships, we had it and it was like we got green for 60 days and we're just so stressed. We're so anxious because we're like, " The longer the streak is, just more and more pressure." You're like, " No, no, no, no, no." Then something happens and it's like, " Oh, gosh." It almost hurts more when you're wiping your whiteboard back off and you're like, " Okay, back to square one."

00:04:33 Matt Morse
Well, you make a good point. I mean, again, the idea with that is to show the success. It's not to add the stress, but it ends up doing that because people do care. People are invested. They want to make it home to their loved ones. Unfortunately, some of the things we do to make sure they understand where we are also, unfortunately, add another stressor to them where you end up making a mistake because you're nervous about not having that streak continue. So, yeah, you're spot on.

00:05:01 Adriana Herrera
With training, I just like to add, it's a big safety element, being able to do it the right way with the right tools and the right process. If they're doing it the right way, the process will more or less take the time that you're expecting it to. I think it ties into so many other things. So, that way, you can plan ahead and not only are your people are doing it safely, but they're doing it the right way and in a standardized way that you can make some decisions on for the future. So, the training brings so much to the picture. Obviously, safety's first, but there's so many other things that come with it.

00:05:31 Jordan Yates
Yeah.

00:05:32 Matt Morse
That's a good point.

00:05:33 Jordan Yates
So I guess this naturally leads us into the next question, which is what measures can a company take to ensure that employees are well- trained? What's an actual process or a system of tracking it? Because sure, you could have trainings, but is there a good way to automate, " Hey, we're due for a training" or these other trainings that need to be done or maybe an effective way of doing them? How can technology plus regular methods help?

00:06:03 Matt Morse
I think you hit on it. Like I said before, I think a problem we have is a lot of times, we mistake the experience for the lack of a need of training. We say someone has done this job for a long time. They're doing it perfect. There hasn't been a mistake. I think we have surprised ourselves even internally when we audit and audit's probably the number one thing I'd say that helps us measure the successes of A, our people into our training, because then you actually have to prove that you have the knowledge. It's sunk in. You are using it. You're doing it the way that we anticipate that you're doing it. You're doing it the way in which uses the engineering controls we have in place to be safe. So, I think auditing is something that we don't often take the time to do because it isn't necessarily revenue generating. It's really more for an internal function and less external but I think it all bleeds over. I honestly think that it's an area that we could probably all do more of to make sure that, again, our efforts are actually making a difference to the guys on the frontline of something.

00:07:12 Jordan Yates
Okay. So, I have a question that's maybe a little bit of a tangent, but I personally am so, so, so forgetful and you could tell me something and it's instantly out of my head, I forgot. You're probably like, " Don't put your hand on the hot stove." I'm like, " You know what? I wonder what the hot stove feels like." So, I'm curious if at Caterpillar or another company you've worked with or seen has a quick way to reference the guidelines of say you're about to operate a machine? Has there been any relevant training materials that could be nearby or quickly accessed where if somebody is operating it after not doing it for a while or they're just having a bit of a lapse in remembering, is there something you've seen that helps with that?

00:08:00 Matt Morse
Yeah, so yeah, it's funny you bring that up. We had a customer similar situation where, I mean, you just couldn't beat into the people what you needed them to do every day. So, what ended up actually working, and because you know how this goes, there's no one size fits all solution for anything that any of us do. Even if it's the same industry, the circumstances around us are all very different, but we end up having to make laminated flashcards and back pocket sized, the guys can reference. They're an abridged version of the training, but they have the key points that they need to remember. It's funny, one of the first pages on it was literally in very large text, " Just pay attention. Congratulations, you're looking at the card." Because again, you don't want someone to feel as though that they're not performing like they should to go back to the reference material. The reference material is there to ensure that you're performing. If you need a reminder, that is okay. So, it actually worked quite well for them. Yes, we had to laminate them because the first batch wasn't back of jeans-

00:09:05 Jordan Yates
Oh, my goodness.

00:09:06 Matt Morse
...texts, sweaty pockets, you'll go on that path. So, it ended up working quite well.

00:09:12 Adriana Herrera
I'm sure that being a person out on the field or wherever, it gives you some comfort having these flashcards, right? Because you go through training, it might take days and you might think, " I don't really remember everything." So these flashcards as you're out there, I'm sure it gives them some type of comfort of being like, " I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm supposed to do. At least the main important things or key takeaways are here in my back pocket to reference down the line." So that's a pretty neat way to help them with training.

00:09:36 Matt Morse
I know that also something we've done is we've made stickers for the equipment. So, again, it's in their face. It's at the point of use. That is the key to this is again, it's that kind of training culture. Training again is not one size fits all. You're going to have to do multiple things. So, we have found with some customers that you got to go the extra step. In safety meetings in the morning, you got to repeat, " Hey, how did we do yesterday?" It's that auditing aspect, that mentality of we're only going to get better. So, yeah, it's been an interesting journey to help people come up with new inventive ways to make sure the information sticks.

00:10:17 Jordan Yates
So for me, I'm very old school even for my young age and I like having the note card would be awesome. I wish you could make me one every day for my to- do task and laminate it. Unfortunately, you have a full- time job from what I hear.

00:10:30 Matt Morse
That's right. Sometimes.

00:10:32 Jordan Yates
But is there any way that you guys integrate technology into this or is it still more the manual stuff or is there a technology aspect that you guys use to help track this?

00:10:45 Matt Morse
I mean, there's a blend of both. Our customer base is also probably our listening base. Some are very receptive to technology, others are not. So, we have to go on both paths and we do offer solutions in both areas. The thing that's nice about technology, it enhances what the human element is achieving. It is not a replacement for it. The technology is not perfect. Yes, the computers, they don't take days off, but there's still maintenance around technology. To tie this into our general topic here, that's a place in where we've seen a lot of shortcomings. People install a sensor and then they want to forget about the human element of A, is that sensor calibrated? Is it functionally doing what it's supposed to? So again, it's a one size fits all solution. I've probably said that too many times already on the podcast, but-

00:11:46 Jordan Yates
It's just true.

00:11:47 Matt Morse
It's just true.

00:11:48 Jordan Yates
You're saying the truth.

00:11:49 Matt Morse
It is what it is.

00:11:50 Adriana Herrera
Just talking about that sensor that you said, Matt, obviously you get data, but like you said, the human element, someone needs to go through that data and you analyze it or give you some more feedback. So, the machine itself doesn't really give you all you need in your day- to- day, would it?

00:12:05 Matt Morse
You're spot on. I think that's it too. Having data is half of the solution. The other half is having people that understand and can decipher what it is because-

00:12:15 Jordan Yates
Oh, no.

00:12:15 Matt Morse
...even though the computer doesn't turn off and it provides lots of information, if you don't understand what it's providing to you, you can't build a preventative maintenance plan or a reaction plan that actually ends up ensuring you the uptime that you thought you were going to get with the technology investment.

00:12:31 Jordan Yates
Makes sense. So, I'm going to ask you a question and with my experience in manufacturing, every maintenance manager out there is about to just tune out because these are their least two favorite words, preventative maintenance.

00:12:47 Matt Morse
Yes.

00:12:47 Jordan Yates
Anytime I would bring it up, they're like, " Go away. I don't want to do that. I have enough regular maintenance." But if you look at it from someone who's not on the shop floor or on the rig and you look at it from a high-level corporate perspective, they love preventative maintenance, but a lot of times, the guys implementing it, they're stretch thin and just trying to do regular maintenance. So, what is your opinion on preventative maintenance and things that you've seen that are not horribly difficult to implement and ways that you could make it easier?

00:13:22 Matt Morse
Yeah, it's funny you say that. I think always, we talk like boots on the ground versus people in the ivory tower and we put the stress on them to complete their job and also take care of the equipment. Yes, it's referred to as a necessary evil, if you will. At the end of the day, I mean, as someone who spends most of their professional life working with equipment and working on preventive maintenance plans, it's a highly important thing that needs to be completed. The reason why you're going to save a limited amount of time today, but it's going to catch up to you sometime in the future. When we really look at the efficiency required now from our industry, to be profitable and to be competitive, A, you can't have the downtime, and B, you're looking for how to be as efficient with your money as you can. I think we have to get over the fact of it does take time and there are things that we have to do. We call it preventative maintenance, but at the end of the day, it's planned, right? We are following a schedule that we have set forth that the equipment needs to be successful. Just like us, we need to eat and sleep, we need to be ready, we need to look at our flashcards. The equipment needs something similar to that. It needs to be in a nice environment. If it's really hot, we need to cool it down. If we're not taking regular samples of how it's doing, we don't actually know the health of it. So, we're just guessing. Unfortunately, it might not affect the individual who's decided to skip the maintenance right then, but it's going to. When you get the opportunity to look at the equipment from a 60,000 foot view aspect, it's easy to pick out the units where people have decided to skip what is a necessity because they're not as profitable. They're not easy to rebuild. You end up spending more money on parts you didn't need to because you wouldn't take the 10, 15, 20 minutes, whatever it needs to complete the task at hand.

00:15:30 Adriana Herrera
I think you mentioned being efficient with your investments, which really caught my ear when you said it, because when you purchase something, right, they tell you it's going to last X amount of hours or whatever it may be. But it's very contingent on preventive maintenance, because otherwise, what's that life going to be? That's something that we really don't think about when we purchase an investment. If you do the right preventive maintenance, it will reach that life. If you don't, then it's up to you how much it's going to last or not.

00:16:00 Matt Morse
It's a segue into something else. I mean, we, as an equipment provider, we set forth, I'd say, a very robust, consistent maintenance plan for our customers, but again, it's got to be adaptable to their behaviors. A crew that's running in Canada in the dead of winter and one that's in West Texas in the summer, those are very different environments. They need very different things. I think probably a service we offer but we don't offer maybe enough or at least our customer base is we can assist with those plans. If you have a question about the equipment, reach out to us. So, that at the end of the day, we want the equipment to have a robust life for our customer base, for it to be efficient, for it to be a good value. We want to work together to achieve that. It's not when it leaves our factory, it becomes just their responsibility. Our name is still on the side of it and it's crucial to us to make sure they're supported.

00:16:58 Jordan Yates
So I know guys listening, people are like, " This is a Caterpillar sponsored podcast. We don't want the Caterpillar sales pitch." But for me, I'm actually really curious. So, I'm going to ask you some pretty Caterpillar specific questions because I think our listeners also think, " Okay, Caterpillar's a pretty renowned company. They have some really cool stuff and maybe we want to get into the details a little." So whether or not you guys want to hear it, I'm going to be selfish because I want to hear a little bit of this and I think you all will find it interesting too. So, Matt, I know this, I probably should have done my research, but in your day job, what product/ services does Caterpillar sell or I guess make or deliver, whatever word you want to use for customers? Is it oil and gas that you guys are mostly in? Is it manufacturing? Who's your main customer type, and then what kinds of things do you guys provide for them? Is it the equipment? You said some service. Can you lay it out for me because I'm not entirely certain.

00:18:01 Matt Morse
Yeah. So, yes, Cat is a well- known brand, right? Worldwide, we are in nearly every industry in some capacity. It could be from loose engine sales into something that we don't make as a turnkey product. It could be something completely different. We are getting more into the advanced power applications than we probably ever have in the past. That term of energy transition is on the horizon for us. We are a lineage of reciprocating engine experts, but as technology grows, so does our needs and the equipment's needs to adapt with the change. So, as far as what we offer, again, it's a full suite of, we'll call it, solutions for the customer. So, you could buy an asset from us and run it yourselves and only contact us when you have a problem. That's probably the least involvement that we could have in the equipment. The flip side to that is also we can install telematics. I mean we are becoming a company of connected assets. We can monitor the equipment for you. We can do it passively, just give you reports of what those devices need and what the outcomes are and how efficient you're being. We can also go the next step and we can provide full- time local or remote fleet management. That's a large portion of the team that works for me. We implement and execute these large contracts that are highly focused on monitoring the equipment. I think for a long time, again, going back to that experience that it transitions with the change in technology, it doesn't always. Just because you were perfect at one of our engines in the'90s doesn't mean that you don't need some help on a new product that we released this year. That's where we come in. That's where the telematics comes in. That's where the experts come in. These guys' entire professional life is guaranteeing that that piece of equipment survives. It can be from simple intervention. It can be from recommendations. It can be from we stock or strategize parts consumption for their local dealer or for themselves. Again, it's a problem solving business for us now. It's not just buy the engine, have fun, you're going to love it. We're there cradle to grave if you look at it from the equipment side.

00:20:35 Jordan Yates
Can you define what telematics are in case-

00:20:37 Matt Morse
Sure.

00:20:38 Jordan Yates
...our listeners don't know? AKA in case, I don't. I'm going to blame the listeners for having me.

00:20:43 Matt Morse
I love it. No. So, on the majority of our equipment, almost everything that we make, there is some local controller that is taking information. It's like the brains of the operation, if you will. That local controller is going to provide streaming information to a satellite or a cell- based radio. That is what we are getting information to the back of the house. All that information is coming through over some wireless connection, a satellite or cell- based, into our side. Then we have algorithms, information teams that are running in the background that are deciphering it. We have machine side alarms that are going to give you an alert to say, " Hey, you're running outside of a temperature range." Things like that, again, it goes back to the telematics feed the information into us and then our people are deciphering what it looks like and then either directly calling a customer to have some emergency intervention of, " Hey, we've noticed this is a problem. You need to react now." The point of that is not to again interrupt their business but to save their asset. That preventative term and preventative maintenance, we're trying to prevent. We're trying to get there before there is a failure on the equipment that actually is downtime.

00:22:13 Jordan Yates
The asset would be like... Can you give me example what you mean by asset?

00:22:16 Matt Morse
I mean it can be an engine itself. I mean we're well known for our construction equipment. It could be a dozer or a motor grader or something along those lines. No matter the industry, if it has a Caterpillar engine tied to it, we probably have some connected asset option for you where that device is talking back to us.

00:22:46 Jordan Yates
So Caterpillar's always listening.

00:22:48 Matt Morse
Always. There's microphones everywhere.

00:22:51 Jordan Yates
You hear that guys? Don't crap talk Caterpillar in front of their equipment, they will hear it. So, if you sell them the equipment, like you said, an asset, you said it's most likely, it already has the... Telematics was the word you used.

00:23:10 Matt Morse
Look at you learning.

00:23:12 Jordan Yates
I know. I'm so smart, I'm an engineer. Say if they have a motor or engine or something that already exists, could they purchase from you the telematics to add onto that and then you monitor their system that way, or is it more that you guys just monitor the systems that you sell and manufacture?

00:23:35 Matt Morse
Yes and yes. It all depends. I mean there's such an array of things that we have made over the years. We have a long history of product longevity. So, there might be a one- off chance where it's an older device that we couldn't adapt to. I'm not aware of that today, but never want to put a bookend on something that we say about we can or cannot. But generally speaking, I mean the sky is the limit when it comes to what we can do to either upgrade or to increase their visibility. A lot of times our equipment has these options and maybe the customer wasn't even aware of that. Maybe they were so focused on the application that they needed from the equipment that they actually didn't know that these things are available to them. Again, it goes back to that relationship is there, whether they knew it or not. You can reach out to your local Cat dealer. You can reach out to your industry or accounting managers here on the corporate side. You'd be surprised how much information training is available, expertise to these folks. You buy the product, you buy into the family. So, it's a suite of products that we're here to support.

00:24:48 Jordan Yates
You said you guys can track the data. Is there a Caterpillar software that this goes into that the customer would get access to, or is it you get the raw data and then you choose a third party that will parse your data for you and turn it into something? What's that look like on the user end?

00:25:08 Matt Morse
Good question. It's a little bit of both. Not so much the third party, but all of our devices, like your automobile, have a way for us to talk to them locally. So, we can plug Cat ET, electronic technician, into a data port and we can pull information off of the device, whether it's been talking to the back of the house or not. So, we have the option of doing that on all of our equipment. That shows histograms. It shows the duty cycle that the device has been running for you since it was put in a service. So, we have that. That is a technology that we license to our customer base. We also have a different version for our dealer base because they do more invasive troubleshooting than the general public. Then obviously, we have that for the product groups as well. On top of that, we have multiple web- based systems that customers can get access to. They can sign agreements with us. It can be reporting out, so you're going to get a Tableau report or a Power BI that's simple of a function, or it can be as complex of all of your equipment can be online talking, giving you location, giving you parameters in real time on a website. So, we have multiple software packages. Again, depends on the industry, where that might be. But as far as the digital aspect is concerned, we have a lot of solutions for the customer base.

00:26:41 Jordan Yates
How far back or how long has it been that this whole digital asset has been an option to watch this stuff and have the communication? I don't know if you know the history or not. I personally don't, but it's weird to think that there was a time you couldn't just remote tap in and go on a website. Because I mean the internet's only been around for so long. Do you know when it started that this became popular? If you don't, that's okay. I'm just curious.

00:27:05 Matt Morse
I don't know across the board. If I say anything, I will get a text message in a second that says, " You fool, that's not right." But I mean I can speak to the industry I'm the most familiar with on the hydraulic fracturing side. I mean in frac, our SPM product line of pumps is still the only pump that comes. There's an option where it can come with a full suite of, we'll call it, sensors and technology to support the equipment. It hasn't actually been all that long. I mean, we released the gen one of PEMS, Pump Electronic Monitoring System, I think in the 2016 timeframe. So, it's wild to think we've come as far as we have. A lot of this, again, it goes back to it's that buy- in of everyone. We are industry of a lot of very experienced people. Because they hang around a long time, getting them to buy into new things is sometimes difficult. I'd say some of our biggest success stories, we won't get into customer specific, but you get into behavioral specific where if we can get past that day one grumpy, we're quite successful together. At the end of the day, I think their goal and our goal is the same. We want the equipment to run well and run often and that makes everybody happy. If you take away all of the other underlining maybe goals from each other, truly, that is what we are here to do together.

00:28:41 Jordan Yates
Oh, sorry. Adriana, you go.

00:28:43 Adriana Herrera
No, so I'm very interested in talking about the sensors, right? Because you say there's sensors, there's a lot of data coming in. On our day-today, we have maybe an overload of data wherever you see, and I'm sure these sensors come in with just this big amount of data. So, your people, if anything, right, they're the ones that are able to analyze it and provide the customer exactly what they need. So, it's not just like the sensor is the solution. It's the team behind it that are actually able to provide you with those decisions or at least insight into you should do this or you should do that in order to get your product or your equipment running more efficiently. So, I'd have to say the team that you have is definitely just the biggest part of this all. You can talk about the sensors, but just saying that they definitely bring big part to the table.

00:29:30 Matt Morse
Thank you. I think one of the things that we tend to forget, like I said, we install a new technology and then we walk away from it. We expect it to solve all of our problems. There's no more issues whatsoever. To give you an example, there is a lot of data, but we would overwhelm ourselves if we didn't have a way to parse out the majority of it. So, we do. If you look at our systems, I'd say other people might look at sensor input once a second. Most of our systems are 10,000, 15, 000 times a second. So, it would be overwhelming if that just streamed in raw to you. So, there are very complicated algorithms that run on the machine side that edit all of the noise away so that you're left with very robust purposeful information. People ask us all the time, " Well, I want the raw information." The thing that is always our response is I mean, we could give it to you, but it's going to overwhelm to almost every degree that you have. The sensors are so precise. Again, with just the amount of information that's coming back, we are doing what we think is the best for the equipment. It's the absolute best approach to make it survive, to make it successful for you, but we also want to make it where it's something that you look at and you can do more work with. If it's just streaming in raw, what value did we add? We added a really precise sensor to the equipment. I don't think that's actually helping anybody, but again, this is where that feedback and that relationship thing have to be so robust about what we're doing every day.

00:31:16 Jordan Yates
Absolutely. Adriana, you said you and Matt are on the same team, right?

00:31:23 Adriana Herrera
Yes, but not directly. Sometimes we interact because I know a little bit about what he's doing, so that's why I'm also curious, asking some questions here and there-

00:31:31 Jordan Yates
Yeah, I was going to ask you-

00:31:32 Adriana Herrera
... with the PEM system.

00:31:33 Jordan Yates
Yeah. Has he been correct so far? Is he saying the right things?

00:31:41 Adriana Herrera
Since I'm not able to see that side of things, but I get a lot of hearing and all that. The sensors tell him something, but it's about what they do with that information that stands out, right? Oh, the sensor's reaching this level. What does that mean? What do they need to do to make it better? So that's what I really was trying to bring it with it. The sensors say something, but analyzing it and knowing what to do, what does that indicator mean to me, what does that indicator mean to the customer is really the big takeaway.

00:32:08 Jordan Yates
Yeah, absolutely. Just a couple more questions, one for Adriana actually. So, you are pretty interested in sustainability and that aspect of the business. Is there a way that you feel that this ties into sustainability at all, or am I reaching for straws here?

00:32:27 Adriana Herrera
I think that being able to maintain your product so that it reaches its end of life, that definitely reaches into sustainability. If you're having to purchase whatever your product might be in the oil and gas business because you're not really treating it well, that's going to reach having more product out on the field, more product for scrap. So, treating it well and having it perform the way it's supposed to be is going to provide the best way when it comes to sustainability. I think it just all ties together when you see the big picture.

00:32:59 Jordan Yates
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Matt, a bit of a lighter question. So, in case I have any younger people starting off, maybe they're in sales, maybe they're in this equipment industry, something I noticed when I was in sales for manufacturing and I sold preventative maintenance, machine monitoring, things like that. Some of the coworkers that were training me thought the best way to get the guys that were really against this change was to buy them donuts. It didn't seem to work, but the guys would always take the donuts. Is there a better way of helping somebody understand the importance of the preventative maintenance and including these digital assets other than donuts or are donuts really the answer?

00:33:49 Matt Morse
I mean, it's actually the best question you've asked so far. I think really it's kolaches. You go the least expensive path with the donuts, but the kolache-

00:33:59 Jordan Yates
That's the cheat.

00:34:00 Matt Morse
...really sells the importance of the product that you're selling. No, I've gone down the donuts path myself. We'll call it like an icebreaker. It's a way to get in the door. It's a way for someone to be like, " Oh, well, thank God you brought something." But I think the approach is sound in the aspect of, " Are you there for more than just the donut? Are they letting you in just for the pastry that you brought them?" Again, always go kolaches, never go donuts.

00:34:29 Jordan Yates
Okay.

00:34:30 Matt Morse
But I think the approach we have for as much as the equipment does for us and we do for it, going and listening to what people need is generally the best way we have found to start helping them out. A lot of times I think we're in situations where there's passionate people about both the product and how the product's performing and they probably have valid points in both areas. If there's not the time taken to truly understand their heartburn, then we're not making the right changes to the equipment and we're not helping them out. So, bring the pastry but also bring a pad of paper, sit down, and just start the conversation, instead of accusing or analyzing with, " Hey, I'm here to help you. What can I do?" Usually, when people are upset, it does help calm the situation and allow an actual conversation to start. Then towards the end of it, you can get into maybe the harder conversations or the more specifics. But I think that's the best advice I can give anyone who's walking into a situation.

00:35:42 Jordan Yates
That's awesome. How many visits should you bring a pastry for or is there a limit? I ask like I'm in sales.

00:35:50 Matt Morse
You're like, "So..."

00:35:51 Jordan Yates
I'm so far from sales. I'm actually getting hungry. It's breakfast time.

00:35:57 Matt Morse
We always joke, it's stickers and hats for us. I mean, I think at all times-

00:36:01 Jordan Yates
That's smart.

00:36:02 Matt Morse
...there's a Cat sticker in my back pocket or my shirt pocket at all times. The amount of places we can access by giving someone a Cat sticker is honestly scary at times.

00:36:12 Jordan Yates
Oh, my goodness.

00:36:12 Matt Morse
But it's hats. I mean, everyone wants a hat. It doesn't matter if you work in the office or the shop or if you have nothing to do with the equipment whatsoever. Your dad wants a Cat hat or your grandfather or somebody in your life wants a hat. So, the Cat hats are pretty inaudible.

00:36:29 Adriana Herrera
I'm due for a Cat sticker, Matt.

00:36:29 Matt Morse
See? There you go. I'll bring you some the next time I come forward.

00:36:33 Adriana Herrera
I'll try and get one from you next time.

00:36:35 Matt Morse
Deal.

00:36:36 Jordan Yates
I just realized I'm literally the host of a Caterpillar- sponsored podcast and I don't have a Cat hat. We're going to have to work on that.

00:36:43 Matt Morse
That's okay. We can make that right.

00:36:45 Jordan Yates
Wonderful. Well, guys, I think that's all I have for today. Matt, Adriana, any remaining thoughts on this topic or things that you want to leave the listeners with or I guess resources you think they should look into if they want to learn more or connect with you?

00:37:03 Matt Morse
Absolutely. I mean, I think the thing we want to leave the audience with is you're not alone. We are as committed to you as the equipment is. So, reach out. There's a ton of ways to access our SMEs. We offer paid training. We offer free training. It depends on where you are in the world, but we have people that are experts in this all day long, every day that are here to help. So, don't feel like you got to do it by yourself. If you have questions, if you have good feedback, bad feedback, we welcome all of it.

00:37:43 Jordan Yates
I only want the good feedback. I'm just kidding.

00:37:47 Matt Morse
Our Yelp rating is still pretty good. So, we'll see how it is when the podcast comes on.

00:37:51 Jordan Yates
Anything that you have to leave us with, Adriana?

00:37:55 Adriana Herrera
Just tagging along with Matt, right? Caterpillar is not only known for its products or technology, but also, its people. Its people bring so many, whether it's solutions like Matt is saying. So, if you're interested in any of the three, reach out. There's a big umbrella under Caterpillar. If you tap into it, you're going to get more than you were expecting. So, we'll leave it out with that.

00:38:17 Jordan Yates
I like it. I am convinced. I wish I had a need for some Caterpillar equipment, but I work from home.

00:38:23 Matt Morse
Backup power. When a storm comes through, we'll be there for you every day.

00:38:29 Jordan Yates
Okay. Well, I will look into that. Guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Energy Pipeline. I'm your host, Jordan Yates, and I'll see you next week. Bye- bye.

00:38:40 Matt Morse
Bye.

00:38:41 Speaker 6
Come back next week for another episode of The Energy Pipeline, a production of the Oil and Gas Global Network. To learn more, go to oggn. com.