First Successful UNS in Pharma in EU!

Transcript of the podcast hosted by Walker Reynolds, welcoming John McKeon, Patrick McCarthy, Gráinne O’Sullivan, Igor Tomasevic and André Boyce

Continuing our deep dive into Unified Namespace (UNS), we came across this great podcast hosted by Walker Reynolds of 4.0 Solutions, welcoming John McKeon, Patrick McCarthy, Gráinne O’Sullivan (all Gallarus), Igor Tomasevic (Stada) and André Boyce (Arcadis DPS), to discuss the first successful UNS deployment in Life Sciences inside the European Union.

As part of the 4.0 Solutions community, I wanted to do my part in helping raise awareness of the conversation. So, I created a word-for-word transcript of the conversation, eliminating any errors in the automated transcript. It is my hope that others interested in learning about the power of UNS can now find this content more easily.

If you are keen to learn more about UNS and other Industry 4.0 topics in general, I recommend you join the Industry 4.0 Community Discord, where you can get all your questions answered!

If you would like to understand this development through the lens of P=ENTS community building, check the P=ENTS article here.

The source video for the podcast hosted by 4.0 Solutions is here:

Transcript

Walker Reynolds: And welcome to the bi-weekly, tri-weekly, once a month Industry 4.0 Community podcast, sponsored by 4.0 Solutions. I am your host with the most, Walker D. Reynolds. Today we have, actually, this is going to be a really cool podcast. So this is going to be more of a techy, nerdy podcast. So if you want to know how digital transformation actually happens and you know the process that organizations go through to make a decision on whether or not they’re going to select Unified Namespace, the foundational architecture for their digital infrastructure, this is the podcast for you. So today, what we’ve got is we have Gallarus Industrial Solutions (GIS), John McKeon, Pat McCarthy, Gráinne O’Sullivan, you’re with John, right? Yes. And we have from Stada — you may know them as Stada AG in life sciences in Europe — Igor Tomasevic and André Boyce. I’m going to have everybody introduce themselves. I’m going to kind of lay out what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to go over three steps here. Number one, we’re going to talk about Gallarus (GIS), John McKeon, me. What is the relationship between 4.0 Solutions and Gallarus and how far do we go back? You guys hear me talk about McKeon all the time. That’s number one. Number two, we’ll talk about Stada. So over the last, I don’t know, I’m going to say three years, two and a half years, the journey for Stada in making a decision on their digital infrastructure, either Unified Namespace or digital thread or linear point to point. That was a multi-year journey that I did participate in on some level. McKeon and his team at GIS and DPS and Stada, they obviously took the lead there, but I was part of that journey and presented to Stada maybe a year and a half ago, I think, at this point, almost two years ago now. And then part three of the story will be: Stada presented at ISPE 2023 earlier this year, a big announcement where Stada, basically André Boyce actually presented on the Unified Namespace and why Stada made those decisions and kind of where they’re going, going forward. The reason we’re doing this podcast right now, it’s kind of timely. If you look at the video we released a couple of days ago from Operations Calling Tulips Operations, calling Youri Regnaud, who is with Cartier in Belgium. He is a French former soccer player, actually, who now leads the digital transformation Initiative for Cartier and has been for about a decade. He did the keynote address at Operations Calling, and he explained their entire journey when they ultimately settled on Unified Namespace, and he talked about it, I think, in four phases. If you haven’t seen that video, I strongly encourage you to watch that video. It is a very good story on what the journey is like.

In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about only really the first two years of the journey because making the decision on digital infrastructure, starting with strategy, architecture, minimum technical requirements, it’s the most important decision you make. So, Stada is just now at the end of that part of the journey. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to have that conversation here. And so, with that, I’m going to go ahead and bring in John McKeon from Gallarus. John, my man, how are you doing, brother?

John McKeon: Good, Walker. Good to talk to you again, and thanks for bringing us on this podcast. I’m looking forward to this. It’s going to be interesting. For the record of it, my name is John McKeon, founder and CEO of Gallarus. I’m here with two members of my team, two members from the SLT, along with André Boyce from DPS, who will introduce themselves. Quite an interesting story we have to tell. It’s been a long journey, but I think it’s important for people to understand the journey that it takes once you get the decision process and going through that and then moving on from there into successful deployment. And we’ve got a good story. So I’ll hand it to Patrick, then. Is that okay?”

Patrick McCarthy: Yeah, thanks, John. Patrick McCarthy, Chief Operating Officer with Gallarus. At the time of the project itself, I was project manager and head of the PMO, which Gráinne also is a part of. So I’ll pass over to Gráinne.”

Gráinne O’Sullivan: Hi, guys. Thanks for having me today. I’m the head of project management in Gallarus. And with the rapidly evolving nature of Industry 4.0, we need a project management methodology and framework to deliver projects faster to market and keep our projects customer centric as well. So yeah, I’ve been with Gallarus for three years and delighted to be involved here today.

Walker Reynolds: All right, awesome. And then we’ll bring in Igor and André in the second part of the podcast, which will be maybe 15 minutes from now. So, we’ll have them introduce themselves at the very beginning. Well, John, let’s start with you. You know, why should anyone listen to you? So when I say, ‘Hey, McKeon has decades of experience in life sciences, primarily on the edge. What I know McKeon as is in terms of his experience and his abilities in improving technological advancements for things like printing and lot control on blister packs and stuff in life sciences. That’s when people say, ‘Hey, where did McKeon cut his teeth?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, it’s really in the printing of lot control.’ That’s kind of like what he’s known for. If you ask, ‘What do I know him for?’ I know him for that. I know that he has a much broader experience. But John reached out to me five years ago, and he’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve been following you. I’m getting ready to — I have a startup, Gallarus Industrial Solutions, and I have a whole team that I’m hiring. And what I need to know is, I want to do what you guys are doing. This all resonates. Like, I — you and I believe in the exact same shit. How do I build my team? How do I go to market?’ And we just sort of brainstormed. And I was talking about how to construct the team, and we had conversations on that. That’s where our initial conversation started. And then John joined the Mastermind, has been an active member in the community. We’re friends. He has my personal phone number. We text each other on WhatsApp and stuff. So, and very few people have my personal number. So that’s how close John and I are. And then over the course of the last five years, we’ve formulated strategic partnerships. Any life sciences project that takes place in the European Union right now that originates with us, we refer GIS for it because they’re the boots on the ground there. In fact, pretty much anything we’re doing in the EU, John’s the first guy we’re calling. So we’re doing a project in Slovenia, for example, and we call GIS and say, ‘Hey, if we need boots on the ground, can you guys support from Ireland?’ So that’s the kind of relationship. McKeon is very active in Mastermind, our business development groups. They work together, and also with Skellig Automations’ Business Development Group. So we have a strategic comprehensive partnership where we work together collaboratively so that our resources sort of mix together. That’s the relationship here, all right. So John, on the lot control, which is what you’re known for in technology advancement, can you give an examples of some of the advancements that you were a part of in doing lot control and serialization in life sciences before you went into business for yourself?

John McKeon: Traditionally in life sciences, in the packaging or finishing end — and I’ll oversimplify — a lot of the machines would consist of, let’s take a blister line, for example: you have a blister machine, and it has all the elements of the elements forming the fill, the confirmation, and camera systems within. The lot number expiry would be put on the blister in certainly two dynamics, right? Two environments. One, it’s a pre-printed file, and it’s just, you have a window to put it on. Lot number expiry. And then the other was it was printed online. I was heavily involved in bringing digital printing to that section, per pocket per blister and even timestamp. I pushed the boundaries with German manufacturers. In this case, it was Uhlmann. I pushed clearly with Uhlmann and CSAT. They were the first to go, and then Hapa in Switzerland and so on. So that was the key thing.

But what was missing there when I entered into the life sciences, there was nothing natively connecting all these systems together. So you had sequential process and steps, but they were not together connected digitally or in a form of control. So supervisor control and data acquisition back in the early 2000s was the first we did in life sciences. But then I pushed and pushed and pushed for the whole element combined together, and then we were saying, ‘Right, why can’t we go per pocket per blister? Yes, we did. Why can’t we go a medication delivery for an individual that’s out in the market?’ And that’s where the whole idea of serialization came along back in 2004, before it was even a requirement. So, solving all those touch points and then taking static and dynamic data, static batch data, dynamic batch data, which is serialization for individual pocket and the parent-child relationship between the blister pocket profile to the pillow pack, in this case, because it was a tropical blister, into the cartoner, the cartoner to the case, and the check with the labels and the anti-counterfit, the tamper evidence labeling, and so on. And it all became regulatory and eventually came into UFD (Unique Device Identifier) Director and the Drug Security in the USA. So, I was involved in all of that.

Walker Reynolds: So, real quick, for the layperson out there, for those of you who don’t work in life sciences, we’re going to just kind of do a quick overview of life sciences. Life sciences is basically pharmaceuticals. Well, for the purpose of this conversation, life sciences is pharmaceuticals, making drugs. Life sciences covers a much larger area — there’s biomedical equipment, there’s lots of stuff in life sciences. But for the purpose of this conversation, we’re going to limit it to pharmaceuticals, the manufacturing of drugs. For those of you who don’t work in life sciences, life sciences is unlike any other industry that you deal with in manufacturing. It is a whole world unto itself. The center of the life sciences world is the batch record. Okay, so the batch record is the system of record. Wherever that lives, that’s the system of record. The batch record is the complete genealogy from when you take a pill in your home all the way back to the origination of the manufacturing took place inside of wherever the manufacturing process started. That is the batch record. Digital transformation in life sciences was moving from paper batch record to electronic batch record. So, the batch record is the center of the universe, and that batch record must be accurate. There are lots of regulations surrounding what needs to be in that batch record, how accurate it is, and how long you’ve got to keep it. Well, that’s not easy. It’s really hard, actually, and it’s a pain in the ass. And there are other regulations centered around when you are building an electronic batch record infrastructure. You’ll hear this term called validation in life sciences all the time. Basically, what that means is every time a data point goes from one place to another, it must be validated. That is, the data point, the connection itself has to be validated and documented. And in life sciences, you spend 80% of your time doing validation and record-keeping. So when you’re doing engineering and technological advancement. This is why a Unified Namespace is so important. Because one of the big advantages of a Unified Namespace in life sciences is two things. Number one, a batch record is many, many transactions. Depending upon the organization you’re looking at, a batch record could be thousands of transactions, literally thousands of steps before the batch record is complete, or it could be 30. It just depends on the process. So depending upon where a drug is in its manufacturing process, the batch record may be not even started, partially complete, mostly complete, or completed. So up until we went to electronic batch records, there was really no mechanism to look at a batch record until it was completed. There was no infrastructure to look at the state of a batch record. And the UNS solves that problem. That’s number one. Number two, it exposes the batch record to other consumers in the business. So not just quality control, not just compliance and regulation, but all consumers who might need some of the data points that are in that batch record can now be exposed to other consumers.

And number three is the validation. It’s two steps. Now it’s from the origination of the data point to UNS, and UNS to the consumer. I’ve worked in life sciences projects where literally there were 16 validation steps for one data point. So we were doing data validation across 16 steps to get to the consumer. And that’s really common. And I shot a video on why engineers hate working in life sciences. Those are part of the reasons. So UNS is obviously a very valuable architecture for life sciences at face value. Anybody who knows life sciences and does any homework, they’re all going to come to the conclusion, ‘Yeah, this makes a lot of sense for us. This is really going to make our life easy,’ but selling that, planning that, architecting that, and implementing that, that’s not so easy. And that’s part of what this story is supposed to be about today. So, McKeon, real quick, let’s talk about Stada then. So you got Pat McCarthy here, you got, and is it Graine or Grene? It’s Graine.

Gráinne O’Sullivan: Gráinne.

Walker Reynolds: Gráinne , alright. Irish names always kill me. They should not kill me, that’s it.

Gráinne O’Sullivan: They’re an education in themselves.

Walker Reynolds: So I have a side story. I have a friend who’s a bodybuilder. Her name is Shirmon, S-H-I-R-M-O-N, and when she introduced herself to me, it took me like a month to get her name right, and it’s just Shirmon. But because it doesn’t look like Shimon when she writes it, and it’s like, ‘Oh, God.’ Anyway, so let’s talk about Stada. So, real quick, who is Stada? Stada, for those people, I know who Stada is, but for those who are listening who don’t know who Stada is, say they’re in the United States, for example. Who is Stada, and what does Stada do? Igor or André, and also Igor and André, why don’t you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves real quick and then answer that question.

Igor Tomasevic: Okay, thanks. Thanks, Walker. I will introduce myself first. So, Igor Tomasevic, I’m the Global Automation Leader in Stada Group. I’m mostly responsible for building and supporting global engineering capabilities to sites across the Stada network. And I’m responsible for leveraging innovative technologies to anticipate and prepare Stada for future automation opportunities in production. And we are also building a stronger network of automation Engineers across other sites. So yeah, a pleasure to be with you today and to have a really nice discussion about UNS and our successful deployment of the UNS. Stada is a pharmaceutical manufacturer, and one of the most famous manufacturers in Europe. Originally based in Germany, with most of the sites in Serbia and the Balkan region, then also in England there are a couple of production sites — and in Vietnam. So, you know, this is kind of a digitalization journey that Stada as an innovative company wants to take. And, as you said, it is taking us quite some time to get there as we want to be there in the future. So, yeah, really interesting topic to discuss with you today.

Walker Reynolds: And Igor is the digital product owner for Stada, that’s for the layperson. He’s the person who owns the digital outcome. He’s the product owner. And then André, you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

André Boyce: Yeah, I’m with Arcadis DPS, and I’m the automation manager here in Cork operations in Ireland. So my lifecycle has always been around the pharmaceutical industry and chemical industry, and this journey for us started way back in 2018. So it was a long time ago, right? But where we come from is where I was with an AEC firm. Right. So, but my background has always been as a system integrator in DCS, PLC, SCADA, and I was brought into the organization to give an automation background to any new construction and facilities that this company was developing and designing because that was always a gap in the market. And when you deal with A&E firms, they don’t know anything about automation. They don’t understand why you need to connect things. And essentially, I’m in here to educate our guys on how to make these things happen, how to get data flows between vendor package equipment, DCS up into manufacturing operation systems, and to do that in a compliant way, as you’re talking about validation a while ago on quality, right? So to make sure that’s done in a compliant manner and to assist our clients with problems and challenges that they have when they describe their requirements to us when we’re designing and building a facility. We’re often probably the first engineering firm they’ll come to before it gets to a system integrator. So I’m often involved in writing the specifications for the systems that are actually going to be deployed into the client sites. So I write the specs, and we’ll send them out to system integrators like John’s team, and they’re then kind of engaged with us in coming up with the right solution to achieve that specification. So that’s where we come into the equation. Generally, large projects will come through our offices all the way from concept and feasibility up through to commissioning qualification.

Walker Reynolds: So, real quick, let me ask this question. So I know when McKeon was introduced to Unified Namespace and then de facto how his team was introduced. But let’s start with Igor. Actually, let’s start with André. When were you first introduced to Unified Namespace as an architecture?

André Boyce: This is a really interesting story, right? And so you mentioned November 2018 when you guys got together, right? So I actually started this engagement, which started back in the summer of 2018. That’s how long this goes back, right? Igor’s colleague there in the executive leadership in Stada contacted me, saying, ‘Look, we have a challenge,’ and explained some of the challenges around what they had. And I said, ‘Right, I’ll think about it and come back to it,’ because I know it’s just an industry contact. We know each other very well. And it went cold for a while because he had other objectives to get done in that period. But in the meantime, myself and John were in contact because we have a partnership in our businesses. And he was telling me about this Unified Namespace that was going on. So he said, ‘Look, have a look at some of the videos.’ And the very first video I saw, Zack put it up there recently on LinkedIn, saying, ‘What was your first standout moment?’ And it was that first video I meant, ‘Oh my God, I can see huge value in this.’ I just couldn’t believe it. I just said it’s a no-brainer. This was all about handling data. The problems we had are huge in the pharma industry, the amount of connections, the amount of validation on every single step we do. And internally when I explained that in terms of effort to dollars on each of those steps, it became just a no-brainer. Scalability and consistency. It just jumped out from the screen on the very first video, and I just went, ‘Wow.’ I showed it to my guys straight away and said, ‘Here, and that works.’ And I said, ‘What do you think?’ And they were kind of gone, ‘No-brainer.’ So, myself and John started bouncing this off each other, then, saying, ‘Look, how does it work?’ And really started trying to get into the weeds. And around the summer of 2019, we started to engage Stada again when he came back to me and said, ‘Look, what do you think?’ And I was trying to see the right solutions and technologies that were out there. And at the time, there was a number of big players in the historian side of things, the data analysis side of things in pharma, that would not be in the UNS and Industry 4.0 space. And I was trying to figure out, would this work for them? How scalable is this going to be? Because he did say he wanted this done fast and throughout his sites. So, think, how scalable is this going to happen? How scalable is this going to be? Because I’ve been involved in this for 25 years. I’ve seen how the efforts that large pharma companies go to and the money that they have spent and how slow it is. So that’s where I then got back onto John. John’s team started to build an architecture with us that would work, and we looked at doing a POC with Igor. Igor was bought into the team at that stage, and Igor was pushing this on from his side.

Walker Reynolds: So, Igor, when were you introduced to Unified Namespace? When was your first introduction to Unified Namespace,

Igor Tomasevic: Probably at the same time. I was looking at your videos on YouTube and getting myself familiar with the concept. And I was impressed, as André was as well. So yeah, I learned a lot from you guys there and still learning, you know, about the concept itself, how to implement all the things together. But yeah, this kind of UNS architecture is unique in the world, and I think that there is nothing else in the market that can replace it, you know. So that’s the reason, one of the reasons why we’re pushing this so hard.

Walker Reynolds: So real quick, so you’ve heard that, so that means Igor was on board pretty quickly. He saw the value, André saw the value, and for those of you who are listening, this was a difficult journey for Stada. This wasn’t easy. The decision to go UNS was not an easy decision. There were a lot of meetings, a lot of discussions, a lot of time passed. So let’s talk about that. So Igor, you’re the change agent internally, you’re on board. André, you’re on board, obviously, McKeon’s on board. Igor, talk a little bit about the journey, so the way I remember it was that it was basically 2020 through 2022 was kind of the journey making the decision. Can you talk a little bit about that process for you guys?

Igor Tomasevic: Yeah, I’ll talk about it in detail if I need to. So one of the main reasons is that the pharma industry, as you mentioned, is all about validation and regulatory requirements. And one of the main reasons for implementing, first of all, our PISDH system, we like to call it — our Plant Information System Data Historian. So we started from those data historian values to meet regulatory compliance. So FDA process validation guidance, Annex 15 in the EU GMP guide. So they all require manufacturers to monitor product quality to ensure that the state of control is always maintained throughout the validation lifecycle. We call it ongoing process verification in Europe; in the US, it’s called continuous process verification. So that’s kind of complying with regulatory. And another regulatory requirement recently published was in GMP Annex 1, which applies to sterile production, where all alarm messages coming out of equipment must be stored and analyzed. So it is now considered as batch release parameters. So that’s really huge now in respect to the UNS. All pharmaceutical companies will eventually implement this kind of system. And apart from those regulatory requirements so the purpose of that system, B system, data historian system, was more than just collecting and logging the data. So it was making sense of the data and passing it to the other systems like MES or ERP because raw data can be usually useless and needs summarizing, some kind of combining with other data before it can become information that can be consumed. So that’s when we got into discussion with John and Gallarus DPS that successfully completed our first installation of the PISDH. They were using Ignition and Canary historian and EMQX as a broker. So, we learned that EMQX MQTT broker can be used as a UNS core part. So, therefore, we started with that kind of integration of other systems like SAP or MES and so on. So our goal, like with most manufacturers, is to have our digital strategy data driven. So we want to be a data-driven organization. We want to be allowed to improve equipment productivity, while we want to also provide a foundation for a kind of a fully connected enterprise. So eventually, we realized that the success of the digital transformation strategy lies in how well integrated our organizational data is across our technical sites — our technical units. So we mostly learned that UNS can connect many different technologies and data sources that can give us a complete picture of production operations in real time. In real time. I need to emphasize that. So this is really crucial to have that kind of information real-time. So our UNS is acting as a single source of truth and this is kind of a state of entire production at any given point in time.

Walker Reynolds: Excuse me. So when John brought me in, so I would say the original conversation was John and I — we have a meeting every month. So McKeon and I meet every month, and it’s like just a catch-up. It’s a quick 15 minutes, and basically in that call, we would talk about Stada for probably six months in a row. We talked about Stada, and it was, ‘Hey, I think we’re going to get there. UNS is going to get adopted. But we still have to explain “why not digital thread and why we must go UNS”’. And that’s where I got pulled in and did the digital thread versus UNS presentation. So, André, let me ask you this. From your perspective, what were the hurdles? What was the journey like? Because this is a question most people are going to have, which is, ‘Okay, I know the value of UNS, like Igor sees it, André sees it, but obviously, there is a process of getting your team on board with an architecture that may not be, you know, it’s not being sold by, say, Rockwell Automation, for example. Rockwell doesn’t sell Unified Namespace because they sell monolith, you know, integrated architecture. What were the challenges like? So for you, during the telling the story of UNS before Stada said, ‘Yes, we’re going to do this.’ What were the challenges that you had to overcome, you and Igor and John working together from your perspective?

André Boyce: So I think some of the biggest challenges were not changing and validating the state of an asset. A lot of these are legacy sites. So, the equipment is old and it’s validated. You do not want to be touching that. It just brings cost into the project execution. So, we’re trying to figure out how can we utilize what we have, minimize change, but in an edge device and get that data flowing. That was probably initially the biggest challenge that was there. Also, the Stada corporation was going through a big modernization effort. So like when you go ‘connect collect, store’, we had to start at the very start for some of these. Some of the selling wasn’t actually difficult in terms of bringing compliance, quality and data integration into the whole picture because we could then really give a robust solution to the Stada end clients. And they were able to tell their own clients that story as well, to say we now have controls in place in terms of how we move our data around. We know exactly how it gets from A to B in a controlled state. And once we got over the hurdles of those technology challenges, which was a lot of profibus and serial buses, etc., getting over that and, to be fair, John’s team there with Sean, etc., they sorted those out. And we got the networks up and running and got that data flowing. It just went really sweet and really quick. And after that POC was done, I think that that really cleared the way for Igor’s challenges within his own organization, which will always happen. I’ve been able to tell that story.

Walker Reynolds: Real quick. What are the total number of sites, total number of assets, total number of data points that we’re talking about in its entirety?

John McKeon: The original site I think started with 12 assets, but it scaled from there, and each of those … Hold on, before I say that, this fits in perfectly. Following the steps that you’re teaching in Mastermind: the seven steps of onboarding. What is critical for anyone, and we all need to underline this, is the ability to profile the asset layer and profile the business. You must, you must, you must get that right, okay? And back to our discussion in 2018, you said to me, ‘Get two automation engineers and start from there’. Well, I got Sean Og to join me back then. Him and Sheamus Clifford after that. But those two guys were key, and Sean Og is now the lead here for Technology and Engineering. He was critical in the audit of the facility, which standing with Igor, him and Kevin Naughton, who’s on electrical, the boys went through all those assets, identified the variable. Some of these assets didn’t even have network capability. But that was critical. So those assets being profiled, then working with Igor on the people on-site and building up those elements of the architecture along with Roy O’Donovan from DPS. You know, I’m working with André and the crew with the project management on their side and the commercial element and Gráinne and her team and Patrick and like pulling it all together.

Walker Reynolds: Just so I’m clear, was the proof of concept 12 assets, or was it one?

John McKeon: Twelve.

Walker Reynolds: Twelve assets in the POC, and then you scaled up once you did the proof of value, right? How long did it take you guys? Yeah, how long did it take to do the POC?

John McKeon: Okay, if I may, right? So the overall — from the go button right to completion of validation, we had a very tight window, and a lot of eyes were on this, and we united as a collective team. So, if I recall, in total, including validation, it was 17 weeks. But we had some delays, and we collectively agreed because we did it in actually in a count clock of about 11 weeks. But we got better after that. So, we hit the window, but as a team, we all rode, and I mean a team as three parties here, we all rode together on this. We united on it.

Walker Reynolds: I’ve got to be honest with you, that’s impressive in life sciences. The goal is your proof of value should be 12 to 16 weeks, not longer than 16 weeks. That’s what we teach. Like, if you want to prove value, you need to do it in 12 to 16 weeks with as little investment by the client as humanly possible. But I can tell you this, that is a challenge to do in life sciences. I mean, that is really hard. I mean, we just finished a proof of concept with another large life sciences company that’s got a big presence in Ireland, and we do this all the time, and it took five months. So, it took 20 weeks, and the reason why was because it’s just really hard to hit that number in life sciences because things move so slowly. And I want to follow back up to what André said about not affecting the validated state of an asset. So for those of you that don’t know about life sciences, once an asset or a process is validated, if you make any changes to it, fundamental changes to what has been validated, it must be revalidated. So one of the challenges in life sciences is how do we integrate validated assets without invalidating them, which would require that we revalidate the underlying process that may have been validated 15 years ago. And the answer is you have to bolt on and consume without making any changes, and that’s a unique challenge in life science. I want to talk to Gráinne on the project management side, okay? Because we get tons and tons of questions on the project management side. So, two questions for Gráinne. So number one, what were the primary challenges in just managing, hitting the delivery in a four-month window, in a three to four-month window for the proof of value? And then how did it change when you went you started to scale, when you decided that it was time to start scaling, Gráinne?

Gráinne O’Sullivan: So, I suppose the key challenges are kind of rapid adaption so that we’re able to respond quickly to changes, in this case in Stada’s customer environment. That the guys on the ground, the boots on the ground, were able to detect changes in requirements across the machinery that we were onboarding into the historian. And it’s really that ability between the key stakeholders and the team to be able to rapidly adapt to these requirements so that they’re okay. A change comes in, there’s a quick response that we’re addressing, I suppose. And we’re again just rapidly driving on from a delivery perspective. Like we go with an Agile project delivery approach where it’s very much iterative. It’s time-boxed sprints of work. So it allows for changes in the customer requirements on the ground. Like if the product, the digital product owner’s value, say, for example, on Igor’s side, if his core value or core priorities change, that we’ve the ability to adapt to that as well in terms of the project delivery.

So I suppose really they’re the challenges that we continuously experience, particularly in the pharma and life science industry, and that’s why the Agile approach really supports those faster times to market, rapid adaption. It’s customer-centric for project delivery, and we’re working with DPS on an improved risk management approach as part of that project delivery as well, that we’re identifying and mitigating risks from very early on in the project so it became quite seamless and supportive in delivering against the 12-week window.

Walker Reynolds: Two things, real quick. Number one, what was the… I want to say one thing I spoke last week in Denver. I want to talk about this iterative Agile approach; it’s one of the core tenets of digital transformation. When we teach, we say there’s no way for you to do digital transformation using a waterfall approach to your implementation. It’s not possible. First off, you don’t know what the milestones are. I mean in digital transformation, we talk about this, you know what the first milestone is, the proof of value. But you cannot even see past the proof of value. You have more of a concept a year from now. You don’t have exactly where you’re going to be in a year. And the reason why is because what we want is a function of what we know. And as we know increases, what we want changes. And digital transformation is about increasing that collective knowledge. I was speaking in Denver last week, and there was a lawyer who spoke before us, talking about software contracts, and someone asked the question, ‘How far out should we be signing or capitalizing projects for digital?’ Talking about digital transformation. And they asked me to respond after the lawyer responded. So, I think it was me, and then Eric Kimberling, and then I think I responded. I said, ‘Listen, if you are committing capital outside of 12 months, further out than 12 months, you are a fool. There is no way. You have no idea what you’re going to do in month 13. You have a concept, but you have no idea. So, therefore, you can’t commit the money to it.’ The iterative approach to digital transformation is so unbelievably important. And I know that no one here is going to disagree with me on that point. Being agile, adapting to changes, adapting to what you learn is a foundation of digital transformation, and it is fundamentally a shift in systems integration. Like 10 years ago, there were no project managers in digital transformation talking the way Gráinne just talked — or in systems integration. You couldn’t find a project manager or a PMO or a PMP who was talking the way she just spoke. And that was foundational. That was fundamental in success here, right? But I’ll come back to Gráinne in a second on project management. But I want to ask Patrick a question. So, Pat, you did the account management here?

Patrick McCarthy: Yeah, commercial responsibility and head of PMO at the time, yeah.

Walker Reynolds: So I have two questions for you here. So number one, what was the ratio of, you know, what percentage of the proof of value, let’s do the proof of value, and then what percentage was DPS, what percentage was GIS, what percentage was Stada? Like how was it broken up in terms of responsibility and delivery? How much of it was GIS doing, is I guess is what I’m asking.

Patrick McCarthy: Yeah, I think it was three-quarters GIS, probably a quarter DPS, and obviously look, Igor was key on the Stada side, the availability like Gráinne talked about, the fast responses, the Agile way to be able to execute on issues that we had and that were brought up and that were resolved. Igor spearheading the IT perspective but the OT perspective as well was key to be able to execute efficiently and meet that 11-week milestone.

Walker Reynolds: And then a follow-up question, this is the obvious one. Patrick’s job at GIS is to make sure GIS doesn’t run out of money. His job is to forecast sales and make sure that they have enough revenue coming in so they can pay payroll. I mean, that’s ultimately what Pat is responsible for. And he answers to John in that capacity. So, based on what I just said, which is we’re not going to ask customers to commit capital beyond 12 months, Patrick, how has your approach to forecasting changed when you are approaching solutions this way, iteratively, where you don’t know what your level of effort is going to be, say, six months from now or nine months from now? Okay, can you talk a little bit about if I’m the person who is forecasting engineering resources, I’m forecasting the inflow and outflow of cash, how has that changed if what we’re doing is not going to customers and asking them to commit to $8 million over the next two years’ worth of work, not knowing what they’re going to get, because that is fundamentally how our business has changed? Can you talk a little bit about how it has changed, and maybe McKeon can chime in on that as well, because you both have experience in the old way of doing things.

Patrick McCarthy: Yeah, I suppose previously you would have had that repeatable income. You knew those large programs of work were coming in, Walker, and that’s brilliant. But in digital transformation, one of the key themes is the people, the processes, and the Agile way of executing, and Agile way of forecasting as well. So being able to do that with our financial department here is key, and obviously a great partnership and relationship with the customer itself. Communication is key, and the people in digital transformation are key. So myself and Igor and André, we talk regularly on the bodies of work that come in. And obviously in digital transformation itself, we know there’s a number of assets, there’s a number of systems that need to be connected. Right now, we’re becoming more standardized in the way that we execute together, and we can forecast further and further out, but we’re also ready for the unknown. So I think it’s a great learning to be adaptable.

John McKeon: Yeah, I’ll just jump in on that. So look, over the last five years, we’ve all been on a journey, and when we started out, you know, we didn’t have the rulebook — or the playbook wasn’t nailed down. We were coming from an industry 3.0 mindset and we were changing and adapting. What Patrick has summarized there right now is a matured situation, okay, but it’s been a long journey, and every engagement you pick up something new. And if I summarize what’s critical. What’s critical is you have the right partnership, the right technology and the right relationship within the groups of people. Here we have three different companies, but each one of these guys we all know and work with each other, and we all have a responsibility to our own companies, but we will all support each other in our own roles in delivering the end goal. So, it’s a symbiotic relationship, sort of an executable of CapEx. I won’t spend too long, but just to point. Criticalities of success, profiling of the asset layer and its profile is critical. Profiling of the asset layer and the skill sets that are ability to profile, which I call ‘taming the digital jungle’, is absolutely critical. Building is an executable, structured and ordered in an agile approach as deemed here is critical. You see the systems that are here with Gráinne and André and the cross-correlation in the commercial side, and also a good validation documentation department. Laura Moynihan here on our side, who’s also an engineer, she’s built that, so we’ve all the key elements, and that took a period of time to get to where we are at the level of maturity as we are right now. So to close and circle back around on Patrick’s point, we now can forecast better what’s going forward. We now have a reference of what we lived, the good, the bad, the ugly — all been successful because we got better and better. We did not leave anyone behind or damage a client or have a problem with a client, but we’ve been successful. So now we collectively streamlined, so we’re quite matured now based on this methodology.

André Boyce: Just on that John, I think we’re missing someone, a critical component here in all of that, and that is the vendor package people because that, to be fair, has been a significant challenge for us in every deployment.

John McKeon: Absolutely.

André Boyce: We’ll talk about in a minute, but they are critical to this and they need to understand. We need to be telling them the message when we engage on projects why we’re using the UNS, and once they know where you’re coming from, they will buy in and they’ll give you the voices that will allow that connectivity. But it has been fraught up to now, to be honest. I think it has been a challenging environment to get those vendors on board into the pharm space because, at the end of the day, they want to take a product off their shelf and sell it to you, because there’s zero customization for them, and it reduces risk for the client.

Walker Reynolds: Well, on the communication side, about how we experience it. Fundamentally how integration has changed for us, that is the approach to solving problems is you have an active working relationship with your clients. And when I say that, I mean the boots, you know, the Gráinne and the architects, the engineers with the boots on the ground. They are having daily or bi-weekly meetings with the client, talking about what we’ve done so far in the last couple of days, what we’re going to do over the next couple of days, and any problems we’re having. That’s a foundational principle of agile, right? We call those the standup meetings. You should have them every day, but not everyone has them every day. Sometimes you have them every other day. And then if you’re doing two-week sprints, you are literally presenting a result to the product owner every two weeks, and they are giving you a thumbs up or a thumbs down. You are getting continuous feedback, continuous conversations about the process, as opposed to the milestone approach, which is you take a list of requirements, you throw them up over a fence, it falls on the other side, and you don’t come back until they throw a finished product back over to you. There’s no conversation, no collaboration. That is a very important part of this process because you are able to predict where the client is likely going to go, and that’s how you forecast. They start talking to you about all the other problems they want to solve, and so you realize, okay, yes, this is something that’s going to scale up, and I need to prepare for it. I need to add resources, etc., etc., or they’re going to be ready to take over on their own, and they’re not going to need us, say, six months from now. And you’re able to do those types of forecasting through a working collaborative relationship with a client that is based on common values and communication. Go ahead, John.

John McKeon: I’d just add a very important thing to come out of this from the early days, and I thank Igor and André on this. So when we engage with the OEMs, as André brought up the OEMs, we now see over the last five years, OEMs are now finally more open to engaging with minimum technical requirements, even to the point of contextualizing and normalizing the data before the machine even goes live. Even recently, in a project we did for an American connection of a German-supplied machine, the thought process has changed, but that wasn’t there in the early days. Gentlemen like Igor and André working with us to change that narrative, and then we were able to point to this net positive result. That’s made changes, but it’s very important to note that.

Walker Reynolds: Okay, and for those of you that don’t know, the OEMs are the people who build the assets. So minimum technical requirements are, let’s say, bioreactors are a very common asset in life sciences. They’re the thing where the drug gets mixed before it goes into packaging. They create the drug there, and then it goes out. Bioreactor is built by OEMs. So the ultimate goal in a digitally mature life sciences organization, not just a bioreactor, but any asset is the OEM is going to ship you a new bioreactor because you’re scaling your business up. They’re going to bolt it into the floor. They’re going to connect it to the electrical. They’re going to connect it to the internet, to the network. They’re going to do all their validation checks. They’re going to run it in. They’re going to certify it, and then they’re going to validate it, and then they’re going to plug it into infrastructure. In order for them to be able to plug it into the infrastructure into the Unified Namespace, they have to build a topical namespace on that asset. How do you convince the OEM to do that, right? I mean, they’ll say, ‘Well, what’s in it for us?’ Well, long-term, what’s in it for them is a common infrastructure upon which they can collect data from their own assets so that they can build better bioreactors. Long-term, that’s what the OEM gets out of it. But when John’s talking about the OEM, we’re talking about the people who build the assets themselves. Because we’re writing minimum technical requirements, saying when you ship us a new asset, it needs to meet these minimum technical requirements, including it has to plug into our infrastructure. All right, let’s pivot to ISPE. So this is kind of where this all stands. Stada was the first life sciences organization to publicly come out, and there are many life sciences organizations who use Unified Namespace, and they are all names that know, but none of them have publicly come out and presented. Okay. Stada is the first one in the EU that I know of that’s done it. So Stada goes to ISPE 2023, which is a big conference earlier this year, and they present on Unified Namespace, making the case for, ‘Here’s what we should be doing in the industry, and here’s what we did, here’s the value of it, and here’s why everyone else should be doing it too.’ I don’t know which one of you wants to tell that story, but what I’d like is either André or Igor to talk about (a) why go to ISPE and present. Okay, number one, and number two, what was your story? What was the goal when you went up there to present? What story did you want to tell, and how was it received? Let’s do how it was received at the end.

André Boyce: Yeah, so I’ll give a backstory and why we were invited. So within our organization, we’re members of the ISPE. We’re highly engaged with them in terms of technology, process technologies, mechanical technologies in the pharma industry. So when the opportunity came to me, I was asked, would I present something, and I looked and said, ‘The UNS is the one, the message we need to be getting out to end users in terms of the data integrity aspect.’ And that was the hook I had in there because the regulatory bodies were going to be present from both the UK and the US. So the FDA people were there, MHRA were there, Irish regulatory people were there. So, by us telling the story about a rapid way of deployment, and we’ve seen the core of the thing, we’ve seen that we need to get this data flowing quickly, we need to get products manufactured quickly. This is a method for rapid deployment and scalability in a validated state, in validated systems. And that was the story I was trying to tell, saying look, there’s other alternative models than the reference model of Purdue, which everyone knows. We talk level zero, level one, level two, level three; that’s our natural language in the automation space, and that’s how people talk. But with other colleagues in other companies who want to take that step, who don’t have the support in their organizations to do it because the wrong people are making decisions for them, we’re still talking that language, but we’re more talking about the kit or the system, just as a way of communicating it. It’s just a language that we use. But the whole intent was showing that there is an alternative to the Purdue model that’s more cost-effective, that’s speed to market, that’s validated, that’s consistent, and that you have all your quality attributes associated.

Walker Reynolds: And real quick, so for those of you who don’t know, the ISPE, I’m sorry I used the abbreviation. It is the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering. So that’s what ISPE is. They do an annual conference every year. You guys presented in April, May, right? Was it May this year?

André Boyce: Yeah, it’s at the European Convention. So it’s the biggest European ISPE organized event of the year, and all the big pharma were there, and all the suppliers. And after you talk, I might come back on that because I was approached by a lot of suppliers in terms of vendor package people, instrumentation providers, saying what do we need to do to ensure that our systems can get onto the UNS. I thought that was really interesting that they’re very open to this, and they want to get there.

Walker Reynolds: Let me ask you this. So in May, you presented. And then Gartner comes out at the end of July with their document, basically saying Purdue is deprecated. You know that they come out with a document with a reference architecture that is for UNS. They come out with a UNS reference architecture document. We’ve talked about this in previous podcasts. André, you posted on your LinkedIn, you posted a reference to that document. How did you feel when you saw that Gartner came out with that document two months after you presented at ISPE?

André Boyce: That was interesting, right? Because I’m dealing with another client at the moment and he is tearing his hair out, and once I heard about it, I said John, we need to get this somewhere because it really helps him in his discussion with his management and his executives. To say why we need to do things. But it is not the guys in the shop floor that are the problem — the OT guys. We can all see the value in this. Yes, there’s a lot of infosec people that are blocking this, and they’re not coming from the OT space. They have been IT guys, and that is where the challenge is on all of this. That’s from what I’m seeing in it, you know?

Walker Reynolds: So I want to take it home with three more questions. So we’re going to pivot to Igor here real quick. And then I’m going to come back to you on what was the reaction like, what were the conversations you had afterward, but Igor, I want to ask you that question first. So, obviously, for those of you that don’t work in life sciences, this is a big deal that this presentation takes place at ISPE. This kind of presentation doesn’t happen, okay? That’s literally a room full of people looking at something that is completely anathema to what they’re used to. Like, it’s a totally different mind. It’s a mind shift completely. So there’s no doubt that there’s buzz after this presentation. There’s no question there’s buzz. How do you think that presentation was received, and what were the conversations you had following the presentation? Because André, you’re the one who presented, right?

Igor Tomasevic: I wasn’t there, you know, I was recording video, and André presented, but the presentation went really good. I mean, I was approached by some companies afterwards. They were interested to learn more about what we did and what are we up to. So, in our management, there’s also kind of an agreement or alignment that we continue in this direction to make things work and continue in this direction. So what we learned is that IT has finally agreed to step in into the same kind of a roadmap that we had, so they aligned with us, with our strategy, and now it’s much easier. But André mentioned the biggest resistance was coming at the beginning from the IT side because they didn’t understand the concept, you know. And afterward, when we got their support, now really things are running smoothly. So now we don’t have any issues with any connectivities or any systems that we want to put in UNS. So the reaction was really excellent, I mean, a great reaction.

Walker Reynolds: And what does the next 18 months look like? You guys are obviously scaling at this point and you’re iterating.

Igor Tomasevic: Yeah, good question. So the next 18 or 12 months we plan to install a cloud based UNS Solutions. So this is going to consume all relevant on-prem data coming from each site, and there we will eventually connect to S/4HANA installation, which is already a project in progress, some MES installation, and LIMS installations. So we are heading towards kind of a paramount cloud-based UNS. So, this is what we are going to talk about in the next 12 months from now.

Walker Reynolds: And real quick, McKeon, how have things changed for you guys since ISPE? I mean nobody even knew I met with Stada at all. I didn’t talk about it. I was only part of, I think, one or maybe two meetings, and I was just like a support person. I have never even looked at the architecture. I don’t even know. I was going to ask McKeon. We talked about the architecture offline. Is it okay? Igor, do you want to talk about, like, what is the architecture? What does the infrastructure look like at this point? What tools are you using? Is that okay?

Igor Tomasevic: Yeah, we can mention, yeah, no problem with it.

Walker Reynolds: Yeah, do you want to go ahead — or John, do you want to explain what the infrastructure is, or do you want Igor to do that?

John McKeon: Well, let Igor do it because it’s his now, it’s his baby now.

Igor Tomasevic: No problem. So we are using Ignition, right? So Ignition 8.1, and for historian, Canary, Canary historian, EMQX broker. That’s pretty much it, you know. We will probably look in the future what different tools we are going to use in order to gather the data coming out from different systems, but as in all big companies, we have to satisfy standards coming from data infrastructure. So we need to adapt sometimes those interfaces. They say that some interfaces are not so updated, so we have to create our own web REST API interfaces in order to connect to some systems. So there will be some kind of alignment and some more work to do, but the basic is that we are using EMQX broker, and we’ll continue in that way.

Walker Reynolds: And yeah, are you looking at Highbyte for DataOps or are you going to keep the DataOps inside of Ignition?

Igor Tomasevic: We are thinking about it, yeah. We haven’t made a decision yet.

Walker Reynolds: Go ahead, John.

John McKeon: Yeah, Walker, just it’s important to note for the audience as well that, as part of this project, we took into account OT cybersecurity. And, you know, with the people that we have here, we’re quite fortunate. Fearghal McGovern as part of setting up the architecture, taking in the elements of the cybersecurity element from the OT and feeding that into the project and all projects going forward. And then, as part of all that and the harvesting of the data and building up the UNS, the likes of Oskars Krastins on the visualization element, all these come in part of the pieces to make it happen. Now, the last thing is Igor is an amazing customer and client of ours. The relationship is amazing. Okay, so I have to give him hats off. We’ve done other things that we haven’t mentioned here on this call where we are touching touch points and interfaces with other applications, and that exploratory point of safe touch points in the UNS and pushing the boundaries is really positive for us — and us as a community as a whole, so it is positive.

Walker Reynolds: And what we like to call Igor is the ‘True Believer’, the change agent. He’s the champion.

John McKeon: Yes, totally.

Walker Reynolds: I cannot stress enough how it is not possible to do this without an Igor or equivalent. You must have someone internally who is your metaphorical Igor. And, by the way, when we’re doing a digital transformation maturity assessment, and we’re meeting with all these cross-functional groups, we’re looking for the Igor. We’re looking for that person. Oftentimes, that’s an engineer. It’s a frontline engineer. And then we’re going to the senior leadership and saying you need to promote that person into your director of digital role. I mean we’re literally trying to identify that person. And oftentimes that person is on the edge, oftentimes because they, the OT people understand the problems and how to solve them.

André Boyce: And Walker, in terms of Igor, I think his executive was a significant champion as well in enabling this to go ahead. And by bringing Igor into the fold there, right. And I think that really did help because Igor can talk the IT language and the OT language, and being fluent in both is very important.

Walker Reynolds: It’s critical. You said the critical thing: the champion needs to be fluent in IT and OT, needs to bridge the gap between the two, and we call that the digital fluency. André, I want to close. I want to close with this. I want to come back to you with this question. So you presented at ISPE, okay, and obviously lots of people wanted to talk to you afterwards. I mean, I get it all the time. So I’m sure you’re standing there talking to a long line of people, and that everyone you see afterwards is wanting to talk to you about your presentation. Walk me through what those conversations were and what your primary takeaway was, what you think the primary takeaway from the audience was.

André Boyce: Yeah, and there’s a few at these things. A lot of times the eyes will glaze over because they’re not techies, right? They’re not regulators. They’re trying to figure out how does this affect me. And the discussions were really around how does the scale, how do we change our monolithic organization to something like this, and that’s their challenge. That is in the blue chips. In the top tiers, they spent 30 years installing what they have, and there’s a lot of spent cash there to turn around, and a lot of reputations too that may be sullied. So they’re all trying to pivot, and what has actually happened, I’d say since that presentation, is that in this area alone — and John, I spoke to John about this, right — I’ve had another four or five integrators approach me, saying, ‘Would you have a look at what we do? Because we think this is our interpretation of it.’ And I kind of say, ‘No, go away, it’s not there yet’. But there are a lot of people trying to get into it, and the only reason they’re trying to get into it is because their end users and clients are asking for it. So it has really kicked off, I would say, in the last four to five months here, I would say, in this space, right? I know you’ve been looking at it with other clients. But this has given a bit of impetus to it and saying, ‘Look, there’s actually people talking about it.’ So why can’t we, and why can’t we start investigating it a bit more? But again, it’s the monolithic organizations that are challenged. The less mature organizations are in a fantastic space to deploy this. And I think the likes of a lot of the CDMOs, a lot of the contract manufacturing organizations, are in an excellent position to start deploying because they’re still trying to get off paper. And if they’re trying to get off paper, there’s an opportunity for them, and they realize it themselves, but they’re looking for people like ourselves to educate the industry. I have grey hair. I wish I hadn’t. But we’ve been around a while, and we’ve seen the pitfalls in the ISA 95 models and Purdue, etc., and we can educate those guys, and hopefully that’s where they come to the likes of ourselves and ask them, ‘Look, how does this help us? How does this get rid of my problem of moving data from here to here in a consistent, safe, compliant manner?’ And if we can tell that story. And the other thing is this isn’t just for, obviously, for validated systems. This is for your BMS, for your facilities, your utility management. We can get all that data available, run your analytics on it.

Walker Reynolds: We’re going to do another podcast on the BMS stuff. So we’re going to bring John McKeon back, and we’re going to do a whole other podcast on BMS, so building management systems. So some of the stuff that Gallarus is doing, you know, using Unreal Engine and integrating building management system into Unified Namespace and then being able to unify operational data with spatial data. It is pretty freaky. I mean,

André Boyce: I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it!

Walker Reynolds: I mean, some of the stuff these guys have done really will blow your mind. No, no joke. Let me, I wanted to go back to one quick thing, and then we’ll take it home. André talked about the vendors are asking about this, the integrators are asking about this because the customers are asking, and the customers are asking because of this community. I want to give credit to the community, the 5,000 members on Discord, the 11,000 students at IIoT.University, there some 70,000 people across the whole Industry 4.0 community, literally. It’s 70,000 people. You guys are the reason the clients are asking. I mean if you look at the way the community collaborates, the way that, you know, our relationship with GIS Intellic Integration, although I don’t work there, I still own the company Intellic Integration and GIS. That didn’t exist 15 years ago. That wasn’t the way this worked. You know, the DPS, Stada, GIS Intellic Integration, and 4.0 Solutions conversation. By the way, we didn’t make any money on this. I have no commercial stake in this in any way, shape, or form at all. That didn’t exist 15 years ago. Like, it has changed. It has become a community, it really has, and that is what’s driven what the clients are asking for. And what the clients are asking for is what’s driven Microsoft’s change to their reference architecture. And by the way, come Q1 of next year, Azure IoT is not going to look anything like what you are used to seeing because Microsoft has fundamentally changed their approach, and UNS is at the centerpiece of it. And that’s why Eric is mad at me for telling everybody that because no one’s supposed to know yet. And then if you look at what Gartner came out with in July, that is a 180-degree shift from what Gartner was preaching for the last 10 years, literally a 180-degree shift, and the community did that, the consumer did that, you guys did that. I want to say one last thing. Thank you guys very much for coming on here. It is very hard to get conversations about these use cases out in the public. It’s really hard. It’s very hard to get the end user to want to have a conversation. It’s very hard to get the integrator to do it. These are all like-minded individuals. I really thank you guys for having this conversation because I think it’s going to be invaluable to the community. Real quick, if anybody wants to get a hold of, obviously, you know how to get a hold of McKeon and Patrick at GIS. André, the best way to get a hold of you is on LinkedIn?

André Boyce: Yeah, that’d be good.

Walker Reynolds: And Igor, for you, if somebody wants to talk more about …

Igor Tomasevic: Same, LinkedIn. Yeah.

Walker Reynolds: So, reach out to Igor Tomasevic on LinkedIn. André Boyce, I follow, I think I’m connected to both of them so you can find them through my LinkedIn if you want to. I appreciate you guys coming on. Thank you guys for watching. Like, subscribe, comment down below, and we will see you in the next one.