- A couple of other things that integrators today,
the integrator of the past does, okay?
Number one, the integrator of the past,
they have no BI people.
That's business intelligence, okay?
Those are the people who are experts
in MES and ERP and machine-learning, and if they do,
they've got one or two business intelligence people,
but those BI people spend most of their time
doing traditional automation engineering
so they don't spend time architecting solutions.
They also have no solutions architects.
They may call 'em solutions architects
but they are definitely not solutions architects
that can do enterprise solutions
based on Industry 4.0 principles
and build a digital factory.
The traditional integrator can't do that.
Now, I'm not saying that there are no New Age integrators.
There are New Age integrators
and I drop their names all the time,
but the traditional integrator has no solution architects.
Number three, they have vendor agreements, okay?
That means that when they're selling you software
and when they're selling you hardware
and when they're selling you communications platforms,
they are doing it based on the agreements that they have
because I assure you,
the vendors oftentime operate like the mafia.
If you work with certain companies within this industry,
they will flat-out tell you to your face,
and I can tell you as the owner of many companies,
that they will tell you
you cannot work with the competitor's platforms
and if you do, you can't tell anyone.
You can't put it on your website, you can't do anything.
What they'll do is they'll threaten
to take your discounts away from you.
Therefore, you're gonna lose money
when you sell any software.
So they have vendor agreements, okay?
That is that they are getting discounts
and they have agreed to not sell other platforms.
So they're not selling you the solution.
The solution you need, based on your specific needs,
they're selling you based
on their existing relationships, okay?
Number four, they build panels.
Lots of integrators build panels, okay?
That means they've got a design arm
that is focused on building electrical enclosures, okay?
Now, this isn't a bad thing
but one of the things that you wanna look at
is what percentage of their business is building panels?
Are they a panel shop first
and an engineering arm second
or are they an engineering arm
who happens to build panels because it just makes sense?
But the integrator of the past builds panels.
The Industry 3.0 integrator builds panels,
and number five, they go deep and they stay long.
So the old integrator's goal
is to establish a long-term relationship,
we're talking decades relationship,
and they wanna stay forever.
And I don't need to tell you, we are expensive, okay?
And so that is not good for someone
who's developing an enterprise solution, okay?
If your integrator is the type,
that means they're contracting labor.
They're looking to contract engineers to you.
If they're looking to do that,
then they probably are not experts
in developing enterprise solutions, okay?
What I can tell you is that with Industry 4.0,
the way that the metrics are
and the way the winds are blowing
and the way that technology is
and what we've already established
is that today you can dream your solution
and someone can make it a reality for half the cost
and in a fraction of the time,
you need someone who can do enterprise solutions.
They're gonna happen.
- [Zack] What does a 4.0 System integrator do?
- So, what a 4.0, well,
let me show you this.
So I'm a company and I've got a five-year strategy.
So I'm a corporation and I got a five-year strategy,
a five-year strategic plan,
and that five-year strategic plan is the plan
that you architected with your partner
to build your dream operation.
So what happens is in order for you
to execute your five-year vision,
you've gotta basically do it in phases, right?
The integrator that wants to go deep
and stay long doesn't look at the phases.
The integrator looks at coming in and staying forever.
An integrator of the future, the Industry 4.0 integrator,
looks at coming in and doing this part,
drawing this vector first,
this is your error vector,
getting you on the right path
towards hitting that five-year strategic goal
that they've helped you architect.
And they generally stay for the first phase,
second phase, eh, maybe the third phase.
By the time they get to the third phase,
they are now just in a support role.
They're answering questions,
they've already helped train up your people,
and your people are doing all of your deployments
to get you to deploy your digital factory.
But the integrator of the future
is doing the vast majority of their work here in phase one
and then they're there in phase two to do all the work
and then phase three is where the transition happens.
Sometimes in phase three, they are still working
and they're not in a consulting role
or sometimes they're just purely a consulting role
and then going forward, they're just answering questions.
They're doing the maintenance part
of the software development life cycle
right about phase three and on.
The integrator of the past doesn't look at it that way.
The integrator of the past says, I came in here here,
project one, project two, project three,
project four, project five, stay forever.
Also, I won't put comments in my PLC code.
I'll put passwords on my PLCs.
I'll put scareware in my HMIs
so that I can assure job security.
Yeah, you're always gonna have to call me
if you have a problem.
That's the integrator of the past, okay?
All right, integrator of the future.
What is it gonna take?
So we're gonna talk about not just integrators
but also what type of distributors do we need?
What type of hardware manufacturers do we need?
Okay, so.