Bridging Generations In Reliability - With Vineet Thuvara

AI is moving at breakneck speed, but the plant floor still runs on trust, habit, and hard-earned routines. We sit down with Vinit to unpack the real challenge behind “digital transformation” in reliability: designing tools that work for an experienced workforce that values buttons, PDFs, and proven processes, while also meeting the expectations of early-career engineers who want fast answers, mobile access, and connected systems.

We get practical about what actually closes the gap. Instead of big-bang rollouts, we talk roadmaps, small experiments, and pilots that demonstrate value without risking operations. We also draw a firm line around safety and accuracy: in reliability engineering, there is no room for hallucination. A fault has to be a fault, and any AI-assisted workflow must be validated, secure, and compliant across industries and markets.

From there, we zoom out to connected reliability and why data trapped in folders and silos limits predictive maintenance, pattern recognition, and decision-making. We explore how central platforms such as CMMS and connected ecosystems enable sharing, faster analysis, and better prioritisation, even when legacy equipment and mixed vendors complicate integration. We also touch on how “retro” tech keeps a foothold, and why value is better measured by outcomes than by the physical box in your hand.

If you care about asset reliability, maintenance strategy, industrial IoT, condition monitoring, and the culture that makes change stick, you’ll take plenty from this conversation. Subscribe for more, share it with a colleague who’s wrestling with adoption, and leave us a review with your answer: what would make new tech truly trustworthy in your plant?

Transcript

Welcome And Event Energy

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, Reliability Gang. Welcome back to the Reliability Gang podcast. This is podcast number two of the Accelerate Series 26, and we have Vinit with us. How are you keeping Vinit? How's things?

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Fantastic, fantastic. Great. Will thank you for inviting me again. This is great to be again with you here at Xel Ray 26. Last year we spent some great time, and I think the energy continues to be infectious.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

How's the day been for you? How's the event been? Again, just like so much energy.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

It has been incredible. All the way from experienced professional talking about their experiences, the community building, the meeting with customers, with people like Hewitt from Media. The energy has been fantastic. But more energizing has been meeting with a whole bunch of people from early in career from Texas technical school. They were here. I know that was a good idea. We had a fantastic conversation about what is the next generation of technicians going to look for in our devices, in our services as they build their careers. And as you know, there's a big shortage of technical skills out there. And I'm so excited about the investments we're making in that space.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

That kind of leads

Designing For Two Generations

SPEAKER_01 0:55

me to the next question because obviously you look after the products, you look after kind of the innovation of them. And how do you do that with two different generations? Because we we spoke yesterday about the different generations and reliability. But when you have to make a product that has to be designed for the older generation and the new generation, how do we make sure that you kind of get the best of both worlds? Because the new generation, they pick technology up fast. Absolutely. Whereas we know the older generation, they like the buttons, they like these features and stuff like that. And you know, it must be difficult for your job to be able to say, well, how do we create a product that still caters to the new innovation generation, but also still caters to the industry you've served for.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Absolutely. And there is no perfect answer to this one. One is uh there is always going to be inertia in the existing system, but there is new generation, existing generation, once you're used to using certain things in a certain way, it's like the shackles of the elephant that knows it can break it away, but it isn't because it can train that way. And then the new people who are coming to the workforce every day, they're the ones who are working working on Chat GPT and AI and AR glasses, and they want instant, instant results. Yeah. So there is going to be a transition, and that's why we have a roadmap. We don't want to give a culture shock to somebody. Uh one of my mentors many years back said very beautifully that you have to change the organization at the rate at which it can tolerate. So culture thing again. Culture becomes the fundamental thing. So, how do we make sure we are showing the value of these technological changes to the existing people by doing experiments, showing pilots? That's what we're doing, especially on AI experiments with our existing employees, our existing customers, we're showing them, hey, here is how you can do things slightly differently, but you get the same outcomes you want in the past. So how do you think that's a good thing?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

So you do the testing with your employees and from different generations as well. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

And if you look at a technical force, most of us, especially technical customers, are aging and new new people are coming in with these expectations of fast results. How do we bridge the gap? But we want to make sure, especially in the world of reliability we are in, we don't have the ability to accept hallucination, generated AI technology, right? Yeah. A vault has to be a vault. If there is a shock that hurts somebody, that is not acceptable to us as a company.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, because that's hard. That's where you've really got to balance it out. And, you know, thinking for me, even from our service-based business, in terms of how do we actually even report to people. You know, the older generation probably wants the PDF report and they want to file it away in their orders, and they want to have, we've got an older engineer and manager that we that we work with. He is so good. It's very different though. He doesn't really like the CMMS and all the pools and all the rest of it. And he likes to keep things, everything folderized, just a bit like you've got a filing cabinet with everything completely, and it worked for him. But then we've got the new engineering managers that really love the pools. They want to see things quite quickly and they don't want to see all of the data, but they want to kind of see the value-driven opportunities and what the value is out of there opposed to hiding things away. So

Turning Files Into Connected Data

SPEAKER_01 3:47

it's really difficult to be able to cater to both. And I can see that could be a bit of a challenge for a product company, especially, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Absolutely, and especially if you look at Sluk's history, we've been around for 78 years and we've had all the way from the ultimate analog products to the most digital products.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah, and the the multi-meters are referenced multi meters to the new ones that have Bluetooth that you can, you know, log straight to the CMMS system.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

And that goes back to your metaphor of folders. It's the same thing. We have customers, employees who are saving the data, logging in on computers. But when you show them the value that when you attach new technology, your ability to analyze that data in a much faster way. Because right now they're sitting in files. You scan them, put them in an Excel sheet, analyze the data. That's one. So the analysis becomes easier, which means pattern recognition, ability to understand insights from the data becomes easier. Number one. The second one is sharing, because the power of most of the ecosystems, especially connected reliability, is the network effect of the connected ecosystem. So if your data is not connected, then you're looking at siloed information and optimizing locally. If you want to do a global optimization, you want to make sure that these silos are connected to each other.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

So yeah, and that that's kind of the revolution of AI, right? Because if we have data and it's separated, there's no way it can work in tandem. And we know for AI models to be successful that we need to take all of the data across a plant and be able to use it all together in one place, and then we can actually start to extract some extreme value out of it all. But I kind of feel like a lot of factories have the data, but you're right, how do we connect it all together? And if we haven't got a central CMMS or something that is actually able to collate that, you know, and this is why I'm really in alignment with Bluke's vision, because I feel like the future requires that one place where we can hold this information. Because if we don't get there, the data that we have is not really gonna do anything, it's not gonna have any value for us, is it? So, how do you always stay on that vision when you've got so many roadblocks in the way of doing that? Because I could imagine a lot of customers that you're dealing with maybe using, for example, some alignment gear, but they might be using completely different vibration analysis equipment. And you might have a customer that might be using e-mailing, for example, but they're using another supplier because there's so many different suppliers of different equipment. How do we connect it all together if we're not in the same ecosystem?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Sure. Well, first of all, the challenge of this problem is uh twofold. One is especially industrial ecosystem is a mix of legacy and new and a significant amount of legacy. So, how do we make sure bringing the legacy people along as well? Not legacy people, but legacy equipment, everything into the fold of this connected ecosystem. Yeah. That is one challenge. The second one is the clock speed of the industry, especially in the spade of reliability. We want to be fast, but sometimes the due diligence required to make sure you're meeting security, compliance, and all the requirements that are required for our industry. Unlike consumer electronics, consumer electronics is much faster. You put a $20 Alexa and people are willing to buy it and try it and all that stuff. But for you to bring the same thing to the enterprise, you need to make sure you're meeting security requirements, meeting compliance and regulatory requirements in every market you operate. And then finally, there is no room for hallucination. So the way we are approaching it is taking small experiments at a time, showing the value, testing them internally, and then we take it to our customers, do some pilot tests to see and refine our projects.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

So it's got little minutes. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Otherwise, there is no way to launch a massive platform and be successful because we want to iterate quickly and be able to be nimble.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Of course. And you know, you have to think about some of the big products and things you do, and because you've got a very large user base for some of this, you don't want to get it wrong. It's a risk, isn't it? It's like you almost need to get it into play to see where the problems are, but you also need to play on the playing field where it's not impactive to your customers. And yes, you know, I can see that could be you know really challenging for a business, but you know, I think the way that you guys are doing it is very similar to like a reliability journey with the pilot projects. It's like if you want a company to buy into the reliability culture, if you can prove small little pilot projects and show them the little value pieces, yeah, they're more likely to be able to then move it forward in terms of you know the culture and everything else.

Pilots Over Big Bang Platforms

SPEAKER_01 7:41

There's another question I really want to ask you, Vinita, as well, and I want to get your perspective on this one. We know that technology is moving fast, we we know we've got this kind of accelerated technology where AI is becoming involved and we've got lots of really cool things moving to the future, and it looks really optimistic, but we also have a really slow culture in certain plants and places where it doesn't align. Yeah. How do we get the culture part to speed up when it's such a longevity thing over how quick technology seems to be going faster and faster? Sure. As these things are kind of pulling away from each other, how do we ensure that obviously we don't want to slow technology down, but we need to kind of make sure they meet and how do we do that without impacting the technology revolution, but also trying to get this moving a bit faster?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah, I I think there are uh three pieces that I think of when we think about solving this problem. First is culture and peace, which is making sure, for example, fluke culture is a big one, and one of the pillars is being humble and inquisitive and curious. It is important to understand the why of why we are doing things. Yeah. A lot of times we are stuck in our own shackles of assumptions that have been habits from the past. How do we make sure we're questioning and saying, can it be done differently and in a better way? The second one is once we understand the why, we want to be able to take that as a small experiment to our customers and bring them along. And the third piece is outside of our control. But the market forces itself will consider uh itself will make the change because the moment technology gets adopted fast, if you are one of those companies who's slow to adapt, there is a new startup company that is up out there that is going to outcompete you. So if you have to be relevant, you have to figure out how to evolve fast.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

But it's not that innovate, it's like Bob Iger said, isn't it? It's innovate or die. You know, I will be happy that we have to get that moving. And yeah, I think that's a one part of the culture part that I think companies need to adopt. If you're not thinking about new CMMS systems and how that all integrates and how you connect things, if you're not thinking about the latest technology and how we can protect our plants, are your competitors doing that? And if they are, yes, then the likelihood is they're gonna be ahead of you. So I think now it becomes down to actually not the fact of being ignorant, it comes down to survival now.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Absolutely, survival and relevance.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, we are competing in in this market, regardless of what manufacturing company you are. You've got competitors out there probably making the same products. So we have to think about that whole part of it. Is you know, if you're not willing to start adopting some of these ideas, it's going to impact you in the future. And we, you know, we need to start really thinking about how we adopt this new technology and how we adopt everything now moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

You know, absolutely. And there is like there are so many vectors around this. Like people are innovating on business models, somebody's doing it cheap hardware and heavy software, somebody's doing something else. Like Microsoft commoditized hardware in the 90s. Today AI is commoditizing software, and hardware is becoming a new cool thing. So things are changing very fast. Yeah, they're usually.

Retro Tech And What Value Means

SPEAKER_01 10:38

You remember the Sony discements, and you used to feel so cool with that around your waist with a disc in it, but you look so ridiculous, you know what I mean, with the headphones on and everything. Absolutely. But now we're kind of seeing the digital revolution with music, and now everyone's on your phone and you can't see. But we've now seen vinyl come back again. We're we're seeing these things that I went into HMV the other day, and there was all this vinyl, and I had all these tapes players, and it's it's come back in. Sure. Do you feel like we go through these generational things of people wanting the past as well again? And how do they we make them things relevant?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah, I believe there will always be a small segment of people who will want retro. Yeah. Uh for example, there are art collectors who still want Van Gogh, and somebody in the new world might say, I need a blend of Van Gogh and uh Illiana Da Vinci and create something different. So I think there'll always be a customer, like every stock has a customer, but will it be the mainstream? That's a key question to ask.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, that's really interesting. I'm just trying to, you know, get your perspective on that because it does seem to, you know, what we do seem to do is when a technology gets adopted and there's a mass adoption, you get a few people wanting to go back again.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

So, like, is this really the way forward? It's true. So for example, I have a rotary dial phone uh from like old British times uh in my home. I I love it as a collective. Yeah, we can actually dial it. And my I remember one of my nephews first came and was like, why doesn't the buttons press on this one? Uh so it's it's it's funny. But the thing is, I mean, there are some people who like to collect it and keep it, but that's not the mainstream.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah, it's not the mainstream.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Because the connected nature and the value add that you get from the ecosystem is going to be much larger than the other.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, then that's smaller. Because I I think you could probably attribute the same to products, can't you? Because nowadays a lot of products can connect to your phone and a lot of their technology is in the sensor, not the actual hardware. So I'll give you an example of with vibration data collectors. You know, before you'd have an actual collector and all the rest of it. Now, for example, the rotor line, you can connect to your phone. The technology is actually in the sensors, it's not essentially in the unit that you're displaying it on. Absolutely. And now that is kind of a lot of people are, oh, I don't know how I feel about spending all this money, but you're not spending money on the tablet bit, you're spending it on the actual senses. So it's also how we attribute our mindset to value of perceived value of what we're actually buying, and not actually, it's not materialistic, really. It's more in what does this product do for me. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Or the outcome for the product. And that's a great way you said it because what we want to focus on is job to be done by the customer. Yeah. Uh instead of what technology is being used and how do we do it. Because once you abstract with the jobs to be done level, then you're going to find solutions that are optimal. Like for example, I used to be a photographer to say, uh growing up kid. I had like three different SLRs. I still have them, and but I use them once a year, maybe. Yeah. But otherwise, I have my phone with me. It does the job to be done. But for specific things, I might take it out, but still have it. But is the market big enough to have a large marketplace for cameras? Probably that is strength.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah, you're right. I mean, even these devices here that I've got, these two DGIs, phenomenal products because what it's allowed us to do is portability. You know, when you're carrying a huge camera around, it's it's a little bit too visible. There's this, you can pop it in your pocket, yes, and it allows you also to be able to switch it long ways. If you want to do a YouTube video or if you want to do short form content, we can switch it. These are the innovative products that I love. I know what you mean in the sense of got a nice, expensive Sony camera that you still can't sometimes replace the feeling of what that is. But I do feel that you're right in terms of that convenience is still our ways of value of having something that is sentimental. But I think I suppose it's the new way of trying to love our products and love the innovation that it kind of brings through everything of that with what we're doing as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, absolutely.

Career Advice: Curiosity And Ownership

SPEAKER_01 14:11

So, Vinny, I want one last question. If you had any advice to anyone coming into the industry or anyone that is looking for, you know, a career in reliability or career in, you know, product design or whatever, what advice would you give them to make sure they have a happy, successful career?

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Three things. The third one is around career. First two are be curious. Yeah. And second, first one is be curious. Second one is take ownership. Curiosity is a underrated skill. The ability to get into any situation, understand what's going on, dive deep into it. Because the moment you understand the basics and if you can communicate in a simple manner, you've truly understood the situation. So one is be curious so that you can truly understand the why behind something is done. But the second one is taking ownership, especially people coming into the in your careers, that you will come into some department in the early stage of your career. And all innovation happens at the intersection of different functions. And if you're not looking cross-functions and taking ownership, then you're going to be best at making the next cookie, but not looking at making a cookie factory. Yeah, I see. So how you wake up undershooting yourself, ownership. Yeah, ownership. Uh and the last piece is career. If you have the first two right and know that the career is never a linear graph, you have to follow your passion, build on it, and then sometimes things will not be right. And sometimes you will have to take a detour. But it's part of the journey. Yeah. But if you it's part of the journey, I am next year, I'm going to be the senior manager, third year, I want to be president. It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't happen that way. So being cognizant of that fact early on in your career gives you the flexibility to do the right things that make sense, that you feel like that's the right thing for your customer and you're passionate about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Thank you so much. That is a really, really good answer. I took a lot away from today, actually. That was a really great discussion. Thank you so much, Vinny, for your time. Incredible conversation, which I'm sure that everyone's really gonna enjoy. So thank you, Vinny. I appreciate it. Excuse me. Okay, yeah, thank you.