In his first weeks as Augury COO, Roy Eitan set out to the front-line: to connect with an Augury customer and the Augurians who serve them. In the previous two posts, Roy talked about what he learned on the way. Here the learning curve swoops skyward as he meets those who Augury directly serves.
Finally, we made it to a client manufacturer – in fact one of the largest in the country. On route, I already learned about the caliber of my colleagues. I also realized there are solid benefits to scaling locally as there are in scaling internationally.
But now we had arrived. I could finally spend time at the front-line with the customer to find out what products and processes Augury needs to start executing faster. In short, I was here for actionable insights – not unsimilar to those Augury provides to keep their machines running.
The Real Manufacturing Deal
As a growth executive who now resides in the rather pristine and deep tech setting of Silicon Valley, it has been a few years since I visited a true industrial-scale operational factory. And this place was huge. It also fulfilled many of the stereotypes of industry: massive machines pumping out miles of product thanks to a whole lotta blue collar work ethic. It also got dusty in places. This was the first time in over two years I had to wear a non-COVID related mask. In short: this factory was the real deal.
Then I got to meet my first hero: a reliability manager who has taken on the challenge of using Augury to bring the next generation AI and analytics to his work environment. I witnessed the difference Augury would make for him once our endpoints were placed. He would no longer have to climb long ladders to tricky places to take readings. These readings would now be automatic and coming in all the time. Moreover, it would no longer be about the descriptive nature of the readings. It would now be about the prescriptive nature of the insights that will empower this reliability manager and his team to prevent issues before they even occur.
I began to wonder if we could also apply more automation in the products and processes we are developing for scaling…
Meanwhile, our Field Team Lead Chris brought my thoughts back down to earth. He had casually touched one of the machines and told the plant manager that it felt a bit warm. And sure enough, it turned out the ventilation was blocked and it was indeed overheating. Thanks to Chris, Augury was already providing value before we had even finished installing our tech. Ah yes, the human touch…
Reliability Manager As Hero
In the end, Augury will be providing the full stack solution of IoT and AI, backed by our own in-house vibration analysts to help turn the constant stream of data into actionable insights. And there will still be more than enough work for the reliability manager and the rest of his team to do. They’ll be taking on the actual heroic interpretation and activation to save the day from unplanned downtime. And I can very much imagine him happily sharing his newfound knowledge with his colleagues at this factory and with those working at other factories.
This reliability manager is now heading to the next level of empowerment. Technology like Augury’s will help him gain new skills and likely evolve his career path as he begins to leverage data and insights to drive the business forward. For both him and his company, this was a growth opportunity.
I realized that as Augury grows, we must never lose touch with providing such growth opportunities. In other words, my own job has also become a growth opportunity.
Read Part 1: ‘The Road To Customer-Centricity (1): What I Learned On The Way’.
Read Part 2: ‘The Road To Customer-Centricity (2): What I Learned At The Crossroads’.
Or to learn more about Augury’s full-stack people-first approach that’s transforming manufacturing, get in touch today.
