Podcasts about oems

Charli is joined by Paul Gifford this week on the pod!Find us @EmpoweringPumps on Facebook, LinkedIn,  Instagram and Twitter and using the hashtag #EmpoweringIndustryPodcast or via email podcast@empoweringpumps.com.Empowering Pumps & Equipment:Empowering Pumps and Equipment is the Information & Connection hub for the Industry. We specialize in digital media marketing, and we help companies just like yours reach their desired audience across a variety of platforms. We connect, inform, and educate the pump & related equipment industries by creating valuable partnerships between manufacturers and their customers. We connect you with our community using digital advertising, social media, and custom digital publications that amplify your message as a thought leader in industry. As a digital media company, we also create and/or host webinars and virtual lunch and learns, offer technical writing, and host a podcast called the Empowering Industry Podcast.Empowering Pumps & Equipment shares useful information for industries such as water/wastewater; oil/gas; utilities; and more. Our audience includes engineers, consultants, operations and maintenance staff, OEMs, and suppliers.Empowering Pumps & Industry Conference (EPIC):The Empowering Pumps & Industry Conference is where the industry can come to connect with manufacturers, distributors, end users, associations, and students in one place. The two-day event will feature presentations from subject matter experts, roundtable discussions, exhibits, and tours. About Empowering Brands:Empowering Brands located in Tuscaloosa, AL is a versatile, digital marketing services company that works with industrial companies and specializes in social media management and marketing; strategic planning; marketing consulting; content development, and digital advertising.Working as a strategic partner and extension of our clients' marketing team; we bring fresh thinking and experience with flexible and responsive service to empower our clients and maximize their brands.In addition to our marketing services work, Empowering Brands owns the leading online community for the global pump industry, EmpoweringPumps.com.  A digital-first publisher focused on thought leadership, community building, and social media advocacy for our industry partners.  We help clients reach and engage with a diverse industrial audience.In addition to our marketing services work, Empowering Brands owns the leading online community for the global pump industry, EmpoweringPumps.com.  A digital-first publisher focused on thought leadership, community building, and social media advocacy for our industry partners.  We help clients reach and engage with a diverse industrial audience.The Empowering Brands company is leading the way to connect, inform, and educate the next generation of industry leaders.CONNECT | INFORM | EDUCATEConnect with Us:Website https://empoweringpump...Facebook   / empoweringpumps  Twitter   / empoweringpumps  LinkedIn   / empo.  .Empowering Women in Industry https://empoweringwome...Empowering Women in Industry Youtube 

Industrial Talk is talking to Max Cundiff and Doug Ebaugh at Chevron about "Lubrication and maintaining asset reliability". Scott Mackenzie from Industrial Talk Podcast discusses the importance of electrical maintenance safety with IRISS, which offers infrared and ultrasonic inspection windows to detect issues early. He then introduces Max and Doug from Chevron's lubrication arm, highlighting their innovative solutions for power generation and data centers. Max and Doug explain the critical role of lubrication in maintaining reliability, especially in combined cycle power plants, and the importance of predictive maintenance using oil analysis. They also discuss the challenges of meeting the growing demand for electricity in data centers and the need for proactive maintenance strategies. Contact information for Chevron Lubricants is provided for further inquiries. Outline Introduction and Overview of Industrial Talk Podcast Scott Mackenzie introduces himself and the Industrial Talk Podcast, emphasizing its focus on industry professionals and their innovations.Scott highlights the importance of safety in industrial operations and mentions Iris, a company that provides technologies for safe inspection of energized equipment.Scott introduces the guests, Max and Doug from Chevron, and their roles in the lubrication arm of Chevron.Scott shares a personal anecdote about a lip injury and transitions to discussing the importance of reliability and upcoming events like SMRP. Discussion on Marketing and Content Creation Scott discusses the challenges of marketing for small to midsize companies on LinkedIn, noting the algorithm's preference for large companies.Scott emphasizes the importance of creating a consistent campaign to tell a company's story and the value of repurposing content across different platforms.Scott highlights the need for companies to create a content-generating machine to maintain visibility and engagement.Scott offers his services for marketing and PR, encouraging companies to reach out to him for help in telling their stories. Introduction of Max and Doug from Chevron Scott welcomes Max and Doug to the podcast and mentions their roles at Chevron.Max introduces himself as the industrial sector marketing manager for Chevron Lubricants, focusing on power generation, manufacturing, oil and gas, and petrochemical applications.Doug introduces himself as a chemical engineer with a background in various industries, currently serving as a direct industrial business consultant and subject matter expert for lubrication and reliability at Chevron.Scott and the guests discuss their backgrounds and experiences, including Doug's transition to Chevron and his previous roles in heavy transportation and logistics. Challenges and Solutions in Power Generation and Data Centers Max and Doug discuss the growing demand for electricity in data centers and the importance of maintaining reliability in power generation.Doug explains the role of lubrication in combined cycle power plants, emphasizing the need for good lubrication to prevent equipment failure.Max highlights the importance of understanding market needs and working with OEMs to develop products that meet customer requirements.The discussion covers the challenges of meeting the increasing demand for power in data centers and the need for reliable lubrication solutions. Chevron's Approach to Market Demands and Product Development Max explains the complexity of meeting market demands for data centers and the importance of collaboration with various stakeholders.Doug discusses the importance of understanding oil oxidation and the role of lubrication in preventing equipment failure.Max and Doug highlight the use of Vartec technology in Chevron's turbine oils to prevent varnish formation and improve reliability.The conversation touches on the importance of oil analysis and predictive maintenance to extend the life of equipment and prevent unplanned downtime. Future Trends and Contact Information Max shares his thoughts on the future of reliability in various industries, emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement.Doug provides contact information for listeners who want to learn more about Chevron's lubrication solutions and services.Scott encourages listeners to reach out to Max and Doug for further discussions and to attend industry events like SMRP.The podcast concludes with Scott reiterating the importance of marketing and storytelling for industrial companies and inviting listeners to connect with him for more information. If interested in being on the Industrial Talk show, simply contact us and let's have a quick conversation. Finally, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2026. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy! MAX CUNDIFF'S CONTACT INFORMATION: Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-cundiff-66865224/ Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chevron/ Company Website: https://www.chevron.com/ DOUG EBAUGH'S CONTACT INFORMATION: Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasebaugh/ PODCAST VIDEO: https://youtu.be/bh-8IcniQHI THE STRATEGIC REASON "WHY YOU NEED TO PODCAST": OTHER GREAT INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES: NEOM: https://www.neom.com/en-us Hexagon: https://hexagon.com/ Arduino: https://www.arduino.cc/ Fictiv: https://www.fictiv.com/ Hitachi Vantara: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/home.html Industrial Marketing Solutions:  https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-marketing/ Industrial Academy: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial-academy/ Industrial Dojo: https://industrialtalk.com/industrial_dojo/...

Data center construction is moving fast, and the equipment supporting these facilities has to keep pace.In this episode of the Empowering Industry Podcast, Charli Matthews Carruth sits down with Ric Turmel, Senior Vice President for Engineered Building Solutions at Taco, to discuss how custom-engineered skid packages are helping meet the speed, scale, and efficiency demands of today's data center projects.Ric shares how Taco's Lubbock, Texas facility has grown to support increasing demand for custom skid packages and why prefabrication can help reduce installation time and the need for specialized labor in the field. They also explore workforce challenges, long-term procurement and planning, and how data centers are pushing HVAC systems toward greater energy efficiency.From coordinated system design to preparing for what comes next, Ric offers a look at how the rapid growth of data centers could influence the entire industry.Watch Building at the Speed of Data: How Custom Skids Are Transforming Data Center Construction With Ric Turmel and hear what's driving this rapidly evolving market.#DataCenters #HVAC #Engineering #Manufacturing #Infrastructure #EmpoweringIndustryEmpowering Pumps & Equipment:Empowering Pumps and Equipment is the Information & Connection hub for the Industry. We specialize in digital media marketing, and we help companies just like yours reach their desired audience across a variety of platforms. We connect, inform, and educate the pump & related equipment industries by creating valuable partnerships between manufacturers and their customers. We connect you with our community using digital advertising, social media, and custom digital publications that amplify your message as a thought leader in industry. As a digital media company, we also create and/or host webinars and virtual lunch and learns, offer technical writing, and host a podcast called the Empowering Industry Podcast.Empowering Pumps & Equipment shares useful information for industries such as water/wastewater; oil/gas; utilities; and more. Our audience includes engineers, consultants, operations and maintenance staff, OEMs, and suppliers.Empowering Pumps & Industry Conference (EPIC):The Empowering Pumps & Industry Conference is where the industry can come to connect with manufacturers, distributors, end users, associations, and students in one place. The two-day event will feature presentations from subject matter experts, roundtable discussions, exhibits, and tours. About Empowering Brands:Empowering Brands located in Tuscaloosa, AL is a versatile, digital marketing services company that works with industrial companies and specializes in social media management and marketing; strategic planning; marketing consulting; content development, and digital advertising.Working as a strategic partner and extension of our clients' marketing team; we bring fresh thinking and experience with flexible and responsive service to empower our clients and maximize their brands.In addition to our marketing services work, Empowering Brands owns the leading online community for the global pump industry, EmpoweringPumps.com.  A digital-first publisher focused on thought leadership, community building, and social media advocacy for our industry partners.  We help clients reach and engage with a diverse industrial audience.In addition to our marketing services work, Empowering Brands owns the leading online community for the global pump industry, EmpoweringPumps.com.  A digital-first publisher focused on thought leadership, community building, and social media advocacy for our industry partners.  We help clients reach and engage with a diverse industrial audience.The Empowering Brands company is leading the way to connect, inform, and educate the next generation of industry leaders.CONNECT | INFORM | EDUCATEConnect with Us:Website https://empoweringpump...Facebook   / empoweringpumps  Twitter   / empoweringpumps  LinkedIn   / empo.  .Empowering Women in Industry https://empoweringwome...Empowering Women in Industry Youtube 

- With SCOTUS Hold Released, Apple Submits Proposed Link-Out Commissions - Omdia: More New Displays for Refurbished Smartphones than OEMs in Q1 - WSJ: Apple Wants to Pay Publishers for Current Events Knowledge for Siri - Apple Adds Lock Screen Push Notifications to Spyware Alert Arsenal - Private Relay Not Great at Hiding User IP Addresses - Apple Sued Over Private Relay Lack of Privacy Issue - American Airlines' Nate Gatten Apple's New VP of Government Affairs - Apple Pay's Jennifer Bailey Retiring in October - iPhone X, 2018 MacBook Pro Added to Apple's Obsolete List - Apple TV Outs Trailer for Thriller Series "Last Seen" - Apple TV Posts Season-Five Trailer for "Stillwater" - Apple TV Adds "Classic Movies" at No Added Cost - "Ted Lasso" Season-Four Premier Was Apple TV's Biggest Debut Yet - Catch Ken on Mastodon - @macosken@mastodon.social - Send Ken an email: info@macosken.com - Chat with us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month. Support the show at Patreon.com/macosken

Selling the equipment is the easy part. The real revenue shows up after the sale.Sam Neva, Vice President of Sales for Service Lifecycle Management at PTC, joined the show to talk servitization - what it means, and why it's becoming the difference between OEMs who scrape by on hardware margins and ones who build real recurring revenue. Chris caught up with him live at PTC's headquarters.Manufacturing folks, we didn't forget about you! This episode is geared squarely toward people building equipment. If you want to tighten up your sales process and make your customer relationships stickier, this one is for you.Sam and Chris get into what's holding most OEMs back from servitization, how AI is starting to change what proactive service looks like, and the math behind why the money shows up years after the original sale.In this episode, find out:Why the smartest OEMs are lowering the price of the original sale, and what they're betting on insteadThe three levels standing between a traditional OEM and a full servitization modelWhy ‘tribal knowledge' is the hidden gap between engineering and service teamsHow AI is helping teams triage service issues before they need a technicianThe Harvard Business Review stat that shows just how much revenue gets left on the table post-saleWhat Schneider Electric did to grow revenue, win rates, and improve customer satisfaction at the same timeThe first question every OEM should ask before attempting servitizationEnjoying the show? Please leave us a review here. Even one sentence helps. It's feedback from Manufacturing All-Stars like you that keeps us going!Tweetable Quotes:“You're reacting to a problem, instead of doing your best to extend and plan that time horizon to prepare for that problem." - Sam Neva, Vice President of Sales for Service Lifecycle Management at PTC“Step 1 is what do customers expect from us, why do they expect that, and how can we give them that?" - Sam Neva, Vice President of Sales for Service Lifecycle Management at PTC“The goal is how do I make money as the OEM, not just by selling you that box, but selling you the outcome of what that box provides.” - Sam Neva, Vice President of Sales for Service Lifecycle Management at PTCLinks & mentions:Benchmark your servitization strategy, a complimentary assessment where ServiceMax experts will evaluate your current service organization and identify opportunities to improve performance, profitability, and customer outcomes.ServiceMax, a PTC Technology, is on a mission to help customers keep the world running with asset-centric field service management software. As a recognized leader in this space, our cloud-based software and mobile apps provide a complete view of assets to field service teams.Make sure to visit https://manufacturinghappyhour.com for detailed show notes and a full list of resources mentioned in this episode. Stay Innovative, Stay Thirsty.

Robotaxis are accelerating along the road to commercial viability. Auto and Shared Mobility Analysts Andrew Percoco and Tim Hsiao discuss what this rapid development means for global investors.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Percoco: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Percoco, Head of North America Auto and Shared Mobility Research. Tim Hsiao: And I'm Tim Hsiao, Greater China Auto and Shared Mobility Analyst.Andrew Percoco: Today, why robotaxis may be approaching a commercial inflection point. It's Thursday, August 13th at 8am in New York.Tim Hsiao: And 8 pm in Hong Kong.Andrew Percoco: So Tim, for years, robotaxis were really confined to limited pilot rollouts across the globe. You've done a lot of work over the last few weeks. We put out a big collaborative report on the robotaxi market and how it could be a $1 trillion TAM by 2040.What makes this moment different than some of the other robotaxi hype cycles that we've seen in the past? Tim Hsiao: We observe four things have been converging. Firstly, end-to-end AI is improving much faster. Secondly, hardware and the training costs are falling. And thirdly, more well-capitalized players can fund deployment. And last but not least, regulation is becoming clearer.The leading operators are no longer just demonstrating the technology. They are running fully driverless services around the clock and generating commercial rides. So in our view, the questions has been shifting from can it work to who can expand operating areas, raise utilization and lower costs at a much faster pace.So that's a very different setup versus the 2018 and 2021 hype cycles. Andrew, U.S. autonomous miles could rise from 116 million in [20]25 to 16 billion by 2032. But still make up only about 0.5 percent of all miles driven. How can robotaxis become a meaningful business while remaining such a small part of the market?Andrew Percoco: I would say, you know, obviously the U.S. mobility and transportation market is a massive market. So even with the rapid growth that we expect in robotaxis, it's going to take a long time to make a material impact in the overall market share of mobility. But if you think about the profit pools in this business, 16 billion miles at $2 a mile can, you know, pretty quickly become a very significant TAM and market opportunity.And I think, you know, fundamentally, if you think about a robotaxi business, I would argue you're better utilizing an asset... Or if you think about the, you know, car park, the amount of vehicles that are, you know, in the fleet today or in the U.S. today, they're sitting idle 90 percent of the time, right?So you're talking about taking a smaller amount of volume and driving a higher utilization on that fleet and driving much improved economics. So yes, it's going to take time to displace the, you know, hundreds of millions of cars that you have on the road in the U.S. and displace the penetration of miles driven. But ultimately, you know, we think that the profit pool and the opportunity in robotaxis are much more attractive for the entire value chain, as it relates to robotaxis. And I'd say there's a few things that we're watching along the way to make sure that, to your point, you know, this is not another hype cycle. And that there's real commercial backbone to this business.I'd say the first is seeing the rollouts continue to improve, and the density of the rollouts improve across the select cities that we've seen in the U.S. right now. Robotaxis are only available in a handful of cities in the U.S., so we want to see that continue to expand into more cities. But also the density of the fleet increase in the cities where they're currently present.And at the same time the safety side is still something that gets a lot of questions in making sure that it is truly safer than a human driver, across technology platforms, right? There's various players in this market with different approaches to technology. So, I think seeing that the safety curve is starting to or continues to improve is going to be very important for the viability of this market going forward.Obviously U.S. is very different from China. What have you seen in China? China has shown some impressive growth and utilization in some of the operators that are on the road in China. So just curious as to your perspective in terms of what you're seeing on the ground there. Tim Hsiao: I think China shows that there's much in operations and skill challenges as technology challenges. The fleet in China is above 5,000 vehicles across I think more than 7500 square kilometers in key cities. And some operators average more than 20 orders per vehicle per day.So, total cost of ownership has fallen roughly 30 to 40 percent, while remote assistance ratios are moving from like one operator for like 20 to 40, even like 50 to 60 vehicles. And we think it will achieve like one for a 100. So that has produced real break-even happens, especially in some major cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan – the tier one, tier two cities.So in our view, I think in China, wider operating domains, fleet density and utilization rate, as you just mentioned, reinforce one another. So make it some more like the real commercial case. Instead of just, like trials as we saw a couple years ago. If more value shifts towards the software, fleet operation, and the data, as well as the customer relations, how does that change the profit pool, across the auto industry, especially in the U.S.?Andrew Percoco: First off, I think the auto industry in general is becoming, you know, more software focused and aware. You know, it's being led by the robotaxi market where the autonomous driving software and technology is obviously the most important part about getting this technology to market.That is ultimately trickling down to personally owned cars where you're seeing more autonomous technology being deployed. Auto OEMs are able to charge subscription revenue for this software. So it expands, I'd say, the value proposition of buying a vehicle expands the profit pool for the OEMs.It changes in some ways the cyclicality, or can change the cyclicality of the industry if you've got more kind of recurring revenues, subscription like business model versus just a hardware focused OEM model, which has been kind of the predominant focus for the OEMs historically. I'd say the other angle, interesting angle here is, you know, as this business scales, there's gonna be a lot of vehicles on the road. There's gonna be a lot of fleets of vehicles on the road. Those need to be managed by somebody or some company, right? So if you think about, you know, the rental car industry, right? These companies have been in the business of managing fleets and renting out fleets for a very long time. They know how to do that very, very well.I think there's an interesting opportunity for that part of the value chain, to participate in aiding these robotaxi fleet operators, in scaling and bringing their business to market. Charging, maintenance, reconditioning, all the things that take a lot of time and a pretty large amount of physical infrastructure.That's an opportunity for the rental car industry to come in and leverage their existing know-how to help. And, you know, I think Tim, an important part of this commercialization process is driving down the cost structure of robotaxis. They are very sensor; heavy sensor heavy. They're very compute heavy. I think China is the clear leader on cost and supply chain. I think in China you're seeing robotaxis, you know, around $35,000 to $40,000, which is considerably lower than what we see in the U.S. today.So, how do you think that that will accelerate adoption in China, but I'd say more importantly overseas as some of these robotaxis businesses look to expand outside of China. Tim Hsiao: In our view, it could be a major accelerant because as we noticed that the depreciation is still one of the largest fixed costs for robotaxi. So, as we just mentioned, I think, $35000 to $45000 US dollars, the purpose-built robotaxi can lower the breakeven utilization threshold. And make it easier to finance fleets and open cities that could not support the $150,000 US dollar vehicle.And not only in China, because globally, I think the Chinese cost deflation can be paired with the local ride-hailing platforms in the overseas market that provide demand and regulatory access. But as we highlighted in our previous, the global reports once again, we don't think the cheap vehicle is sufficiently by their self.So in our views, on top of the competitive cost structure, registration, data localization, insurance, and local operating costs can still delay the margin curve, particularly in Europe, which we think there are still quite a lot of uncertainties. So Andrew, as we just, as we just discussed, the lower vehicle costs help, but the operating model still has to work, right? So with operating costs expected to fall and the margin potentially moving above 30 percent or even higher at scale, what are the key assumptions investors should focus on?Andrew Percoco: There's a handful of key assumptions you need to sensitize to get to that 30 percent or more margin structure in this business. I'd say the first is going to be utilization, right? You need to be running these assets at a high utilization to essentially amortize those fixed costs over a larger number of miles driven.Number two, insurance today is probably one of the largest buckets of cost when we think about this business. Insurance is, from our perspective, a big unlock for this industry as the safety, as we mentioned before, the safety data continues to improve. We think that will be a reason to, to expect that the insurance costs associated with autonomous driving technology and robotaxis will continue to decline.It's about 30 cents per mile on our estimate, so it's very significant in terms of the overall cost structure of robotaxis. Drivers or where there's the most sensitivity around the model. Obviously, there's charging costs, there's maintenance costs. Those are, I think, fairly known at this point. But the utilization and insurance, I think, are the two biggest drivers of really getting that margin profile to improve over time. Tim, I guess when you think about the next, call it 10 to 15 years, I think we will put out a trillion dollar market by 2040 from a TAM perspective.What do you think the biggest markets are that investors should be watching, in terms of getting us to that trillion dollar TAM? Obviously, U.S. and China are kinda leading now, but what are the next markets people should be watching?Tim Hsiao: In addition to the major market, as you just mentioned, the U.S. and China, in our views, I think we also need to focus on markets like Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I think their scale is underappreciated, as we highlighted in our previous report. Because if you think about that, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia in aggregate have roughly four million taxis together ride-hailing vehicles.So even with 25 percent conversion, they imply that about one million is the L4s vehicles. The Middle East offers supportive regulators, you can tell, simpler operating environments and higher fares. And if you think about the Southeast Asia, the ASEAN, I think the market has dense demand and strong local platforms.And of course, Euro markets definitely can't be ignored because Euro will move more slowly, because we think the regulations and the data rules would initially add cost. But the truth is, if you think about the European market, I think the taxis or ride-hailing fares are among the highest globally, even compared to the U.S. and rest of the world.So in our view, the material margin could be more attractive. And this market, on top of the U.S. and China, in our view, can support several regional winners. So, not only limited to a very, you know, the single one or two markets.Andrew Percoco: Yeah, it's great Tim. It sounds like, you know, the robotaxi race, if you want to put it that way, will be won by those who can really bring together technology, and a compelling cost structure while also following the proper regulations and making sure the safety is improving at a rate that's acceptable to regulators.So, Tim, thanks for taking the time to talk today. And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

With too many cooks in the kitchen, can innovation ever reach the road? In this Unplugged episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, host Grayson Brulte uses the culinary world as a powerful metaphor to explore one of the autonomous trucking industry's most pressing issues: who gets “veto power”? As startups challenge established OEMs and suppliers, questions around control, competition, and liability are shaping the future of commercial autonomy. Are legacy players protecting safety or their market position? And when disruptive newcomers refuse to back down, who ultimately determines the recipe for success? Tune in for a fresh perspective on the power struggles, partnerships, and industry dynamics that could define the next chapter of autonomous trucking. Have your own thoughts on this topic? We'd love to hear from you! Share your comments, questions or ideas for future topics with Grayson on Twitter or send them to podcast@sae.org. Follow SAE on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Follow host Grayson Brulte on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

In this episode of The Contracting Experience, host Rob Lorton sits down with Joe Fountain, a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and Director of Contracting for the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC). They explore his career progression from starting as a Copper Cap trainee in 2004 to now managing a massive $40 billion portfolio, highlighting the immense value of diverse platform experience and the importance of getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Fountain dives into the unique challenges of sustainment contracting, including dealing with obsolescence, "tired iron," and navigating complex intellectual property (IP) issues through innovative royalty and licensing agreements with OEMs. The discussion covers practical ways the Air Force is operationalizing Acquisition Transformation—such as delegating over 80% of approvals to the Chief of the Contracting Office – COCO - level, implementing the new CASPER clearance process, and leveraging system-level Multiple Award Contracts (MACs) to streamline the supply chain and lower barriers for industry. For contracting professionals, he emphasizes the critical need for an action-oriented culture, the difficult but necessary transition from tactical "doer" to strategic leader, and the importance of intentionally connecting everyday contract actions to the ultimate mission of supporting the warfighter. He also shares a forward-looking vision of integrating AI and automation directly into business systems like CON-IT. If you would like to share feedback on the podcast, please submit via thecontractingexperience@gmail.com. Register at https://www.dvidshub.net/ to access transcripts of the podcast.

Aerospace has always been a cyclical industry, one sector up, another down, capital moving cautiously between them. That's not what's happening right now. Every major sector is ripping at the same time, for completely different reasons. Commercial is coming back online. Aftermarket and MRO have been running hot since COVID. Defense is being pulled forward by geopolitical demand. Business aviation has settled into a stronger, more stable “new normal.”  It's rare to see this kind of synchronized momentum across the entire ecosystem, and when it happens, it changes how capital behaves. For years, aerospace exits were predictable. You built a solid business, ran an M&A process, and sold. IPOs were barely part of the conversation. Industrial manufacturing wasn't exactly exciting to public market investors. Now, IPOs are not only viable, but they're also often the better option. Industrial businesses that used to be seen as slow, capital-heavy, and unsexy are suddenly being revalued as AI-proof, infrastructure-critical, and in some cases, direct beneficiaries of the AI boom.  And that shift is forcing a new level of sophistication from operators. Because today, you're not just deciding whether to sell; you're deciding how to exit in a market with more options than ever before. At the same time, there's a quiet risk underneath all of this. Fuel prices, geopolitical instability, and supply chain pressure. None of these have gone away. So the question isn't just how long this run continues; it's whether operators are actually prepared for the version of the market we're in now. In this episode, I'm joined by the Global Head of Aerospace and Aviation Investment Banking at Jefferies, Nick Fazioli. He breaks down what's really driving this moment across aviation, defense, and industrials, and what it means for operators thinking about growth, capital, and exit strategy.   You'll also learn; How “boring” industrial manufacturing became one of the most attractive investment categories Why IPOs are suddenly back, and in some cases outperforming traditional M&A exits How AI is indirectly reshaping aerospace valuations through energy, infrastructure, and supply chain demand The rise of continuation vehicles and why operators now have more exit paths than ever before Where private equity and institutional capital are actually placing bets right now (and why MRO is so competitive) The hidden risks: fuel prices, geopolitics, and consumer pressure, and how quickly they could impact the system Why operators need to become far more strategic, not just in building businesses, but in positioning them for exit     About the Guest Nick Fazioli is the Global Head of Aerospace and Aviation Investment Banking at Jefferies, where he leads one of the most active practices across commercial aviation, business aviation, and aerospace services. Over the past 16 years, he's been at the center of some of the most significant transactions in business aviation, including the sale of Marquis Jet to NetJets and West Star Aviation's exit to Greenbriar Equity Group. With a front-row seat to M&A, capital markets, and the evolving investor landscape, Nick brings a unique perspective on where capital is flowing and how operators should be thinking about growth and exit strategy in today's market. Connect with Nick on LinkedIn.  About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF Trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers, and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.    Resources For more aerospace industry news & commentary: https://craigpicken.com/insights/.  To learn more about Craig Picken, visit https://craigpicken.com/. 

Startup Project sits down with Sviat, CEO of Bright Machines, to unpack how the company is using software-first robotics to manufacture complex electronics closer to where they're deployed. The conversation focuses on why AI infrastructure is a strategic category, how Bright Machines differs from traditional contract manufacturing, and what onshoring really means for speed, quality, and security.Key Topics:In this episode, Sviat explains that Bright Machines is focused on AI infrastructure, specifically the electronics that go inside modern data centers, including compute nodes, storage, and racks.He traces the company's thesis back to a broader idea: use software and robotics to manufacture electronics anywhere, then narrow that focus to the data center market as demand became clearer.The discussion breaks down the market stack, from chip designers like NVIDIA and AMD, to ODMs, OEMs, hyperscalers, and contract manufacturers.Sviat shares why data center hardware became the right bet before ChatGPT accelerated the market: the products are expensive, strategically important, and driven by quality and throughput more than labor cost alone.The show compares traditional assembly lines with Bright Machines' approach, which uses more robotics, sensors, cameras, traceability, and humans in the loop where automation does not make sense.Sviat explains how Bright Machines starts with design, using Bright Designer to simulate and improve manufacturability before lines are built, which helps reduce bottlenecks and improve automation over time.He says the company's main differentiator is its software platform, which orchestrates the line, powers smart skills for navigation and inspection, collects data, and feeds insights back into design.The conversation covers line flexibility, including how much can be reused when switching between CPU, GPU, or different accelerator-based server designs, and when end-of-arm tooling must change.Sviat says Bright Machines is growing rapidly, expects more than 3x growth this year, and can produce high volumes from a small number of sites because of robotics efficiency.The episode closes on the broader case for onshoring AI infrastructure manufacturing in the US: security, time to market, quality, and a labor shortage that makes robotics necessary.Timestamps:06:39 - The market stack: chip designers, ODMs, OEMs, hyperscalers, and CMs09:07 - Why Foxconn, Jabil, and similar contract manufacturers matter10:04 - Why large factories still rely on massive manual labor12:20 - Why data centers are different from cheap consumer electronics13:49 - Security, strategic sectors, and why AI infrastructure belongs onshore16:26 - The first Bright Machines product: CPU compute servers for a hyperscaler17:58 - How the line works: modular stations, yields, and automation levels19:26 - Bright Designer and design-for-manufacturing feedback loops21:20 - Robots, sensors, traceability, and humans in the loop22:19 - Why time to market matters as much as cost23:31 - Yield and throughput: 98% line-level yields and up to 2x throughput25:25 - The Bright Robotic Cell and how the assembly line is structured27:35 - Reusability across products and when tooling changes are needed30:31 - Manufacturing as a service, not repair or field service31:24 - Growth, gigawatt-scale capacity, and output from a single site33:00 - Why current hyperscaler capex is not expected to slow near term34:45 - The bottlenecks before deployment: chips, components, power, permits36:54 - Bright Machines' three pillars: platform, data layer, and Bright Designer39:15 - Why humanoid robotics is exciting but not ready for industrial use41:16 - Where LLMs and newer AI tools can help the robotics workflow43:57 - The overlooked advantages of onshoring manufacturing in the US45:59 - What Bright Machines could build next: more complex electronics and future AI devices

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the FuturePrint Podcast, Marcus Timson speaks with Rob Karsten of Excelitas Technologies about the evolution of industrial inkjet and why its next revolution will depend on the complete manufacturing system—not any single component.Drawing on more than two decades of experience in UV LED curing, Rob explains how the technology has developed from a specialist proposition into a reliable industrial platform. He also explores how Excelitas's wider capabilities in UV, infrared, microwave and excimer technologies are helping the company support increasingly complex printing, drying, curing and surface-treatment applications.The conversation examines where digital print creates the greatest manufacturing value, from packaging and direct-to-shape decoration to wood, building materials, printed electronics and functional coatings. Rob argues that digital technology is most compelling when it changes production economics by removing tooling, reducing inventory, enabling customisation and bringing manufacturing closer to demand.Rob and Marcus also discuss the importance of reliability, total cost of ownership, measurable sustainability and the challenge of qualifying new industrial processes. They consider the growing influence of AI, machine vision, robotics and process data, alongside the need for connected curing and drying systems that can respond intelligently to changing production conditions.Above all, Rob makes the case for greater collaboration between OEMs, ink developers, printhead manufacturers, substrate suppliers, automation specialists and end users. Customers do not buy isolated components; they buy reliable outcomes. The future of industrial inkjet will therefore be shaped by intelligent, connected and energy-efficient systems in which printing, curing, drying and manufacturing operate as one.Listen on:Apple PodcastGoogle PodcastSpotifyWhat is FuturePrint?FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 20,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. We hope to see you at one of our future in-person events:FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit, 29-30 September '26, Valencia, SpainFuturePrint Industrial Print Show, 11-12 May '27, Munich, Germany

In "How Nordian's Platform Enables Long-Haul Autonomy", Joe Lynch speaks with Co-founder and CEO of Nordian, Michael Schramm, about how Nordian enables long-haul autonomy by combining precise positioning, satellite connectivity, and edge intelligence into a single platform. About Michael Schramm Michael Schramm is Co-founder and CEO of Nordian, the positioning and connectivity platform for Physical AI, delivering centimeter-level GNSS corrections, satellite connectivity, and fleet lifecycle management to some of the largest industrial OEMs in the Americas. A serial entrepreneur with 15+ years of executive leadership, he is a founding partner of Ambush, an applied AI engineering firm; co-founder of Echo54, an advanced sensing R&D company serving US and allied government agencies; and founder of GOAT, an acquired consumer micro-mobility company. Across nearly two decades of building companies that operate in the physical world, he kept running into the same failure point: machines break when positioning and connectivity aren't engineered as one system. Nordian exists to fix that. About Nordian Nordian is the positioning and connectivity platform for Physical AI. One platform delivers centimeter-level GNSS corrections, integrated satellite connectivity, and fleet lifecycle management to industrial OEMs across transportation, agriculture, and mining. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, and deliberately launched in the hardest environments on Earth, Nordian built South America's largest PPP-RTK network, and its platform serves 80% of the region's 20 largest agricultural OEMs. Proven where networks fail and machines can't, Nordian is now expanding globally to power autonomous operations at scale. Key Takeaways: How Nordian's Platform Enables Long-Haul Autonomy In "How Nordian's Platform Enables Long-Haul Autonomy", Joe Lynch speaks with Co-founder and CEO of Nordian, Michael Schramm, about how Nordian enables long-haul autonomy by combining precise positioning, satellite connectivity, and edge intelligence into a single platform. Physical AI is a Connectivity and Processing Challenge, Not an AI Model Problem: Current AI systems are fully capable of handling autonomous navigation, but real-world physical AI is constrained by connectivity and real-time processing capabilities. Offloading critical decisions to back-end cloud servers introduces latency, which is dangerous for heavy machinery like a 25-ton autonomous truck moving at highway speeds. Edge Computing and Local Inference Eliminate Deadly Latency: To operate safely without reliance on uninterrupted internet access, 100% of mission-critical decisions must occur directly on the device using edge computing. Nordian provides the local processing capacity needed for real-time inference, allowing autonomous vehicles, drones, and heavy equipment to operate safely in "air-gapped" environments or during brief network dropouts. Centimeter-Level Positioning Replaces Imprecise Traditional GPS: Standard GPS provides meter-level accuracy, which is acceptable for route navigation but unacceptable for vehicle control, lane-level autonomous driving, precise geofencing, or row-crop agriculture. By combining satellite signals with dedicated ground reference stations to calculate real-time differential corrections, Nordian achieves centimeter-level accuracy required for absolute control. Integration Burden is the Primary Bottleneck for OEMs: Equipment manufacturers historically acted as their own integrators—trying to bolt together separate vendors for chipsets, satellite bands, cellular modems, and edge computing. Nordian abstracts this complexity by unifying precise positioning, resilient connectivity, and edge intelligence into a single plug-and-play factory-installed package with an SDK for custom software development. A Multi-Band "N+3" Connectivity Model Bridges the Connectivity Gap: Autonomy dies where cellular coverage fails, particularly across the 71% of U.S. roadways located in rural environments. Nordian solves the connectivity gap by layering cellular networks, L-band communications, and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations (including integrated Starlink connectivity) into a redundant system capable of rapid sub-10-second signal convergence. Agricultural Battle-Testing Translates Directly to Transportation and Logistics: Before expanding into long-haul trucking and yard logistics, Nordian proved its system in South America's harsh agricultural environments, building a massive reference station network across Brazil and Argentina. This foundation enabled them to capture 80% of the top 20 agricultural OEMs in the region—proving the technology where infrastructure is non-existent and atmospheric interference (scintillation) is severe. Autonomous Technology Target Long-Haul Workloads to Improve Quality of Life: Autonomous technology is positioned to address structural labor shortages by replacing high-turnover, long-haul routes (where drivers are away from home for weeks) with fully autonomous systems or human-augmented modes. This shifts human operators toward last-mile and short-haul jobs, improving driver safety, operational utilization, and overall work-life balance. Learn More About How Nordian's Platform Enables Long-Haul Autonomy Michael Schramm | Linkedin Nordian | Linkedin Nordian Contact Nordian Nordian Authorized to Resell Starlink High-Speed Internet to Businesses & Enterprises. Nordian Expands High-Precision GNSS Positioning to Brazil Through Strategic Partnership with u-blox Federal News Network's Space Hour Podcast - Connecting devices out in remote regions Fierce Network - Nordian authorized to resell Starlink internet to businesses and enterprises Ending the 60% Waste: The Radical Shift Trucking Needs Right Now The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube

Tariffs bought this industry a window. Ramiro Gutierrez, President of North America, ZF Group, is not convinced we are using it.He has spent 30 years in the automotive industry, and he left it once. Aerospace turned out to be slower than he expected, with cycles running roughly five times longer, and he returned to ZF for engineering. What he came back to is a company spending around 8% of revenue on R&D and now under real pressure to prove that money produces a return.That pressure is where this conversation starts, and it goes somewhere most tier one interviews do not. Ramiro walks through what his Chinese customers are doing with hardware ZF has already put on the vehicle. A customer looked at ZF's active suspension and figured out that lifting a wheel lets you change a flat tire without a jack. At CES, ZF showed a tire-noise function built from a damper and a chassis sensor, both already on the car. Same hardware, new functionality, software doing the work.Meanwhile, the Western specification book has been growing for a hundred years, page after page, all for good reasons, until it moved past anything a customer can feel. The cost is real, and the value is not.Ramiro is direct about tariffs. He calls them a tool in the sandbox, useful for buying time. He is just as direct about what happens if the industry spends that time defending the status quo instead of closing the gap.Then there is the leadership half of it. He is president of ZF North America and head of the global steering business unit, sitting between a German foundation owner under enormous pressure and a workforce spread across the US, Mexico, and Canada. His answer to that complexity is not a new org chart. It is communication treated as an investment, people sent to see other realities with their own eyes, consensus built and then closed, and accountability that sounds like “where are we” rather than “why didn't you.”The clock is running. Ramiro believes the future is bright. He also believes we have to move.Themes Discussed in this EpisodeCreating value through software, not more hardwareWhy Chinese OEMs adopt technology fasterTariffs as a tool with an expiration dateThe hundred-year specification problemCommunication as a leadership investmentPositive accountability without micromanagementLeading a German-owned business across three countriesEngineering ambition meeting financial disciplineThis episode is sponsored by Lockton, click here to learn more

Most people think the aerospace supply chain is crawling back to normal after the pandemic. But that's not what's happening. The industry is scaling in a permanently elevated demand environment. Commercial aviation is rebuilding. Defense budgets are structurally higher. New platforms like EVTOL, drones, hypersonics, and space are moving into production. This isn't a strain; it's a structural transformation. And in a world obsessed with engines and airframes, the real leverage sits in the smallest parts. At the same time, complexity is rising. Aircraft are lighter, more electronic, and more integrated. Tolerances are tighter, and the margin for error is gone. This is where FDH Aero comes in: distribution reimagined as a strategic capability. In a high-velocity, high-complexity market, reliability becomes a strategy. How is FDH embedding itself within OEM production lines while operating under private-equity intensity? And what kind of leadership does that require? In this special replay episode, I'm joined by the CEO of FDH Aero, Ian Walsh.  We unpack how FDH Aero scaled to a billion dollars by mastering the parts that make flight possible. We also discuss why the next decade of aerospace growth may be less about building more airplanes and more about controlling the hardware layer beneath them. You'll also learn: Why aerospace supply chains aren't “recovering”; they're structurally transforming How a single missing bolt can shut down a billion-dollar production line Why distribution is becoming a strategic layer, not just a transactional one The difference between organic growth and inorganic scale in a fragmented supply base How private equity is accelerating consolidation in aerospace and defense Why value creation in PE is about process discipline, not short-term spikes The leadership shift required when moving from public OEMs to PE-backed companies Why smaller, lighter, more electronic platforms will reshape parts demand Where the real upside sits: commercial, defense, business aviation, or emerging platforms How embedding into product development cycles creates long-term supply chain “stickiness.” The mindset difference between statistical improvement and “luck wrapped in chaos.”   About the Guest Ian Walsh is the CEO of FDH Aero. He brings over 35 years of executive leadership across the U.S. Marine Corps, commercial and general aviation, defense, and industrial end markets to FDH. Most recently, Walsh served as Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Kaman Aerospace Corporation, a provider of highly engineered components and subsystems to commercial aviation, aerospace, defense, and medical end-markets. At Kaman, Walsh led the evolution of the global company into customer-centric operating segments. Before that, Walsh was COO at REV Group, Inc., a provider of specialty vehicles and related aftermarket parts, and spent more than 15 years in operational and P&L leadership at Textron, Inc. At both companies, Walsh drove new product development and process optimization. Earlier in his career, he served as an officer and naval aviator in the U.S. Marine Corps with combat tours in Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. He is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt in operations and continuous improvement. Connect with Ian on LinkedIn.    About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF Trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers. Since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.    Resources For more aerospace industry news & commentary: https://craigpicken.com/insights/.  To learn more about Craig Picken, visit https://craigpicken.com/.  

In this episode of 50 Shades of Green from Climate Group, hosts Adam Lake and Katie Lanegran welcome back transport correspondent Ricky (Richard Parker) by popular demand for a deep dive into corporate fleet electrification. Fresh off the release of EV100's annual Electric Realities Report, the conversation moves from high-level commitments to the practical realities of getting battery-electric vehicles on the road at scale. The episode features two rich interviews that map the full electrification journey. First, Ricky sits down with Brandon Jones from Ceres and Santeri Palomäki from the We Mean Business Coalition. They unpack complementary resources designed for companies at different stages. Ceres' Driving Growth: Managing Transition Risks in Transportation report makes the financial and risk-management case for electrification—covering physical, market, and transition risks tied to fossil-fuel dependence, capital reallocation, and regulatory shifts. It stresses accounting for transport emissions across operations and value chains, securing leadership buy-in for science-aligned targets, developing time-bound EV strategies, and joining collaborative platforms such as Ceres' Corporate Electric Vehicle Alliance (CEVA) and Climate Group's EV100. Santeri walks through We Mean Business's freely available Business Action Checklists (including a dedicated India edition). The second interview features Adam Orth, Head of US Fleet at Siemens. Siemens has electrified 50% of its roughly 8,000 US vehicles—spanning light-duty sedans, SUVs, pickups, medium-duty assets, and even early heavy-duty tractor trailers and yard spotters across every climate and geography. Adam shares how the company shifted from asking “which EV should we buy?” to “what does the job actually require?” That mindset unlocked operational redesigns: many small vans were carrying far less payload than assumed (or mostly air), leading to right-sizing into more suitable models (including a phased transition via ICE Equinoxes that prepared teams for the EV versions). Drivers now operate smart vehicles with one-pedal driving, advanced safety features, and 300–400+ mile ranges that meet real duty cycles.Adam is candid about remaining gaps—especially medium-duty vans with high payload needs—and the value of peer networks (EV100 and CEVA) in aggregating demand so OEMs can close those gaps. Change management has been continuous: custom training videos, ongoing education even after a year of driving, and treating electrification as an opportunity to improve efficiency rather than a one-for-one fuel swap. His three pieces of advice for companies just starting: begin with the work (not the vehicle), don't wait for perfect (electrify the easy routes first and learn), and don't go it alone.Throughout, the hosts and guests emphasize that electrification is operational systems change—not merely swapping powertrains. It forces companies to re-examine payload, routing, gear, employee behavior, and fuel-price risk. The consistent message across NGO guidance and corporate practice is clear: start now, share lessons, and scale what works. Listeners leave with concrete entry points—whether they still need to win the internal business case, need a step-by-step checklist, or are ready to move from pilots to majority electrification.Resources mentioned include the EV100 Electric Realities Report (climategroup.org), Ceres' Driving Growth report and CEVA, and We Mean Business Business Action Checklists. The episode closes with a look ahead to Climate Week NYC transport conversations (charging access, power availability, and vehicle affordability) and a preview of next week's guest.Tune in for actionable insights from the companies and coalitions already proving that large-scale fleet electrification is not only possible—it's underway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Zalar, founder of IWTG Consulting, joins to discuss broken blade bolts, cracked pitch bearings, loose root inserts, and early detection. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow Allen Hall: Jon, welcome back to the program.  Jon Zalar: Thanks for having me.  Allen Hall: Uh, last time I saw you, we were in Melbourne- Yep … at WOMA 2026, and that was a huge event. We know we’re gonna do it again next year in March three, the 3rd through the 5th, so you’re invited back, of course- I can’t wait … if you can make it. Yeah. Yeah. It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a good time. A lot is happening in the blade world and in the wind turbine world more broadly. A lot of things we’re hearing right now are related to blade bolt connection, pitch bearing inserts still. A lot of that still happening in the United States. What is the current status of, uh, the blade connection issues in the US? I,  Jon Zalar: I feel like it’s a growing [00:01:00] issue, not super, super fast, but it seems to be getting a little worse. There’s, you know, more bolts breaking at that joint. Um, pitch bearing cracks are, seem to be pretty common. There’s different solutions for it, and then, you know, the root inserts are another thing that we’ve talked about before that seem to be happening more and more, or maybe more and more people are finding them ’cause they’re looking. Allen Hall: What are the first indications that you have a blade bolt or some sort of joint issue at the root of a blade? What can you see?  Jon Zalar: A bolt laying in the hub bouncing around. Um, you know, from like a– looking at it from, like, the sensors on the turbine, it’s really hard to tell unless it gets really bad. Uh, some of the OEMs have some analytics developed to kinda start to indicate if there is a aero change because there’s missing bolts or root inserts are coming out, and they’re using that as a way to go figure out which ones to go inspect first. Allen Hall: Really? Yeah. You think [00:02:00] the SCADA data will give you some indication that you have a, basically a little bit of a loose blade?  Jon Zalar: Yeah. I, I, I think because the number of turbines and the number of data points you have, I think there is a pretty good analytic out there right now.  Allen Hall: Wow. All right. I think a lot of our operators have not taken advantage of that. Is, is that just b- based on the high-speed data, SCADA data, or is it low-speed data you could see that same effect?  Jon Zalar: I believe it’s on the low-speed data as well, but I bet the high-speed data was used to kinda develop it.  Allen Hall: Wow. All right. So that’s a huge help to operators. Yeah. So what are you looking for if you’re looking through SCADA data, what would be the couple of markers there that say, “Hey, maybe we ought to go look up at the– in the hub”? Jon Zalar: I don’t know exactly what they’re using, but they would basically look for maybe an imbalance or looking for certain components that are being overworked.  Allen Hall: Oh, sure. Okay.  Jon Zalar: Yeah.  Allen Hall: So your pitch actuator may be getting a little bit overworked. It would seem like one of the places- I think that, yeah … that would get loaded, right? Jon Zalar: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: Okay. [00:03:00] And any vibration monitoring going on? Because it, it, uh, in some cases you’re– I’m hearing, like, millimeter gaps-  Jon Zalar: Correct. Yeah …  Allen Hall: between the blade and the pitch bearing.  Jon Zalar: So probably a combination of the ALC sensors, at least on a GE turbine, looking at that. But the PCH box also is looking at the tower vibration, so it could be a combination of all three. I don’t know the exact- Okay … details, but between all of that, I think there are some analytics that kinda say, “Hey, go take a look.” And then I think there’s some other companies that have- tools that go monitor it.  Allen Hall: Mm-hmm.  Jon Zalar: Dial indicators remotely or even, you know, people going up there with dial indicators to go kind of rotate the rotor and kind of see if there is gapping between the blade and the pitch bearing. Allen Hall: Is that a safe situation in your– from the gapping? I’ve heard this where they’ve basically took shims and they’re trying to measure this gap or some sort of dial indication. Is that a smart thing to do? Is it even reliable to do it that way? [00:04:00] Jon Zalar: I, I, I think there’s some reliability there. And like, you know, these are really big parts, right? So like a little bit of gap, it, it’s probably expected to a point, but growing gaps is where you should be a little more scared.  Allen Hall: So you’re– you would have to go do that quarterly, monthly, weekly? How, how often would you have to do it to see the progression? Because I’ve heard stories of, uh, a couple of weeks from nothing to hub crack to, “Oh, it took a year or more.” Jon Zalar: I think it depends on the issue. I think for– if you’re looking at that, the bolted joint itself between the root inserts and the, uh, bolts breaking itself, I, I think they’re doing about quarterly. Now, the pitch bearings inspections are also quarterly. They’re al- they’re, they’re leveraging the drone inspections for the blades, and they’re looking at the pitch bearings to see if they’re cracked, right? Uh, you guys are doing that too.  Allen Hall: Okay.  Jon Zalar: I think Coraly is doing a good job mitigating the risk, feels like.  Allen Hall: Wow. All right. [00:05:00] Yolanda, looking at pitch bearings, you’ve looked at a lot of drone images in your lifetime. Mm-hmm. How much can you see on drone images on pitch bearings? Can you see cracks and, or y- or do you see grease, which is a really indication that something is wrong in the bearing? Yolanda Padron: You can see grease. You can see the cracks pretty, pretty well. Yeah. The drone images are, are really high quality. Uh, but you did mention that it’s something that you’re seeing a lot more. Is it because there’s a lot more aging fleets, or is it a problem with a lot of the new turbines that are coming online? Jon Zalar: I, I think it’s an, I think it’s a more of a fatigue problem, so the aging of the fleet. And also, I think more people are looking at it, right? ‘Cause, like, initially the drones that were looking for blade cracks weren’t looking at pitch bearings, but then pitch bearings started cracking, so now they added that to whatever they buy off the drone companies, right? Go look at my pitch bearings, for example.  Allen Hall: Hmm.  Jon Zalar: So I, I think it’s a problem of the more you look sometimes, the more you find.  Yolanda Padron: Hmm.  Jon Zalar: Yeah.  Allen Hall: So we [00:06:00] have root insert issues, which are being addressed by a couple of different companies- Yes … uh, uh, with somewhat similar solutions. OEM is offering one right now also. Jon Zalar: I, I think there’s three solutions. There’s two uptower that are basically looking at ways to go fill the void between the root insert itself and the blade root. Um, and I– there’s another company that’s also more of a downtower solution where they’re actually, like, r- drilling out the root inserts and putting new ones in that are gonna last better, longer. Allen Hall: Okay. So the drilling out is, would be CNC onsite. Correct.  Jon Zalar: Yeah.  Allen Hall: And they’re based over in Europe. But th- the drilling out is a take the blade down, set it on the ground sort of- Yeah. Right … doing really fine machining on the, on the blade itself. So that, that’s a different, completely different insert that’s going into that-  Jon Zalar: Correct Allen Hall: new hole or- Yep … clean hole, right? So it’s a, just a, uh, totally different kind of product versus trying to inject [00:07:00] some s- sort of epoxy or resin into the, the void.  Jon Zalar: Right. Yeah. Uh, I mean, you would prefer to do it uptower. It’s gonna cost you less money.  Allen Hall: Sure.  Jon Zalar: But you wanna make sure you do it right, so I think, uh, I do foresee it being a combination of both solutions kinda going forward. Allen Hall: Is it dependent upon, like, how much damage has been already done, or what the fatigue w- uh, an estimate on what the fatigue life is?  Jon Zalar: I think it’s strictly on measurement perspective right now. So how much gapping you have, um, kinda determines what potential solutions you have.  Allen Hall: So the gaps aren’t big, right? So the, the gaps I hear are one millimeter is k- kind of sort of start a problem.  Jon Zalar: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: Three millimeters is, “I need to be making decisions.”  Jon Zalar: Yeah. So- That, that’s what I’ve heard, too. Yes.  Allen Hall: Three millimeters is about a eighth of an inch.  Jon Zalar: Mm-hmm.  Allen Hall: So it’s not a lot of m-  Jon Zalar: But you can see sunlight through it if you’re s- down there. Allen Hall: Okay. That’s not… Well, you should see. That’s not  Jon Zalar: good either. Yeah.  Allen Hall: Right. Okay. So in a, in a three millimeter situation then, you’re doing what? [00:08:00] Jon Zalar: You’re trying to decide if the uptower solutions are something you wanna go try, ’cause they’re still in the trial mode from my understanding or-  Allen Hall: Okay …  Jon Zalar: people are learning a lot. So I think when you get to that point, you’re calling some of those companies to say, “Hey, I have this issue. I got a couple blades with, you know, .3. Can you guy- you guys wanna come take a look at it, see if your solutions, if you guys wanna go use it or not?” And then I think the ones that get too bad, from my understanding right now, is they’re, they’re replacing the blades. Allen Hall: So they’re taking the whole blade down.  Jon Zalar: Yes.  Allen Hall: And what’s the thought process in that? Uh, versus drilling out the inserts and putting new inserts in. Is there just a composite degradation that’s happened around those joints that it just puts it at risk or, or you have actually aged the blade much faster than you would otherwise have done? Jon Zalar: I, I think they aged that particular connection too much. So I, I- Wow … either between the [00:09:00] fatigue or lack of epoxy resin, w- whatever the actual root cause is for that root insert coming out, when it gets that bad, it’s like you’re not gonna be able to inject enough To make it adhere  Allen Hall: You can’t de-age it. Jon Zalar: Correct.  Allen Hall: Right?  Jon Zalar: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Bring back the youthfulness of the blade. Wow. All right. And we have seen this worldwide. I know in the, in the States you hear about it all the time, but it, this seems to be not a US- Correct … problem.  Jon Zalar: It’s a worldwide problem, yes.  Allen Hall: Okay. So if, if it’s a worldwide problem, are there more solutions on the way? I know you talked about three of them already.  Jon Zalar: I have not heard of any other ones except those three as of today.  Allen Hall: Wow.  Jon Zalar: There could be other people working on it. I think there should be.  Allen Hall: So, yeah. You would think so, yeah. So we’ll, I guess we’ll eventually hear about it on the podcast. Usually people with technology will contact us. They might call,  Jon Zalar: yeah. They might call you, they might call you tomorrow.  Allen Hall: Sure, they may. So that leads to sort of a subsequent issue, which I think is getting grouped together. So the [00:10:00] hub crack, pitch bearing crack, root insert pullout issue is also discussed with blade bolts being broken.  Jon Zalar: Correct.  Allen Hall: Are they related or are they separate engineering problems? Jon Zalar: If you look at them individually, you’d probably come up with some separate answers, but if you combine them all together, you kind of start looking at is there too much loading happening in the leading and trailing edge of the blade? ‘Cause the hub cracks, the root inserts, and the blade bolts, from my understanding, are happening at those two highly loaded areas of the, the blade or that whole rotor connection. So I mean, I do feel the root cause is probably a little higher loads than anticipated.  Allen Hall: I think everybody’s talked about when they’ve done the injection method and the drilling method, all they’re discussing is leading edge, trailing edge.  Jon Zalar: Yes.  Allen Hall: And how– It’s a question of how many- Correct … are you gonna replace. So th- [00:11:00] that’s, those are the two highly loaded spots on the bolted connection.  Jon Zalar: Correct.  Allen Hall: And that’s where blade bolts are also breaking or, or the bolts breaking elsewhere around the periphery?  Jon Zalar: I don’t have all the data, but what I had seen, it’s very similar areas.  Allen Hall: So if you don’t pull the insert out, you’re then loading the bolt. Cr- Right It’s one or the other, right? Right. Yeah. So the, the, the load path is the load path, so it’s coming through the insert into the bolt. Bolt’s carrying it into the pitch bearing. Pitch bearing’s carrying it into the hub.  Jon Zalar: Correct.  Allen Hall: Hub carrying it downtower. So eventually, one of those, uh, links in the chain is- The weakest. Yeah … is, is the le- is the weakest. What is it about blade bolts that is so dangerous? We hear– we walk onsite to an O&M building, there are signs saying, you know, “Pay attention for loose bolts. Look around on the ground for loose bolts.” We’re gonna– and as electrical engineer, like, “Whoa.” Bolts should not be falling out of this tower. What i- what is that sort of sequence where a [00:12:00] bolt would escape from the nacelle?  Jon Zalar: So let’s just use one bolt. One bolt breaks, falls in the hub, bouncing around, doing some– potentially doing some damage inside the hub. And ’cause these turbines, you don’t need to go out there every day ’cause they do run pretty good, right? Right. You just do your regular maintenance. And if you don’t really know about that, ’cause, like, it bounces around for a while, then it usually gets, like, lodged behind a, uh, either center box or pitch cabinet or actually in the front sometimes. Kinda don’t know it happened. But, you know, frees itself up, keeps bouncing around, it, it could escape through the hatch covers ’cause, you know, people have to get into the hub anyway. And I’m sure a lot of people listening here that have sites, like, you know, probably found some bolts laying on the ground, which is a little scary.  Allen Hall: Right. So is, is the busting the hatch opening levers? I know there, there’s a couple different ways to get into that hatch. Yeah. But, uh, is it just completely busting the hatch? Yeah. So it’s– [00:13:00] okay. So you see a– so if you see a loose hatch panel, you have an issue. You probably gotta be careful about coming up on that turbine?  Jon Zalar: Potentially. A lot, a lot of hatches are, you know, not always maintained well.  Allen Hall: Right. I’ve seen them, I’ve seen loose ones, yeah.  Jon Zalar: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Okay. So that, that would be a sign that– but though if, if you’re approaching a turbine, one look on the ground. And Yolando, you, you’ve seen a lot of turbines. So are you, are we looking on the ground and seeing what’s around the turbine before we approach the turbine now? Yeah. Just, just a sanity check?  Yolanda Padron: Yeah. Be aware also of what’s happening on site, right? Because if it’s some- if it’s a problem on site, you need to be extra careful when you’re approaching any turbine there. Uh, is it something that people maybe should start thinking about implementing, like, a sensors earlier on than when they’re seeing the issue actually happen?  Jon Zalar: Yeah. I, I, I think that’s a potential, ’cause it, the quicker you catch it, the less damage you’re gonna do, and it also reduce the risk of [00:14:00] it, um, falling out of the hub And I’ve worked with a couple of my, uh, customers for some, like, potential ways to detect it. Still kind of trialing it right now. But I, I do think there’s gonna be some benefit from a safety reduction, but also from a strictly a damage. ‘Cause, like, you get a couple bolts bouncing around there, and you bang up some cabinets or some pitch motors, that’s expensive and hard to go fix.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, we were talking about it earlier too. Like, it goes down, it can hit a transformer, it can hit, like, a truck or someone.  Jon Zalar: Chance of it hitting someone. Yeah. I mean, I don’t care what hard hat you have on, it’s not gonna do anything.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah.  Allen Hall: So what kind of sensor should you be putting onto the turbine if you don’t have access to the SCADA data or you don’t know what the correct algorithm is to suss out there’s something wrong up there? But a, a bolt breaking is not gonna be something that a SCADA would even pick up, I don’t think. One bolt out of the whole- Yeah. No.  Jon Zalar: No way. Okay. I mean, there’s a– I think there’s, like, [00:15:00]one company looking at more of a, like, mechanical way to, like, prevent the bolt from coming out. I forgot the name of it. Allen Hall: Okay.  Jon Zalar: Um, and then what I was looking at was more of a, like, you know, microphone type detection to kind of listen for that.  Allen Hall: It would make a lot of noise.  Jon Zalar: Yeah. It seems like it works. It, um, yeah, still more development needed on my end.  Allen Hall: So- The engineer in me was, is saying, “Why are we not putting strain gauges on bolts?” I picked on the leading and the trailing. It’s like right dead center there to look at, even if it’s just two strain gauge bolts to see what the loads are.  Jon Zalar: So like there are s- there are bolts that are, or that are made with the strain gauges built in that you can use to go, you know, monitor that. But you also need to understand like what was the design intent. So unless you’re working with the OEM, you don’t really know what you’re seeing is good or bad. You just say, “Oh-  Allen Hall: You just see a number.  Jon Zalar: Yeah. Right. I mean like, and if you install, I don’t know, four, you’d be like, “All right. Leading and trailing edge are higher [00:16:00] than the other two.” Well, yeah, it’s supposed to be, but like is a 10% difference expected or not expected? Allen Hall: Is that something where if you’re, especially if you’re in a full service agreement, and a lot of these turbines are- Yeah … for the first couple of years, if you were to do that, it’s something you would just say to the OEM, “Hey, this is, these are the loads we’re seeing from the strain gauges on these bolts. Does this make sense to you?” Or, or would an OEM just not even respond to that kind of inquiry?  Jon Zalar: I mean, I think it’s all about relationship with the OEM. I, I, I think  Allen Hall: it- I think they would wanna know.  Jon Zalar: I have a feeling they probably are looking.  Allen Hall: Okay.  Jon Zalar: I mean, ’cause I mean they have the test turbines too that they probab- that, that I know they have instrumented heavily. Allen Hall: Yeah. So they, they’re probably getting at least some feedback. Th- that’s the problem. Yeah. And you worked on the other side, right? I have. So you worked for an OEM doing the RTAs. The first problem is you don’t have data, so now you gotta go get the data.  Jon Zalar: Correct.  Allen Hall: And that data is not available tomorrow. No. ‘Cause you’re gonna have to go run some sort of design of experiment to go figure out if [00:17:00] there is even a true problem or even what the root causes could be.  Jon Zalar: And it, and it’s expensive to go instrument a blade and get the data back at the right speed and connected to the turbine data. I mean, I rem- I, I used to say it’s about like 300 to 500,000 to go put a couple gauges on a blade just with all the equipment you need to get the data correct. Allen Hall: To get the right data.  Jon Zalar: Get the right data at the right frequency connected to the controller. It’s, it’s very expensive.  Allen Hall: Wow. Okay. Yeah. I, I don’t, I don’t see a lot of operators doing that.  Jon Zalar: And especially connecting it to the operating data, right? So like if you go put a strain gauge and I don’t know, you’re curtailed, you’re only making, I don’t know, a megawatt- Doesn’t matter. And if you don’t know what the turbine’s doing and you’re looking at this, like, strain gauge data, it’s really hard to correlate anything.  Allen Hall: So you need a full suite of data. Yeah. That includes weather data- Yeah … at some level, right? Gust winds and- Oh,  Jon Zalar: yeah …  Allen Hall: average wind speed. You need the anemometer. You need which, which way [00:18:00] the n- cell’s pointing. Y- uh, you would need a lot of information- And what the controller’s- … to even suss it out …  Jon Zalar: and what the controller’s doing, right? Right. ‘Cause, like, every turbine, the controller’s trying to, like, you know, balance the rotor the whole time. It’s trying to, you know, micro pitch depending on what the winds are doing. And if you don’t know what all that stuff’s doing, like, it’s really hard to correlate a strain gauge measurement to is that bad or not.  Allen Hall: It’s a complicated problem.  Jon Zalar: Yes. That’s why RCAs take, you know, a long time, and they’re not done in two weeks.  Allen Hall: No, they’re done in a year.  Jon Zalar: Yeah.  Allen Hall: Typically, or longer. So what should an operator be thinking about now? If, if we s- get our drone images back, we’re scanning through them like, “Oh, there’s a crack” What am I doing next besides calling you and connecting to your LinkedIn page?  Jon Zalar: So right now with the pitch bearing crack, um, some of the OEMs are providing stiffener plates to put over the crack and try to run it. Allen Hall: So that’s a doubler plate, basically. A double plate. Doubler  Jon Zalar: plate, yes. [00:19:00] Allen Hall: Yeah. Okay. So even in a, in a crack scenario, that pitch bearing, if given mechanical support, can run like that?  Jon Zalar: That’s my understanding, yes. That, that potentially could run for some period of time. I don’t know if it’ll make it 20 years or not, but it’ll buy you time for sure. Allen Hall: Does that involve a crane to do that work or is that just… My recollection, that was in pieces, like there, it’s not a ring, it’s a, a couple of pieces that you’d be able to bolt on without taking the-  Jon Zalar: No, it’s a- … blade down … it’s a, it’s a single piece that-  Allen Hall: It’s like a single casting kind of thing.  Jon Zalar: Right. And I, I think you need some like small crane, like a jig crane or one of those-  Allen Hall: Just to support the blade while you do it? Jon Zalar: And to go put it in, right. Okay. Yeah, I don’t think, you’re not taking the blade off. You’re not taking the  Allen Hall: blade down.  Jon Zalar: Correct. Yeah. It’s, it’s done with the blade up there.  Allen Hall: Okay.  Jon Zalar: You’re putting new, putting longer studs in and putting the plate on.  Allen Hall: So first step is let’s get the joint reinforced. Right. That’s the easy first step.  Jon Zalar: Right. Although there has been some cases where since [00:20:00]you’ve put that stiffener plate on, the loads get spread out to the end of the plate, and then you- Sure … you could see cracks there.  Allen Hall: Okay. All right. So the loads- It, that- … have to go somewhere …  Jon Zalar: loads have to go somewhere. That’s, that is a bottom line. Allen Hall: All right. So you’re just changing where the load path is, so you have to be cognizant of that. Okay. Sure. Fine. But if you have, uh, especially in the United States, you don’t have 10 of these turbines, you have 50, 100- 100 … 200, 300 of these things, or thousands as it, as it turns out. Are there simple solutions that can be applied to, just to give me a sense, like that turbine’s having a problem, but the one next to it’s not, and, and just, just from a maintenance spin standpoint where I’m not just blanketing everything and trying to do everything to all these turbines at once, how do I, how do I manage this? Jon Zalar: I, I think it’s like being very observant. So like, you know, making sure you’re looking at the pitch bearings from the drone images, right? Um, also talking [00:21:00] to your maintenance people like, “Hey, are, are you finding a bunch of broken bolts? Like, what positions?” Like, you know, if I was back at the OEM, I would like to have as much data as possible on this issue. Like how many bolts are, when did you find them, what positions? A lot of times we, when I was there, like we would not get all that information, so it’s like really hard to run an RCA without that information.  Allen Hall: Sure. Yeah, where did this bolt break in the ring?  Jon Zalar: Right.  Allen Hall: Could tell you a lot. Is it just a b- bad lot of bolts, or is it something more load related? Jon Zalar: Correct.  Allen Hall: Wow. Okay.  Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point, too, to make sure that you’re connected with like every stage of the operations. ‘Cause I know that everybody’s obviously really, really busy on a wind farm, but it’s really common for like an engineer to have certain data and the site team to just be running around and having a lot of data, but maybe they don’t realize that, oh, it’s important to know how many bolts per tower are coming down. Jon Zalar: Correct. Yeah  Allen Hall: That’s a lot of work  Jon Zalar: It definitely-  Allen Hall: It’s a tremendous effort if you’re gonna [00:22:00] go after this problem and, and solve it RCS  Jon Zalar: are hard. They  Allen Hall: are. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. Machines are complicated today. There’s a lot of computer-driven s- things about them, and then you have these loading issues, and you have composite materials. Th- there’s just, y-  Jon Zalar: you got to get- It’s a very complex  Allen Hall: It’s a machine, right? Yeah. It’s a complex machine. So how do people reach out to… You’re, you’re the head of IWTG, which is based in South Carolina, but you do consulting worldwide. Yes. And, and you are a huge resource because you understand the complexities of these problems. How do people get ahold of you and, and get something started if they have a, a, a blade bolt issue or an insert issue or a cracked pitch bearing? Where do they start?  Jon Zalar: They can send me an email, jzalar@iwtgconsulting.com.  Allen Hall: Okay. And you have a great LinkedIn page, so you can connect with you on LinkedIn.  Jon Zalar: Yes. Yeah, I have one  Allen Hall: of those. Yes. Or you could just come to WOMA in [00:23:00]2027. Yeah. You can. You can meet John there and, and arrange everything there. So John, it’s great to see you, and thank you for coming up. We, uh, we’re recording this at the world headquarters of Weather Guard Lightning Tech, and, uh, John just lives down the street in, in, in US terms. Yeah. So it’s, it’s great to have John come and visit us up here in North Carolina. So John, thank you so much for joining us.  Jon Zalar: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

A western Ohio glass plant that was slated to close by the end of this year will not only remain open, but also expand its production and add jobs, company and economic development officials said last week.Vitro, a producer of glass for automotive, architectural and consumer goods companies, announced in the fall of 2024 that it would close its facility in Crestline, Ohio, which makes glass for automotive OEMs. State officials said that the decision came amid “sharp headwinds” in the industry and was part of a broader plan to reshuffle Vitro's manufacturing footprint, but over the following months, improving macroeconomic conditions and “new business opportunities” prompted Vitro to weigh other options to meet demand — including, potentially, modernizing, rather than shuttering, the Crestline plant.State economic development agency JobsOhio, also with other state officials and local economic development groups, said that it lobbied company executives to invest in Crestline instead of its other U.S. facilities, and officials announced last Monday that Vitro would move forward with a project to improve efficiency and bolster production capacity at the Ohio location. The move would retain its current workforce of 265, as well as add another 53 new jobs.Carlos Bernal, the president of Vitro Automotive Glass, called the announcement “an important step” in strengthening the company's competitiveness, and that it remains “committed to continuously evaluating opportunities to improve our manufacturing network.”The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved an eight-year tax incentive package to support the project, which includes a 1.302% tax credit over that span.

Send us Fan MailMachinery manufacturing is among the most operationally complex segments of the ERP market, with business requirements varying significantly across OEMs, component manufacturers, distributors, field service organizations, and equipment rental companies. Many organizations also operate multiple business models under a single corporate structure, adding further complexity to ERP selection. As a result, choosing the right ERP system requires more than evaluating company size or feature lists. It demands a clear understanding of the organization's unique combination of manufacturing, distribution, service, and rental processes to ensure the platform supports both current operations and long-term growth.In this episode, our host Sam Gupta discusses the top Machinery Manufacturing ERP systems in 2026. He also discusses several variables that influence the rankings of these ERP systems. Finally, he shares the pros and cons of each ERP system.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP_jGo2xmMERead: https://www.elevatiq.com/post/top-machinery-manufacturing-erp-systems/Questions for Panelists?

Steve Boecker shares his extensive journey in the aviation industry, detailing his early passion for aviation, and reflects on his time at FedEx, Pratt & Whitney, and Delta Airlines.  We discuss various aspects of the aviation engine market, including current trends in lease rates, the reliability of engine types, and the expectations from OEMs regarding engine performance. He emphasizes the importance of managing costs in engine maintenance and the impact of new technologies on the market.  We also touch on the disruptive nature of companies like FTAI in the engine market.

- Nissan Turns Corner, Posts Net Profit - Mitsubishi Improves Finances - Yen Crisis Helps Japanese OEMs - CATL Now 3rd Largest Global Auto Supplier - American Rheinmetall Gets U.S. Army AV Contract - Jetta Brand Moves Away from VW's Styling - Hybrids Power Honda, Hyundai and Kia Sales - Mahle Turns to Sheep for Cabin Filters

- Nissan Turns Corner, Posts Net Profit - Mitsubishi Improves Finances - Yen Crisis Helps Japanese OEMs - CATL Now 3rd Largest Global Auto Supplier - American Rheinmetall Gets U.S. Army AV Contract - Jetta Brand Moves Away from VW's Styling - Hybrids Power Honda, Hyundai and Kia Sales - Mahle Turns to Sheep for Cabin Filters

Resilience is the most used word in automotive, and one of the least staffed functions in it. It turns up in board decks, on conference panels, and in webinar titles, and then the next disruption hits, and the response doesn't look any different from the last one: a war room, a handful of empowered people, and a lot of luck.In this episode, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Ambrose Conroy, CEO of Seraph, to put structure behind a phrase most leaders use loosely. Ambrose built his firm on crisis work, and his answer to the resilience question isn't a mindset. It's an org chart. Build an office of resilience, staff it full-time, and have it report to the CEO or the board.The model already exists outside automotive. Shell and Apple run standing teams that watch their value chains down to raw material pricing, and Apple's got roughly 100 people doing it. Toyota does the same work without giving it a name. What separates them from most OEMs and tier ones isn't intent. It's the ability to see across their own data.That's where most companies stop. Multiple ERP instances, disconnected PLM systems, and dozens of cross-reference tables make it slow to answer a simple question: what stops if the rare earth supply is disrupted, or if an earthquake takes out a plant in Japan? Ambrose and Tom are blunt about what dirty master data does to AI. It drifts. It hallucinates. It returns alerts nobody can act on.Speed is the second half of the argument. In the Novelis disruption, three OEMs faced the same problem. One had an alternate capacity locked in within 48 hours. One followed the full qualification process and lost weeks. The third didn't really know what was going on.The mindset shift is the hard part, and Jan says so plainly about her own years running the supply chain. Nobody wants to fund headcount against a risk that hasn't happened yet. The leaders who fund it anyway will be the ones still shipping when the next choke point closes.Themes Discussed in This EpisodeWhat an office of resilience actually doesWhy resilience fails as a part-time assignmentBoard and CEO ownership of enterprise riskMaster data as the foundation of risk visibilityChoke points, commodities, and what-if modelingThe end of the annual cost-downDecision speed as a competitive advantageMeasuring resilience against competitorsThis podcast is powered by QAD RedZone.Featured GuestName: Ambrose ConroyTitle: Founder and CEO of Seraph ConsultingAbout: Ambrose is the Founder and CEO of Seraph Consulting. He founded Seraph to solve complex, bet-the-business problems for clients and to be the go-to partner for driving operational excellence. Before founding Seraph, Ambrose served as Vice President of Supply Chain Solutions at NAI Global and led the West Coast Global Business Transformation Group at PA Consulting, where he specialized in due diligence, crisis management, and strategic transformation. He began his career as a consultant at CSC.Connect: LinkedInAbout Your HostsJan GriffithsJan is the host and producer of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and The Automotive Leaders Podcast. A former automotive manufacturing and supply chain executive, Jan is recognized as a Champion for Culture Change in the automotive industry. She brings direct, grounded conversations to leaders navigating execution, disruption, and transformation across the global automotive ecosystem.Tom Roberts (Co-host)Tom is Co-host of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and Vice President of Strategic Industry Development at QAD. He works closely with automotive and industrial manufacturers to close the gap between insight and execution, helping leaders move from visibility to systems of action that drive real operational outcomes.Mentioned in the Episode:Seraph choke point analysis webinar deckEpisode Highlights[00:04:35] What an Office of Resilience Is: Ambrose anchors it to the board risk committee mandate. The office exists to protect your ability to deliver today's products and services, no matter what happens.[00:05:34] Seeing Across Your Own Data: The blocker isn't strategy. It's architecture. Most OEMs and tier ones have built systems that can't give anyone a cross-enterprise view.[00:07:57] AI Drifts on Dirty Data: Fifty reference tables and disconnected PLM systems produce alerts nobody trusts. Tom points out that's exactly where big data analytics projects fell over a decade ago.[00:09:04] If It's Not in the System, It's Risk: Working around the system of record feels faster in a crisis, and it's what leaves you people-dependent when things start going wrong, and people get tired.[00:13:44] The Cost-Down Era Is Over: Annual price decreases aren't coming back. Ambrose argues that if you're not running the what-if scenarios, the crisis and chaos will cost you far more than the five or ten strategic heads you didn't want to fund.[00:16:45] Who Owns It: CEO, CFO, or board. Anywhere below that, silos and politics kill it before it's produced anything.[00:19:42] Part-Time Doesn't Work: You need full-time people from finance, legal, supply chain, and strategy, led by someone with the standing to challenge peers. Ambrose calls it a grooming ground for future senior executives.[00:22:02] Three OEMs, One Disruption: The Novelis situation exposed the gap between empowered decision-making and process compliance, measured in weeks of lost capacity.[00:24:09] Measuring Risk You Prevented: Purchasing savings as a metric is done, and Ambrose points to an OEM that skipped a volume-specific contract to capture some. Success is relative now: how fast your organization absorbs disruption compared with direct competitors.Top Quotes[00:06:33] Ambrose Conroy: "It's not just getting out of China, it's not just regionalization, it's making sure you have business continuity moving forward, no matter what."[00:16:15] Ambrose Conroy: "So an office of resilience needs to be able to take that into account, and you need to have the data to do it. But you also need to have the organization, you need to have the will, and you need to have the sponsorship from a board level or a CEO level to make it work."[00:27:00] Ambrose Conroy: "There's a lot of choke points out there right now that could close, thinking through those proactively and comparing how your organization performs to those of your direct competitors is the cleanest way to measure the impact and success of the office of resilience."If this episode resonated, share it with a fellow automotive leader and subscribe to the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast, where we're closing the gap between insight and action across the global automotive supply chain.Follow the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast for real conversations with leaders who are making hard choices, focusing their bets, and leading with intent.

Listen in as Aviation Week editors Sean Broderick, Michael Bruno and James Pozzi discuss the recent comments from airframe and engine OEMs on the aftermarket, why the issue has surfaced now and whether a new aircraft-engine OEM business model is achievable.

What is the minimum level of leadership an aerospace company needs to survive constant change? Because technical excellence is not enough anymore. Aerospace and aviation companies are being pushed to move faster, scale highly specialized teams, cut through bureaucracy, and make decisions before every variable is known. But many are still promoting great engineers, operators, and technical specialists into management with almost no preparation for the job they are actually being asked to do. Then leadership wonders why information gets trapped, accountability disappears, teams slow down, and high performers burn out. That is the problem behind Matt Gjertsen's concept of the Minimum Viable Manager. The name sounds modest. The standard is not. At a minimum, managers need to know how to build trust, set clear expectations, and give useful feedback. Without those fundamentals, all the talk about innovation, speed, ownership, and high performance is just noise. You cannot scale technical capability if the people leading it do not know how to align a team, push performance, or create the conditions for others to succeed. And this matters because the aerospace companies pulling ahead are not just hiring better talent. They are building cultures that can move.  In this episode, I sit down with Matt, author of The Minimum Viable Manager and former Head of Training and Development at SpaceX. We talk about what aerospace companies can learn from SpaceX about hierarchy, ownership, and execution, and why technical expertise does not automatically produce strong leaders. We also discuss why companies that fail to develop managers alongside their workforce will eventually hit a wall.   What You'll Discover In This Episode  Why aerospace companies need a practical definition of effective management How trust, clear expectations, and useful feedback support technical team performance Why strong engineers and operators often struggle when they move into management What SpaceX can teach aerospace leaders about hierarchy, ownership, and execution Why fast-moving companies organize work around outcomes rather than inherited processes How leaders can push technical teams beyond their comfort zones without creating burnout Why responsibility must be accompanied by the authority to make decisions What separates aerospace companies adapting to change from those slowed by bureaucracy Why scaling the industry's technical workforce also requires developing capable managers   About the Guest Matt Gjertsen is the founder of Built Leaders and the author of The Minimum Viable Manager. A former SpaceX learning and development leader, Air Force pilot, speaker, facilitator, and trainer, Matt helps innovative hard-tech companies build leaders capable of guiding teams through complex, high-stakes challenges. Through Built Leaders, he works with aerospace, defense, and energy companies to identify the leadership issues limiting team performance and develop practical, behavior-focused solutions. Over the past four years, his programs have trained hundreds of leaders across more than a dozen organizations. Connect with Matt on LinkedIn, visit https://www.amazon.com/Minimum-Viable-Manager-Essential-Technical/dp/1774587270/ref=sr_1_1 to grab a copy of Matt's new book.   About Your Host   Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF-trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers, and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.    Resources For more aerospace industry news & commentary: https://craigpicken.com/insights/.  To learn more about Craig Picken, visit https://craigpicken.com/. 

Rosemary Barnes, CEO and founder of Pardalote Consulting, joins to discuss their new grant-funded study of blade erosion and heat fatigue in Australia. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow Allen Hall 2025: Well, Rosemary, welcome back to the show.  Rosemary Barnes: Thanks, Allen. Great to be here. For, it’s been a while since we did one of these one-on-one episodes, like a, yeah, a proper, proper guest.  Allen Hall 2025: Well, this is kind of a celebratory episode because your company, Pardalote Consulting, has been awarded, uh, some funding from the Australian Capital Territory’s government for the Energy Innovation Fund. Rosemary Barnes: It’s a really good program that the ACT government has to try and get energy innovation In the state. It’s not a state actually, it’s technically a territory. Little more than just Canberra, the city. Uh, but there are actually quite a few, like, really interesting energy-related companies here, partly ’cause of the, the fund I think helps, but also just tracing back like, [00:01:00] uh, y- you know, in the 20-teens, Australia had a really conservative government that hated renewable energy, and the ACT government had a commitment at that time to 100%, um, 100% renewable electricity for the, the government. And that was one of the only programs that was resulting in a lot of, um, you know, clean energy projects being built, and one of the conditions that they put on that, uh, for people that would win PPAs with the ACT was that you had to have your headquarters in Canberra. So we’ve actually got quite a few, quite a few really cool, innovative companies out of here. Um, like Neoen’s headquarters here. Windlab, uh, yeah, was, was founded here and still has a lot of people here. Pardalote obviously, and you know, a few other companies as well. So despite it being a small city of like, I don’t know, maybe it’s up to 400,000 or something people by now, um, yeah, there is actually quite a lot going on here for energy. Allen Hall 2025: And the Energy Innovation Fund is funded by the wind and solar operators in the area, and your particular [00:02:00] effort has really global consequences. You’re focusing on two areas involving how wind turbines survive Australia, but more, uh, of relevance is to just really tough conditions which exist not just in Australia but around the world. What two areas are you going to focus on?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. So the two focus areas are leading edge erosion and high temperature fatigue, which we can probably get into the definitions of those in a minute. But basically my, um– what led me to wanna have a project like this was that when I moved back to Australia in 2021, I– and I started working in O&M, uh, I noticed that the wind turbines that I would look at, the blades that I would look at here behaved really differently to the ones that I worked with overseas. You know, es- especially with leading edge erosion, like often I would be doing a condition assessment of a, you know, a new wind farm. Um, might only have been operating for, you know, two years. That’s a pretty common time for people to get in and do a condition assessment [00:03:00] because their warranty period is about to end and they wanna, you know, make sure that everything is okay. Um, and I would just notice that often, like 90, 100% of blades would already have bad erosion after just a couple of years, which is super-duper fast. And then there are some tools available to check, um, like what kind of erosion are you likely to experience on your site. Like is it a higher severity erosion site or a, a low severity one? Um, and you basically, you know, the status quo globally is to just look at the annual rainfall, um, and the tip speed. And if you’ve got, you know, high for both of those, that’s a bad erosion site. And if you’ve got low for both of those, it’s a, a low erosion site. But when I plotted out the wind farms that I knew had really bad erosion problems onto, you know, a chart with those two axes, I just saw a random distribution of dots. You know? Like, this was not– uh, this had no predictive value for Australian wind farms. And so that led me to believe that, okay, um, you know, things are a bit [00:04:00] different here. Makes sense, you know, most of the knowledge that we have about how wind turbines operate, it’s been developed and validated mostly in Northern Europe. You know? Like it’s, it’s Denmark and the surrounding countries that had, like, the bulk of the early wind energy. First few decades of knowledge were, you know, were mostly there. Of course, there were some other, um, places that had wind turbines, but, you know, most of the The OEMs have been operating for decades, came from Denmark. And I know when I lived in Denmark, the rain there is very different to the rain in Australia. So in Denmark, it’s basically always raining, right? Like, it’s just… Like, even if it’s not raining, you’re still gonna get wet when you go outside ’cause it’s just, like, the air has this just amazing ability to just hold onto moisture. Um, but it’s very, very gentle. But, you know, over an entire year of most days having gentle rain, that adds up to a lot. Whereas in Australia, and especially if you go, like, north to Queensland, it rarely rains. It’s mostly just dry, and when it [00:05:00] does rain, it’s like a tap turns on, and I, I swear you will get bruised from the rain droplets hitting your skin. You know, they just have so much energy in them. So I think that that i- you know, when you look at just the overall rainfall, you really hide something important about how erosion, um, can progress. Then, um, there’s other places in Australia that have very different characteristics. Again, they don’t have that kind of really intense rain but, you know, some of those sites are also having really bad erosion. And so it just occurred to me, I did a lot of research, you know, into what’s going on and, you know, the academics are studying erosion a whole lot, and they’ve got, you know, a lot of standardized tests and, you know, products are developed according to these standardized tests. But the standardized tests don’t actually resemble reality, and especially they don’t resemble reality in Australia. And so my client started asking me, “Okay, you know, the products that we have are, are terrible. We have to replace them every couple of years. It’s, um, causing big problems with also [00:06:00] the amount of energy that you’re losing.” One of the types of, um, leading-edge erosion or leading-edge problems that we have in Australia is that the, the coatings tend to peel off and make these, like, big flakes which will just massively disrupt the airflow, can cause y- you know, at least a few percent AEP loss, and maybe up to five. And even worse than the AEP loss is the revenue loss because it affects it most at, you know, lower wind speeds. Um, you get a bigger hit than at rated wind speeds. So there’s a variety of problems going on with leading edges in Australia, which mean that I, I basically… My clients would ask, “What product should we put on to prevent having to, you know, constantly replace this?” ‘Cause it costs, like- you know, 30, $40,000 per turbine to replace the protection, not to mention, you know, one or two days of downtime. It’s expensive, and I basically, I didn’t have a good answer for them. What, what product should they put on? I don’t know. No, we, we don’t know. One, we don’t know what the [00:07:00] specific, um, characteristics are that are… what the specific local environment, local conditions are that are accelerating leading-edge erosion, one. And two, all of the products tend to be tested around this, you know, there’s this protocol that academics have come up with, and they’ve kind of like assumed that this is representative of how things behave in the field, and it’s– I don’t think it’s particularly true anyway, but it’s especially not true in Australia. There are a few companies that are testing to different standards. Um, definitely applaud them. But without knowing wha- what are the conditions truly like in Australia, uh, it’s really hard to advise, like, what kind of tests should you be demanding from a product you’re considering to be sure that you’re gonna put it on and not gonna be replacing it again in two years. Allen Hall 2025: Because that’s really the trouble in Australia is when you get offered products They have been tested generally in somewhere in Europe and maybe in the United States, and then when they go to [00:08:00] Australia, it’s really unknown as to how those products will do, which is a huge risk for the Australian wind market as to what to choose, how to choose, is it– what’s real in terms of test data. So now you’re gonna go out and do what? Are you gonna put sensors out by the wind farms? Are you gonna try to do more of a statistical summary of the actual environment around wind farms using existing data? What’s the approach here?  Rosemary Barnes: It’s all of the above, but the part that is supported by the grant is that we’re gonna have enough money to be able to buy some scientific-grade sensors and put them on, um, a sample of Australian wind farms. So we’re gonna be looking at a lot more characteristics about the rain than simply is it raining now, you know, how many millimeters per hour. We’re also gonna be investigating, you know, every kind of characteristic of, of that, um, of that rain, um, including, yeah, like the, the energy that’s in it, for example. A, a bunch of stuff. I won’t get into every single [00:09:00] parameter. Um, and you know, other things as well, like measuring UV, solar radiation, um, particles, because, you know, in Australia we have a lot of dirt roads, which I know is very common in wind farms around the world, but Australian dirt roa- roads are always dry and dusty, like 99% of the time, so that’s one of the things that y- you know, maybe that’s causing a difference. Um, so basically putting sensors all over a bunch of wind turbines and then monitoring the erosion, um, a combination of some real-time monitoring and also looking at inspection, um, drone inspection images annually. We also have a- an option where we’ll just be using SCADA data and inspection images, so that’s like a lower cost version where we can combine that with the findings from the scientific-grade instrumented turbines to build up a picture of what types of conditions lead to accelerated erosion.[00:10:00] Allen Hall 2025: So the SCADA data will, will have some information inside of it, you think, that, uh, will correlate to the weather outside?  Rosemary Barnes: It has some Additionally, we can look up, um, you know, just the weather data, like how many millimeters fell during which 15-minute interval throughout the day, what was the temperature. SCADA will tell us also what the temperature was, um, what the speed of the turbine was, so you can calculate the tip speed, ’cause that’s an important thing. Um, yeah, so it’s, it’s two, it’s two tiers of data collection. The scientific grade sensors, as you can imagine, are, are really expensive and y- you know, the, the grant project has contributed a, a lot of funding, um, but it’s not enough to put those, yeah, put a little mini lab on top of every turbine across Australia, obviously. So that we’re using s- doing selectively, and then we can increase the number of wind farms that are included in the study by just doing this, um, cheaper version of the SCADA [00:11:00] plus, uh, weather data that’s available.  Allen Hall 2025: So what are some of the risks on the temperature side for all the high-temperature regions of Australia that have wind turbines? Clearly it’s generally warmer in Australia than it is in, in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. What kind of temperatures are we talking about on the ground?  Rosemary Barnes: Uh, well, temperatures here can get pretty close to 50 degrees. Um, and if you’ve ever been inside a wind turbine blade on a, even a mildly hot day, you’ll know that the temperature inside a wind turbine, and especially inside the blade, is much hotter than what it is, uh, what the ambient temperature is. So this project is one– I’ve actually been talking about this project for, yeah, like over 10 years now. Ever since I started, I moved to Denmark, started working for a wind turbine manufacturer, I had done– I had just finished doing my PhD on composite materials, structural design, and analysis. So, um, yeah, very, very familiar with, [00:12:00] you know, how composite materials work and, in particular, the effect that temperature has on them. I mean, like most materials, when composites get warmer, they get softer, and that is really important for a w- a wind turbine blade. You know, if it gets, um, less stiff, then you’re gonna get a lot more strain, and that is going to affect your fatigue behavior. Y- you know, fatigue is just the application of a little bit of, a small amount of strain. It’s not gonna cause damage, but when you apply it millions, tens of millions of times, like you do in a, o- over a wind turbine’s operate, um, operating lifetime, then that builds up. And, you know, wind turbine blades are a very fatigue-driven design. Um, it’s one of the most important things to consider when you’re designing a wind turbine blade. And so when I got to Denmark and I learned how materials are qualified and how the qualification is treated in the certification process, I just realized it’s not particularly conservative, and also that some of the assumptions that are made that [00:13:00] wo- again, they worked really well in more moderate climates where wind turbines have had most of their developmental history. You know, it’s not such a big deal there if you test at room temperature. Your wind turbine blade is spending most of its operating lifetime at room temperature or below. It’s, it’s rarely, you know, above 30 degrees in Denmark and most of Northern Europe and, you know, also a lot of, um, a lot of America, not, not all of it But, um, in Australia it has just extended periods above that temperature and even exceeding the temperature where, you know, wind turbines have an operating limit and after that they will shut down. But the operating limits are based on ambient temperature. It’s not based on what’s the temperature in the laminate, which is what really matters for blade lifetime. So anyway, I’ve been obsessed, like honestly obsessed about this issue for 10 years. Talked about it with anybody who would listen . But then when I started working in O&M in [00:14:00] Australia and I started seeing some wind farms with an abnormal number of cracks early… again, early in their lifetime, you know, I think one of the wind farms I was looking at was maybe three years old or four at the time. I think it was three actually, and had a lot of cracks, and I looked at a few years in a row and it was more and more cracks every year and I’m like, “Oof, this really looks like end of life fatigue behavior.” A- actually it’s not, y- you know, there’s this concept of a bathtub curve where, um, when you’re looking at failures in components, in, in anything, not just in, um, wind turbine blades, but you know, like you’d start– it’s called a bathtub because, you know, when it starts operating, you’ll get quite a lot of failures. Anything big, any manufacturing defects or anything are gonna cause failures quite fast, and that kind of drops off over time as all of those, uh, get addressed. And then you have, you know, the bulk of your operating life, it’s like pretty low level, pretty, pretty constant for a long time and then as you get towards the end of the [00:15:00] life, you start to see failure rates rise up again. That’s your fatigue failures, your end of life fatigue failures. And so when I saw the same types of cracks more and more each year, I’m like, “This looks like, you know, the foot end of the bathtub, not the head end.” And, uh, it made me worried and I’ve now seen that across a few wind farms in Australia at, um, hotter places. There’s a few blade types that are more prone to it than others, but at this point it’s still a suspicion that that’s what’s going on. I mean, a suspicion backed by a lot of, a lot of theory and knowledge of how the certification process works. But this project now we’ve got some funding to actually go put some sensors onto wind turbines, actually learn what the temperatures are in the blades throughout the whole laminate, um, not just the, you know, on the outside surface or not just the ambient temperature, but actually, you know, develop a temperature gradient across the whole, um, the whole laminate in the blade shell. Um, and [00:16:00] then we’re going to be doing a bunch of modeling basically to look at what is the effect of these different temperatures that blades are really seeing and how much would we expect to… that to decrease a lifetime. And then we should also be able to say, you know, if you have this issue in your wind farm, you might be able to change your operation a little bit and extend your lifetime a lot. Because this one, it’s real– like, in contrast to leading edge erosion, leading edge erosion is just, it’s, you know, every wind turbine has it to a certain extent, and it, it’s always there, but it’s a relatively minor cost to fix it. You know, like it sounds like a lot, like 30, $40,000 per wind turbine, but, um, you know, compared to if you’ve got to replace every blade across your fleet because they’re all, you know, at the end of their life after five years, you know, that’s obviously shocking. And, you know, that’s a bad example, but even in a y- you know, like a less extreme example, maybe [00:17:00] after 15 years you have to do a, you know, a f- a fleet-wide campaign to strengthen blades or something. It’s, you know, m- many millions of dollars for that, and so it c- could make sense to be able to learn, okay, what, what hours of operation should we be avoiding? Additionally, because when it’s super-duper hot in Australia, usually you’ve got heaps of solar power and the electricity price is not that high. So I, I think that there– and I don’t, obviously, before we’ve done the project, I don’t know what the threshold is. But in both cases, we will be aiming to improve the knowledge of how you can operate to avoid these periods of accelerated damage. Allen Hall 2025: Do you think you’re seeing more fatigue-like damage due to the blades operating when it’s hot or not operating when it’s hot, with maybe less airflow around the blade and maybe less cooling going on is just a temperature soak At rest? [00:18:00] Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It’s interesting because the temperature is higher if it’s not rotating, um, because you get a whole lot of, um, convective heat, heat transfer when the turbine is operating. So your temperatures are not gonna get as hot when operating as when they’re standing still. However, if it’s standing still, they’re only very lightly loaded. Like, yes, they’re gonna get, um, blown by, by gusts and, um, have a little bit of bending, but it’s, it’s very, very small compared to, uh, if it is y- you know, operational loads. Uh, assuming that you’re not in the middle of a s- a storm. But yeah, a storm probably doesn’t come with 50 degrees temperatures.  Allen Hall 2025: And what part of the blade is susceptible to these higher temperatures? Is it the resin? Is it the fiberglass or carbon fiber? Or is it the, the glue, the bond joints? What part are you focused on? Rosemary Barnes: The resin is the main part that I’m focused on. It gl- it could be an issue for glue too, actually. I haven’t even looked into what the, um, yeah, temperature assumptions are with, with glue, with [00:19:00] bond lines. But the failures that I’m seeing in the field are not, are not bond line issues. It’s, it’s, um, a laminate problem. Allen Hall 2025: What about balsa and foam inside of the blade? Are they affected by the temperatures or are they pretty temperature stable?  Rosemary Barnes: I don’t think they’re affected at these kinds of temperatures, no. They, they don’t really do much actually. The, the core materials, like it, it is very important that they’re, that they’re there, but their job is really to keep the fiberglass separated from its- itself to make it stiffer. So, um, yeah, that’s, that’s unlikely to be a, a major source of problems.  Allen Hall 2025: So this study is gonna work over about three years, and you have a number of wind farms that are participating. Are you looking for more wind farms to participate in Australia?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we can, um, have as many as, as people want to join. We’ve got quite a good selection so far. Definitely can always welcome more. A, a bit limited in how many can get the really, um, good sensor [00:20:00]package, because the grant funding is a, you know, a certain amount, and that’s paying the bulk of those sensors. So, um, those spots are limited. So if anybody wants to really zone in on what is specifically causing erosion on their site, you know, if you know that you have got leading edge protection that is not good enough and you have to replace it soon, but you don’t know what to replace it with, then, you know, that would be the kind of wind farm that might want to consider, yeah, joining this and, um, you know, getting these sensors on their, um… We’re putting them on top of the nacelles, most of them. Um, yeah, so that would be a good match then. Um, and then, yeah, for the ones that are doing the SCADA data and, um, weather data- There’s not such a, a hard limit on how many we can have join like that. So yeah, we can have more, more like that.  Allen Hall 2025: In the temperature fatigue effort, i- is that still looking for participants or are there particular wind turbine types or manufacturers that you’re [00:21:00] looking for to participate? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I think, um, I, I mean yes, we can have more of those. That’s a simpler, a, a simpler issue as well. The sensors are not so expensive and, um, it’s, yeah, it’s a, it’s a simpler project to join that one. We only need, you know, a couple of turbines per site, so it won’t be such a, uh, an involved process to get everything up on into the turbines. And in terms of who might like to join that, I would say anybody that is in a really hot area where, you know, where they see a lot of days over 30 degrees, and if they see any days, you know, getting into the high 40s, then I would say that that’s worthwhile. Or even I have seen this issue in some milder sites, um, yeah, depending on the, on the blade type as well. It is more common with polyester resins. They have a, a lower op- uh, maximum operating temperature than epoxy resins. But then also just anybody that has noticed just, hey, [00:22:00] we’ve got a lot of cracks, and it seems like we’re getting more and more cracks every year, which to be honest, can be hard to keep track of if you’re… If you’ve got a full service agreement, uh, you know, an OEM managing your wind farm The early signs of this are gonna be category one and category two cracks. They’re not in exactly the same location. It’s, you know, it’s a tricky one. Normally, if you’re looking at a serial issue, then you’re going to have, uh, well, you know, your ideal pattern for a serial issue is the exact same thing happening over and over again. And so it is harder to pull this out. It also really would be very rare for it to be happening in the first two years or three years, whatever your serial defect liability period is. So it’s quite hard. But, um, another group of wind farms that might like to consider it is if you know that in, you know, a certain number of years you have to renegotiate your service agreement or, you know, it ends and you might have to take over yourself, then this’ll be a really good way for you to [00:23:00] understand, you know, have I got a ticking time bomb here? Um, because it’s not something that you’re gonna be aware of if you haven’t been, you know, doing some really, really in-depth shadow, shadow monitoring of your blades, you know, running your own inspections and looking at every single damage, not just category three, four, five, but lower ones. So yeah, I mean, there’s a, a wide variety of people that, that could be interested in joining. Allen Hall 2025: Are you expecting a number of manufacturers that make leading-edge protection or involved in resin creation, some– there’s a number of resin companies and a variety of resins that are used globally, sort of interchangeably at times. Are you expecting some of those companies to participate in this effort just to learn about the Australian environment? Rosemary Barnes: I think it would be a good opportunity to test out some products and see how they behave in the Australian context. I think that that would be a really good selling point, but I, I have to say that most of the companies doing that sort of thing that wanna enter Australia, they don’t [00:24:00] really consider… Like, from the perspective of wind farm owners in Australia, if you can’t show us wind farms in Australia where this has worked and, you know, show us a before or after, you know, the old LEP lasted Two years and our LEP is going on four years now with no damage. It, you know, unless you’ve got a before and after like that, you can tell us however many turbines that you’ve got installed around the world, but, um, we don’t consider it validated, y- you know? It’s not validated for Australian conditions yet. And I do have this same discussion over and over again with, you know, not just leading edge protection, but all kinds of, um, you know, manufacturers of whatever doodads that you put on to improve a, a wind turbine. It’s so different to Australia. Things break so fast. And I’m talking everything, you know, like vortex generators fall off and, um, yeah, like, uh, you know, bits of lightning protection systems fall off, seals just [00:25:00] crumble and disintegrate. Um, and it, you know, we’re very wary of, of new products. So I, I do– I mean, I’m thinking of it more from my client’s point of view than from the product manufacturer’s point of view. But one thing that I wanna get out of this pro- project is to be able to answer one of the most common questions that I get is, which is, what leading edge protection should I be putting on my turbine? And for now, I don’t know. I, I know a range of products that don’t work in Australia, and not much more than that. So, um, yeah. And it’s also, you know, Australia’s a very varied place with lots of different kinds of climate too. So it’s not gonna be like, you know, the product that works in Queensland is the same one that’s gonna work in Tasmania, which is the same one that’s gonna work in Western Australia. You know, um, so it, this project is gonna really pull out what are the site specific issues you’ve got at your site and what kinds of, um, you know, tests would we need to see a product um, perform in order to know that this [00:26:00] is gonna last on your site. Allen Hall 2025: W- what is the outcome of this project or these two projects? Are they gonna be reports or, uh, a, a continual monitoring system that’s designed for the Australian environment? How do you see this going?  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, so one part of it is, um, developing a way to identify periods of accelerated damage and to know not to operate during that time. So we call it protective operation. Uh, so that would, uh, help you if, yeah, you’re trying to extend the life of something or increase the amount of time before you have to repair, then y- you know, that would be useful to have that knowledge. And it will be as simple as just an alert saying, “Hey, accelerated damage conditions. Consider, you know, if you wanna keep on operating.” And, you know, if the price of electricity is super high at that time, they may want to push through, and if it’s low, they probably won’t want to. So that’s one thing. Um, especially, you know, as wind turbines get to their, near the end of their life. I’ve got some clients whose wind farms only have, you know, [00:27:00] maybe five years operation left. They just simply don’t wanna repair their leading edge protection again. They just, they, they don’t wanna do that. So they would be happy to, you know, reduce operation a bit and have their turbine limp through to the end of the period. Y- you know, you want everything to wear out at once. You don’t want brand-new leading edge protection on a turbine that’s going to come down in a couple of years. Um, so, you know, that’s, that’s one part of it. And then the other thing is, you know, turbines earlier in their lifetime, how can we optimize the maintenance schedule with leading edge erosion? Um, so, you know, like it’s a lot cheaper to, uh, replace the LEP if you get– catch it early, but then you don’t wanna be catching it too early and replacing it, you know, constantly when you, you don’t need to. So, um, yeah, it, this, having this knowledge will enable a site-by-site operations and maintenance strategy with respect to leading edge protection. We also have some sites who are having trouble. They’ve got a full service agreement, and the OEM is [00:28:00] responsible for, um, doing the leading edge erosion repairs and protection replacement, but the owner is on the hook for paying for it. At the other end, we’ve got people with full service agreements where technically the, um, manufacturer is supposed to be doing the leading edge protection and paying for it, but they argue about what, when does it need to be done. Because, you know, um, the operator might think if there’s no structural risk, then we don’t need to be replacing it. And in the meantime, you’ve got turbines spinning around for years and years and years with, you know, these huge flakes of leading edge protection s- you know, causing the flow at the tip of the turbine to, to detach and to stall, and horrible aerodynamics, huge losses in power generation and revenue. And they’re having a big fight about, you know, is this necessary to do or not? And then, you know, they’re just gonna put the exact same product on again ’cause the [00:29:00] OEMs are re- all really, really wedded to their own particular brand. It’s like, “Well, last time we had this product and it was factory applied, it lasted one year before it s- it was worse than, you know, if it wasn’t there at all. Uh, we don’t really want you to put that one on again.” And so, you know, having the information that they need to be able to, you know, really bring data to these discussions and, you know, makes a, yeah, data not drama. That’s a, a good approach I think, um, for any kind of negotiation and especially in the case of leading edge erosion. And then for the high temperature fatigue part of the problem, aside from, you know, just wanting to know are your blades aging, should you be looking at remediation action or changing the operation, the other really big key thing is, uh, you might need to have a fight with y- your OEM about if this turbine has been designed and operated correctly. And so then having the data from this, um, project is going to give you the information that you need to come into that [00:30:00] argument with, again, the data not the drama. Um, and to, you know, in- increase your chances of succeeding in that kind of really tricky negotiation.  Allen Hall 2025: So if you’re an OEM or a manufacturer of equipment, an ISP, an operator, pretty much all aspects of wind operations, you probably ought to be getting a hold of Pardalote Consulting and Rosemary to talk about the opportunity to participate in this study. How do people get ahold of you to, to do that?  Rosemary Barnes: People can go to our website, pardaloteconsulting.com, and get in touch via the contact form there, or you can, uh, look me up on LinkedIn, Rosemary Barnes. That’s probably the easiest, fastest way to get ahold of me personally.  Allen Hall 2025: Well, Rosemary, congratulations on the Energy Innovation Fund Awards and the new three-year effort. If you are interested in participating with Pardalote Consulting and working with Rosemary and her team [00:31:00] in Australia, reach out to her on LinkedIn and get that process started, because this report and the data from all this analysis that’ll happen over the next couple of years will be important to the wind industry. So you need to spend some time and get ahold of Rosemary and get this process started now. So Rosemary, congratulations. Uh, thanks for being back on the podcast, and looking forward to, uh, the next couple of years. It sh- should be exciting.  Rosemary Barnes: Thanks so much, Allen.

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss Tesla's Cybercab validation timeline, Tesla Semi FSD Supervised, Alphabet's quiet quarter on Waymo, and the Mobileye CEO stepping down after 27 years.Tesla disclosed 380,000 unsupervised miles, but those miles were logged on Model Y and do not transfer to Cybercab. The new chassis has to earn its own validation miles before commercial service begins, and Tesla is pacing production to that validation rather than building a fleet ahead of it. The ramp is slower than the market expects.Best case, that puts Tesla at 100 cars in Austin or a Florida market by year end. Elon Musk also offered an aggressive timeline for autonomy on the Semi, where Tesla is the OEM and removes the largest structural risk in autonomous trucking, creating an overhang for Aurora and every capital dependent competitor.Alphabet reported Other Bets revenue of $380 million against a loss of $1.8 billion, with the smallest amount of Waymo commentary from Sundar Pichai in roughly six quarters and no milestone announced. Mobileye is abandoning its asset light model for full vertical integration, putting it in direct competition with the OEMs it needs as customers.On the Foreign Autonomy Desk, Momenta secured approval for driverless commercial operations in Shenzhen as China resumes issuing robotaxi permits.Episode Chapters0:00 380,000 Unsupervised Miles and What That Number Leaves Out03:13 The 250,000 Validation Miles Cybercab Still Has to Earn05:22 Cybercab Production Is Pacing to Validation Miles10:20 Tesla Semi FSD Coming Soon (Maybe Year End?)14:29 The Case for Vertical Integration16:24 Reading the Fine Print on Aurora's Driverless Announcement22:22 Alphabet's Other Bets and the Waymo Spin Non Answer25:50 How Tesla Runs Airport Curbside Pickups in California27:44 Zoox Recalls Software That Could Not Handle Smoke30:15 Mobileye Abandons Asset Light for Vertical Integration36:14 Foreign Autonomy Desk: China Resumes Robotaxi PermitsFollow The Road to Autonomy Indices--------About The Road to AutonomyThe Road to Autonomy is the leading applied intelligence platform covering the convergence of automation, autonomy, and the Autonomy Economy.™.Through our podcasts, newsletter, and proprietary applied intelligence, we set the narrative for institutional investors, industry executives, and policymakers navigating the convergence of automation, autonomy, and economic growth.Join institutional investors and industry leaders who read This Week in The Autonomy Economy every Sunday. Each edition delivers exclusive insight and commentary on the autonomy economy, helping you stay ahead of what's next.Sign up for This Week in The Autonomy Economy newsletterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of Kill Chain, we go straight to the source with someone who spends his career trying to break into cars, trucks, and the chargers that power them. Kamel Ghali is an automotive cybersecurity researcher, penetration tester, and educator, and VP of International Operations for DEF CON's Car Hacking Village — the group that's been teaching the world to hack vehicles safely since 2017.Kamel walks us through a real exploit chain that hands over root access to an aftermarket infotainment system with nothing but a USB stick and a few taps on a touchscreen, the 2015 Jeep hack that changed the industry's culture overnight, and a wireless attack called Brokenwire that can knock a charging session offline from a passing car in about five seconds. If your fleet has a single electric vehicle charging overnight, this is the episode that explains exactly what's at stake.In this episode:What actually happens inside DEF CON's official car hacking masterclassA live walkthrough of rooting an aftermarket infotainment system with a USB stickWhy Tesla's from-scratch build gives it a security edge the legacy OEMs can't matchThe origin story of Car Hacking Village, and how it went globalThe SDR attack that let a researcher mess with a semi-truck's trailer brakes for a couple hundred dollars in hardwareWhy EV chargers are full computers, and most are running insecure protocolsThe wireless "Brokenwire" attack that can disrupt EV charging without touching the vehicleA real car theft that used CAN injection through a headlight, no key requiredWhat ISO 21434 and UN R155 actually require of automakers nowChapters: 0:00 Cold Open 2:24 Inside the Car Hacking Masterclass 8:19 Root, No Password 12:25 Pwn2Own & Why Tesla Leads 16:42 The Car Hacking Village Origin Story 23:47 Village Sponsors 26:25 Why Villages Matter 31:16 Ground Zero 36:20 The Weak Link 37:54 What to Expect at Car Hacking Village 41:11 What Kamel's Working On Now 43:39 Plugged In, Wide Open 47:36 The Tesla Wall Connector Hack 49:18 Broken Wire 51:39 Why This Matters 59:09 Ransomware & Cybercrime Motives 1:01:56 Real-World Car Theft: The RAV4 Case 1:04:03 Hollywood vs. Reality 1:05:35 Final Thoughts: The Next Ten Years 1:09:46 Outro / Car Hacking Village PlugNew episodes of the Kill Chain Podcast — like, comment, and subscribe. Learn more at fleetdefender.comWant to learn more about securing your fleets, platforms, or mission critical systems? Contact us at FleetDefender.com.

The aerospace supply chain does not only break at final assembly. Some of the most important pressure points sit much farther upstream, inside the specialized materials businesses; most of the industry only notices when something goes wrong. High-purity aluminum, specialty alloys, casting capacity, hedging, tariffs, geopolitical risk, and long-cycle inventory decisions all shape whether commercial aviation, defense, and space can keep moving.  When demand rises or supply gets disrupted, companies like Vista Metals have to make decisions long before the rest of the market feels the impact. In this episode, I talk with Kelly Thomas, CEO of Vista Metals Group, about the hidden risks inside the aerospace materials supply chain and what it takes to lead a business where capacity, capital, talent, and timing all have to line up before the market is ready. What You'll Discover In This Episode  Why high-purity aluminum has become a critical supply chain issue for aerospace manufacturersHow tariffs, geopolitical risk, and smelter disruptions affect companies far upstream in the supply chain Why hedging can be a make-or-break discipline for companies carrying long-cycle metal inventory How privately held aerospace suppliers can make long-term investments differently from public companies Why Vista Metals has focused on hard alloys, specialty casting, and niche aerospace applications How commercial aviation, defense, and space demand are shaping Vista's growth outlook Why smaller and privately owned companies often carry supply chain risk that the broader industry may underestimate What leaders need to understand about moving from a large public company environment into a smaller, operator-led business How Kelly Thomas thinks about leadership, feedback, communication, and building a no-politics culture Why sitting in uncertainty may be one of the most important leadership skills in a volatile aerospace market About the Guest Kelly Thomas is the President and CEO of Vista Metals, the world's largest independent producer of specialty aluminum products for the aerospace, defense, transportation, and industrial sectors. A globally experienced executive with more than two decades in metals and manufacturing, Kelly has built her career at the intersection of finance, operations, commercial strategy, and industrial leadership. She brings deep expertise in global metals markets, risk management, and complex manufacturing environments, along with a values-driven leadership style focused on performance, innovation, and long-term growth. Before joining Vista Metals, Kelly held senior leadership roles at Alcoa and Aleris, where she helped drive global strategy, manage multi-billion-dollar operations, and lead large teams across North America and Europe through periods of transformation and growth.   About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF-trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers, and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.    Resources For more aerospace industry news & commentary: https://craigpicken.com/insights/.  To learn more about Craig Picken, visit https://craigpicken.com/.    

"Just-in-time inventory is great when it's working, but when it stops working, it's a huge disaster because you don't have material staged and you don't have strategic reserves." — Michael Murray, Senior Director of Global Supply Chain, DSV Inventory Management Solutions For most of the 2000s, the mandate in manufacturing was lean: hold less, order just-in-time, and keep working capital off the balance sheet. Then came a string of shocks: COVID, the Suez Canal blockage, and a global chip shortage.  All of a sudden, just-in-time started looking more like just-in-trouble. Companies swung hard toward just-in-case, stockpiling inventory as insurance against the next disruption. Michael Murray, Senior Director of Global Supply Chain at DSV Inventory Management Solutions, isn't ready to declare just-in-time dead.  In this episode of Art of Supply, Michael joins Kelly Barner to talk about the cost challenges that can result when inventory is managed reactively:  - Why the pendulum keeps swinging between just-in-time and just-in-case - Why trade policy is becoming a bigger driver of inventory strategy than COVID ever was - How a consolidated VMI model changes the math for OEMs, and why suppliers may be harder to convince than CFOs   Links: Michael Murray on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mp-murray/  Kelly Barner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-barner-6884443/  Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-supply-6895142546301960193  Art of Supply on AOP: http://www.artofsupply.com  Subscribe to the Art of Procurement Newsletter: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/art-of-procurement-podcast-subscribe   

Siemens Gamesa rebrands as Omterra, Goldwind questions ever-bigger turbines, and MIT revisits the century-old Betz limit. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, and I’m here with Rosemary Barnes, who is recovering from a very serious illness, Matthew Stead, who has been healthy pretty much all the Australian winter, and Yolanda Padron in sunny, hot Austin, Texas. Welcome, Rosemary Rosemary Barnes: Thank you. I am recovering from man flu, and I say man flu because it’s just a cold, but I’m complaining a lot about it.  Allen Hall: there’s gonna be a new name for Siemens Gamesa. So it was Siemens and then Gamesa’s a separate company. They merged. Siemens Energy, uh, broke off from Siemens AG. So [00:01:00] that’s a very well-known name, Siemens. It’s– Everybody knows Siemens at this point around the world. And the, the one family had, as a company, had s- label on everything, right? So it’s, uh, Werner von Siemens started it 150 years ago. It’s been a long time since Siemens was started, but it’s everywhere. It’s on turbines, transformers, and power plants around the world, and now they’re changing their name, right? So when Siemens Energy broke off from Siemens AG, they, they had a limited time they could use that name, so they have rebranding themselves or are about to rebrand themselves, and I wanna pronounce this right, Omterra. O-M-T-E-R-R-A. Now, we did a little research on this, and I think it’s Latin for all of the world. It’s kind of a conjoined, uh, set of words, Latin words, kind of a, a schmear in a sense. So, uh, so the company that, you [00:02:00] know, that spun off in w- roughly 2020, if I remember this right, Matthew, does that sound right? It was roughly 2020 when Siemens Energy was established on its own. Uh, they’re gonna be changing their name to Omterra. So instead of seeing, seeing Siemens Gamesa publications or Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, I guess they’re gonna have this new name, Omterra. What do we all think? Matthew Stead: I think it’s great. I think, and if you go back to, you know, GE Vernova, um, I, I thought Vernova was a bit weird for a while, but now it just rolls off the tongue and easy. It just makes so much sense. Um, so I’m, I’m, I’m for it. I, I like it. I’ve already… You know, can already say it. It took a lot longer to say Vernova than it’s taking to say Terra.  Rosemary Barnes: I think that it– But it’s not Vernova, it’s GE Vernova, right? So everyone knows what it is. Whereas my understanding is it’s not Siemens Omtera, it’s just Omtera, which makes it sound like a new budget kind of [00:03:00] brandless, history-less, uh, company. So that’s… Yeah, I’m no  branding expert, but I think that, uh, like they, they must have not been able to use the word Siemens at all, um, because otherwise you surely would, because it has a very… Outside of, you know, their blade issues and bearing issues of a couple of years ago, they do have a, like a solid engineering reputation across many fields, so you wouldn’t probably intentionally divorce yourself entirely from that. So, um, yeah, I, I think it will take some getting used to for me Matthew Stead: but everyone remembers. I mean, it’s not like– The people in the wind industry know their heritage, they know their history, so I don’t think it matters. I mean, you know, you know, they, they purchase the Senvion, you know, technologies or, you know, licenses in Europe. You know, y- y- you don’t forget these things, so I don’t think it matters. I think it’s just a, it’s a color, it’s a, it’s a label Yolanda Padron: I think it’ll be fine. I just think that there will be a little [00:04:00] bit of confusion down the line as with everything, right? Like I’ve, I’ve been on the side of conversations where I have to explain like Siemens versus like SGRE on paper and it’s like, oh, it’s– this is why th- there was that paper trail, uh, because people would think it was an absolutely different thing. Um, so I, I can totally see those conversations coming, coming to play in the future where someone thinks that Ontier is a completely different entity that maybe they changed OEMs or something, um, for a site. But nothing a little history lesson won’t fix, I guess. Matthew Stead: You just want people talking about you Rosemary Barnes: Name change every year  Allen Hall: Change your name every year. Well, that’s, that’s one way to approach it. I w- always wonder what the boardroom looks like and sounds like when this discussion is going on, because Siemens, Siemens Energy is a big company, and there had to be outsourcing of this to probably several marketing firms, mostly [00:05:00] in Germany, I’m guessing. And they came back with a bunch of pitches, and eventually they picked one. But boardrooms are probably not the place to pick a name. And I always think like, “Oh, you just had such a opportunity to do something really cool or really impressive.” Allen Hall: Well, we’ll see how it goes with Omterra. The, it’s gonna be, I’m sure, a huge marketing effort, and you’ll probably see commercials for it during the Super Bowl. Developers are [00:06:00] eyeing Britain’s next big renewables auction and have been waiting to learn the rules and most importantly, the price. Well, this week the UK government delivered both. It confirmed a package of changes to the CFD scheme ahead of allocation round eight, aimed at simplifying the process and keeping good projects from being tripped up by some paperwork. So AR7 was super successful, and they’re hopefully gonna have a, a great allocation round eight. Uh, unchanged from last round, here are some pieces to it. AR7 brought in 15 gigawatts of, of new capacity, uh, well below the ceilings, and the government is betting that that’s stability from AR7’s gonna exist for AR8, so they’re keeping the pricing limits the same. And let me give you some of the numbers here. So everything’s in 2024 prices, just so we have a baseline here. It, 113 pounds per megawatt hour [00:07:00] for fixed bottom offshore wind, 271 pounds for floating offshore wind. That’s, uh, pounds per megawatt. And then 92 pounds per megawatt for onshore wind, and s- 75 pounds per megawatt for solar. So 271 pounds per megawatt hour in 2044 dollars is, you know, you’re probably talking, what, 290 pounds per megawatt hour. That’s a really good strike price or ceiling to allow, uh, some more floating wind into the UK waters Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Well, the UK have this newly signed agreement with Japan, right, to, to progress development of that technology. I feel like I, I haven’t looked up any numbers to back this up, but I feel like the gap between fixed bottom and floating is narrowing. It’s barely more than double now, which, um, yeah, I think is not that bad considering how little development there has been for floating offshore wind compared to fixed bottom. So [00:08:00] yeah, I think that it is an interesting technology to develop. I, I know with the, um, auction rounds and ’cause it’s a government thing, it’s easy to think, “Oh, why are you spending any money on anything other than the cheapest one?” Because y- you know, like, it, it feels weird that the government would play, you know, when they’re purchasing power for their grid, that they would do any more than trying to just get, you know, bulk power at the cheapest price possible whilst ensuring, you know, reliability. Um, but in the previous or the previous, the one– last one or the one before that, they had quite a few tidal projects announced that certainly, you know, an expensive and not mature technology. But I think that you can’t say the same thing about floating offshore wind. I think that it is on a, like a good, a good development trajectory, and there are certainly places on Earth where floating offshore is one of the most appealing technologies. You know, if you think of through to 2030s, 2040s, there’s plenty of places where, um, you know, slightly higher [00:09:00] price paid for floating offshore wind will still be worth it because they have so few other options available. So it makes sense as an industry to in- invest in capabilities there.  Matthew Stead: think it’s a really interesting method. It seems to be really successful, the contract for di-difference approach. So, um, I’m, I’m surprised that it’s not adopted more widely, um, in other locations,  Rosemary Barnes: it is around a bit. I would like to see it, like, in, in Australia, we are, we are developing some new wind projects, but not as fast as we need to, to, you know, hit our upcoming targets. And I think, like, while the government is doing some things to help move or help incentivize developers, it’s not working that well, and maybe CFD would be a, you know, a bit of a better way to, like, just actually guarantee that these projects are gonna go ahead. ​ Allen Hall: Australia has a shipping problem. there’s been a concern at state-owned transport hubs are becoming less supportive of [00:10:00] wind energy projects with ACEN Renewables saying that they will now have to truck a large transformer from a wind project or for a wind project in northern New South Wales from the Port of Adelaide. That’s not necessarily close. And h- they also said that the Port of Brisbane has refused to accept passage of some big transformers for a solar farm. also there’s some, uh, something about blades not being able to be accepted in certain ports. Like some of the, uh, Australian state-managed or state-owned ports are not accepting renewables. Rosemary Barnes: I think  also that blades in Queensland can only be transported to site like one per day with a full police escort or something. It’s wild to me ’cause, you know, like I lived in, in Denmark for so long and there were blades going up and down just the normal highway every single day, multiple like, uh, and three– they would go in sets of threes for obvious reasons. Um, yeah, but the, the, the [00:11:00] Queensland government changed like a, a year ago or, or so, and it changed to a very anti-renewables government and they just threw all of the state’s renewable plans in the bin,  Allen Hall: such a recent change that when they, at least the news articles I’ve seen about it, I’ve only seen a handful, that they have, um, like last year some big transformers, like really difficult to move items have come through those ports and they’re just not letting them through now. How does that work? If you have a, a, a legal right to build a wind farm or a solar farm or, or substation or whatever’s going on there, how do they reconcile not allowing those components to come through a port? In what world does that make sense? Matthew Stead: I mean, most of the ports are– yeah, most of the ports are privatized, so it’s up to the individual commercial entity that’s running the port, I would, I would imagine. So it’s beyond the control of the government, would be my first guess.  Yolanda Padron: it seems like it’s an, a federal sort of thing that would give permits.  Matthew Stead: No, I mean, I’ve done a bit of work in the Port of Melbourne and, [00:12:00] um, it’s facilitated by the government, uh, state government, not federal, and but the ports are largely privatized.  Rosemary Barnes: I just pulled up an article and it says that it’s state-owned transport hubs are becoming  less supportive of wind energy projects. Um, yeah, and that’s the reason for why they’ll have to get that transformer in northern New South Wales, so very close to Queensland. They have to go from Adelaide, where you live, Matt, all the way through South Australia, maybe Victoria, New South Wales, and then, yeah, up to nearly the border. Allen Hall: Is that just a temporary blip that the next election cycle it’ll revert back or is this something that’s more long term? Rosemary Barnes: uh, it’s not obvious that it’s gonna flip straight back, that’s for sure Allen Hall: [00:13:00] for years, the race in wind has run mostly in one direction: bigger and bigger blades, bigger towers, bigger machines. And now a chief engineer f- at one of China’s largest turbine makers says it’s time to pump the brakes. Bo Juul Petersen, uh, Goldwind’s chief engineer in Denmark, argues that scaling turbines up no longer makes economic sense. So it’s not an engineering question, it’s an economic question. His reasoning rests on a simple rule of geometry, the square cube r- law, which says that as a turbine grows, its materials and costs climb faster than the rotor area that earns the revenue. Past a certain point, he says, bigger simply costs more than it makes. Have we crossed that threshold yet? Is 20 megawatts that, [00:14:00] uh, pivot point where it doesn’t make any more sense to make a larger turbine? Matthew Stead: didn’t we have problems when we went from three to six?  Allen Hall: One to two. Matthew Stead: I, I, I think, uh, I think it’s good that someone’s actually coming out and saying this Yolanda Padron: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rosie’s on the podcast. Rosemary Barnes: yeah, ex-excuse me, this is one of my topics of obsession that I constantly carry on about. I made a whole, a whole video about it with, um, equations to back up my opinions about scaling, um, and a very nifty tug of war metaphor between economic factors that favor big wind turbines and economic fav- factors that favor small ones. And I think that we’re always a little bit ahead of, of what the right, the right balance is between those. So, you know, the benefits from having bigger turbines are that, um, you have fewer electrical connections, for offshore especially, that means less subsea cables and, um, yeah, just like much faster Faster construction of all that, you [00:15:00] know, less, uh, substructures and less, less of everything to install, less of everything to maintain as well. You know, it doesn’t take so much longer to get up and do your annual maintenance checks of a big turbine compared to a small one. Like, it takes longer, but not, not that much longer. Um, but then all of the structural factors favor smaller turbines over bigger ones. blades especially, as they get longer, you get so many more problems in O&M, but they don’t show up on the developer’s spreadsheet, you know. The spreadsheet that you’re using to decide, um, your f- your final investment decision, it, it doesn’t, it doesn’t know that you’re gonna have a whole bunch of blade issues. It doesn’t wanna know and so I think that that’s one factor that has pushed us past the economic point of where wind turbine size should be. And I think the other thing is prestige. I know that when I worked at LM, you know, we had the longest blade in the world. It was 88 meters, was our first, um, world record that we set while I was working there. They’d had many before that. We had– They [00:16:00] had a, like, one-to-one scale printout of it that they took to WindEurope or WindHamburg, um, that everyone stood in front of, and then they lost it to somebody, and then they got it back again with the blade for the Halieade-X. And we all know how well that went to, you know, have the world’s longest blade. Y- you know, it wasn’t so easy to make it, turned out. It’s very easy to announce and not so easy to make, um, with reliable quality. And now we’ve got all these Chinese companies, especially MingYang, is constantly announcing the world’s biggest something. Um, don’t sell so many of them, but it’s not the point, isn’t to sell them, it’s to have the prestige of making the world’s biggest something.  Allen Hall: Yeah, what would be the technology breakthrough that would allow it to be more stable at a 20 or 25 megawatt? Because right now I’m, I’m seeing 1% improvement here and there, not 5%, 10%. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I mean, 1% improvement will eventually add up to what, what you need. Maybe it’s in 20 years’ time, not 10 years’ time. But y- you know, like you can imagine anything. maybe [00:17:00] they start somehow, like aero and automotive manufacturing technologies get cheap enough that we can start making wind turbine blades with all prepregs instead of y- you know, um, you know, dry fabric and infusion. For example, maybe 3D printing gets cheap enough that you can make your whole, whole blade from an additive process. Like a- anything like that. But it can also be other things like maybe the cost of subsea cables in- increases like a whole lot, and then if, you know, like things on one side getting more expensive can make it more worthwhile to save hard problems somewhere else. So that’s why I say it’s like a, it’s a, a ve- it’s a multivariable optimization problem that changes every time you have a… Like for every project to project from year to year, it’s always gonna be slightly different. So I don’t think it’s wise to definitively say 20 megawatts is the threshold that we should never cross. Like I, I don’t agree with that.  Allen Hall: It’s one of those arguments, I think, about [00:18:00] any sort of technology about where the endpoint is. There’s too many variables to predict it. I always point to aviation in which older airplanes will hang around and hang around and hang around until the fuel price goes up enough where it doesn’t make sense to operate them. So they will fly an airplane un-until they can no longer structurally do it. But if the price of oil shoots up and the price of aviation fuel bumps up, those airplanes get parked, and then they’re buying the new airplane with a more efficient engine. It’s a similar thing, I think. There’s just– You can’t tell where the technology’s gonna go or what the economic impacts of any part of that business will force you to do something different. So it’s gonna be higher than 20 megawatts, guarantee you that.  Yolanda Padron: Well, it’s one of those things too, right? Where if we’re repeating the, the same blade type and we’re getting smarter about operating that same blade type, then the economic cost goes down, [00:19:00] right? Like, eventually. ‘Cause then you’re not just experimenting on every new thing or having to take all of the, the funding into tr- specializing techs or getting very specialized techs onto your site and finding a new– kind of the wheel every so often. [00:20:00] So speaking of larger wind turbines, evidently we’ve been doing this all wrong, that we’ve had the calculations for the, uh, Betz limit has been off, and, uh, a group of MIT engineers, I guess, uh, have, have made a breakthrough. Allen Hall: So basically every wind turbine that is spinning today is based on some fundamentals, uh, math, empirical data in, in some level, but on formulas that have led us to design the wind turbines and that core formula called the momentum theory. And if you hear blade designers who hang around blade designers, which I don’t necessarily recommend, but if you do hang around blade designers, they, they’ll say the momentum theory, momentum theory, like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it.” It, it, the– MIT is saying it breaks down exactly at the operating point where modern turbines try to live. Um, so for a century the fix [00:21:00] was a patchwork of corrections and useful, but with no real theory behind them. Now, a team at MIT said it has rebuilt the math from first principles, creating what they call a unified momentum model. It even nudges at the famous Betz limit, the century-old ceiling on how much energy a rotor can capture, and it bumps it up by a few percentage points, and that would be the first uptick to the Betz limit in over 100 years. All right, Rosemary, as our official Betz limit expert, does this make any sense? Have the MIT folk something new?  Rosemary Barnes: a wind turbine blade, its aerodynamics are just the same aerodynamics as what keeps an airplane in the sky, right? It’s, it’s all the… It’s just an airfoil. It’s just facing a wind speed, um, you know, a local wind speed. It’s complicated by the fact that [00:22:00] a wind turbine blade is also rotating, so the wind speed is different along the whole span, and that’s, uh– and so is the flow angle, and that’s why blades are twisted and tapered. Um, but you know, essentially when you wanna figure out how much energy, uh, a wind turbine is gonna generate or you wanna design the blade so that it optimizes that amount, you’re just slicing it up into a whole bunch of little bits of 2D flow, exactly the same as an, an airplane. So if it doesn’t work for wind turbines, then it shouldn’t work for airplanes either. So that’s one fundamental thing. And also at Betz limit, it’s not like it’s not driving design. It’s more like if you, if your design exceeds the Betz limit for a, um, a horizontal axis wind turbine, then you– it’s like a sanity check that you’ve done something wrong. Uh, that’s, that’s what I would say you would mostly use it for. Um, but what I don’t understand, and maybe Alan, presumably you did read the, read the research or at least the press [00:23:00] release. Are they arguing that y- um, like the tips of a wind turbine blade are rotating, are moving fast enough that it’s approaching transonic flow? ‘  Allen Hall: Yeah, it’s a rental number thing. Rosemary Barnes: there’s different types of aerodynamic equations depending on how fast the, airfoil’s moving. And my understanding is transonic is like 0.8 Mach, um, 0.8, which is 274 meters a second, which is more than double what, um, the fastest tip speeds are currently. So I would think that you’re not quite approaching that yet. They’re– It’s not like a cutoff that, you know, all of a sudden at that exact, exact speed the air behaves totally differently. But, um, y- yeah, like it seems far enough away that it’s not that relevant. But is that what they’re getting at or, or is it something different?  Allen Hall: I like doing sanity checks when I read things from MIT. So what blade [00:24:00] manufacturers and/or wind turbine OEM has designed a set of blades and go, “Oh my gosh, we’re getting more energy than what we calculated,” and not thought to themselves, “Huh, maybe we should look into that”? It’s, it’s, it’s hilarious almost that all the engineers working in wind for 100 years wouldn’t have stumbled across this, where the turbine produces more power than the Betz limit would say it would. Y-  Rosemary Barnes: yeah, as many people have commented on, you know, any one of my YouTube videos about wind turbine aerodynamics, if they would just put more blades in there, then, you know, less wind would just fly through without ever being, um, y- without ever hitting a blade. So, you know, like obviously wind turbine, uh, blade aerodynamics people are stupid because if they weren’t, then they would see that you just put more blades in and you get more, twice as many blades, twice as much energy and w- What about three times as many blades? Three times as much energy. And I [00:25:00] didn’t even go to MIT and that’s just, you know, like just  brilliant  Allen Hall: Obvious  Rosemary Barnes: off the top of my head here.  Allen Hall: it’s sort of ludicrous, honestly, and I see these things in wind occasionally. I see it more often in other areas, particularly aerospace, where, where you just have to go, “What are we spending time on? Really? We’re working on this? On a fraction of a percentage point that we may have a slight error in?” Like, it does not matter. What are you gonna do with that?  Rosemary Barnes: there’s two issues. One is that the person writing up the press release is not the person that did the research, and they will always blow it up to be much more groundbreaking than the engineers who actually worked on it probably think it is. So, the, like, I think you have to, like, reserve your criticism of the work and try and criticize the press release. And then the second error that I commonly see is that people don’t have an un- good understanding of a status quo. So they think that they have smashed the status quo, but really it’s more to do with them not understanding the status quo than it is through [00:26:00] some legitimate, like, massive im- improvement. So it could well be that this is all very good and correct work, just with limited practical implication. That would be my most expected, um, from this.  Allen Hall: Rosemary, how many times a month do you get queries about wind turbine improvements that are just physically impossible? Rosemary Barnes: Oh, I mean, if I read all of the comments on my YouTube channel, then probably quite, quite frequently. But, um, yeah, the most common one is just people thinking you can just add more blades and get a proportional increase in, um, in energy, you won’t get more power from adding more blades if that’s the only thing that you do, because in a well-designed wind turbine, which modern ones are, every, e- every air molecule that goes through the rotor disc is gonna interact with the, um, with, with a blade. That’s how it’s, it’s designed. The blades are moving really fast, and so every molecule doesn’t get hit, but, you know, every, every molecule is affected and has some energy extracted from it. Um, then the other thing is people [00:27:00]who think if you reduce drag, like if you can come up with a lower drag airfoil or a higher lift airfoil, then you think, they think that that relates to more energy proportionally. So they’re like, “Oh, this airfoil has twice as much lift, so it’s gonna be twice as much power.” It’s like, actually, you know, wind turbine designers are aware of the full range of, you know, airfoils that are available, including high lift ones, and they’re not using it because, you know, the same reason the airplane wings aren’t just, you know, like the highest, highest lift airfoil. Y- you know, it’s more of a lift to drag ratio type thing, and that’s true for wind turbine blades as well, but also there’s structural considerations probably more so in a wind turbine blade than there are in, um, in airplane wings. So, you know, there’s some sacrifices made for that. Um, yeah, but those are the two, two main families of, of mistakes that I’d say people make. Allen Hall: So  Rosemary Barnes: Matt  Allen Hall: up to his hand up for  to MIT media representatives Matthew Stead: uh,  I had a couple of sort of quick and simple points. The first of all, uh, I’m actually a graduate of [00:28:00] MIT. I’ve graduated from, uh, from a course at MIT. Um, so that’s the first thing. Um, not in engineering. Um, the next one is like, so what? I mean, we can’t even reliably measure, um, you know, AEP the other one is all models are wrong.  Yolanda Padron: But not just wind Matthew Stead: the world is not perfect. All models are wrong, so trying to improve something that’s wrong, you know, might help a little bit, but does it really matter? Rosemary Barnes: But it is also the job of academics to improve these models. So there’s nothing wrong with MIT spending a lot of energy to, um, you know, improve on an incorrect model with another incorrect model. Uh, if it’s more useful, that’s great, and even if it’s not, like isn’t that the job of  Matthew Stead: yeah.  Matthew Stead: you should add to where it has the most impact on humanity. You should actually put the effort into areas that have a greater impact on pushing the boundary. You know, pushing small boundaries does not help the world  Allen Hall: Matthew is an MIT graduate, [00:29:00] the one thing that Matthew brings to the table is real-world experience. And that if you shelter yourself inside a laboratory at MIT, and I understand why you would do that, because I’m sure it’s a very pleasant place to work, and there’s a lot of benefits to that. However, the way that MIT used to work back in the day, and not everything was roses then, but oh, okay, y- that people had industry experience. They had a knowledge of what was going on on the ground, and they were engineers, and they realized that formulas and reality don’t always align. And maybe we lost that somewhere in the ’80s and, or ’90s, but it does continue to be a problem, where back to Matthew’s point, if you’re going to use that amount of brain energy, put it to something that can help the world. This isn’t necessarily helping the world That wraps up another episode of the Uptime: Wind Energy podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, and I’m sure that it will, we’d love to hear from [00:30:00] you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. So for Yolonda, Rosemary, and Matthew, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime: Wind Energy podcast.

Allen covers Energy Capital Partners buying TPI’s blade factories, GE Vernova’s $1.7 billion rescue of LM Wind Power, offshore wind cutting oil burn during a heat wave, Scotland’s Caledonia approval, and 19 states suing the Pentagon over stalled wind reviews. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Good Monday everyone. A few months ago, we told you about a Houston bankruptcy court carving up TPI Composites. Well, that story just got a whole lot bigger. On July sixth, TPI walked out of Chapter Eleven. Zero debt. New owners. A private equity firm called Energy Capital Partners picked up TPI’s blade factories in Iowa and Juarez, Mexico for about twenty million dollars. Twenty million, against more than a billion dollars in liabilities. ECP did not stumble into wind blades. They bought Calpine back in twenty eighteen, inherited seventy-seven power plants, and became GE’s biggest private gas turbine customer in the Western Hemisphere. That relationship, forged in gas turbine halls, is what brought them to composite factories. GE Vernova signed a five-year supply deal requiring it to send blade orders to ECP’s factories. GE is ECP’s partner, its customer, and was even the backup buyer if the deal fell through. So TPI lives on, leaner, debt-free, with locked-in demand from one of the biggest turbine makers on earth. But now, the other side of that coin. While ECP picked up two blade factories for twenty million dollars, GE Vernova recently pumped one-point-seven billion dollars into its own blade company, LM Wind Power. LM’s equity had fallen to negative 575 million euros. Revenue dropped ninety-six percent in one year, from 2.1 billion Danish kroner down to just ninety-three million. The Danish workforce, cut to about twenty-five people. LM Wind Power has lost money every single year since GE bought it in twenty seventeen. Nine straight years of red ink. So think about that. Two American blade factories now serve GE Vernova’s onshore business. One in Grand Forks, North Dakota, owned by GE, inside a division losing four hundred million dollars a year. The other in Newton, Iowa, owned by ECP, zero debt, five-year supply deal. The independent contract blade business that TPI Composites built is gone. Vestas took the India and Mexico plants in-house. GE’s supply is locked to ECP. The OEMs and their financial partners now own the factories directly. And that is a new era for wind manufacturing. Now, let us talk about what those blades are doing once they are spinning. Earlier this month, a brutal heat wave hit the eastern United States. Air conditioners running full blast. Grid operators scrambling to keep up. And off the coast of New England, two offshore wind farms stepped up. Vineyard Wind, eight hundred and six megawatts off Massachusetts. Revolution Wind, seven hundred and four megawatts near Rhode Island. Together they pushed hundreds of megawatts into the grid right when people needed it most. And here is the number that matters. Oil-fired power plants met about ten percent of peak demand on July second this year. Last summer, at the height of a similar heat wave, oil plants covered nearly fifteen percent. That is more than a gigawatt less oil burned. The projects that survived lawsuits, survived construction shutdowns, survived lease freezes, are now keeping the lights on in New England. Across the Atlantic, Scotland just approved two massive offshore wind farms. The Caledonia North and South projects in the Moray Firth, up to one hundred and forty turbines spread across one hundred and sixty-five square miles. Enough power for two million homes. Ocean Wind is leading the development with a commitment of about 1.7 billion pounds. And here is what makes this project different. Caledonia South will mix fixed-bottom and floating turbines, up to thirty-nine floaters. That blend of proven and next-generation technology on a single project is something to watch. Back in the United States, nineteen state attorneys general are suing the Department of Defense. The reason, wind project reviews. Federal law says any wind turbine taller than two hundred feet must go through a Defense Department check, to make sure it does not interfere with military radar or flight paths. Last August, the Pentagon stopped reviewing those projects. No explanation. No timeline for starting again. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown is leading the coalition, joined by attorneys general from eighteen other states including California, New York, and New Jersey. They want a court to force the Defense Department to start doing its job again. And finally, a story from the sea floor. Down in southern New England, lobster populations have been falling for decades. Back in nineteen ninety-eight, there were about fifty million lobsters in those waters. By twenty twenty-two, fewer than ten million. But something else is moving in. Jonah crabs. Fishermen used to throw them back. Now they are hauling them in by the thousands, selling them as a cheaper option to lobster. And researchers at the University of Rhode Island are finding that offshore wind foundations are acting like artificial reefs. Algae grows first, then barnacles and mussels, then fish and crabs follow. The question scientists are working to answer is whether these structures create new marine life, or just pull it in from the surrounding ocean. Either way, the turbines are not just making electricity. They are making habitat. Now, here is what to watch. This Wednesday, July twenty-second, GE Vernova reports second quarter earnings. And the numbers we just talked about will be in the room. One-point-seven billion dollars pumped into LM Wind Power, a blade company that has lost money nine years straight. Twenty million dollars to let ECP walk away with two factories and a five-year supply deal. GE Vernova is guiding for four hundred million dollars in wind segment losses this year. Meanwhile, its Power and Electrification divisions are printing money, nearly five billion dollars in free cash flow last quarter alone. So the question on that earnings call is simple. If you are spending eighty times more to keep your in-house blade maker alive than a private equity firm paid to buy your contract supplier, how long do you keep doing both? Watch for what GE Vernova says about LM Wind Power’s future, about North American onshore blade strategy, and about whether that 1.7 billion dollar injection was a rescue, or a goodbye. The answer could reshape who makes blades in this industry for the next decade. And that is the state of the wind industry for the 19th of July, twenty twenty-six. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast tomorrow.

Don’t Fade and Die in AI Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ Matt Yanchyshyn, VP AWS Marketplace, Rekha Thangelapalita, Elastic GSI Leaders; Allison McFadden, Accenture AWS Leader; and James Kang of Nvidia join Ultimate Partner. In this panel discussion, leaders from Elastic, Accenture, Nvidia, and AWS dissect the urgent shifts in the ecosystem, emphasizing that partners must adapt to AI and agentic co-selling or risk fading away completely. The conversation explores the necessity of deep co-engineering, the power of multi-product solutions in the AWS marketplace, and how automated agents are now replacing traditional human sales pipeline progression. By embracing data readiness and strategic collaboration, organizations can survive the “token maxing” era, effectively scale their enterprise opportunities, and align with NVIDIA’s five-layer strategy to dominate the new cloud landscape. https://youtu.be/zUkL4Wqsa68 Key Takeaways AI agents will automate the majority of AWS partner co-selling attachments and opportunity progressions this year. Partners who fail to embrace agentic workflows and automated governance face the existential risk of fading into obsolescence. Successful multi-product offerings require a “blood to all organs” approach that benefits the client, the ISV, the GSI, and the hyperscaler simultaneously. Nvidia’s “five-layer cake” model emphasizes that successful outcomes at the application layer automatically drive growth for all underlying infrastructure. The “token maxing” phenomenon is forcing enterprises to seek cost-effective, open-model alternatives to scale their generative AI securely. Integrating GSIs and ISVs on the AWS marketplace significantly increases enterprise deal sizes and long-term customer renewal rates. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags strategic collaboration agreement, data readiness engine, agentic co-sell, semantic layer, token maxing, five layer cake, accelerated computing platform, open models, cloud consumption, multi-product solutions, partner central agents, propensity data, automated opportunity progression, generative AI governance Transcript Matt Y and Panel Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Vince Menzione: You have a choice. You can embrace them and figure it out and get governance and, and make your data available. Um, use the partner, central agent, move to Agen Co-sell, or you can fade and die. [00:00:11] Vince Menzione: You can feel it happening. The ecosystem is shifting beneath us, the way Hyperscalers are partnering, how AI is remaking the channel and what it means to win in 2026. [00:00:22] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Menzi. Own your host. And each week I sit down with leaders at the intersection of technology, partnerships and outcomes. The voices shaping how ecosystems actually work. We talk about what’s real, what’s changing, and what it takes to lead in this era where the partner channel isn’t just part of the strategy. [00:00:44] Vince Menzione: It is the strategy because [00:00:46] Vince Menzione: being in the room changes everything. Let’s start. [00:00:51] Vince Menzione: We’ve got some amazing leaders joining us. So I think probably for a little bit of context, maybe just start with Rika. You can introduce yourself, your role and, uh, what, what you’ve been doing at Elastic. Yeah. [00:01:03] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah, sounds great. [00:01:04] Rekha Thangellapalli: Hi everyone. I’m Reka and I lead GSI Alliances at Elastic. Um, for the past 14 years, I’ve had the pleasure of building different kinds of partner ecosystems across companies such as SAP. MuleSoft, Salesforce, Coupa, and now Elastic. Um, I wanna thank Ultimate partner and Vince for having us here today. Thank you and the panel of these incredible speakers for joining me on stage. [00:01:31] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, very excited for the conversation today. [00:01:33] Vince Menzione: We love Elastic, and you’ve had some of your other leaders on stage at other events. As such, the quality of your leadership team is amazing. Thank you. [00:01:42] Rekha Thangellapalli: I wholeheartedly agree. [00:01:45] Allison McFadden: Excellent. Um, hello everyone. Allison McFadden. I lead our North America AWS practice at Accenture. [00:01:52] Allison McFadden: Uh, I’ve been there for five years, and truth be told, it was my first partnership role, my first formal partnership role. Uh, so I can take some tips from all of you in the room here today. Prior to that, I was 21 years with IBM, and I got into partnerships because my last role at IBM was actually trying to build. [00:02:14] Allison McFadden: Linux business on the mainframe, and I had to have partners. I had to have partners to help me with workloads to run there. So I kind of learned, uh, trial by fire. But I’m excited for the conversation today. Excited to be in this room and excited to talk about what we’re doing with, uh, elastic. Thank you. [00:02:34] James Kang: Uh, my name is James Kang. Nice to see and meet everyone here. Vince, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you [00:02:38] Vince Menzione: for being here. [00:02:39] James Kang: Um, I’m with Nvidia, so I help manage the AWS partnership at Nvidia all up. Um, I guess fun fact, I’m former AWS and so I see a lot of very familiar faces here in the front row. Uh, former colleagues and then current friends. [00:02:56] James Kang: And so, uh, looking forward to the conversation. [00:02:59] Vince Menzione: Great. Well, we’ll start with an easy tia. Matt. This is not directed to you, directed to the others. So what does a successful AWS partnership look like from your C? So we’ll start with Eureka. [00:03:09] Rekha Thangellapalli: Sure. So from an ISV perspective, I think we really are looking at three things. [00:03:15] Rekha Thangellapalli: Uh, mutual investment building together. And scaling together. So when we talk about mutual investment, elastic recently signed a five-year SCA or strategic collaboration agreement with AWS. And while that is a significant milestone in our partnership, for us, what matters more is what it represents, and that is really a long-term commitment from both companies. [00:03:39] Rekha Thangellapalli: Towards product engineering, um, and joint go to market initiatives to deliver value to customers over time. And that’s what we see is that the best partnerships really compound and they build upon each other every year. Um, they don’t necessarily kind of reset every year. Um, next we talk about building together. [00:03:59] Rekha Thangellapalli: So, um. When we talk about joint solutions, we want to deliver solutions that are better together and the customers have to see us that way. And so whether it’s search, observability, or security, we’re looking at taking to market solutions that we can’t or necessarily don’t wanna take on our own. And finally we talk about scaling together. [00:04:22] Rekha Thangellapalli: And this is where marketplace, for instance, plays a big role, um, when customers can draw down on their cloud commitments, transact online and go from, you know, pilot to enterprise scale adoption in hours, not days. Um, this is when really everyone wins. Um, and this is also where partners like Accenture play a critical role. [00:04:47] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, you know, the incredible amount of expertise that they bring, uh, the managed services capabilities and, um, their data assets actually play a huge role in having our customers realize that value faster. And, um, like Vince mentioned, at the end of the day, best partnerships are all all about creating kind of that. [00:05:07] Rekha Thangellapalli: Self-sustaining flywheel. And so it starts with investing together, building something unique, and having the customers realize that success faster because that success is really the only thing that’s gonna keep that flywheel going for everyone involved. I [00:05:26] Vince Menzione: absolutely. [00:05:26] Allison McFadden: Okay, amazing. I’m gonna riff off a few things Ika said, but from a GSI perspective. [00:05:32] Allison McFadden: A relationship with a WSA successful relationship with AWS looks slightly different. Um, so I think the first thing that we think of in the GSI Community common thread is that the client outcome and delivering value for clients is what we, what we’re striving for. Um, and so the partnership with AWS in that case, um, um, it has to, it has to. [00:06:01] Allison McFadden: Look like one team in front of our clients. So we have to show up indistinguishable, and that’s with AWS and with an ISV partner, it has to look like one solution in front of the client, especially moments that matter. So board meetings, um, you know, the time we’re gonna sign a deal, like we have to look like one team, uh, and keep our our client outcome, um, first and foremost in mind. [00:06:24] Allison McFadden: The second thing, and this is I think where the magic of all the people in this room comes into play. We can have as many discussions at a CEO level as we want. And if our client teams on the ground are not working together, it falls apart. Falls apart directly in front of the client. Yes. And that is a really hard thing to do. [00:06:45] Allison McFadden: So I’m passionate about the alliance work because that that work is what makes it happen at the corporate level. [00:06:53] James Kang: Cool. Um. I’ll start here. So in Nvidia is a accelerated computing platform company. Um, if you asked. Anyone on the, on the street about a year ago, what is ai? A lot of times they would say AI is, is open ai, or it’s philanthropic. [00:07:12] James Kang: Um, Jensen and I’ll, I’ll reference Jensen a lot today, um, because he is our leader, um, but he also sets the strategy in the direction for Nvidia. He talks a lot about AI in the metaphor of a five layer cake. And in terms of the five layer cake, you start off with the foundational bottom layer being power and energy, which sustains. [00:07:32] James Kang: All of our data centers, you move up the stack in terms of chips. So things think of Foxconn, think of TSMC. Next you have the infrastructure layer. So obvious choice is AWS, and then you get to the models where you do have the philanthropics and the open ais. But finally in at the precipice, you have the application layer. [00:07:53] James Kang: Ultimately, the reason why I mentioned all different stacks of the layers, the five layer cake, is the fact that the application layer is the most important. And so when you think about. Partners like Elastic or ServiceNow Trend, ai, CrowdStrike. Every time you pull from the application layer and you see a success, it pulls all five different components of that layer up. [00:08:13] James Kang: And so ultimately, as I think about success, it’s it’s being able to develop these co-sell wins at the application layer and really demonstrating that through extreme co-engineering and co-design with all the different application. Infrastructure, power and energy layers in mind. Um, Jensen also likes to think of himself not only as the CEO and founder, but also as the, the chief Marketing Officer. [00:08:35] James Kang: We are a very event driven company, and so at our big events like GTC or at big industry events like CES or Computex, he likes to show up on the biggest stage, biggest stages and showcase the partnerships with not only ISVs and GSIs, but also with end customers. And so that’s what I think about when I think of SA success. [00:08:56] Vince Menzione: That’s a really good point. You talked about, Allison, you talked about having an alliance strategy, or at least you teed it up, so I thought maybe we would go there for a second. Right? Like, what does a great alliance strategy look like and why is it important to the success of the partnership? [00:09:11] Allison McFadden: Man, I, uh, I have so many opinions on this. [00:09:13] Allison McFadden: We could probably be up here all day. That’s [00:09:15] Vince Menzione: okay. [00:09:16] Allison McFadden: Um, no, I think. Uh, there, there are a couple things, and the first one that comes to mind is focus. We cannot be all things to all people. Um, so when it comes to think about some of the, the work we’re doing with Elastic, we have a very, very clear point of view on what client problem we’re solving, what clients we want to talk to. [00:09:38] Allison McFadden: It helps if, um, from an ISV perspective, if there’s a very clear fit in. The Accenture portfolio or whatever, you know, SI consulting partner. You’re working with a very clear fit in the portfolio and we know what we’re not gonna go after, what we’re not gonna spend our time on because we have, we have this tendency, there’s millions of people. [00:10:00] Allison McFadden: The ecosystem chart that, you know, Vince, you showed up there, there’s so many connections. There’s probably more connections there than there are atoms in the universe, right? So, um. Defining what we do together and what we don’t do together is the first thing that pops to my mind. [00:10:19] Vince Menzione: Reka, do you have a perspective on it since we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk next about what you’ve done together, but, and I also wanna get mass perspective as a hyperscaler partner here as well. [00:10:29] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah, I mean from my perspective, I, I’m gonna, you know, kinda echo what Allison said is to be just maniacally focused. Yep. Um, because, especially from my perspective, so Elastic has three different solutions, right? We’ve got search, we’ve got observability, we’ve got security that map to completely different business units within Accenture. [00:10:47] Rekha Thangellapalli: And of course Accenture does a lot of things. And so, you know, when we first came together it was like. Okay, what are we gonna focus on? What industries are we gonna go after? Which segments are we gonna go after? Which customers, you know, um, outcomes are we trying to solve? And I think that sort of maniacal focus is the number one contributing factor to, to the fact that I’m like, up here on stage today. [00:11:12] Rekha Thangellapalli: Great. [00:11:14] Vince Menzione: Matt? Perspective? [00:11:16] Matt Yanchyshyn: Yeah, I, I, I guess I was trying to. To add something, uh, additional from an AWS perspective, uh, when it comes to, you know, what does a great alliance look like? Uh, AWS is obsessed with data, you know, in data we trust. And, and so the best, um, and, and this goes sales business problem, and it’s not just the engineering teams. [00:11:34] Matt Yanchyshyn: And so, uh, you know, Accenture does a good job of this elastic, definitely. And if you can come to the table with, um, quantifiable proof of the value of customer outcomes and partnerships. Um, you’ll win all the time and it’ll be a durable relationship with AWS ’cause we really are this data obsessed company and, and even the most senior sales leaders. [00:11:54] Matt Yanchyshyn: Uh, and so what I mean by that specifically is like if you, if you can show like your a RR to land an a RR conversion ratio, like in in numerical format, it’ll light up our sales leaders and, and they’ll be all, and they will co-sell with you all day long. If you can show the, I mentioned this earlier, like the AWS service, uh, whether you’re consulting company or, um, elastic and, and how the shape of customer accounts change positively when we work together. [00:12:15] Matt Yanchyshyn: That type of sort of quantifiable data works particularly well from an alliance perspective. With AWS as a partner, we, we really are like this data in sort of results out company. Um, so I, yeah, that’s just adding to the great points that were already made. I would say specific to AWS that that’s key. [00:12:30] Matt Yanchyshyn: Yeah. And I’m gonna bring up one more thing. I want to dive in on the, the joint value proposition, but you mentioned something that made a lot of sense and resonated to me about the organizations once you get out of partner, the partner world that we all know and love. Mm-hmm. Once you get down into a field organization or account management organization. [00:12:49] Matt Yanchyshyn: Not as much understanding and really organizations do a bad job here, honestly, in terms of enabling the field organizations. Do you agree? [00:12:58] Allison McFadden: I agree because I, I agree. And, um, you know, I think that’s one of the things, and, and I, I, when I joined Accenture, what we had was a lot of wicked smart architects delivering programs to clients in the field. [00:13:15] Allison McFadden: Very smart, very deep in AWS knowledge. Um, and that was awesome for the 10 clients they were staffed on and to get that understanding of how AWS works and I dream about lar, right? Like, this is a good, you know, but that takes real effort and real work. Yeah. And it’s, it’s um, almost like being a language translator. [00:13:37] Allison McFadden: Yes. For me. Yeah. So, you know, I had to deeply learn AWS so that I could. [00:13:42] Rekha Thangellapalli: Sure. [00:13:42] Allison McFadden: Teach my account teams. My account teams are really smart. They know who they’re selling to. They know their customers. They know what their customers need. They do not know what AWS has to offer always because they’ve got 20 partners lining up to try to tell their stories. [00:13:57] Allison McFadden: Um, they don’t know how to ask of the AWS team or the elastic team or the Nvidia team. Yeah. What they need [00:14:02] Vince Menzione: this co-selling piece. Yeah. [00:14:04] Allison McFadden: And so that is where, um. We had to build that muscle even around our AWS practice, which was a huge practice at Accenture, but we didn’t necessarily surround it with that kind of enablement and um, almost deal coaching layer. [00:14:21] Vince Menzione: So Elastic and Accenture came together. I dunno which one of you wants to lead this part of the conversation, but you will, right? Yeah. So tell us about the genesis of this and why. And a lot of people dunno what Elastic does, but you do some really incredible work. Like I, somebody told me one day was like, oh, you know, Uber, like, that’s elastic, powering all that. [00:14:41] Vince Menzione: Like, we don’t think about that. That the engines that you have and the, the backend to the customers, huge customers. [00:14:48] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so when AWS launched this feature last, um, reinvent where basically it allowed, you know, channel partners such as Accenture to be able to bundle up their services, their data assets with an ISV solution and put it on marketplace, um, you know, Accenture and Elastic immediately saw an opportunity. [00:15:09] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, at the time most customers were doing gen ai. But they were running into the same challenge, which was that their data just was not ready. And by the way, this is a problem we were solving. Outside of marketplace. I think the, the feature that you guys launched just gave us a way to package it up and to be able to create this repeatable solution, which we call data readiness engine for gen ai and put it on marketplace. [00:15:40] Rekha Thangellapalli: And, um, this to me was a success because. Each company had a clear reason to invest. Um, so for Accenture, they were able to, you know, create a very differentiated services led offering. Uh, for Elastic, we were able to expand on our AI story. And for AWS, um, you know, it drives marketplace adoption, increases cloud consumption, all of that great stuff. [00:16:07] Rekha Thangellapalli: And customers, of course get. A solution to a very real problem that, that they were having. Um, and you know, the surprising part for me going through that journey was that, um. The pitching, the idea, getting the budget, getting the executive sponsorship was actually the easy part. The hard part was getting all three companies to come together, uh, to go from idea to launch in a very ambitious timeline of six weeks. [00:16:37] Rekha Thangellapalli: Nice. And so, you know, this was very much like. Doesn’t matter your title. We’re rolling up our sleeves and we are on this outcome together. Um, and so we literally built a RACI matrix, a project plan, and you know, we had daily standup calls for six weeks where literally. At least one person from each three of these companies called in, you know, got rid of any blockers and we made sure we were on target for that timeline. [00:17:07] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, and you know, at the end we had a successful launch. But I think my favorite part about the story is the impact that we’re having and, um. My favorite story comes from a global pharmaceutical company that, you know, had basically nine petabytes of data spread across six different continents. Wow. And by working with Accenture and Elastic, they were able to build that trusted foundation that their AI and their agents can, you know, kind of safely tap into and be accessible at scale. [00:17:41] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, so that’s my version. Allison. [00:17:44] Allison McFadden: Yeah. Well, I don’t have a lot to add. I just, I would say this is a good example of a couple of principles, right? One is having a forcing function is never a bad idea. Sign up for a big event, sign up. I’m like, I’m here with my, you know, Nvidia guys saying, sign up for the event. [00:17:58] Allison McFadden: It’ll make you move quick, right? [00:18:00] Audience Member: Yes. [00:18:00] Allison McFadden: Um, so that is one, but two, one of my mentors once told me, when you’re designing any kind of, you know, offering go to market motion, it has to get blood to all organs. If it does not get blood to all organs, it does not go [00:18:14] Vince Menzione: nice. [00:18:14] Allison McFadden: Um, [00:18:14] Vince Menzione: I love that analogy. [00:18:15] Allison McFadden: Oh, I love it. And I can talk all day. [00:18:17] Allison McFadden: That guy was brilliant. I love him. But, um, no, and, and so Elastic did a really nice job of bringing the tech to the table. Um, our team has to trust in that technology and its ability to scale, right? Um, because at Accenture we have to be able to deploy across 700,000 consultants. Um. And yeah, so I think those are the two, two things that really worked well here is we had, uh, trust in the technology solved a customer need. [00:18:50] Allison McFadden: Um, it drives, we don’t even talk about, like, yes, it drives marketplace revenue, but it unlocks work that we do that drives even more revenue to our AWS Friends. Right. So this is a, this is a, um, product that’s getting your data ready for AG agentic. It’s a messy problem that everyone’s dealing with, and it removes blockers for clients and it unlocks more, you know, ag agentic work on top of that. [00:19:15] Allison McFadden: So, blood to all organs. [00:19:17] Vince Menzione: So, was that the proposal going forward to say we need to have, we need to have trust in the solution. We need to drive significant revenue. It needs to be something all of our, you know, seven, 700,000 people. Can be a part of and help drive? Is that how you think about? [00:19:32] Allison McFadden: Yeah, and for us right now, um, it’s an interesting time for Accenture. [00:19:36] Allison McFadden: Our clients are asking a lot of us, and what it does is it having some of these accelerators helps us deliver cheaper, better, faster to our clients, which is what they’re demanding of us right now. Um, so it’s an accelerator to client outcomes. [00:19:55] Vince Menzione: James, what is NVIDIA’s role and how do, how do you enter the equation here? [00:20:00] James Kang: Yeah, it’s, um, it’s a good question. Um, I, I would say that Nvidia is probably one of the most misunderstood organizations in the world. Um, despite the, uh, the market capitalization in the valuation of the company, we have a very tiny organization. Um, what I mean by that is, um, if you think about. [00:20:20] James Kang: Salesforces and field sales organizations. Um, we’ll take Salesforce as the account or the customer. As an example, we have one account manager at NVIDIA that no, not only covers and is responsible for the relationship with Salesforce, um, but also manages. Automation Anywhere as well as DocuSign. Whereas at AWS, in contrast, like there are full armies and teams Yeah. [00:20:45] James Kang: That are supporting the Salesforce relationship. And so as you think about partnering and working with Nvidia, the focus has to be on really. Extreme co-design, but also being very prescriptive in terms of what are the very specific customer outcomes that we are solving for. And the guidance that I would give is bring in Nvidia into that equation and that conversation as early as possible because that [00:21:10] James Kang: co-engineering and co-design needs to be part of the foundational building blocks in order for you to come out with a end solution that checks all those different requirements. [00:21:20] James Kang: And so I think. Again, like going back to Nvidia, um, we like to talk about two different types of brains. A brain one and a brain two. Uh, brain One you think about the next quarter and making sure that you’re hitting the revenue targets for the next quarter. Brain two, you think about a long-term goals and potentials looking around corners and being very strategic. [00:21:41] James Kang: The saying internally is without Brain one, there is no oxygen, but without brain two, there is no future. And everyone at NVIDIA is trained to think in that brain two mentality. [00:21:52] Vince Menzione: Wow, Matt. [00:21:54] Matt Yanchyshyn: Yeah, I, I was just thinking I love the blood doll organs. Uh, and so just on, on that note, um, and, and, you know, the multi-product solutions that, that you, you built together, uh, that is a really good example of blood do organs because like we all know, that’s how customers buy. [00:22:07] Matt Yanchyshyn: They, they buy solutions and increasingly they’re looking for combinations of ISV, sometimes multiple products from multiple ISVs with services. Uh, often they’re buying it through a resell motion. You know, and they, and, and so that from a customer perspective, they want a single place to go. And so that’s the multi-product solution. [00:22:24] Matt Yanchyshyn: They wanna find everything they need, they need Accenture, they need Elastic to solve a specific solution. And I think where that’s headed is even more specific listings, like with AI powered listing experience, like, you know, elastic Plus Accenture for, I’ll make something up like a manufacturing workload. [00:22:37] Matt Yanchyshyn: And so this solution based. Uh, sort of buying is, is very customer centric. It’s what customers want. We all know that. But that’s, that’s the customer sort of organ, I guess. Um, but then, you know, you all have SCAs and those SCAs have marketplace commits. It helps if that gets transacted through marketplace helps the AWS relationship, you know that that’s an organ. [00:22:55] Matt Yanchyshyn: It’s the relationship. It’s, it’s the commercial construct and that you have, uh, that that’s another organ. You’re marketing people. They, that’s another organ. They don’t wanna land, uh, leads on a static marketing page. They wanna land a lead on a, a storefront with a multi-product solution that can actually convert and that you can actually buy it through that. [00:23:12] Matt Yanchyshyn: So the marketing person’s happy because they, they have less churn. Uh, and then, you know, our reps are happy ’cause guess how they get paid? They retire quota when they sell Marketplace. And they, we also, Jay McMain will tell you, that’s another organ called Jay or on, on you now. Um, [00:23:27] Matt Yanchyshyn: he’ll like that. I’ll call him up and tell him that. [00:23:29] Matt Yanchyshyn: Yeah, [00:23:30] Matt Yanchyshyn: but he, he’ll tell you, you know, don’t believe me. Obviously, never believe Matt, believe, believe the, the data and, and his data shows that. Those deals will close faster and larger if you use marketplace. So that’s, that’s a lot of organs. That’s the whole body. Um, but you know, when you have your customer happy ’cause that’s how they wanna buy your field happy. [00:23:45] Matt Yanchyshyn: Um, and, you know, the relationship happy and you know, your marketing team happy. Uh, and, and Jay happy. Um, and, and you know, I think that multi-product construct and, and the way you kind of use it to model a partnership and the way buyers ultimately wanna buy is, is really powerful. And so I, I think it’s, you know, it’s really a manifestation of how. [00:24:04] Matt Yanchyshyn: We kind of intend and to go to market anyway. Uh, so I think, you know, and thanks for leading the way, by the way. You’re, you’re amongst the very first, so that’s great to see. [00:24:11] Matt Yanchyshyn: So these storefronts are really helping this drive, drive this. Well, [00:24:13] Matt Yanchyshyn: that’s the next evolution. Like we’re talking about the multiproduct solution. [00:24:16] Allison McFadden: I’m JJ Accenture storefront. [00:24:17] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Oh, there you go. I mean, j and j Accenture storefront. [00:24:20] Allison McFadden: We’re gonna talk about that. [00:24:20] Matt Yanchyshyn: Yeah. I mean, [00:24:21] Matt Yanchyshyn: Accenture also leading the way yet again with storefronts. And so I think the combination of. You know, again, I was talking a lot about conversion. Yeah. And you know, buyers know sometimes they know what they wanna buy and, but if you really wanna convert that lead, you wanna land them again, something that combines, you know, elastic Accenture’s services plus software, but in a storefront that is, you know, surrounding with just the solutions they want so they don’t need to kind of go searching. [00:24:42] Matt Yanchyshyn: So, you know, ultimately reducing that time to close, I guess, really ’cause meeting the customer where they are with what they need. [00:24:51] Matt Yanchyshyn: So we talk about co-selling a little bit. We, Jay and I talk about this all the time. We gotta keep looping Jay in here, even though he is not even in town this week, but Reko, um, what does co-sell look like inside Elastic? [00:25:02] Matt Yanchyshyn: You’ve got, we talked about an incredible leadership team. I’ve gotten meet some of your leaders. Seems like you drive, you do a good job internally driving that. Let’s talk a little bit about it. [00:25:11] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah, and this is something I’m, I’m personally very passionate about. Um, co-sell is. Very much a journey, not a destination. [00:25:20] Rekha Thangellapalli: And I think step one for us is recognizing the different partner types that we have. Because at Elastic we work with, you know, OEMs, MSPs, resale distributors, GSIs, um, and they all bring something very unique. To the customer lifecycle and they all contribute very differently within, you know, our own sales cycle and sales process. [00:25:45] Rekha Thangellapalli: And so, you know, figuring out what is the unique benefit they bring, how do we enable them? So training and enablement is a huge piece of it, and so is making sure we’ve got the right metrics to measure success. Um, I know a lot of companies look at partner sourced as the north star, and that’s great, right? [00:26:06] Rekha Thangellapalli: Because that is undeniable. You can say, Hey, that would not exist if it wasn’t for my partner team. Um, but we’ve also noticed that when we bring in GSIs, it actually increases renewal rates. It significantly increases. Um, a RR over time. Um, it expands deal sizes and so these are very real metrics that we can point to, um, beyond just the co-sell and the partner sourced number. [00:26:32] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, so for us it’s looking at it from a very holistic perspective, but also catering it towards that unique partner and making sure we’re doing everything we can to set them up for success and setting up the partnership for success. [00:26:47] Vince Menzione: So clo close win ratios, deal size and renewal rates? [00:26:52] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yes. For specifically for geos size. [00:26:54] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah. [00:26:55] Vince Menzione: Very interesting. Allison, uh, what had to change internally to produce these co-selling? We talked a little bit about the field organization and enabling a, a group of, and, you know, account sellers that are very customer focused and enabling them on the co-sell side. What had to change internally to drive that? [00:27:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:27:14] Allison McFadden: I, I might have already alluded to this a little bit in a previous answer, but, um, creating the capacity to develop, build, and sell these solutions, um, inside of a large GSI, where billable hours is kind of the number one metric on the table. Um. Is part of the investment that we had to make within Accenture to get this done? [00:27:36] Audience Member: Yeah, [00:27:36] Allison McFadden: so expert technology time. So we have technologists that understand the elastic technology. We do similar with Nvidia, by the way, we. We released some of their time to go co-develop the solution because it has to hold technical water, right? It can’t just be a marketing pitch. It can’t just be, it has to be a real, um, what’s the there, there. [00:27:59] Allison McFadden: So in order to actually do proper co-sell, we had to release some of that time. Um, to invest in those partnerships. Um, we’ve also done similar with some industry aligned business development leaders recently, so we have freed their time up to go. Uh. Open new conversations, educate client, account teams, go to clients, have conversations. [00:28:26] Allison McFadden: Um, so that, that’s a new motion that we, uh, have just kind of recently made, um, to allow them, I love this brain one, brain two also, right? So to allow them to focus on brain two, because a lot of our time. Typically spent delivery issues, you know, getting my hours, where am I charging my time? And so just freeing up a little of that capacity to do this work, um, helps get us in this brain two mode where we’re not just living to survive. [00:28:56] Vince Menzione: I. So, Matt, you’ve removed a lot. I mean, one of the things I admire, I admire AWS for being first to market and removing the most friction in marketplace of any of the vendors. Really, truly that. You talked about some of the announcements. How does some of, how does some of this tie PC central agents propensity sales plays, MCP, how does some of this tie to how, how you’re thinking about the future? [00:29:18] Vince Menzione: And how to enable more motions like this. [00:29:20] Matt Yanchyshyn: Yeah. Well, I, I think if you know my boss, UBA Borno, uh, you’ll know that she has a maniacal focus on automation. Yeah. Um, and, uh, co-sell is increasingly automated. You know, you were asking earlier about propensity data. You can get that propensity data in addition to sales plays and, uh, opportunity scores through the partner central agents. [00:29:38] Matt Yanchyshyn: So things that used to require multiple calls to A PDM, if you’re lucky to have one. Yeah. Or a p sm. Uh, you, you can now get through, through these agents, you know, uh, tech Systems, TGS, they, they manage what, over 5,500 customer opportunities with agents that they built on top of our partner Central APIs. [00:29:55] Matt Yanchyshyn: Um, and work Span has built a whole product and business that’s right on leveraging, uh, our APIs, our capabilities to sort of tie into your CRM. So, majority of all opportunities will be progressed and managed by agents. This year at AWS, we already have a majority of all customer opportunities, all app have a partner attached and I, I took a personal goal for a majority of those partner attachments, not to happen from a human. [00:30:22] Matt Yanchyshyn: But from our solution matching engine. And how do you get recommended by that solution? Matching engine, having a healthy ACE pipeline, thanks to partner central agents and the integrations you’re doing. And in addition to being the specializations and doing things like multi-product solutions and ultimately closing opportunities, you dream of LAR and so LAR will help that. [00:30:40] Allison McFadden: It’s more like a nightmare. [00:30:41] Vince Menzione: And so, you know, [00:30:42] Allison McFadden: it’s more like a nightmare, but [00:30:44] Vince Menzione: nightmare. Well, it’s, it’s, yeah. Nightmare of Laura and, and. Nice dreams of PRM, but the, um, but that’s the loop, right? I, I think, uh, increasingly co-sell for us, and in my mind, is largely a hundred percent automated. Yeah. Except for what matters most, those most largest, most strategic, most complex deals. [00:31:01] Vince Menzione: Where our highly paid and very skilled salespeople are most effectively used. [00:31:05] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:31:05] Vince Menzione: You know, the days of, you know, this person with 20 years experience selling, clicking, progressing opportunities through a pipeline, uh, should be over. Uh, and, and we need those people out, out selling and, and co-selling. And so that for me. [00:31:19] Vince Menzione: Yeah. That, you know, we talk a lot about co-sell, but I, I’m obsessed with automating as much of the co-sell as possible. [00:31:24] Vince Menzione: I remember going back to the ex Excel spreadsheets and, and that, that seems to be be Viva became spreadsheet jockeys. [00:31:31] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:31:32] Vince Menzione: And, and they stopped selling. They forgot how to sell. [00:31:34] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And people spend all this time doing lunch and learns and things like that. [00:31:36] Vince Menzione: And then, you know. Then the salespeople rotate out after 18 months and, and it, that’s, that’s the old days. Uh, you know, the new days are, are AI powered matching algorithms, uh, ag agentic co-sell, using the partner essential agents to get your data and, and putting that data to use automatically and, and what sounded like magic. [00:31:51] Vince Menzione: 12 months ago is being done, you know, by partners at massive scale across thousands of opportunities. You can do it today. And you know, I, there’s a guy named another Mike, right? Mike another Mike who they have, there’s like a guy who’s doing all this and I’m picking on Mike ’cause I, I know their system really well and I know the guy Mike grew easily built it for them. [00:32:08] Vince Menzione: Um, but, you know, I think, yeah, again, in the days of having 10 people sort of doing lunch and learn could be replaced by one or two people, building agents, uh, managing a massive pipeline. And, and that’s the future. [00:32:18] Vince Menzione: Exactly. James, your perspective on what breaks with co-selling? [00:32:22] James Kang: Oh, what breaks co-sell? Um, I would say. [00:32:25] James Kang: It, it starts and finishes with just misalignment and a loss of trust with the customer, especially when you have multiple partners or stakeholders involved. If you’re trying to do a three-way deal with a end customer and you’re not on the same page, you’re not gonna get to a successful outcome on, on the backend. [00:32:44] James Kang: Uh, the fix is a much more complicated story. I would say that to take a step back, um. We’ve talked about the five layer cake. We’ve talked about where NVIDIA kind of fits within the equation. We are invested in the ecosystem and so as different players and application organizations win and see these outcomes for end customers, we celebrate that success. [00:33:07] James Kang: Um, and as part of that kind of ethos of where NVIDIA fits within the ecosystem, we wanna make sure that not only. Our customers, but our partners like ISVs and GSIs are set up for success. Um, we do not as Nvidia sell hardware or GPUs directly to customers We use. Hyperscalers like AWS as kind of our force multiplier. [00:33:31] James Kang: And similarly we think of ISVs and GSIs as the force multipliers in terms of our extensions of how we, we kind of leverage the relationships and build the trust with our end customers. And so going back to kind of the question, Vince, I would say that it all comes back to trust and being able to build that mutual trust. [00:33:48] James Kang: Um, a lot of what we do when we co-sell with AWS is really on the software layer. Um, we actually have more software engineers at NVIDIA than we have hardware engineers, which is a weird thing to say, um, because everyone knows us for our GPUs. But because of that fact, we are heavily invested in Cuda and making sure that Cuda becomes the foundational layer for how not only our ISVs and GSIs, but also our end customers are building. [00:34:12] Vince Menzione: Very cool. So Reiki, you and James together on this production. Versus pilot with the Gentech ai. Tell us a little bit more about that. Where, where are you in the process? [00:34:24] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah. So I mean, in general, what we’re seeing out in the market in, in relation to sort of AI and, and customer’s journeys is that, um, at least from an elastic perspective, um, we’re seeing people very much in production when it comes to, you know, kind of AI assistant co-pilot use cases. [00:34:42] Rekha Thangellapalli: So, you know, things like, um, software development, customer support is a big one. Um, any sort of employee productivity use cases where there’s. Still a human in the loop somewhere. Um, and there’s a very like, clear path to value. And so we see the customers being in production excelling there. Um, no problem. [00:35:01] Rekha Thangellapalli: Where we’re seeing people still kind of in the pilot phase is those fully autonomous workflows where there is no human involved. The agent is reasoning on its own. Um, accessing multiple systems and taking an action on the user’s behalf. And what we’re seeing is that it’s not the intelligence of the agent that’s holding it back. [00:35:26] Rekha Thangellapalli: It’s more about giving the right context to the agent and having the right. Security kind of governance controls in place for the company to feel comfortable in putting these fully autonomous workflows into production. And that’s really the conversation we’re having is all right, what are the controls you need in place? [00:35:47] Rekha Thangellapalli: For you to release this to your business unit. Um, and what is the context that the agent is needed before we can comfortably let the agent make the decision on the user’s behalf? Um, James, I’d be interested to hear what you’re, what you’re seeing in the market [00:36:03] James Kang: plus one on all things context. I, I would even go so far as to say, um. [00:36:09] James Kang: H how many folks in the audience have heard of token maxing? Like this new term? [00:36:13] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah. Yeah. [00:36:14] James Kang: Um, I’ll, I’ll give a very specific example of, of Uber that went public. With the example of Claude, like they allowed all of their employees to use as many tokens as possible, and within the span of four months, they exhausted their full budget for the year, and so they had to pull back, and now there’s a cap on every employee. [00:36:33] James Kang: I think the number that’s circulating is $1,500 per month per employee, and so I think that is at least. In this multi-phase evolution of where we’re going to be and where we’re today, cost has become kind of the prohibitive force in terms of agentic AI at scale. Um, I think we are working on some very creative solutions in-house and Nvidia. [00:36:55] James Kang: Um. And we saw some really dynamic announcements this week when it comes to all things agent core, um, where we want to focus on very nimble ways for customers to be able to execute and go to market. And one extreme example of that is our investment within our open model strategy. So Nvidia, not only, again, providing GPUs, we actually offer our own op open models, which we call our Nitron models. [00:37:21] James Kang: And through our Nitron models, we are allowing customers to really develop and fine tune their own proprietary models in a cost effective manner. So right alongside the frontier models like OpenAI and Anthropic. It’s not a if then, it’s not an either or statement. It’s a, it’s a permutation, it’s an and So we’re giving you a cost effective alternative to not only bring your AgTech applications at scale by training on Nibo tron, which is open source, but then once you’ve kind of finished and fine tuned that specific training job to be able to. [00:37:53] James Kang: Go ahead and utilize your frontier models, whether it be OpenAI or Claude. And I know there’s other partners here that are providing those kind of different model capabilities. And so I think for us it’s, it’s a matter of choice. We know that this market is dynamic. It’s gonna be evolving over the next coming months as well as the next coming years. [00:38:10] James Kang: Uh, but we believe that we are positioned for a really unique dynamic expansion of AgTech use cases over the, at least the next three to six months. [00:38:20] Vince Menzione: Allison, for the partners in the room who are glazed over right now going, what do I, what do I do over the next 12 months? [00:38:26] Allison McFadden: Should I wake everybody up by saying, yeah, please. [00:38:27] Allison McFadden: Say go hurricanes. [00:38:28] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:38:29] Allison McFadden: Is there anyone, anybody? Everyone’s like, boo. I get to leave the parade today to go home to parade. I live in Raleigh, so we’ve got our parade on Saturday. Nice. [00:38:39] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:38:40] Allison McFadden: All right. Wake up. Um, all right. So for the $50 million partners in the room, um. $50 million is not small. You have something that works. [00:38:50] Allison McFadden: Right. This is great. What I would be thinking about is, you know, we’ve talked about focus before, but really doubling down on, you know, what is, what is your industry, what is your client like, ideal client that you serve. And build, um, almost that kind of community. You know, the, the clients we have move from firm to firm to firm. [00:39:17] Allison McFadden: And if you’ve done good work at one, you’re gonna follow ’em to the next. Um, so build that client demand in a specific place or specific client profile that is just like really knocking it out out of the park for you. Um. Scale with marketplace, right? So if you, I, I love some of the data that you were sharing in your talk earlier, um, because it’s like no overhead scaling mechanism. [00:39:45] Allison McFadden: I mean, it’s, it’s fantastic. Um, Accenture, other GSIs like us, we are investing in marketplace. So we’re investing in resources, um, to help us. Use marketplace more with our clients and we’re gonna capture, right, those storefronts. And if you’re present on marketplace, you’re gonna be able to catch, uh, yourself in that wheel. [00:40:09] Allison McFadden: So I think those are the, the kind of couple of things I would say is focus, focus, focus to drive that client demand and use scaling mechanisms like marketplace to really kind of, uh, accelerate. [00:40:24] Vince Menzione: Matt, anything to add there on the. [00:40:26] Vince Menzione: Well just, you know, Ja, James, you, I love the token maxing reference in Uber and it reminds me, you remember when cloud came out and everyone was like, oh, all these people are, are gonna use the cloud and costs are outta control and. [00:40:39] Vince Menzione: Um, a lot of people pulled back from the cloud and, and a lot of those companies no longer exist. And it’s similar with, with, uh, token maxing, like, oh, these agents are outta control. You have a choice. You can embrace them and figure it out and get governance and, and make your data available. Um, use the partner, central agent, move to agent to co-sell, or you can fade and die. [00:40:58] Vince Menzione: And, and that’s, that’s where we’re at. Uh, is, is the, the companies sitting here today embraced the cloud years ago and won. Uh, and and there’s a set of companies here today who are gonna embrace agents in the, for both buyers and sellers, and will win. And there are those who won’t and they won’t win. And so for me, it’s like we’re, we’re at a, we’re at a crossroads. [00:41:18] Vince Menzione: And, and if you’re gonna win, you gotta leap into that, you know? I love it. And, uh, and, and, and it’s, it means the cost of experimentation is so much lower now. Development and, and even business development or software development is, is agent enabled. And so you can take risks, you can experiment and, and you have to, it’s, it’s an existential moment. [00:41:37] Vince Menzione: Agreed. We’ve got a couple minutes left over for any questions. What do you think? Sure. Are there any here. I think there are a couple. Yeah, we’ve got, we’ve got a co-sell question I’m sure coming up here. [00:41:51] Audience Member: Um, I’m Cassandra, I’m the CEO of Partner Tap. And one of the questions I had was, I think, you know, the co-selling between the sellers is where things get. Really, really hard when you’re multi-partner. And so when I was listening, um, with, you know, the Accenture and Elastic together, you talked about how you had, you, you had to get these BD business development people. [00:42:22] Audience Member: Um, is this a new team that is over the client team? And how do these teams interact like with the elastic sellers? Are you doing a lot of coaching to the field and then with if AWS sellers are, are involved, like what is that whole picture? What does look like, [00:42:43] Allison McFadden: like [00:42:44] Audience Member: on the ground? I mean, that is the hardest part, I think, and that’s what we hear. [00:42:48] Allison McFadden: It’s so, it’s so, it’s so tough. Um, and I will, I’ll just say, so our business development leaders that we now have kind of. Expanded their capacity. They have always been, they have always been there. Um, but they have not been well resourced. They haven’t, they haven’t had very clear kind of job description. [00:43:12] Allison McFadden: I’m gonna say I, in the past they have been kind of focused on partner relationship. And so like more like an alliance manager and maybe working on some of the data. Right? So when I say I have nightmares about Lars, because we’re always trying to increase the LAR for Accenture and, and they were focused like in those detailed weeds of like trying to pass ACE and trying to call the PDM and all this stuff. [00:43:39] Allison McFadden: What we are doing is really pivoting them to be proper sales, business development focused on client outcomes and focused on. Technical skills to be able to describe what this solution is to the field. So, um, and because we need, I have many, many questions about, I gotta get agents to work with Eurogen co-sell so that that part somehow goes away. [00:44:05] Allison McFadden: So that’s a, that’s the thing we gotta solve still, but, um, so we’re pivoting them to be kind of driving. More of that co-sell enablement with the field, um, and taking that message to the field rather than being there, waiting for questions to come in from the field, waiting for like our field teams to discover, oh, I saw something that we’re doing with Elastic, like on a press release on LinkedIn. [00:44:30] Allison McFadden: Right. So we’re kind of trying to pivot them to be more proactive. [00:44:33] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:44:34] Rekha Thangellapalli: Yeah. And uh, Cassandra, that’s an excellent question because I think. Multi-party, you know, sort of tri-party offerings. The hardest part is operationalizing it at scale, right? Yeah. And so for this particular offering, we are basically having three routes to market. [00:44:51] Rekha Thangellapalli: So one is seeing how this offering fits into our existing elastic go to market. And so I am constantly enabling our field sellers to say, okay, within our three field sales place, here’s exactly where this fits in. Here are, you know, uh. Keywords that you hear in customer conversations where you bring up this offering and here’s a process of how it works. [00:45:14] Rekha Thangellapalli: Um, exactly At what sales stage do I bring in Accenture, how, you know, what are the roles and expectations? Right? So that’s on the elastic side. We’re doing the same thing on the Accenture side. So we’re doing a ton of training enablement and lunch and learns, and we’re also looking at how do we fit into. [00:45:31] Rekha Thangellapalli: Uh, Accenture’s AI transformation projects, we are the semantic layer, right, of their enterprise brain. And so it’s a whole different sales motion, um, and, you know, having the right assets, having the right process again to make sure that that goes smoothly. And then finally, we’re going directly to the customer. [00:45:49] Rekha Thangellapalli: So we are launching multiple external campaigns where, you know, if the customer raises their hand. We will, we will line up immediately. Right. Um, and so, [00:46:01] Allison McFadden: I mean, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t say how important that third leg of the stool is. ’cause the second part, she talked about getting into our catalog is the first thing. [00:46:09] Allison McFadden: ’cause my BU business development leaders have the catalog. Right. And that’s what they’re selling. So what Elastic has done has gotten into one of those offerings and then. If we have a customer that asks for it, that is the fastest way to alignment. That is like the number one thing that we respond to [00:46:26] Vince Menzione: customer at the center. [00:46:27] Vince Menzione: This is great. Well, I think we’re up to time. This was a great session. I want to thank you. This is what a great, what a great group. [00:46:34] Vince Menzione: Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated, share it with a partner leader in your network. Subscribe where [00:46:43] Vince Menzione: you listen, and head over to the ultimate partner.com. [00:46:47] Vince Menzione: For show notes related content and the resources for this episode. And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live Event in Reston, Virginia, October 26th through October 28th. Until next time, keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything [00:47:09] I.

China's electric vehicle leadership is reshaping the global audio industry. In this episode, host Joe Coletti speaks with Tom Narayan, Lead Equity Analyst in Global Autos at RBC Capital Markets, to explore how China built its EV advantage, why its OEMs are expanding into Europe and eyeing the U.S., and what this means for Western automakers, suppliers, and consumers.Key points:China's EV advantage is rooted in battery supply chains, subsidies, labor costs and domestic market scale.Chinese OEMs are expanding beyond their home market through exports and localization in Europe.European OEMs may lose share, but Western suppliers could benefit if Chinese OEMs rely on them abroad.Chinese OEMs are technically ready for the U.S. market, but policy volatility and tariffs remain major barriers.Chinese consumers are shaping the next phase of electric vehicle technology through demand for autonomy and tech-forward features.Listen and subscribe to Strategic Alternatives on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and share the podcast with others.To learn more about RBC Imagine, access the flagship report, or continue the conversation, contact your RBC representative or visit rbccm.com/imagine.

Word leaked out this month that the parent company for Cycle World—formerly the magazine and latterly the website—has pulled the plug on the publication. Not so many years ago this would have been unimaginable. At its height, Cycle World had 300,000 subscribers and was the main conduit for OEMs to reach enthusiasts in the most lucrative motorcycle market in the world. And now, seemingly, it's all come to an end. Joining Neil to talk magazines and shifting markets are Motorcycle Global's Michael Uhlarik and ADVRider.com managing editor Zac Kurylyk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Software-defined vehicles (SDVs) are transforming the automotive industry … but are OEMs focused on the right priorities? With over 35 years of award-winning automotive software expertise, Elektrobit's comprehensive SDV ecosystem empowers OEMs, Tier 1s, ODMs and Big Tech to build future-ready solutions with speed and confidence — driving faster innovation and seamless integration across the vehicle lifecycle. Listen in as we sit down with Dr. Moritz Neukirchner, Head of Cross-Portfolio Growth and Alliances, to discuss how automotive operating systems are reshaping the future of mobility and why software is becoming the defining factor in vehicle innovation. From over-the-air updates and AI-defined vehicles to open-source software, you'll learn why many OEMs are rethinking their SDV strategies after years of overambitious goals. This conversation also explores why organizational change, not technical capability, is now the biggest hurdle to building scalable, customer-focused SDVs. If you're interested in automotive OS, AI, SDVs, or the future of vehicle architecture, this episode offers an insider's perspective on where the industry is headed next. We'd love to hear from you. Share your comments, questions and ideas for future topics and guests to podcast@sae.org. Don't forget to take a moment to follow SAE Tomorrow Today—a podcast where we discuss emerging technology and trends in mobility with the leaders, innovators and strategists making it all happen—and give us a review on your preferred podcasting platform. Follow SAE on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube.Follow host Grayson Brulte on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.

Private equity is no longer a small corner of the market that only dealmakers, investors, and portfolio executives need to understand. It is becoming one of the defining forces in business. More industries are being consolidated. More founder-led companies are being acquired. More executives are being recruited into PE-backed environments. And more leaders are finding themselves operating under a very different set of expectations, timelines, pressures, and performance standards than the ones they were trained for. That means the old “private equity is not my world” mindset is getting harder to maintain. You may sell your company to private equity. You may go work for a PE-backed business. You may be hired to lead one. Either way, it is becoming increasingly important to understand what this environment actually requires. Because private equity is not just a financial model. It is an operating environment. And in that environment, leadership gets tested quickly. The old playbook of buying a business, adding leverage, cutting costs, and exiting quickly is no longer enough. In today's market, value has to be built. Leaders have to move fast without breaking the business. Founders have to navigate the shift from owner to employee. Boards have to apply pressure without creating misalignment. And executives have to prove they can create measurable results without relying on the systems, resources, and support structures they may have had in larger companies. In this episode, I'm joined by Maxwell Salazar, founder of Salazar Leadership Advisory. We talk about what private equity is really demanding from leaders today, what it takes to succeed in a PE-backed environment, why traditional executive hiring signals can be misleading, and how founders, boards, and operators should think about leadership in a market where private equity is no longer the exception; it is becoming part of the business landscape. What You'll Discover In This Episode Why private equity is becoming a reality founders, executives, advisors, and operators need to understand How PE-backed environments differ from traditional corporate leadership roles Why the old private equity playbook of leverage, cost-cutting, and quick exits is no longer enough What leaders need to understand before stepping into a PE-backed company Why self-awareness, adaptability, and accountability matter so much under private equity pressure How founders can struggle with the shift from owner to employee after a transaction Why founder transitions are often emotional and psychological, not just operational How leaders can move quickly without triggering resistance inside the business Why boards need to be clear about the mandate before hiring a CEO, COO, CFO, or CRO What companies should actually assess for when choosing leaders for PE-backed environments Why prior PE experience, impressive logos, or successful exits can create false confidence How to tell the difference between someone who managed inside a system and someone who can build in a more ambiguous environment Why the best PE-backed leader may not always be the most charismatic or obvious candidate How board dynamics can either support an operator or make the role harder than it needs to be Why private equity can be one of the best environments for leadership growth, but only for people who understand the pressure, pace, and trade-offs involved.   About the Guest Maxwell Salazar is the founder of Salazar Leadership Advisory, where he helps private equity firms make better leadership decisions across their portfolio companies. A business psychologist by training, Maxwell evaluates C-suite leaders, surfaces culture and execution risk, and helps investors understand whether the people they are hiring are equipped to lead through pressure, ambiguity, board scrutiny, and operational change. Before launching his advisory practice, Maxwell served as Head of Executive Assessment at AlixPartners, advising clients across hedge funds, investment banks, and PE-backed companies ranging from $100 million businesses to multibillion-dollar enterprises. In his work, Maxwell focuses on the human side of value creation: how leaders perform when the market shifts, the strategy meets resistance, or the boardroom pressure starts to rise. He helps investors and leadership teams look beyond pedigree, charisma, and past titles to better understand self-awareness, accountability, adaptability, culture fit, and the trade-offs that determine whether an executive can succeed in a private equity-backed environment. Connect with Maxwell on LinkedIn.     About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF Trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers, and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.   Resources For more aerospace industry news & commentary: https://craigpicken.com/insights/. To learn more about Craig Picken, visit https://craigpicken.com/.

This conversation is about how the demands on data centers are changing and what that means for the systems that support them. As AI and high performance computing continue to scale, cooling is no longer a background function. It is central to whether these environments operate efficiently and reliably. Liquid cooling is becoming more common because it can handle the heat loads that air cooling cannot. But as systems move in that direction, the margin for error becomes much smaller. These are precision environments. Everything has to work as expected, and small issues can have larger consequences than people anticipate. Valves are a good example of something that is often overlooked but plays a critical role. They control flow, manage pressure, and help protect the integrity of the system. If they are not selected correctly, they can introduce problems that are difficult to detect early but show up later as inefficiencies or risk. One of the biggest points Eddie will make is that these systems depend on exact specifications. Engineers are not looking for something that is close. They need a valve that matches the system requirements exactly, whether that is flow performance, pressure characteristics, materials, connections, or physical dimensions. If something does not match, it can create integration issues, reduce efficiency, or delay the project. At the same time, the pace of data center construction is accelerating. Projects are moving quickly, and delays are not easily absorbed. That means availability and lead time are part of the technical decision, not just an operational detail. If the right solution is not available when it is needed, it creates risk for the entire build. This creates a real challenge for engineers, buyers, and OEMs. They need highly specific solutions, but they also need them delivered quickly and consistently. It is not enough to have a product that performs. The supplier has to be able to meet the spec, support the application, and deliver on time. Another important part of the conversation is how performance is evaluated. Published specifications do not always reflect real operating conditions. Systems do not run at a single point. They run across a range of flows and conditions. That is where the idea of usable Cv becomes important. It reflects how the valve actually performs in the system, not just how it performs in an ideal scenario. There is also growing awareness around hidden inefficiencies. Pressure drop, turbulence, and potential leak paths can all impact system performance. In high-density environments, these factors can reduce cooling effectiveness, increase energy usage, and introduce long-term reliability concerns. What this all points to is a shift in how components are selected. Valve selection is not a secondary decision. It is part of the overall system strategy. Getting it right helps protect uptime, maintain efficiency, and keep projects on track. Getting it wrong can introduce risks that are difficult and expensive to correct later. The goal of the conversation is to give people a clearer understanding of what matters most as they design and support modern cooling systems. It is about making better decisions upfront so systems perform the way they are intended to over time.

Ben Hutt runs Janus Electric — converting big diesel prime movers to electric for the same price as a diesel engine rebuild. In North America alone there are four million of these trucks. It would take the OEMs 50 years to manufacture that many new electric replacements. Conversion is the only realistic path. Battery swapping in four minutes. 450km range. 25 trucks sold with zero subsidy. And a business model that works like a Netflix subscription. "Australia needs to get better at exporting technology — not just digging stuff up out of the ground and putting it on a boat." Connect with Sohail Hasnie: Facebook @sohailhasnie X (Twitter) @shasnie LinkedIn @shasnie ADB Blog Sohail Hasnie YouTube @energypreneurs

Wind remains fundamentally healthy: electricity demand is rising, decarbonised power is still needed, and both Europe and the US continue to pull new projects forward, albeit for different reasons. But the industry's center of gravity is shifting. The conversation is no longer just about building faster or installing more megawatts. As turbines get larger, OEM competition broadens, and project economics tighten, the consequences of failure are becoming much harder to ignore.Host Sylvia Leyva Martinez is joined by Alexis Grenon, CEO of Onyx Insight, and Olly Litterick of Tokio Marine GX to examine what that shift means in practice. Their core argument is that the wind sector is moving from a development-at-speed mindset toward operational efficiency, where every dollar of ROI matters and risk has to be quantified far more precisely. They unpack why insurers still struggle with newer turbine classes despite two decades of renewables underwriting: the machines are scaling faster than the loss history, the supply chain maturity is lagging to price them confidently, and in wind, bigger hardware often means not more failures, but far costlier ones when they do occur.A large part of the discussion focuses on blades, where exposure and difficult inspection regimes make early detection especially valuable. Grenon argues that the industry has relied too heavily on periodic inspection and not enough on continuous monitoring, contrasting the lack of standardised turbine monitoring with the smoke detector logic used elsewhere in insurance. The promise of better instrumentation, integrated SCADA and condition data, and physics-informed AI is not simply smarter dashboards. It is the ability to detect structural issues earlier, prevent minor damage from escalating into six-figure or seven-figure failures, and make better-informed decisions about maintenance, underwriting, and asset life.The episode also looks ahead to the next set of decisions facing wind owners: how to handle aging fleets, when to extend life versus repower, and how much independent real-time data can change the balance of power between owners, OEMs, and insurers. The takeaway is that better data and earlier visibility can help the industry move from reactive maintenance and blunt underwriting toward a more preventative, risk-based model, one that should improve insurability, reduce downtime, and make the next phase of wind deployment more durable.This episode is brought to you by twentytwo & brand -- a marketing and PR agency built specifically for energy leaders.Lots of agencies say they work with energy companies, twentytwo & brand was built for them. They've partnered with more than 120 companies driving the energy transition — from growth-stage startups to globally recognized industry leaders. Media relations, brand design, video, paid advertising, and community engagement — they cover it all under one roof. No onboarding lag, no industry crash course -- they speak your language on day one.If you're ready to sharpen your story and supercharge your marketing, find them at twentytwoandbrand.com/woodmac.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rosemary previews Pardalote’s new hands-on blade repair course. EverWind’s Ocean Lake, Canada’s largest wind project, will feed a green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Nova Scotia rather than the grid. Plus BP’s exit from an offshore project in Japan, and the wake-effect lawsuit pitting SSE, Equinor, and Vårgrønn against RWE’s Dogger Bank South. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy podcast, brought to you by StrikeTape. Protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts Allen Hall 2025: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall. I’m here with Matthew Stead, Yolanda Padron, and Rosemary Barnes is back this week.  Rosemary, you’ve been to a number of training courses over the last couple of weeks. The first off was GWO. What was your experience at GWO training?  Rosemary1: It was the fourth or maybe even fifth time that I’ve done it. Um, I did it a few times in Denmark and then, uh, this is the second time doing it in Australia. also, this was my first time doing first aid in Australia. Last time they did GWO here, but my first aid was still valid from Europe, so I, I didn’t redo it. And it’s like so much about [00:01:00] snakes and spiders and jellyfish But a good, good rule of thumb, not 100% accurate, but good rule of thumb, if it is something from the ocean that stung you, then you put something warm on it, and if it’s something from the land that stung or bit you, then something cold on it, Allen Hall 2025: well, how often do you usually take GWO training? Rosemary1: You gotta do it every two years to be valid. I don’t do it every two years because, um, if you do it every two years, like within two years, then you can do the refresher course. So that’s three days instead of four However, um, because I don’t climb constantly, like often it will be six months or more in between climbs, I’ll just do it before I know that I’ve got a climb. all the other people except for one were technicians who, you know, have been working for a while. So they’re also doing the full course, not the refresher. So they get a little bit more practice than I do. But, um, it’s just not often enough. Y-you know, like every time I go it’s like I, I really feel the need to have the refresher, um, because I’m just not fully on top of it. ‘Cause it’s [00:02:00] not just that you need to know what to do. You need to be able to… Like if you need to use it, you’re gonna be freaking out, you know? This is the worst thing that’s probably ever happened in your life, and now you’ve gotta remember all your training. It’s like you want it to be actually second nature to some extent. So yeah, first day is manual handling, which is v- you know, very– That one’s very easy and I would be happy to never do that again. Like I will always remember that. Um, then you got fire, um, fire safety awareness, and that one’s just fun ’cause you just get to, um, light fires and put stuff out then first aid, which I definitely always want a refresher on. The CPR dummies at this place, they had lights, um, and it lit up green if you were doing it right, and I haven’t used a dummy that was so advanced before, so that was quite good. I realized I wasn’t pressing hard enough. and then yeah, last two days is working at heights training, which is the most intense ’cause you got your harness on all day and, um, you know, climbing up and down and rescuing people. this was Rite Training in Goulburn, and, um, the [00:03:00] instructor’s name was Claire. highly recommend doing that one. Allen Hall 2025: Is that a general requirement in Australia that you have GWO before you can climb? Rosemary1: Like, yeah, they will sometimes, um, let you climb if you are babysat by people. I would not recommend other engineers, like if you’ve never climbed a wind turbine before, like I would really not recommend that you just go up with a team and haven’t done the training because you do need to be able to use a ladder safely and, um, you can, y- you can easily, like even inside the nacelle, you could easily hurt yourself really badly if you’re used to working in an office, uh, you’re upping your danger level by, you know, like many, many, many times by going up a turbine and it’s just something that you gotta take seriously. Allen Hall 2025: How busy are the courses in Australia? Are a lot of technicians trying to get in and get trained?  Rosemary1: No, it’s people that have a job that are getting trained. But there were heaps of techs in this course. There were maybe eight or so, which is also part of the reason why it took a really long time. Allen Hall 2025: So [00:04:00] this week, as we record, y- you’re presenting a blade repair course for engineers and technicians. a completely new area that you’re, uh, going into in terms of offering advice and expertise that it’s really hard to find on the planet. It’s probably a, a, a busy or, or requested course, I would imagine, in Australia, where you just don’t have access to a lot of the manufacturers. Rosemary2: it’s a, it’s a course for just for engineers or technical type people, um, but including hands-on stuff. So the way that I I forced this to come into being was just the last five years. I, um, you know, I started working a lot on wind turbine blade repairs and, um, people would ask me, you know, “Have these repairs been done right?” And the thing is that the only repairs that I had anything to do with when I was working at LM were weirdo ones, right? [00:05:00] Where the normal, like a technician couldn’t, couldn’t handle it. It was outside of, um, yeah, their, their standard, uh, kind of repairs that they can do for whatever reason. and now in the work that we do at Part Load, it’s primarily normal repairs, and I just didn’t know exactly what technicians know. You know, how do they, how do they know whether they can repair it or not? What do they know before they go up there? When are they calling the engineer? Um, all that sort of stuff, like the normal stuff. eventually it became less about me learning, ’cause like I said, I kind of picked up most of it. Um, but now I’ve got staff that I’m training up to be, uh, you know, composites engineers and to work with these kinds of issues. There’s a lot of repetitive tasks involved in what we do when we, like, assess the condition of a wind farm. A lot of what we do is look main- manually looking through photos and thing- if things are classified right or not. I [00:06:00] Found this guy from Direct Wind Services, Jurij Eska. He’s a blade engineer. He’s worked in Europe and then come back to Australia, so a little bit like me. And, um, I just worked with him on a few projects and I’m like, “Oh, okay. Well, this guy, uh, he really gets it.” And I asked him, “How do you, how do you train your technicians? What course do they do? Maybe I can do that course.” And he said, “Oh, we train them ourselves.” And so then I asked him to put this course together. So where we started off the course yesterday, that was, um, uh, an indoor session where I was talking through how are blades designed, uh, certified, tested, manufactured, um, what kinds of manufacturing defects can you see and what do they do about them in the factory? ‘Cause you know that they’re doing a lot of repairs in the factory already before you ever see a, a brand new blade. and then the next three days we’re going to be working on, um, yeah, grinding and [00:07:00] infusions and a bit of a, a bit of theory about, um, composite repairs.  Allen Hall 2025: What do you feel like are those key skill sets that engineers should know how to do, maybe not as well as a, a professional technician that does it a lot, but at least at a beginner’s level should be able to complete them before they start repairing blades on their own and giving advice about how to repair blades? What, what are those key items? Rosemary2: part of it is that I want them to be able to understand what is a bad damage and what’s not a bad damage cause you look a lot at images from the outside, but it’s really about what’s on the inside and how deep it goes is the real thing. So, um, it’ll be about learning, you know, developing some judgment about, um, how bad it can be and how bad it can look on the outside. We’re not gonna be looking at so many real damages ’cause like obviously we’re just dealing with pieces that are in the, um, in the, uh, workshop and Yuri has [00:08:00] made some samples for us, um, purposely made them badly so that we’ve got some, you know, damage to find. Allen Hall 2025: Are you addressing carbon fiber at all? Rosemary2: Uh, I actually haven’t asked about that. I don’t think so. Carbon fiber is, um, is a real pain to work with because it’s conductive. Like, even grinding it makes a bit of a hazardous work environment. We did talk a little bit about the different materials yesterday and, um, about pultrusions. And actually, it turns out Yuri used to work somewhere where they, uh, manufactured pultrusions, and I had always, I was always under the impression that a pultrusion is, you know, like, perfectly s- perfectly straight. That’s the point. And he’s like, “No way.” No way. There’s waviness in the pultrusions  Allen Hall 2025: And on March 3rd through 5th at WOMA 2027, Rosie, you’re gonna give part of this course as part of WOMA, right? Rosemary2: Little, little mini course. We’ll have to decide what, what makes sense to include, ’cause it was… Yeah, I went through really a, a fair [00:09:00]bit about blades yesterday, you know, like why they are shaped the way that they are. So we had to talk about aerodynamics and, um, why they’re made of composite. So we had to talk about, you know, like composite materials, like how, how they, how they work So I don’t know if, uh, people wanna write in comments that m- we should, we should do some sort of, um, poll beforehand to see what are the topics that are most interesting to people, ’cause I think we’ll have a half day, right? So we’ll need to be, we’ll need to be focused. Allen Hall 2025: the description of repairs and what repairs should look like could be tremendously valuable. Everybody who has seen a repair always wonders, “Was that repair done right?” And s- and if you can have some general tools to know, like, “Uh, maybe there’s something not quite right here,” or, “That looks like a solid repair,” that would be a tremendous help to the industry, p- particularly for asset managers Rosemary2: Yeah. And you know what I think is even more useful than being able to pick out when it’s wrong is to be able to know when it’s right. You can– Y-you know, like it is so– [00:10:00] It’s such a relief. Like it takes such a mental load off you when you’re just like, “Yeah, that’s all, that’s all good. That’s normal. Okay, I know that that– I knew that that would happen, so this is not a surprise.” ‘ know, once you know you can make that judgment, you can do it very quickly and focus your attention where it should be, so you don’t need to stress for an hour over every repair. You’re just like, “Yeah. Good, good, good, good, good.” And then, “Mm, please explain why you have chosen to not, not repair this, but just put a Band-Aid over it.” that’s the goal of this training is to get everybody, y-you know, technical people, not people who wanna ever be a blade repair technician. They’ve got their own training that covers what they need to know. But this one is just, yeah, getting people like asset managers or my employees to learn what they need to know about composites, given that they have already got a strong engineering education. So, um, you know, they know a lot of the stuff, but just need to know the composite-specific stuff and wind turbine blade-specific stuff I will run this course again, by the [00:11:00] way, ’cause there was a lot of people who wanted to do it I couldn’t fit in. So it’ll happen at least once. I’ll keep on running it until everybody that wants to do it has, has done it. But, um, yeah, feel free to get in touch  Allen Hall 2025: So if you wanna attend Rosie’s short blade course at WOMA 2027, just visit woma2027.com and register today ​ Allen Hall 2025: [00:12:00] Well, over in Canada, they just approved a, really a wind farm big enough to power a small city, and almost none of the electricity is going to the grid, which is a very interesting aspect to some of the things that are happening in Canada at the minute. So up in Nova Scotia, uh, they’ve conditionally approved the Ocean Lake Wind Project. This’d be the largest wind farm in the province’s history. Up to 158 turbines will rise, uh, generating as much as 1.2 gigawatts of power. But this power is not headed to households in Canada. Nearly all of it will be feeding Everwind Fuels’ green hydrogen and ammonia plant at Point Tupper, where clean electrons will become a fuel that can be shipped across the ocean to Europe. And Matthew, there’s been a lot of [00:13:00] projects like this in Europe that have stopped more recently, particularly in northern Europe and up in Scandinavia, uh, on the hydrogen side. Or at least they’ve slowed them down. Canada seems to be going into that breach maybe to fill that void. And is there a marketplace for this to occur up in Canada?  Matthew Stead: Yeah, I think it’s very interesting. Um, you know, like you say, a number of canceled projects, and in Australia there’s been numerous canceled projects. So I like, um, the analogy or use of the term hopium rather than hydrogen, um, where, um, everyone’s hoping hydrogen will be the answer. Um, although, you know, what I, what I’ve read and understood is that, um, you know, the commercials just don’t really stack up and, um, yeah. So in terms of South Australia anyway, um, there was some major, um, hydrogen, uh, development planned with, um, you know, it, it never stacked up. So, you know, it sounds like a great [00:14:00] idea, um, but I’m not sure that the commercials will ever stack up unless you’ve got that guaranteed offtake for the, for the ammonium Allen Hall 2025: Yolanda, what kind of uphill battle is this to get this wind farm up and running knowing that it’s one customer and that commercial market is a little shaky at the minute? Yolanda Padron: what we saw, they have a lot of ca- caveats, right? So they’ve, they need to secure the customers before they start building and before they do anything, um, behind the meter. But it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s a pretty big wind farm, and it’s pretty far up north. But I mean, we, we talked to someone in, in northern US today who was having icing issues. So I mean, of course we know Canada is no, no stranger to that, if they do make it work, I think it’d be really, really exciting to, to have sort of one technology power another, um, instead of just what we’ve been hearing a lot of the potential data centers and, and just wind po- [00:15:00] powering data centers. Matthew Stead: Why not data centers? You know, seriously, like you said, Yolanda. why not go something that does have commercial demand? Yolanda Padron: we’ve talked a lot about the potential of da- data centers, right? And we’ve talked a lot about people wanting to do them. Um, but there’s also a lot of talk of potentially doing data centers up in space and a lot of talk of maybe what if we do it offshore or, you know. And so I think there’s a lot of what ifs with data centers. Of course, there’s a lot of what if with this, but just from a technology standpoint, I think this is really intriguing to have something that’s, that’s a little bit even more out there than what we’ve heard so far Allen Hall 2025: Is it a build it and they will come type of s- situation here that hydrogen and ammonia may be the, the first offtake, but realistically, if that doesn’t work out, they can still connect to the grid and feed Canada, feed the Northeast of the United States or something else Matthew Stead: Also, um, like Japan has [00:16:00] also expressed strong demand for, um, ammonia, and so, you know, they- they’re on the East Coast, aren’t they? So, you know, shipping it from East Coast to Japan is not gonna be so, so easy. I stick by what I said before. It’s hopium. it’s not a plan Allen Hall 2025: I just saw an article today talking about Airbus continuing on with a hydrogen aircraft, and I think they were gonna work with a Japanese firm to work on that together. Six months ago I thought that died, but maybe it’s still in the offering. Maybe there’s an offtake for hydrogen. B- besides the, you know, replacement for some of the, uh, more unpleasant gases that are used in steel production and in some other industry things, maybe part of this is airplane fuel. Which ammonia is one of those offerings also, right? The, there’s been a number of efforts to turn ammonia fuel into essentially jet fuel. They configure the engines to burn ammonia, which is a possibility. It does seem remote though, [00:17:00] honestly. There doesn’t seem to be a huge pull for hydrogen, and there’s not a, a major market for ammonia at at least at the moment. So I don’t know. It, it’s… When you’re talking about gigawatts of capacity you’re gonna build, you, you hopefully have an offtake  for it  Yolanda Padron: if they designed it for it being not connected to the grid, right, it just is kind of like a behind the meter thing, and then could they later retrofit it into there? Like, how would all that permitting and everything  Allen Hall 2025: I–  well, that’s a great question. I– There are a number of, uh, connections between the United States and Canada at the moment. guess is that when they place this wind farm, they have that alternate route lined up, just like any wind farm in here in the States, that you’ll find them real close to high-voltage transmission lines. Generally, those are the easy ones because transmission lines cost money and take time for permitting. I’m not sure Canada has those kind of restrictions, right? But Nova Scotia is not the easiest place in the world to do heavy construction work, just the [00:18:00] nature of Nova Scotia. It will be fascinating to see how they progress with this, but it’s something to keep an eye on because a lot of other projects like this have slowed down Matthew Stead: Do you remember when some of the OEMs were talking about, um, putting electrolyzers on their offshore wind turbines? So the, the theory, the theory was you’ve got offshore wind turbine, you don’t connect it to the grid standalone, um, and you generate hydrogen or, uh, possibly ammonia on the actual wind turbine. And then every now and then you just decant it, you know, drive up with a boat, you know, plug in the hose, and then suck out the hydrogen or ammonia. So, um, yeah, once again, all of those have gone quiet, haven’t  they?  Allen Hall 2025: speaking of Japan, a global oil giant is walking away from the Japanese offshore wind project, uh, but the project’s not dying. BP has told its Japanese partners it intends to withdraw from a wind farm planned off Yamagata Prefecture, uh, apparently worried about [00:19:00] profitability. The 450-megawatt project sits, uh, just off the coast, and it is led by trading house Marubeni, which says it will press ahead without BP. Kansai Electric and Tokyo Gas remain on board also. So BP’s exit follows really a, a brutal year for Japan, where Mitsubishi has, and some others, have pulled out of, uh, at least three projects so far, uh, over rising construction costs, and I think a lot of that’s tied to inflation. Uh, the ambition’s still there for, uh, for a number of companies, but it’s just getting harder and harder to do projects in Japan. Is this just the nature of the economy in Japan at the moment, or is this more about Japanese policy on the offtake,  Matthew Stead: I, I’m not really deep into the details but, you know, it just appears to me like a blip. I mean, there, I think there’s a lot of commitment in Japan to, you know, carry [00:20:00] out their offshore developments and I, I think this is probably more just a blip, um, and a little, you know, internal corporate, you know, argument rather than a sustained issue on offtake agreements and so forth Allen Hall 2025: Well, Yolanda, how hard is it to keep partners on a wind development in general? Are there a lot of moving pieces there until the turbines hit the water or hit the  earth?  there’s  Yolanda Padron: I think a lot of moving pieces, but not, uh, I haven’t seen a lot of changes once it’s been publicly announced and everything’s, you know, everything’s been signed and everything. Um, I do think this is really interesting. I know we’ve talked a lot about, about having, about the idea of like sometimes people think wind’s really expensive, and the way that we’re gonna make wind work is just making it cheaper for everybody and just optimizing it as much as possible, um, and, and just being, having the turbines be as resilient as possible, right? And I think such a strong player just backing out maybe [00:21:00] will incentivize some of the people in Japan to sort of try to see how they can optimize it a little bit more. I’m really excited to see it. I don’t know. It’d be… I think it’d be a nice it  Allen Hall 2025: Isn’t the bonus to offshore wind the price stability? Although the price may be higher today than you may be happy to pay, the stability of that price is a huge leverage point when you compare it to things like oil and gas or natural gas, um, in particular, which are highly volatile, that for electricity, at least you have this fairly steady source at a fixed price that you can plan out 10 years, 20 years, 25 years, maybe even 30 years. And as batteries become more prevalent on the grid, that the math even gets better over the years. Isn’t that the bonus? And, and if [00:22:00] everybody can focus on the long-term effects to the economy is where all the action will be? Matthew Stead: Yeah, I mean, when I first, um, started looking into wind, you know, 10 plus years ago, I, I won- wondered why. Why would you build offshore with all that expense? And then, you know, it became clear to me just around the, um, you know, the diversity, you know, the, the fact that you might get more wind at times that you don’t get onshore wind, and the fact that it’s more consistent. Um, yeah, and, you know, so those… I- it’s really a trade-off, isn’t it? Between the capital costs and the, um, more reliable, more consistent, um, offshore wind. So I think, you know, I, I was convinced at the start, I thought it was crazy, but then obviously it’s, it’s a, it’s a… it makes sense Yolanda Padron: Yeah, I agree. And I think, uh, depending on where you’re having your offshore wind farm, you run into things that you maybe haven’t run into before, right? I know onshore we run into a lot of things in the [00:23:00]US and Australia that we, you know, the, the turbines just maybe weren’t designed for, or there wasn’t a lot of research being done because it was being done in Europe and, and the conditions are really different. Um, and just the same way, you know, the sea is different in different places. There’s different depths. There are diff- different things that you need to worry about. but yeah, I, I completely agree that there’s a lot more generation, um, offshore. It’s, it’s bigger turbines. Um, there can be bigger, larger costs. You know, if you need to do a blade replacement or something, it, it can get, again, really expensive really quickly. But, but it’s, it’s a trade-off for sure. Allen Hall 2025: We’re gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, we wanna talk about a place where wind is being fought over versus projects slowing down ​ [00:24:00] over in the UK, there’s a big fight about offshore wind, and not just about where wind turbines will be planted, but more about how they will affect other wind turbines. So RWE is defending the UK government’s approval of its three-gigawatt Dogger Bank South project, which won its consent order, uh, basically a month and a half ago. Uh, but the developers next door are taking that approval to court. Equinor, SSE, Vårgrön own the neighboring 3.6-gigawatt Dogger Bank wind farm, and they have filed for j-judicial review. Their argument is technical, but the price tag is not. They say wake effects, where one wind farm steals the wind from another due to turbulence, could cut their output and cost them between €500 million and [00:25:00] €669 million over the life of their project. That’s a lot of money, Matthew. A half a million euros is not something to ignore. It looks like this is headed to some judicial court or maybe arbitration. Wake effects, which are actually not that well understood from what I can tell at the moment, there’s a lot of discussion and argument about, uh, how real are they or, or what effect they can have on power output. Uh, there’s a lot of money at stake, and the location of some of these wind farms is pretty close to one  another  Matthew Stead: you know, we always, always talk about, you know, AEP loss and, you know, the, the challenge is actually measuring it. And, um, you know, I’ve heard different numbers, but, you know, plus or minus half a percent of AEP loss, um, appears to me from what– in discussions, you know, the, the limit of what you can actually ever measure on a good day. Um, I just wonder, I mean, while those numbers, you know, €500, um, [00:26:00] million is a, is a big number, um, but what is that as a percentage of the overall output of that, of that facility? Um, I, I don’t know the answer, but, you know, if, if it’s, you know, half a percent, I think you’d be struggling to, um, struggling to justify that, that wake effect loss. I mean, you know, going back to what you said, Allen, you know, there are wake effects of some sort, but it’s a question of how much. I mean, that-that’s why aircraft don’t take off, um, too closely, isn’t it? Because there’s wake effects. Um, so it’s definitely a given, definitely a given. Um, but, you know, how much of an impact it truly is. Um, and I mean, there’s always other variables, you know, variables in the weather, you know, wind patterns, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, and how much do this– does this actually compare to those other, other variables?  Allen Hall 2025: Yolanda, how would you even mitigate wake turbulence on an adjacent wind farm? Are there ways to do that today?  Yolanda Padron: I think the, the aerodynamics, Allen, would [00:27:00] be a lot more in your court than, than in mine. Matthew does have a really good point. I mean, what are we… With the UK wanting to ramp up offshore as much as they want to ramp up, right? They’re not going to just cancel a large project, and they need to… I mean, it’s not, uh, there’s a finite amount of space, right? So what, I mean, what, what are you, what are you gonna do? It’s like, it’s what, like, what happens in onshore where you, you really hope maybe that you don’t get a wind farm that’s really, really close by. Um, but you might also want to plan for it. I mean, I know of sites that have le- that lease a little bit of extra land so that way no one else can lease it, or that they can, they can use that to, to travel between turbines. Um, and it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s kind of… Isn’t it kind of just part of it, part of the trade? Allen Hall 2025: it has to be, right, at some point. [00:28:00] The question in my mind about all this is how much wake is there? Is it directly impacting the adjacent wind farm? Is there– are there things that can be done to minimize that wake turbulence? I think the answer is yes, but as wind turbine blade designers, I haven’t seen the same level of wake reduction that we have seen more recently in aerospace. It’s complicated to do some of these things on a wind turbine blade. You’re mass-producing. You’re making a blade a day or a blade in a day-and-a-half timeframe. Are you gonna design this really aerodynamic tip to go on to reduce the wake on a particular wind farm? Probably not, right? So it’s, it’s– is it worth doing that versus the, the cost it would be? So it’s gonna cost 500 million euros in loss to an adjacent wind farm. Do you put that 500 million into the design effort and the molds and [00:29:00]everything else to make these blades different? Uh, it’s a tight trade-off, right? It– from the engineering side. It may be better settled in the courts, honestly. Just it may be cheaper to do it that way. Matthew Stead: Uh, I, I was gonna go down a different avenue. I mean, obviously there’s always curtailment. There’s always curtailment due to grid congestion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, maintenance. I mean, if they, if they just– when wind is coming from a certain direction, they could just de-rate and, uh, just not absorb as much energy, um, out of the wind when the wind is coming from that sector. And so that would be a way of, um, not modifying the turbine, just de-rating it under a certain wind condition. I mean, the same thing occurs with noise curtailment all the time. Um, so there’s, there’s noise modes. There could be a, a wake loss mode. We should trademark that Allen Hall 2025: Well, you know who’s gonna make money out of this no matter what? The  lawyers.  ​ Allen Hall 2025: [00:30:00] Well, in this quarter’s PES Wind magazine, there are a number of great articles, and you can download the entire magazine and all those great articles at peswind.com. There’s a nice little article from Enerpac Tool Group, and if you’re not familiar with them, they make a, a number of tools that are handy in the wind industry. Uh, and, you know, routine torque checks is kind of a pain, right? And the problem with a lot of those checks is that you have to haul around a heavy hydraulic pump to do it. And so if you’ve ever been to a trade show and seen some of these [00:31:00] pumps, it is a pain. And if you h- have to move around, especially on a w- wind site a lot, you really don’t wanna have a heavy pump that maybe is made for something, uh, more robust. Uh, and you need something that’s portable. That’s what you really need, right? So the Enerpac Tool Group has really created this, uh, LU series they call. Which is a lightweight, portable, hydraulic pump, which is for intermittent work, which is what happens on most wind sites. It’s intermittent. Uh, so the product line director, Angie Wallace, uh, talks about this and says technician feedback has shaped this new tool, uh, from multiple carrying handles and an upward-facing gauge. And that is a big thumbs up from me. When you put the gauge on the side of the tool where you can’t see it, such a problem. It’s like they’ve never used it. Well, obviously, the Enerpac has been talking to technicians, and they put the gauge where the technician can actually see it. Uh, and it’s designed to go through towers and, and tight [00:32:00] spaces. Uh, so this is made specifically for offshore conditions. It’s ruggedized, and it’s a great tool. And a lot of times, Matthew, when you s- see the technicians about and some of the tools they carry, you’re like, man, that is not a good tool for this. That is, that is too much to be hauling around, particularly uptower. It’s nice that we can see some tools that are designed job Matthew Stead: I, I’m completely convinced. I, I don’t have much to say. Um, I mean, my, my day job is, um, you know, designing products and working out what products we’re going to, to work on, and, you know, the customer is the main voice you should listen to, um, at least in the first step. So always listen to the customer first, and I think from what you’ve described, customer first, and then develop the product to suit the application. Yeah, so yeah, I’m convinced  Allen Hall 2025: Yolanda, you’ve seen Interpack on sites, haven’t you? It does seem like I run across them once in a while at some of the US sites  Yolanda Padron: Every once [00:33:00] in a while. I do gotta say I love the idea of when, like, actual, like, boots on the ground people’s feedback is taken into consideration for, for anything really. And so this is, this just makes me really happy because I think a lot of times, like, as engineers, like, we love the idea of just, oh, I’m gonna do this really cool fancy thing, and then it’s just it- no one can use it, or a very specialized person has to be able to use it. And so actually doing, you know, modifying a product so that it, it makes sense for the people using it, and I know we’ve, we’ve all talked about it a lot internally and, and we continue to work towards making it easier and easier on, on the people actually installing the product. Like, this is, this is really exciting. Allen Hall 2025: So if you need a lightweight pump for tightening some bolts uptower, particularly if you’re offshore, take a look at this Enerpac line of LU lightweight series tools. It’s well worth it. And at that same time, you should check out PES Wind magazine. Just go to [00:34:00] peswind.com That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out directly to Rosemary, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. for yolonda, Matthew, and Rosemary, I’m Allen Hall, and we’ll see you here next week on the Uptime Wind Energy podcast.  ​

Private aviation is no longer serving the same buyer, the same use case, or the same expectation set that it was built around twenty years ago. The old assumption was simple: private aviation was mainly for the already-initiated: aircraft owners, experienced charter users, corporate flight departments, or people who already understood the difference between aircraft categories, operating models, and access options. That market still exists, but a new buyer is entering the industry with a very different set of questions. They are wealthier, often younger, more digitally fluent, more time-sensitive, and in many cases completely new to private aviation. That is where the jet card model becomes more than a product. It becomes a bridge between commercial aviation frustration, fractional ownership, charter, corporate flying, and the growing demand for flexible, predictable private aviation access. In this episode, I'm joined by the CEO of Sentient Jet, Alan Walsh. We discuss how one of the original jet card companies is adapting to a changing private aviation market. We talk about how Sentient is thinking about AI, digital transformation, changing demographics, 135 lift, sustainability, World Cup demand, aircraft preferences, and why the future of private aviation may be less about luxury and more about utility, access, and time. What You'll Discover In This Episode Why the jet card model remains attractive for new entrants who want private aviation access without aircraft ownership or long-term asset commitment How Sentient Jet is balancing digital convenience with a high-touch service model that still depends on human relationships Why Alan Walsh sees AI as an operational efficiency tool, not a replacement for client-facing service How private aviation demand is being shaped by commercial aviation disruption, reduced regional routes, and the need for better time control Why new private aviation users often need education before they need a sales pitch How changing wealth demographics are bringing younger, more digitally native buyers into the market Why bigger, newer, longer-range aircraft remain in demand and what that means for operators and aircraft availability How major events like the World Cup create sustained, multi-leg private aviation demand across several weeks Why sustainability is becoming a more visible consideration for private aviation customers What the industry may look like as technology, vertical integration, and more individualized access models continue to evolve     About the Guest Alan Walsh is the President of Sentient Jet, where he is responsible for the overall growth, innovation, and success of the business. He has led the development and transformation of Sentient's service organization while also helping shape the future of Owner Services at Flexjet. Alan has spent his career at the intersection of customer success, strategy, and client experience. He brings a customer-centric mindset and a strong track record of driving large-scale business, operational, and digital transformation across growth, M&A, turnaround, and AI-enabled strategy. Known for building high-performing teams and using data to improve customer outcomes, Alan brings a strategic view of how private aviation is evolving, from changing customer expectations and digital access to service consistency, safety, and the continued role of the jet card model in the market. Connect with Alan on LinkedIn.   About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker, and ICF Trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers, and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.   Resources For more aerospace industry news & commentary: https://craigpicken.com/insights/. To learn more about Craig Picken, visit https://craigpicken.com/.

GWEC's Deputy CEO Rebecca Williams is joined by Dajin Offshore's General Manager -  Floating Wind, Carlos Martin to look at the vital role floating technology will play in the rise of offshore wind.Carlos explains how Dajin's commitment to innovation, collaboration, and sustainable growth is shaping the future of floating wind across Europe and globally.Hear how navigating industry ups and downs with patience and agility is key to unlocking massive potential—and why Europe's leadership in offshore wind technology remains vital amid increasing global competition.GWEC's Offshore Wind Podcast is hosted by Stewart Mullin, GWEC's Chief Industry Officer, and Rebecca Williams, GWEC's Deputy CEO, who leads on all GWEC's Offshore Wind work.The podcast, or 'show' as Stewart still likes to call it, features leading voices from across the sector, whether that is large OEMs, key supply chain manufacturers or political leaders driving policy, to talk about how we can all work together to deliver on offshore wind's enormous potential.Follow Stewart on LinkedIn hereFollow Rebecca on LinkedIn here and Instagram hereFollow GWEC on LinkedIn here and Instagram here

What to expect at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2026 and an interview with the Manager of Onsite Learning at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum. Also, how L3Harris converted the Qatari-gifted 747 into Air Force One, the Cirrus TRAC10, window seat lawsuits, a rule change to allow supersonic flight over the United States, and an update on Boom Supersonic's strategy for its self-developed Symphony engine. Image by Linda and Lily. Guest Dick Knapinski is Director of Communications for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). He has served in that capacity since 2010 and has been with the organization since 1992. Dick serves as the liaison between the media and EAA throughout the year, particularly during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the world’s largest fly-in convention. The event runs July 20-26, 2026. Dick Knapinski Boeing Plaza will be packed with aircraft to celebrate the aviation technology theme. Currently planned innovation displays for July 21 include BETA Technologies, Bye Aerospace, Jetson, American Drone, MagniX, Zipline, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Airhart Aeronautics, Merlin Labs, Amazon Delivery, and Starlight Productions. In addition to the displays on Boeing Plaza, Bye Aerospace, Jetson, BETA Technologies, American Drone, and ScaleWings plan to fly during the afternoon air show. Drone delivery company Wing will display the latest developments in its operations at Twilight Flight Fest. Learn more about the AirVenture Airshows and performers, Aircraft Anniversaries & Gatherings, Authors Corner, AviationTech, KidVenture, and the Fly-In Theater. Rare warbird static/flying displays will include the B-29 “Doc,” as well as a rare Consolidated PB4Y and the CAF’s B-24 Liberator on static display at Boeing Plaza. Vicky Benzing will fly her P-51 “Plum Crazy,” and Bernie Vasquez will demo a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt in afternoon shows. The Aviation Gateway Park will spotlight helicopters, advanced vertical lift platforms, and eVTOL aircraft through static displays and interactive exhibits. Before joining EAA, Dick built a broadcasting career in Wisconsin, including stints as Program Director at WNBI Radio, News Director at WMGV Radio, and Station Manager at WLFM-FM/Wisconsin Public Radio. He also spent years as a sportswriter for the Appleton Post-Crescent. Dick holds a private pilot certificate and remains active as a writer and spokesperson for EAA. Aviation News How was the new Air Force One prepared for flight? The two permanent VC-25 replacements were selected in 2015, and the $3.9 billion fixed-price contract was signed in February 2018. Boeing began physical refurbishment work in February 2020 on two 747-8I airframes originally built for the bankrupt Russian carrier Transaero. Boeing has already reported $2.5 billion in losses on the program. The current delivery target for the first jet is between 2027 and 2028, with the second jet to follow later. The ex-Qatari 747-8 “bridge” aircraft was gifted to the U.S. Air Force in May 2025 and entered service on July 1, 2026. L3Harris did the conversion in about 10 months. The quick conversion was accomplished due to several factors: Pre-staged employees operated on a 24/7, three-shift structure. (Boeing has worked a normal single-shift industrial pace, with no incentive to surge, staff once costs started ballooning.) The bridge aircraft came with a luxury interior. (Boeing's jets had incomplete interiors – basically shells.) Missing VC-25 elements. Reports (unconfirmed by the government) include no evidence of defensive countermeasures and a lack of EMP hardening. L3Harris didn’t out-engineer Boeing. They ran a 24/7 surge crew on a plane that already had a finished VIP interior, targeted a much narrower requirement (“executive airlift” vs. full presidential command-post survivability), and the government has not been forthcoming about which hardened-aircraft features (EMP shielding, missile countermeasures, full secure comms suite) were omitted. See also: Trump wants the $400M Qatari-gifted new Air Force One to be the centerpiece of his presidential library. But there's a problem. Cirrus launches TRAC10, a new light aircraft for the flight training market Purpose-designed for flight schools and to be powered by a turbocharged Rotax 916 iSc FADEC engine, the plane has a three-seat interior, a Garmin flight deck, and the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System. Cirrus says they have 100 orders from 13 flight schools. United Airlines must face lawsuit over ‘window seats’ that lack windows Not every “window seat” has a window. Sometimes it has a wall. That's just the way it is. But last August, some passengers filed class actions ⁠against United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, claiming that the carriers failed to properly disclose the lack of a window during the booking process. United claimed that “window seat” described the seat’s location and did not contractually promise that the seat would, in fact, have a window. In San Francisco, U.S. District Judge James Donato rejected the airlines' request to dismiss the suit. New Rule Clears Way for Quiet Supersonic Flights By way of history: The FAA issued 14 CFR § 91.817 in April 1973, prohibiting civil aircraft from flying at speeds exceeding Mach 1 over land in the United States. The ban came as a result of early Air Force and NASA-controlled boom tests over cities, concerns over the Boeing 2707 SST program, and the impending arrival of the Concorde. NASA’s X-59 QueSST is flying specifically to gather community-response data on its “quiet boom” design.  In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Proposed rule: Enabling Supersonic Overland Flight), the FAA is looking to replace the blanket Mach-1 ban with a noise-based standard. Supersonic flight over land would be permitted if the boom signature falls under a certain loudness threshold. The NPRM states, “Manufacturers have demonstrated it is possible to fly supersonic aircraft without sonic booms reaching the surface by using sonic boom abatement techniques, making complete prohibition on civil supersonic flight outside of test areas no longer appropriate and an unnecessary restraint on the growth of the U.S. aviation sector.” The NPRM shifts the regulatory trigger from speed to noise. Right now, § 91.817 just bans anything faster than Mach 1 over land. The proposed rule keeps that structure but adds an exception: an operator may exceed Mach 1 if it can demonstrate that the sonic boom’s overpressure at the surface does not exceed 0.11 pounds per square foot (psf). This NPRM only covers en-route/overland boom noise. A separate rule on takeoff/landing noise is expected later this year, with both rules targeted for finalization by mid-2027. The comment period ends August 17, 2026, at 11:59 PM EDT. Boom Supersonic Q2 2026 Update https://youtu.be/gtf0-bVSbeA?is=GmG8VhICNm4wg7tP The FAA proposal to change from speed regulation to noise regulation is something Boom Supersonic and others have been seeking. In the Boom Supersonic Q2 2026 Update video, Blake Scholl reveals Boom's strategy for the Symphony engine. The company intends to market a variant of the engine for behind-the-meter power generation that AI companies can utilize for power. In large part, the engine OEMs wouldn’t develop an engine for the Overture because the huge development cost couldn’t be covered by the expected engine volume. So when Boom announced it was developing its own engine, the business case was unclear. But by focusing on the ground power generation market, Boom can spread development costs over a greater number of engines. Also, that revenue stream would generate cash flow for the Overture program. National Air and Space Museum Celebrates 50 Years With Opening of Five New Galleries Hillel attended the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum media preview of the opening of the five galleries. Last episode, we listened to two recordings from that event. This week Hillel speaks with Mike Hulslander, the museum's Manager of Onsite Learning. Mike has worked in museums and zoos for more than 28 years and has researched, written, presented, and evaluated science programs for school groups, families, and the general public. At the Air and Space Museum, he is responsible for science-focused programs and exhibitions. Mike also manages the Museum's learning centers: How Things Fly and the Design Hangar. Mike is also an adjunct faculty member at the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. He serves as a science educator on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program national review panel for experiment selection and has participated in reviews for the past 11 missions aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. Supersonic demo Lift vs. Angle of Attack Hosts this Episode Max Flight, our Main(e) Man Micah, Rob Mark, David Vanderhoof, Hillel Glazer, and Brian Coleman.

GWEC's Deputy CEO Rebecca Williams and Chief Industry Officer Stewart Mullin welcome Brian Bell and Julia Roope from Fugro to discuss the impact of Geo-data and the power of cross-border cooperation in the offshore wind industry.  Discover how insights into the built and natural environments optimise all stages of the offshore wind life cycle, and learn how regional partnerships are essential for unlocking unprecedented growth. This episode explores the efforts and alliances which are driving efficiency, reducing costs, and accelerating timelines.GWEC's Offshore Wind Podcast is hosted by Stewart Mullin, GWEC's Chief Industry Officer, and Rebecca Williams, GWEC's Deputy CEO, who leads on all GWEC's Offshore Wind work.The podcast, or 'show' as Stewart still likes to call it, features leading voices from across the sector, whether that is large OEMs, key supply chain manufacturers or political leaders driving policy, to talk about how we can all work together to deliver on offshore wind's enormous potential.Follow Stewart on LinkedIn hereFollow Rebecca on LinkedIn here and Instagram hereFollow GWEC on LinkedIn here and Instagram here

Heather asks and helps answer “How do you create a point of view about your solution in a way that will talk to Salesforce about how it works together for that specific customer?” For ISVs so they can take a strong point of view about a specific customer vs. approaching with just questions. “It's easier to find this information than it's ever been. Don't be lazy and use the tools and you will have much better conversations.”This episode of How We Got There features a conversation with Heather Mason, Founder of ISV Accelerators. Heather brings their clients her knowledge forged by experiences at an ISV (Insight Squared) and Salesforce themselves, 5.5 years at each company. Her company works with “high potential” Salesforce partners to assist their GTM motions in the ecosystem - Salesforce, other ISVs, and SIs - so the ISV can help make it easier for the customer to buy the solution.We talked a bit about the challenges her team faced at Salesforce within her focus on the Pharma vertical, which had a strong publicly traded OEM of Salesforce in Veeva to contend/cooperate with and the new-normal of fewer people at Salesforce focused on ISVs. Partners need to adapt to how Salesforce is changing their selling motion, aligning to Salesforce AEs with modern better together messaging. The challenge is Salesforce is still figuring it (it being Agentforce) out too. Heather shares insights around traffic on the AppExchange listing by most common personas and what it means to ISVs through the lens of who buys their solution. At the level, the Salesforce sales team aligned to a specific account can be over 20 people but at the SMB level it might just be an AE and their RVP, who will be VERY hands on with the deal alongside their AE.We touch on big strategy but also tactics around things like when is the right moment to reach out to the Salesforce account team in an opportunity cycle. It all starts with you having a unique value to share and if you do, you should expect an 85% positive response rate. If you are lower than that, I would challenge you to harden your messaging.Heather loves to connect with people in the ecosystem and takes pride in making herself available to meeting new people. I learned a ton from my conversation with Heather and am grateful she is actively helping ISVs and OEMs in the ecosystem. Connect with Heather at the Arcadia leadership experience in Montana run by the Yarboroughs.This episode is brought to you by ISVApp. ISVapp the usage analytics platform built specifically for Salesforce ISV and OEM applications. ISVapp is your central toolbox for reducing churn, increasing renewals, uncovering upsell opportunities, and closing more deals. #salesforce #isv #gtm #salesforcepartners #appexchange

The auto industry didn't lose USMCA on July 1st. It lost the assumption that the rules would sit still.The agreement isn't dead. Nobody packed their boxes. But the US declined to renew the deal as written, and it opened what could be a 10-year renegotiation of the trade framework that governs somewhere between 1.6 and 2 trillion dollars a year, with autos at roughly 18% of that. The proposal on the table increases North American content from 75% to 82%, with half of that produced specifically in the US, and 25% tariffs still in place as leverage.In this episode, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts bring back QAD trade experts Ian Berman and Joshua Guy to separate what actually changed from what only sounds like it did. The headline reads like an attack on trade with Mexico and Canada. Ian reframes it fast: the real target is China and Mexico, as the bridge suppliers have used to skate on tariffs. If you've been finding loopholes, this is the light being pointed at them.Nothing changes tomorrow. That's the trap. The suppliers who wait for final rules will be doing origin math under deadline pressure that the prepared ones have already finished. Qualifying under the new content thresholds forces every supplier to expose its true bill of materials, and then to know its supplier's supplier's supplier. That's not a sourcing problem first. It's a data problem first.Joshua makes the same case from the trade-zone side. Foreign-Trade Zones won't erase the origin issue, but used well, they're a lever that mitigates duty exposure, with ROI that usually lands inside year one. 2025 was the largest growth year FTZ usage has seen, and DC is staffing up for another record in 2026. Underneath it all, the hosts keep returning to one message: data quality is the survival trait, systems turn that data into decisions fast enough to matter, and agility is the posture, because the volatility isn't a phase to wait out.This episode is a reminder that global trade is not back-office reporting. It is a strategic infrastructure. Leaders who treat it as such gain flexibility, cash flow timing advantages, and margin recovery. Those who do not will absorb the cost and call it unavoidable.Themes Discussed in This EpisodeWhat actually changed on July 1, and what didn'tWhy the new rules target China, with Mexico as the transshipment bridgeRising US-content and regional-value thresholds under revised rules of originOrigin qualification as a data problem before a sourcing problemKnowing your supplier's supplier's supplier across the bill of materialsClean upstream data as a tier-two competitive advantageForeign-Trade Zones as a duty-mitigation lever, not a loophole around originMoving from reactive compliance to proactive planning before the rules are finalFeatured GuestName: Ian BermanTitle: Global Trade and Transportation ExpertAbout: Ian is the Manager of Business Consulting with QAD Supply Chain. Ian has been with QAD for 11 years and has 20 years of experience in global trade and transportation management. He holds a Masters Degree in Supply Chain Management as well as an ASCM CLTD Certification.Connect: LinkedInName: Joshua GuyTitle: Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) SpecialistAbout: For more than 25 years, Joshua has worked at the intersection of engineering, product leadership, and global trade, helping organizations bring structure and clarity to complex supply chains. Today, he leads strategy for Foreign-Trade Zone solutions that enable multinational importers to manage tariff exposure, reduce compliance risk, and strengthen financial performance. He also led the development of QAD FTZ, an industry-leading Inventory Control and Recordkeeping System that supports manufacturers, distributors, and 3PLs as they move from reactive compliance to proactive, resilient trade strategy in a volatile global environment.Connect: LinkedInAbout Your HostsJan GriffithsJan is the host and producer of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and The Automotive Leaders Podcast. A former automotive manufacturing and supply chain executive, Jan is recognized as a Champion for Culture Change in the automotive industry. She brings direct, grounded conversations to leaders navigating execution, disruption, and transformation across the global automotive ecosystem.Tom Roberts (Co-host)Tom is Co-host of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and Vice President of Strategic Industry Development at QAD. He works closely with automotive and industrial manufacturers to close the gap between insight and execution, helping leaders move from visibility to systems of action that drive real operational outcomes.Episode Highlights[01:43] Couples Therapy for Your Sourcing Strategy: Jan opens with Pete Mento's framing of the July 1 news, and the room agrees the metaphor fits: every sourcing decision now comes with an asterisk.[02:39] The Real Target Isn't Mexico: Ian reframes the headline. This is aimed at China and the Mexican bridge suppliers have used to skate tariffs, not at North American trade itself.[03:57] A Light on the True Bill of Materials: New content thresholds force origin math that exposes what a product is actually made of, and pushes visibility down to the supplier's supplier's supplier.[04:40] Tier Two Data Becomes an Advantage: Josh makes the case that clean, auditable upstream data is what separates the suppliers who survive this from the ones who scramble.[05:19] The Data Sensitivity Problem: Tom names the tension: OEMs want deeper visibility, and tier ones are wary of exposing their supply base and origin data outside their four walls.[09:02] FTZ as a Tool in the Toolbox: Josh explains what Foreign-Trade Zones can and can't do. They won't erase the origin issue, but they mitigate duty exposure in export-heavy flows.[11:06] A Record Year for Foreign-Trade Zones: 2025 was the largest FTZ growth year yet, and the DC board is staffing up for another record in 2026. Awareness of the lever is finally catching up.[13:04] The ROI Is a No-Brainer: Josh walks Tom through the math: most companies recoup FTZ setup and software costs inside year one or two, before the deeper savings even count.[15:50] Rules of Origin, in Plain Terms: Ian breaks down what a rule of origin actually is and why knowing your biggest BOM cost line matters more than any headline percentage.[19:48] Stress-Test the BOM Now: Jan lays out the starting move: run 82% regional and 50% US content against your bill of materials, prioritize the parts, then build the action plan.[22:32] The Monday-Morning Playbook: Ian, Josh, and Tom close on three moves: baseline your data, put systems in place, and stay agile, because the volatility isn't slowing down.Top Quotes[04:15] Ian Berman: “ If you're not doing FTA calculations and origin determinations today, my guess is you'll be doing them tomorrow because that's what's really gonna be tied in if you wanna keep being able to use these aspects.”[12:29] Joshua Guy: “You might not be able to get the full savings that you once might have had, but you can use these different tools available to squeeze out just enough margin to stay competitive.”[22:11] Jan Griffiths: “It's about reducing those decision-making cycle times, being able to grab the situation, grab the ball, and pivot and move with it quickly.”[24:40] Tom Roberts: “You got to have great data, and you got to make some decisions, and it's something you can't leave behind. You can't just kinda wait it out. It's good to get in front of it now.”Follow the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast for real conversations with leaders who are making hard choices, focusing their bets, and leading with intent.

What exactly is L2+? And what about L2++? As the industry embraces these increasingly common terms, is liability slowing the path to Level 3 automation? In this Unplugged episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, join host Grayson Brulte to explore the automation liability concerns keeping OEMs awake at night and why companies like NVIDIA, Mobileye, Qualcomm, Stellantis, and Mercedes-Benz are using terminology that isn't formally defined. As adoption accelerates and regulation struggles to keep pace, one thing is clear: that extra "plus" may just be the industry's way of navigating a self-driving future that's arriving faster than the rules can keep up.   Have your own thoughts on this topic? We'd love to hear from you! Share your comments, questions or ideas for future topics with Grayson on Twitter or send them to podcast@sae.org.   Follow SAE on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Follow host Grayson Brulte on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Thomas von Tschammer, co-founder and Managing Director US of Neural Concept, argues that physics-aware AI is driving a third revolution in engineering physical products. Neural Concept's models learn from simulation and test data to evaluate 3D designs in minutes, helping Jaguar Land Rover move from about 50 external-aerodynamics evaluations per day to 1,500 and enabling battery cool-plate suppliers to cut development cycles while improving performance. The episode explains why AI is not replacing numerical simulation, but shifting it later in the process while expanding early design exploration across automotive, Formula 1, and manufacturing workflows. The stakes are competitive: companies that make engineering iterations AI-led can compress development cycles, while legacy OEMs risk falling further behind faster-moving Chinese and digital-native hardware competitors. For full show notes, links, and references, read the episode page:https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/1000-designs-a-day-neural-concept-s-thomas-von-tschammer-on-ai-native-engineering/ Mercury: Command is Mercury's new conversational interface, giving you natural-language access to your finances and helping you take actions within your existing permissions and approval policies. Visit https://mercury.com to learn more and apply online in minutes. Sponsor: Claude: Claude by Anthropic is an AI collaborator that understands your workflow and helps you tackle research, writing, coding, and organization with deep context. Get started with Claude and explore Claude Pro at https://claude.ai/tcr CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (03:52) Special Sponsor (05:40) AI design revolutions (12:00) Physics models and data (Part 1) (18:40) Sponsor: Claude (20:32) Physics models and data (Part 2) (21:56) Copilots and workflows (33:22) Automation versus engineers (40:39) Industry speed gaps (48:26) Foundation models and racing (58:03) Surprising AI designs (01:06:15) Adoption and differentiation (01:17:02) Robotics and abundance (01:24:36) Episode Outro (01:28:10) Outro PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing SOCIAL LINKS: Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/ Youtube: https://youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-researchers-and/id1669813431 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yHyok3M3BjqzR0VB5MSyk

Joe Shaker, dealer and founder of TruVideo, joins the Parts Edge Podcast live from the NCM Feel the Future Fixed Ops Summit. Joe dives into the foundational importance of fixed ops in dealership profitability and the transformative power of video technology in building trust and transparency with service customers.Joe shares his journey of launching TruVideo—rooted in asking customers what really mattered and discovering that, even with high performance metrics, trust was the missing link. Learn how video, narrative, and new tech tools like the Video Quality Score (VQS) are not just changing customer communication, but also driving higher parts sales, improving technician/advisor consistency, and elevating the entire fixed ops experience.Join Kaylee and Joe for a gritty, motivating discussion on why dealerships can't afford to neglect their fixed operations—and how smart tools are giving teams an unbeatable edge.--------------------------------------------This show is powered by PartsEdge: Your go-to solution for transforming dealership parts inventory into a powerhouse of profitability. Our strategies are proven to amp up parts sales by a whopping 20%, all while cutting down on idle inventory. If you're looking to optimize your parts management, visit

Robert Llewellyn gets a glimpse behind the scenes at one of the biggest car companies in the world, as he talks to the man leading its' newest brand. With only a year on sale in the UK, Leapmotor - a Chinese company, within which Stellantis has a 20% stake - has made its mark. Damien Dally, MD of Leapmotor UK tells us how it's been done, what's to come, and how strategic partnerships are key to the survival of new and old OEMs alike. For EV test drives aplenty, join us at our next Everything Electric expo: https://everythingelectric.show EE GREATER LONDON (Twickenham) - 11th & 12th Sept 2026 EE SYDNEY - Sydney Olympic Park - 18th - 20th Sept 2026 To partner, exhibit or sponsor at our award-winning expos email: commercial@fullycharged.show Check out our sister channel Everything Electric CARS: https://www.youtube.com/@fullychargedshow Support our StopBurningStuff campaign: https://www.patreon.com/STOPBurningStuff Become an Everything Electric Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fullychargedshowBecome a YouTube member: use JOIN button above Buy the Fully Charged Guide to Electric Vehicles & Clean Energy : https://buff.ly/2GybGt0 Subscribe for episode alerts and the Everything Electric newsletter: https://fullycharged.show/zap-sign-up/Visit: https://FullyCharged.Show Find us on X: https://x.com/Everyth1ngElec Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/officialeverythingelectric