Speaker 0 00:00:00 Cognitive spark are bringing mixed reality in a really usable form to where the end user needs to have knowledge and information to enable the individuals to take advantage of advanced manufacturing technologies.
Speaker 2 00:00:21 Hello everyone, and welcome to the robot industry podcast. It's my pleasure today to introduce you to Duncan McBarron, he's the COO of cognitive spark, a remote support company located in Frederickton new Brunswick. Welcome to the podcast Duncan.
Speaker 0 00:00:37 Thanks very much, Jim. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 00:00:40 And dun, can you tell us our audience a little bit about yourself and then we'll get you to talk a little bit about what's happening at cognitive spark.
Speaker 0 00:00:48 Yeah, absolutely. I, one of the two co-founders of re of, of cognitive spark and, uh, our main at market product is remote spark. I, uh, I'm a, uh, obviously by my, my accent of born and at new Brunswick, but, um, originally from the, uh, from, from the Northwest of, of the UK and moved to Canada as a, on, on to the Canadian army and after, uh, being here for a short period of time, I decided, and my family decided that we, uh, we really wanted to, uh, to make new Brunswick car home and, uh, and, and then left the military. Now, I was very fortunate at that stage that, um, it made a very good, uh, group of friends in the innovation sector in particular, in aerospace and defense and met Ryan groom. Who's my business partner, uh, at cognitive spark and hit that point in time.
Speaker 0 00:01:37 He had been introduced to the, a piece of equipment called the Microsoft wholes. It's a hardware platform on, uh, marketed by Microsoft. And we were talking about the possibilities for that. And this was prior to it being at, at market. It hadn't been commercially released at that stage. And, uh, we realized that there was gonna be a massive potential for the way in which the concept of augmented or mixed reality would change the way in we, which people approach work in so many different ways. And we'll get some of those I'm sure fairly soon, but what it really led us to do was to, to found the company, which we set up in 2016 and to look at really what the potential for this was in, in this great new area that we're we're moving into, which you know, is, is epitomized by the expert, you know, of industry 4.0 or the next technical revolution and lots of other expressions, but at the core of it in so many different ways is this concept of augmented or mixed reality. And, and really that's, that's what we do. And we, we create software solutions that, uh, really maximize the benefit of that for the, uh, customers and, and end users that we work with.
Speaker 2 00:02:45 And let's talk about AR at VR right now, cause it's a very exciting opportunity, especially like you say, in advanced manufacturing. So where is the industry right now?
Speaker 0 00:02:54 So it's at a, it's at a significant crossroads, actually, Jim, and it's really timely that we're having this conversation right now, because what we're seeing is a really significant convergence. And I use those terms a lot when I'm talking about the, the space that we work in, and it's a convergence between the capabilities that we have at our disposal, that Microsoft whole is one example of that, the enhanced and really sort of extended use of cloud computing, which is, uh, another aspect of, of Ava advance manufacturing, but importantly, an understanding on the part of the customer and the end user in the commercial context of what the power of augmented mixed reality is and what it can bring to their operations, whether those are in a fully commercial sense or whether they're in the public sector where we have significant traction as well.
Speaker 2 00:03:48 And why is this important? Uh, and I'm assuming 5g has something coming in around for you as well.
Speaker 0 00:03:53 Yeah, 5g will play, uh, an important part. And again, it's really almost the way in which 5g is opening people's eyes to what the benefit of being able to access data is and, and how we can utilize that data in, in a much more efficient way than we have previously done. The, uh, the expression that we come across quite often is the, uh, the term, the final mile and in advanced manufacturing and in the digital age know, as we, as we transition into the industry 4.0 era that has generated massive amounts of, of, of data, which resides on servers or hard drives or thumb drives, or, you know, on iPads and tablets, but it is been generated right from in many cases, the start of development of systems. So when, uh, highly engineered systems are being designed, they're designed digitally when the service options are being designed, they're being designed so that they can be delivered on a laptop or onto a mobile phone or something along those lines, but where we've got one of those really sort of significant inflections is where that data is either near real time or it's being used in a way which allows a user to, to visualize something which is not possible on a phone or on a, a tablet.
Speaker 0 00:05:10 And they're able to see things as if they were looking at that object as if it was just really a digital replica of that object, the expression that a lot of people and I, and in my opinion, it's over used is they, they talk about twins. Actually, it's a digital replica, it's not a twin. So what they can do is they can look at a piece of equipment and, and they can have the information relevant to the equipment that they may, may be needing to maintain or service or repair or install or, or commission. And they're able to do that in a way, which allows them to be guided in a number of ways. And really that's, that's where, when we, it takes people to put their headset on and it takes people to see an augmented or mixed reality environment for the first time. And as soon as they see it, they go, right, okay, this is completely different. This is not what I was expecting. And, and, and those, those expressions, you know, are, are very common. I've, I've heard people reflecting on that today in the office, you know, I've just come off a call and somebody said, I, I really didn't expect it to be this impactful or, or, or to be this profound in the way that it's made me think about what we can do from an operational in our business.
Speaker 2 00:06:18 And it's kind of hard to do this over a podcast, right? Because it is such a visual medium. And I can imagine, uh, well, first off I wanted to ask you your product is a software product, really, because it's coming through an interface that you don't create, whether it's a laptop or a hollow lens or some other kind of glasses. So how does the product work?
Speaker 0 00:06:37 The way it works is, is really, it creates an incredibly effective communications channel. And I use that expression when, when I'm talking about things, because it's easy for people to understand that it's, you know, communication communi, that's what we do. And in order to be able to do our jobs and to perform functions on work sites, and in, in other areas, we have to be able to communicate effectively. And so what software does is it allows communication to occur, but it allows it in a digital way and a visual way. And the, again, going back to those human concepts, the, the most effective way to communicate is actually visually the largest part of our, our brain is actually about how we ingest visual inform and how we make it contextually relevant to our decision making process in, in the most simplistic way. And so what we do is we create that bridge from the data to the human, with a visual link, and we create a, a visualized environment.
Speaker 0 00:07:35 Now, what we do is not virtual artists, a virtual, where you precluded from the real world, we are in the real world, and I could be wearing the headset now, and I could be in my work environment. And I would just be like, I was wearing a sort of bulky pair of, of safety glasses. But what I then can have is I can have that data, which I was referring to communicated to me and overlayed into my work environment. And in a way that actually allows me to control what that environment looks like. So I'm the user, I've got the headset on, and I'm being supported by you and you may be in London and I'm in Fredson. And I, you can provide me with, um, digital assets, or you can allow me to choose what those digital assets would be, but at the same time, I'm controlling that.
Speaker 0 00:08:19 So I'm in essence, a workspace where I've got various tools that might be a PDF, two dimensional, but it's still very useful. It might be a static two-dimensional image of some description or a three-dimensional hologram, or it could be an animation of a hologram and all of that supported with, with other aspects as well. And what we do is we enable that to, to occur incredibly efficiently. And, uh, the reason we're we're able to do that is because we created every line of code in our software from the ground up ourselves. It's a completely Canadian capability, every other market, every other product at market that has our capability to use is gaming tools. So they use one of the visualization tools such as unity or unreal engine. And what we realized very early on was that where those are incredibly powerful and they're great tools for visualization, they wouldn't necessarily meet the needs and requirements of industry, partly from a security perspective, because they, you know, they they're very significantly in terms of their size and, and, and where the inputs and, and, and developments of those softwares come from.
Speaker 0 00:09:25 But also importantly from the concept of getting it to where the end user needs it, because you need bandwidth in order to be able to communicate. And, uh, and if you are using one of those tools, then you need very significant bandwidths in order to be able to, to communicate effectively. Whereas we work down at about a effectively, we work at 2 56 K we've got users that have, have used us and tested us very effectively down to 128 kilobytes. Um, but not withstanding that that's, that's really what our software does. And, uh, and, and it's, and it, and it, it's a really a visual communications platform. Makes sure that's what mixed reality is. And that's, you know, that's the way where we use the expression. So I know there's a, long-winded answer to, uh, to a, to a really simple question, but it's, uh, like you said, we're on a we're, we're on a, an audio, uh, an audio channel, and I can show this to you and, and the listeners. What, what, what I really hope to do is to be able to do that some time in person with you,
Speaker 2 00:10:22 We'll put some of the links in the show notes too. So somebody who's listening can go back and listen to the podcast or look at the, at the notes. Uh, and I'm glad that you mentioned about security because you are in some very secure places and security is so important to, uh, industry 4.0 and to advance manufacturing today. So I think that's a really a good start because you would not get that in the, uh, consumer devices.
Speaker 0 00:10:45 No, and, and, uh, and, and it's, you know, the, my background as, as former military, I just sort of had information security in personal security and, and then subsequently it security sort drummed into me from, you know, uh, from a, a very early stage. And it always surprises me how late people seem to think about security when they're developing new software and how they fail to understand it, how relevant it is to their users. And it doesn't matter whether it's an industrial user trying to protect their intellectual property, or it's a, a federal user trying to protect national systems to protect they're, you know, to make sure that they're, uh, uh, not subject to, to malicious attack. A lot of people just sort of tend to wrap security around after they've done everything else and really, uh, a fundamental aspect to what we did. And it's led us to some really great technical innovation in a number of ways, not just on the security side is that we made sure that really what we set ourselves up as was a cybersecurity company to build mixed reality solutions.
Speaker 0 00:11:47 And a lot of that came from, uh, not only, you know, the end use cases that we identified at a very early stage as we were looking at what was the impact going to be, but also from Ryan, Ryan, Ryan groom, my, uh, business partner, he had previously had been set up a, a cybersecurity company, which was Microsoft first gold partner for cybersecurity in Canada. And so, uh, his background cybersecurity really sort of added a lot to our discussion at that stage about, you know, what, what we should do. We had to make some difficult choices. We, we, we, uh, you know, designing something from the ground up where you take every line of code and you, you form it into something rather than taking readily available off the shelf solutions is, is, is a challenge. And, uh, it's been something that we've done our eyes wide open, but it's led to some really great capabilities for our customers, but also it's, it's meant that, uh, we've, we've been able to address some of the, uh, some of the other issues as well, which confront anybody. Who's trying to adopt this type of technology into, into the workplace, again, whether that's industrial or, or in the government sector and public sector.
Speaker 2 00:12:54 So that's a good segue into my next question about what industries are in your bullseye. And of course, I'm very interested in all this machine building and robotics and, and custom machines, but you are in all kinds of industries and what's in your bullseye.
Speaker 0 00:13:06 <laugh> I have a very big bullseye <laugh> and it's on the forehead of anybody that anybody that wants to talk about, you know, how this can really empower their, their workers and their team. And I know that sounds like I'm dodging the bullet. I'll, I'll come back to some of those industries in a moment. But the reality for me is that w we, uh, we sort of, we identified personas that who's gonna use this. And for me it's that it was really inspired by, again, my, my, my, my military service of the people that used to maintain and fix all the kit that I used to break. And, you know, as an infantry officer, I, I, I, I broke an awful lot of kit. Um, but I, I, I can remember, you know, one instance where, when, uh, we, we were just about to launch, um, some offensive of operations.
Speaker 0 00:13:56 You know, this is, you know, you know, in, in, in a, in a, in a real, you know, real context where lives people's lives were very much on the line. And literally two days before we were due to start a whole bunch of new equipment just turned up outside the back of my vehicle and was for the whole of my combat team. And my, my, my fitters and my mechanics just looked at it and went, well, what we supposed to do with this? And what was even worse was the fact that obviously British army, yeah. I speak French and, and, and so on, but the instructions were all in French. So my electrical mechanical engineers, my fitters, who were all from places like Birmingham and my Manchester and, and London and everything who could maybe say Bonzo, and that would be about it in French, were confronted with these large paper manuals on how to, to integrate these new equipments into our existing systems.
Speaker 0 00:14:47 And that person, that, that individual was the really has been the, the Sony that I've had in my mind. And that's been my bullseye. It's that individual who's on the scene in any kind of situation is trying to do their work as effectively as they can for their team, whether it's a company, whether it's a federal department, or whether it's an army unit, they'd all try to do their very best. And how do we get the best support that we can to those individuals in order to enable them to do that work and to do it effectively, but importantly, from a human perspective, as well, to that decision action cycle that they're going through to give them the confidence that they're doing the right thing. And that's, uh, that's a really important aspect of, you know, I, again, I think what marks us out, we're not just a software company.
Speaker 0 00:15:34 We're, we're really a, a human factors company. And, um, and in helping you know, individuals to do that, and we get a lot of feedback from, uh, from various customers. And again, the end users of the people using the systems about that, I'll just give you a really good example. One of the, we work in the, in, in, in the, uh, Al power generation and transmission, uh, sectors, we've got systems deployed in nuclear power stations. One of our customers two years ago in the electric power industry, they did a small, small scale trial. That was a part of our acceptance for them. And one of the things they did was say, right, okay, what we're going to do is you're going to ship one of the headsets with your software on it to a technician who's never used it before, and we're gonna prepare some tools for them to use so 3d, uh, repair by replacement, um, animation.
Speaker 0 00:16:23 So holographic animations to show the individual about doing a task that they may have done previously, but they're not necessarily very familiar with the, they trained to do it, but not necessarily familiar with it. And, um, and, and what we want to do is just assess how, you know, how quickly and easily that occurs. So the, uh, the FedEx ups box, whatever it was arrived for the technician, he was on site, uh, ready to do the task. And 45 minutes later, he was using <affirmative> our software on a Microsoft lens, two to do that task. Wow. A task that he previously would've actually just gone. I can't do this. I don't know what it is. I've got to wait for an expert to arrive. And so somebody else would, would've, would've been dispatched to the site with the delay and the additional costs. Um, and so on that, that's what would've happened in the electrical sector, in, in a lot of other sectors, what would happen is one of two things you'd either stop and wait for the experts to arrive, to give you the assistance that you need, or alternatively plow on the individual plows on and does mm-hmm <affirmative> potentially gets it right, but also potentially it incurs massive amounts of re-engineer earing costs or, uh, or, or further delays because they guess, and they, uh, and they invariably get it wrong.
Speaker 0 00:17:40 It's human nature. Again, people want to do stuff and they want to get on and, and, and, and play their part in the team. And that's, uh, you know, that, that's it. So again, you've asked me a question which allows me to talk a lot about something I'm really passionate about. The bullseye is on the end user, the bullseye is on that guy, or that girl, who's picking up a wrench to do a task that they're not necessarily familiar with, or that they need assistance with. And that can be me helping them, you know, by, by guiding them through, by just sort of saying, you know, go around the back, see that red switch, flick it to the right, push the green button three times, flick the switch back, and it'll restart. I know that's not the way that you think it'll work, but believe me, that's the way I've done it for the last 30 years.
Speaker 0 00:18:21 And it really does work. I can give you that experiential knowledge direct to you because I'm there. But also what I can do is I can drop into your field of view you the, that communications that I've discussed already, that, that visualization of how to do things and what you, what you might need to do. And then when you take that beyond that, into, you know, how we connect into, uh, enterprise resort planning tools and so on, then, uh, you can see there's, there's almost a, a use for this in, in almost every single, uh, industry and every single time what it's doing is it's enabling that person to do their job and play that part in the team more effectively. So whether it's nuclear, it's defense, it's automotive, it's power generation, you know, it's, it's got a real, uh, a real, the technology, not just our software, but the technology has a real power to, to amplify the abilities of those, uh, that those workers who were on scene, trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 00:19:15 I, uh, heard that one of your systems is being used by a very Northern Canadian city. And I, I'm not sure if that was a press release or if it was at a trade show that I saw cognitive spark at. Um, maybe it's a mine
Speaker 0 00:19:27 It's actually, uh, in, in resolute. So the most Northern Lee township in, in civilian township in Canada, there's, there's a couple of military bases further north than that, but that's, that's the most one. Uh, and it's been used by the, by, by the public sector. So that's the national, uh, uh, natural resources Canada and our Canada are using that to, to support the, uh, the local community and the work that they, uh, they do up up there. Yeah. That's a pretty challenging geographic environment to work in. And they, they were using that. They'd certainly been using it in January. We, we know that for, for, for sure, but, uh, the, the initial trials, which we, we did with them to prove that it would work. So that was guys guys on, on the ground, in, in resolutes, uh, with a back haul all the way to Ottawa.
Speaker 0 00:20:10 So they, uh, supported by experts in, in Ottawa. And again, you know, just, you know, some of the things that we can easily sort of talk about is the, you know, the reduction, it, it needed one person to go to resolute. It didn't need anybody else to go up to, to work on the issues that they were working on. And, and that in itself is, is great because we're, we're reducing, we helping to those organizations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by not having to fly as many people, um, to, to different places as they, uh, as they need. One, one of the organizations we work with, one of the, uh, commercial companies we work with is, has reported, uh, 60% of their reduction in their requirement to travel to site. And another one has reported it as high as 75%. So again, some of those, those other unexpected impacts that we didn't really think about when we set the company up and developing the software, we now really see to see that benefit as, as we move forwards. And, um, and again, with the Northern communities, you can imagine that how, how this can empower those communities, because they can, they can be supported much more readily than, uh, than they are now.
Speaker 2 00:21:19 Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like a, a real game changer for anybody who's in very far away places, but also people don't have to travel across the world to, uh, all these E even big places to maintain and fix and troubleshoot machinery. How do you sell your product, uh, Duncan, do you sell through integrators or direct
Speaker 0 00:21:38 Do it, do it both ways? So we, we worked with some really great partners, Microsoft being one of them and, uh, a number of, of others that will be well known in the, in the tech environment here in, in Canada and, and in a wider sense Ingram and, and insight, and, and various other ones in, in our, our other territories, uh, Europe and UK, we, we work with a team called MPH, um, and so on. But, but also what we do is work directly, especially with some of the larger companies who acknowledge the fact that one, they don't have the expertise in, in mixed or augmented reality. And, and, and, and identify with the recognition that Microsoft give to us as, as, as leaders in our field. So they'll, they'll just come to us straight, straight up and say, you know, can we do this? And well, we want to, to really sort of explore one what this will do for us, but, but also can we integrate this into our existing infrastructure?
Speaker 2 00:22:32 And are you venturing into the healthcare industry? It seems to me like such a really good fit.
Speaker 0 00:22:37 Yes. Yeah. In the UK actually, ironically, we, uh, we, we won a competitive tender with the UK national health service as part of their, uh, their COVID, uh, coping mechanisms. We've got lots of other people here in, in Canada that have sort of said, oh, we think this would work, but just don't seem to there to say that they there's a sort of risk aversion in certain parts of Canada would be the right thing to say. I think just not prepared to sort of take that step forwards and, and really utilize this. Uh, but you know, lots, lots, lots of applications and fun enough. They're one of the first, uh, one of our biggest customers is the Royal Canadian Navy. And one of their first use cases, uh, was from medical support to the Arctic shore patrol ships, which won't have doctors on them, uh, by, uh, as a normal, uh, as, as a normal member of the crew.
Speaker 0 00:23:23 So they have a, a military, uh, corpsman or, or, or paramedic, uh, trained individual. So, you know, it just kind of makes sense to be able to support that individual, uh, with a real link to surgeons. So if they find, you know, if, if they have a, an incident or, or they're assisting, you know, local community as, as, as they will be doing, when they, when they deploy on, on cruises in, into the far north, that then that individual can get that support that they need well, when they're faced by something, which would otherwise be beyond their knowledge and experience. And strangely enough, that's the, uh, that we were invited. It was, it was killed by COVID unfortunately, but we were in invited by the us Navy to, uh, to go on a who, with the USS mercy, which is one of their two dedicated hospital ships, um, to provide that, uh, in depth support.
Speaker 0 00:24:13 And in that case, what it would be, be for medical triage for, so the surgeons could provide sort of Corman the, the us Navy corpsmen on the shore, they could sort say, right, okay. This is how we want, uh, people to be loaded onto the helicopter was to be brought back onto the, onto the mercy. So, yeah, me medical, uh, again, the, the, uh, the number of applications there, uh, a significant, um, you know, whether it's setting up equipment in a blood donor center, that's one of the discussions that we had that got to the point where we would nearly commissioned to do that, but then there was a change in leadership and, uh, and, and, and it up, but, you know, from, uh, making sure that people who are setting up pieces of equipment are doing it right, or they just need that sort of reassurance from somebody that they've done something right, right.
Speaker 0 00:24:55 Or that they need to repair a piece of equipment that they will otherwise, wouldn't be familiar with. There's a lot of, a lot of cases there, but like I said, we, we, we're already in, in the UK with the UK national health service. And, uh, we're having lots of discussions with lots of other teams here in, uh, in Canada as well. And hopefully, you know, as, as the, like I said earlier on in the discussion, we we're at real crossroads. And as people sort of understand that we're at that crossroads and that this technology is real, it's deployable now it's already operational. Um, then they can take advantage of, to enhance the, the, the healthcare, you know, that we can give, whether that's making sure the equipment's available or whether it's actually, um, people being provided with guidance on treating individuals in, in, in ways that they otherwise wouldn't be able to do.
Speaker 2 00:25:42 I was gonna ask a question about, about return on investment, but it just seems like it's such a no brainer when somebody's able to fix a machine and not send a team, uh, halfway across the world to fix some things. But I, I imagine you have this conversation with some of your clients
Speaker 0 00:25:57 We, we do. And some, uh, for, for some people it's, it's, it's really evident. Uh, we, we work on one of the largest privately owned shipping lines in, in the us. They didn't need to be convinced that there's gonna be a return on investment. You know, they, uh, they operate, you know, a large fleet of tankers and intercostal barges and various other other craft. And, uh, and, and they already knew when they came to us, they said, we know we're going to get a, a really great return on investment. And all also what all the able to do is enhance safety within our fleet. Uh, and also what we'll be able to do is enhance knowledge transfer from our aging and retiring people that have been working with us, you know, for their entire careers, where we're losing that knowledge base, that's walking out the door with them and we can do different things to accommodate that by use of your type of technology.
Speaker 0 00:26:47 And, you know, they, they, yeah, we sat down with them and map something out, and we're, we're going through that process now. And we're, we're in this sort of medium scale trial where I think we're on 10 of their ships now, but the, but the actual plan is for it to be on every single one of their ships and in every, every one of the facilities that they own. And in every one of the facilities that they manage on behalf of, you know, various, uh, agencies in the us. So there's lots there in terms of, uh, of the way in which this can be sort of really, uh, addressed. And, um, it's, it literally will. All we do is we, we try and get the headset on people's, uh, with our, our software on it, on, on people's heads, as quickly as we can, because as soon as we do people go, you could use it for that.
Speaker 0 00:27:29 You could use this for that. How, how, why aren't we using this now? And the return on investment piece just comes straight back, straight back to the four. We have one, we've got a, an industrial partner, um, in power generation. Um, and they talked with us for a long time, but how, and done the infrastructure work. So all of a sudden they had a crisis, uh, one of their power generation facilities was offline. And, uh, they then got back in touch as they said, oh, you know, that quote you gave is, is that still valid? So we said, yep. So we had headsets with them with the software, you know, very, very rapidly after they'd spoken to us on a Sunday afternoon. Um, they, um, they, they spent 10 days then going through the process of getting our systems onto their infrastructure to work that really could have been done prior, um, on the first, apparently on the first day, um, after that.
Speaker 0 00:28:17 So 11 days after they got the systems and they got the systems fired up, they were able to solve the problem, which meant that power station wasn't generating a lot of power. And they did that 14 days ahead of schedule. So you imagine a large multi megawat, uh, power station, which is sat, idle doing nothing. And, uh, the return on investment of 14 days regained in terms of productivity for, for that facility. And, and that customer estimated that the, the value for that was 23 million of, of savings. So the return on investment that is, we're not, we're not gonna get those every day. Um, we're not probably not gonna get those every year, but the reality is that, um, uh, just by, uh, stepping forwards, even, even, uh, in a, in a, in a sort of sliding more progressive way and starting to work out what processes can I use this for?
Speaker 0 00:29:10 Or what do I need to do in order to be able to use this type of technology on our infrastructure? If you do that in, um, if, if companies and organizations do that in advance, then they put themselves in a very good position to be able to use the technology when it needs to be used. And we we've got other customers that say I'm one here in the Maritimes that, you know, they estimate that every time they use our system and they they're, they're kind of a break, a break glassing type in case of emergency, which they do very frequently, but every time they use, they use it, they're saving over $7,000 every time they use the system, um, that it kind of, you know, yes, people might be afraid of technology and they might be afraid of what's coming, but it is here and it is it's, it's here now, it's operational, it's deployed and it's deployed with their competitors.
Speaker 0 00:29:56 Their competitors are, are using it to get an advantage. Because again, in, in a lot of the industrial cases where it's a, you know, a small or medium size company, that's using our capability, they're using it in order to, to enhance the service or the, that they provide to, to their, their customers. And so if they're able to, you know, increase the availability of equipment or reduce the outage time of a, of a, of critical infras structure, um, then that reflects really well on them and reflects well on their team. And again, it comes back to that human, you know, fixing something using augmented or mixed reality and going, wow, got that done. And I know I've done it faster than I would ever have been able to do it without the system. And, uh, and everybody sort of, you know, gets a little bit of a, a buzz out of, of that. And everybody's sent of purpose improves. And, you know, everybody's learning experience improves because they're doing things that ne they've not necessarily done before. And it all, it all, all helps to build into a just, it's not just about the technology, it's about how the teams use the technology and how they get a lot of self-satisfaction and, uh, out outta that, but also how you reduce top line on bottom line costs for the, and also the customers.
Speaker 2 00:31:04 I see so many maintenance people that are just gurus that could extend their working life or could work from home because of this technology. So I think it goes to your earlier point about keeping all this, uh, tribal knowledge that we have and still being able to use it. So I think it's very, very exciting. See, what's the future of the industry for you? I, I mean, I just feel like you're getting started, but what do you see in the next few years as being impactful beyond 5g
Speaker 0 00:31:28 Fi I mean, 5g will play, will play a part in it. Um, I, I think in Canada as well, um, the, the other one that I've mentioned is, is the availability of broadband lower or orbit satellites, because that, that really has that impact in our rural community where 5g will never be commercially viable in, in real terms. You know, that, that, that type of, you know, connectivity, you know, will allows much more widespread use of not just augmented or mixed reality, but so many other digital technologies as well. So, um, you know, whether it's 5g or it's, uh, the Leo satellite or, or anything along those lines connectivity into, into those communities, so that, you know, this type of technology can just become, you know, as mainstream as, as a mobile phone. So, uh, that that's really, that's really key. Uh, interesting enough. One of the other aspects that I think, um, is, is ahead of us, is the philosophical debate about the metaverse.
Speaker 0 00:32:24 Now you'll notice I haven't mentioned the metaverse at all whilst we've been talking, cuz I think it's just, it's such an, again, it's such an overused term and, and nobody one really understands what it means. And I think really for us, the, this step forwards now is as we move from augmented mixed reality to spatial computing and we can define spatial computing really well. It's how you relate, you know, digital assets to the world around you and, and how you are able to, to do that in a way which the brain can assimilate really readily. That aspect I think really is, is, is gonna be key. I think over the next 12 to 12 months to two years is, is, is defining things, defining the industry and the sector away from the very nebulous expression of, of the metaverse, which will apply in the consumer world without doubt, and will be maybe an overarching and an overarching, uh, an overarching system, but actually from a perspective that we are discussing here, which is, you know, advanced manufacturing and robotics and augmented reality, augmented reality and, and, and so on.
Speaker 0 00:33:27 It's how we define spatial computing and, and what it's gonna mean. And, um, and, and in real terms, the technology that we need in order to make spatial computing every day is, is what we're developing. And, you know, just right next door with our development team, that's really, you know, where we're, we're getting massive amounts of excitement. Um, uh, it, it's not just about how we connect to the worker to support the worker with information that we're pushing to them or that they're picking. It's how that worker is moving into a workspace and digital information that they need in order to perform their task is being prepopulated into that space. And that's, that's where the concept of S spatial computing will become really, really, uh, really powerful. You know, you, you, you're going in there and if you are the electrician, who's on task, not the plumber, but if you are the electrician who's on task, you are, is, is there.
Speaker 0 00:34:21 And the tools that you need in order to do the maintenance of the electrical systems that you are qualified to maintain is there for you because the system knows that you're a level two electrician, it's not gonna give you the work that a senior electrician would get. It's going, uh, it's giving you that. And likewise, it's not gonna give, it's not gonna give you the, uh, the information for the plumbing systems or the HVAC systems or something along those lines. So what you end up with is simply, you know, much more efficient workflows for, for the individual, again, to just get on with, uh, what they need to do and, and what they're trained and, and, and skilled to do when you sort of look at that as the core of the, uh, of a spatial computing capability. And then you sort of UN thread that, and you look at all the aspects of that, then it's, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, you know, really transformational.
Speaker 0 00:35:10 And again, that's maybe an overused term, but it is gonna be transformational in terms of how we train people, how we get the knowledge to the point of need. And, and importantly, how we, uh, much more efficient about the way that we maintain and operate system. And, you know, again, I go back to, you know, the, uh, certainly the, the green aspects of, of, of VSG, of, of the environmental sustainability piece. We're gonna be able to reduce the amount of time that people need to spend traveling to do onsite maintenance in a, in a much more dynamic way, but we're also gonna be able to maximize the benefit of that tribal knowledge that you mentioned, because as I get to 65, I don't really want to stop working completely, but I'd be happy to maybe do 10 hours a week where I've got my laptop and I'm available for calls to support Jim or Sarah.
Speaker 0 00:35:55 Who've only started doing what I've just been doing for the last 35 years will get so much more cross-generational communication. My mom is, is still very, very active at 95 years old, and she's back in the UK. And, and I, I remember in the first time I put the whole lens on her head and she, she just said, so what do I need to do? And I just said, oh, you know, need to do is just push your finger and push the little icon as if it's a, as if it's a, uh, a button, uh, and you know, 15 minutes later, she was just in a completely different environment working on thing, you know, doing things that, you know, she'd never thought she would be able to do at 95. Well, the simplicity of, of, of all mentioned mixed reality when it's, when it's kept simple, can, can really enable, enable that.
Speaker 0 00:36:42 Uh, like I said, that cross-generational piece as well. I, I could go on for hours talking about, you know, where, where we're going to go from a business perspective and from a, and from an industrial perspective, which is gonna be really enabling our teams to, to, to work much more efficiently and, and keep us systems going. We've got a really great story, actually from one of our local companies and for listeners here in, in, in Eastern Canada, particularly you might know the company called goong, they're a chocolate and candy manufacturer. They, they actually were, have always been innovators. They were the, they, they were company to have made the first chocolate bar, uh, chocolate candy bar with a, a, with a filling in it. And they still made that today, as they, as you would expect a company like that to do they buy state of the art equipment to, uh, for their production lines.
Speaker 0 00:37:28 And recently they had a, a system installed that was made in, in Australia, as you'd imagine with COVID, no engineers could get to site, the system arrived and it was installed according to the, the instructions. And they, you know, they had the old sort of holding the phone. I saying, we're doing this right kind of thing, but they couldn't actually get the line that they bought to operate at, uh, the efficiency that they wanted it to do. So they brought us in, they have our systems now operating in there in their production lines. But the, what happened was one of the production engineers at GNON was walking along line. And the engineers in Australia were looking, they were on their expert end of the call, uh, looking at things and sort of saying comments. And one of the engineers in Australia just sort of said, stop look up.
Speaker 0 00:38:12 And the, the production engineer looked up and there was a ticking noise coming from a piece of equipment above a head, which was part of the production line. He said, that's the problem. They're able to do that in, you know, I, I can't remember how long it was, you know, but in, in real terms, those two engineers in Australia, didn't fly from Australia to, to, to, since Stephen in new Brunswick. And it's, again, it's just another really good example of, you know, somebody would've had to pay for that, but also there's all those extra, extra pieces of equipment, but now there's a confidence between the two organizations that they can support each other, and also that they can, they, they can communicate effectively, uh, using, using the system. And again, whether that's use of digital asset, which, which the, the original equipment manufacturer can push down that, uh, that pipe to, uh, to goong in, uh, in, in St. Steven or whether it's, you know, in, in terms of that, you know, first person over the shoulder support, which, which was so effective in that, uh, case. And literally the, the system wants that been identified the system, the next was running at a hundred percent capacity for the first time
Speaker 2 00:39:19 Duncan. This has been fascinating. Thank you for coming on the podcast. How do people get in touch with you if you there want to hear more, or they want to do a demo or something?
Speaker 0 00:39:26 Uh, I'm sure there'll be some links. And so on, in, uh, in, in the, in the podcast, I'm
[email protected], it's, it's spelled K O G E N I T IV spark and so on, but you can find me very easily on LinkedIn. Uh, there are not that many mcpo in the world, and there are even fewer Duncan mcpo. So please, uh, please look me up on LinkedIn. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm normally able to respond on there, and then I'll, I'll just, uh, connect with people through, uh, through whatever means they want to phone call, uh, email, whatever.
Speaker 2 00:40:01 Thank you, Duncan, our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, and pro management, delivering world class custom automation on time and on budget contact. One of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can do for you. And Earhart is spelled E H R H a R D T. And I'd like to thank and acknowledge our partner, a three, the association for advancing automation. They are the leading trade association in the world for robotics, vision and imaging motion control and motors, and the artificial intelligence technologies visit automate.org to learn more. And I'd like to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. There are web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up a connect CRM, other E R P tools to unify marketing sales and operations. And you can find
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer attraction to industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, my partner, Janet, a three painted robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
