Main Keynote: Exploring the Impact of the Ignition Community

Speakers

Kat Jeschke

Chief Operating Officer

Inductive Automation

Travis Cox

Chief Technology Evangelist

Inductive Automation

Kevin McClusky

Chief Technology Architect & VP of Sales

Inductive Automation

Kent Melville

Director of Sales Engineering

Inductive Automation

David Grussenmeyer

Industry and Engagement Manager

Inductive Automation

The global community of Ignition users includes large multinational enterprises, government and professional organizations, small companies, and individuals. While each uses the software differently, they all use Ignition to harness the power of automation to accomplish their own mission of making something better. In this keynote, we'll explore how Inductive Automation is supporting the efforts of the Ignition Community and the incredible impact their work has on the future and improving people's lives on a regional and local level.

Transcript:

00:06
Kat Jeschke: Good morning. Welcome back to day two of the Ignition Community Conference. Who here had a great day yesterday? Good. We did too. This year, we have three keynotes for you. Yesterday's [Technical] Keynote focused on the software. This morning's [Main] Keynote will focus on you, the Ignition community, and tomorrow's Closing Keynote will focus on what's next for Inductive Automation. I'm so excited to be here this morning to talk to you about what's most near and dear to my heart, which is all the people of the Ignition community. Yesterday, you saw the incredible work our teams have been doing on [Ignition] 8.3. Our software is made by people, supported by people, and used by people. The whole reason we exist as a company is to make people's lives easier and better. My passion is to empower people and to keep this community strong. This morning, you are going to see some amazing examples of the impact this community's having on people's lives. I'm so proud of all the work you've been doing. We're gonna show you some amazing companies and community members who are making a difference across the world.

01:27
Kat Jeschke: Since we started hosting this conference 12 years ago, we've been amazed and inspired by this community's tremendous impact on the industrial automation space. We'll examine those positive impacts this morning by looking at the award-winning projects in this year's Discover Gallery. We'll also look at how Ignition is being used to make meaningful impacts in local communities. After that, I'll be back on stage to discuss what Inductive Automation is doing to continue supporting the success of this community. So to kick things off, I can't think of anyone better to talk about this community than Inductive Automation's Chief Technology Evangelist, Travis Cox.

02:19
Travis Cox: Good morning everybody. Hey, I'm so excited to be back here. Had a great day yesterday and I'm excited to be back on stage here today to talk about what this amazing community is doing today. So in my job, I work with all kinds of professionals. I speak with people who have been using Ignition for years, and those who are brand new to it. I work with people who use Ignition at big companies, and I work with people who are using Ignition on their home automation systems. One thing they all have in common is that they are using the power of automation to improve something. The old definition of automation is about using technology to replace human labor. But automation isn't about replacing people, it's about empowering them. Automation is a force multiplier that empowers a single person to make a huge impact. It enables people to tackle the world's biggest challenges on a massive scale.

03:13
Travis Cox: And all of our lives have improved because of this. Automation has helped improve our living standards by supplying billions of people with food, water, energy, and medications. It's opened up the use of new technologies to more people, enabling millions to access new forms of computing and communication. The benefits of automation have vastly impacted lives of every single person inside this room and beyond its walls. And all of these benefits are made possible when a single great idea is multiplied by the power of automation. At Inductive Automation, we always believed in the power of that idea, and that's why our motto is Dream It. Do It. A person's idea can be a fleeting thought that never gets the chance to be realized without taking action. Or it can be an idea that changes people's lives. The difference between those two possibilities is people's power to turn their ideas into reality.

04:17
Travis Cox: So for us, Dream It. Do It, isn't just a catchy phrase, it's a fundamental part of our philosophy. We believe it's the doers who make things happen, and that's because the people who are willing to take the first step into the unknown are also the ones who discover a better way forward. When our founders started down this path over 20 years ago, our product, company, and this Ignition community were a little more than a dream that would never have been realized without taking action. In our early days, many in the industry laughed at us. They couldn't imagine that we could break through a software category with entrenched competition, but here we are.

05:03
Travis Cox: What they didn't realize or understand was the frustration of so many people, integrators and engineers, who wanted to do more with their automation systems but couldn't because the limitations of the software tools back then. Many of the pain points of using old SCADA software were about limiting access, making things closed, proprietary, confusing, expensive, locked down. We believe that these limitations kill ideas and limit the good that automation can do. With Ignition, we've always strived to open up the benefits of automation to more people, and that's why it's cross-platform. That's why it's based on open standards. That's why it has a flexible, modular architecture. And of course, an unlimited licensing model. And that's why a few years ago, we launched a new release of Ignition, the Maker Edition, so that people can use it for non-commercial use, allowing more people to use Ignition at home or to learn it at university. That's also why we created the Inductive University. I can't believe that it's been 10 years since we launched the university right here on this stage. And I gotta tell you what, they're never gonna let me live it down.

06:31
Travis Cox: But we created IU with the goal of allowing anyone to learn Ignition at their own pace and of course, for free. And that's exactly what it's accomplished. And let me tell you, the results have been staggering. Since its launch in 2014, there have been over 10 million views of IU videos. It has almost 8 million challenges that have been taken. There have also been over a 100,000 new users accounts created, and 30,000 credentials that have been earned. Can you believe that? It's amazing what this tool can do for the community. That's hundreds of thousands of people who have gained access to new knowledge to help them turn their ideas into reality. We've always believed that the best way to help people is to empower them with the tools and knowledge that they need to do what's right for their customers, their companies, and of course their communities.

07:29
Travis Cox: At Inductive Automation, our mission is to help you accomplish your mission. And there are thousands of companies in over 140 countries worldwide who are doing just that today. Ignition is used in every major industry. It's used for SCADA, HMI, MES, IIoT, and much more. It's used for massive enterprise systems with millions of tags and small implementations at the edge. Ignition is being used to help people enjoy the benefits of automation, more benefits than ever before. Using Ignition, thousands of end users are improving their processes and people's lives in meaningful ways, but none of that is possible without this community here. Fueled by your ideas, Ignition is an enablement platform for harnessing the full power of automation. And this year, we've seen this community using Ignition to accomplish some incredible things. And the best place to see that is right here in the Discover Gallery that we have with the conference.

08:35
Travis Cox: The gallery showcases real Ignition projects from around the world, and every year, we ask users to submit their best projects to be featured in the gallery here at the conference. If you haven't had a chance to check it out in the black box, I encourage you all to go and look at all the projects. They're also available on the the website for the Ignition Community Conference. Now, we're gonna look this morning at several of these Discover Gallery projects, but know that for every project that we talk about here in this presentation, there are many more brilliant projects that you have to go and check out. So please make sure to go and do that. But it was really amazing, this year, we had a record number of projects that were submitted. There were over 80 projects that were submitted from all of you, and that covered a range of industries and different use cases. We saw projects in automotive, pharmaceutical, agriculture, government, utility, water, energy, and a lot more. And every year, we recognize the companies that submit the best projects with a Firebrand Award. Now, this year, the six organizations who are receiving a Firebrand Award are NeoMatrix, CertainTeed, Deloitte, Madkour Group, IDOM, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Let's give all of these award winners a round of applause.

10:00
Travis Cox: So one aspect of this year's Firebrand projects that inspired us is how each of these end user organizations is working to make a positive impact on the world by improving people's lives and sustainability. And this morning, we're gonna examine how the work of this community is impacting both of these areas, starting with creating a more sustainable future. The future doesn't just happen. We need to create it. What we do today will pave the way for tomorrow. For those people like us who work in industrial space, we recognize this fact more than most. Today's raw materials can be transformed into amazing solutions that we're gonna need tomorrow. But there's a lot of hard work that needs to go into it. When working on the industrial automation processes, we always have to start with the projects with the end in mind and think about the result that we want.

10:52
Travis Cox: The process of getting to that end product is critical, and of course, an inefficient process will result in waste, loss of productivity, and ultimately a poor outcome. But to get better results, we need to improve our processes, and that's what sustainability is about. To create a better future, we have to be thoughtful, responsible, and effective with our processes today. And we see this community here making a huge impact in a more sustainable future. And this year's Firebrand Award-winning projects provide three great examples. To explore these further, please help me welcome Inductive Automation Director of Sales Engineering, Kent Melville.

11:39
Kent Melville: Well, hey everybody. As Travis said, I am the Director of Sales Engineering here at Inductive Automation, but I have another title as well that I take very seriously, and that is the title of dad. I've got two little girls at home as well as one on the way. And my wife is actually here in the audience today and she's 37 weeks along. And so if you hear a shout, the fastest way out of here for me is probably crowd surfing. So you in the front row, be aware. Coming at you. But no, I have a family. And as such I'm very focused on taking care of both their daily needs as well as focusing on building them a better future. And because of that, I am so excited that in my day job, I get to work with some people who use Ignition in some really impactful ways, especially in terms of sustainability.

12:32
Kent Melville: Improving sustainability is one of the most impactful actions that we can take to safeguard our future. So why sustainability? Well, conserving resources reduces waste, helps the environment, and ensures that the generations after us have a world to enjoy that we can leave behind. And it has other benefits too. In an interview with CNBC on the topic, Jim Fitterling said, who's the CEO of Dow Inc., "Embracing sustainability isn't just good for the planet, it's also good for business. By focusing on sustainable innovation, we can drive growth, reduce costs, and create long-term value." So improving sustainability has some significant benefits, but there's some major challenges as well. Consider this. Changing existing processes can not only be expensive, but can also be disruptive. So how do companies get there? How do they go from their existing processes to more sustainable ones? Well, in this year's Firebrand Award-winning projects, there are companies who are accomplishing this, both by creating sustainable products and by reducing the waste and improving the efficiency of their processes.

13:55
Kent Melville: So how are they doing it? They're doing it by making the most of their data processes and raw materials to help accomplish their missions to improve sustainability. In this project from CertainTeed, we see how Ignition can help optimize existing processes through the power of Digital Transformation.

14:13
Kent Melville: A little background for you. Since 1904, CertainTeed has helped shape the building products industry. Founded as the General Roofing Manufacturing company, it has evolved into North America's leading brand of exterior and interior building products. Now, CertainTeed is a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, one of the world's largest and oldest building products companies. Between CertainTeed and its affiliates, they have more than 6,300 employees and more than 60 manufacturing plants throughout the United States and Canada. As a longstanding company, many of CertainTeed systems were aging. The company faced a Digital Transformation challenge that Digital Manufacturing Director, David Halpren and Industry 4.0 Program Manager Tarek Rahman faced head on. Many of its plants were using legacy MES systems and paper to track their data. As a result, they weren't operating as efficiently as was needed. To fix the problem, they called on Aaron Murdock for development and Murugavel Ramasamy to define an enterprise architecture to implement Ignition in their plants.

15:21
Kent Melville: Now they're able to pull in production orders directly from SAP and operators and managers can see a line's 24-hour performance at any given point with uptime and downtime, maintenance status, and real-time KPIs easily visible at a glance. One exciting new feature is that roaming operators can now use a mobile device to record scrap quantities and assign reason codes for captured downtime events. The new system has enabled the company to update its processes, improve efficiency, and foster closer collaboration between the IT, operational, and business teams. And the popularity of its user-friendly UI and scalable architecture have allowed CertainTeed to expand its use to multiple sites.

16:06
Kent Melville: It's currently being used at 15 plants, with many more on the roadmap. With Ignition's help, CertainTeed is successfully continuing its Digital Transformation journey as it strives to accomplish its mission of transforming the world into a better, more sustainable home. Of course, the key to the success of any mission about improving sustainability is to make the most of the raw materials you have. This last project I wanted to share with you is an example of reducing waste by implementing a new recipe management system, and all the while, making sure not to disrupt production. Goodman Fielder is a leading global food company committed to making everyday food better for everyone by improving its taste, nutrition, affordability, accessibility, and, of course, sustainability. They employ over 5,000 people in Australia and the Pacific Islands and have over 40 plants in the region. From there, they deliver food products to over 30,000 outlets daily. One of Goodman Fielder's main divisions is baking, and they have three of the largest bakeries in Australia, which were facing production challenges stemming from outdated data management practices.

17:25
Kent Melville: The daily operations team relied on managing production using a combination of basic machine HMIs and printed Excel sheets with no integration into other production or business systems. Now, like many of you, I'm a big fan of Excel. In fact, I may have missed my calling of being an accountant. But it's not just spreadsheets here that are the problem, but printed spreadsheets broke my heart a little bit. And we can do better, and that is exactly what Goodman Fielder did. To continue their commitment of providing sustainable food products, they needed to update their processes with modern technology while also ensuring that production kept running so their products could continue to be delivered fresh daily. People need their bread. So David Hermann, the Engineering Lead at Goodman Fielder, collaborated with Gordon Cornish to find a solution. Gordon works for integration company EfficientIA, which is now Deloitte Smart Factories in Australia. Working with other team members, they used the Ignition platform to implement a new Industry 4.0 system, solving two main issues.

18:32
Kent Melville: First, operators were storing recipes directly on the mixing equipment, making it difficult for changing recipes across the plant. To solve this, they used Ignition's capability to connect all their data and devices together so they could track production in real time instead of using paper. Once connected, equipment controls were automated so they could update recipes dynamically across the plant. The second issue was that mixing schedules were communicated to the operations team through a printed SAP information data sheet and then manually entered into the equipment, which as you can imagine, introduced errors and slowed production. With the new system, technical baking staff can create, edit, and delete recipes directly based on the bill of materials pulled dynamically from their SAP software, which then in turn is automatically communicated to the PLCs. Goodman Fielder's operators now have more visibility than ever. They've reduced material variance, downtime, and waste. And most importantly, this was all done without ever stopping production so they could continue delivering high-quality food products to their customers without interruption.

19:47
Kent Melville: You got to love a happy ending. Now, one thing I want to point out about these projects is their use of solutions provided by technology partners in the Ignition ecosystem. Solutions from Sepasoft, Cirrus Link, and other companies we partner with are used in many of the great projects in this year's Discover Gallery. We feel honored to have such a great ecosystem of technology partners specializing in various solutions from software, hardware, cloud services, and more. And we're happy to announce the ecosystem continues to grow. This year, we added several more companies to our partner programs and continue to offer Ignition users more ways to enhance and expand their systems. In fact, many of these partners are actually exhibiting at this very conference. So if you haven't had a chance to check them out, please make some time to say hi to them over the next few days. You may just find a cool new way to improve your systems. So, although the challenges of improving an industrial process can be difficult, Ignition has the tools to make it easier. Whether it's pulling data together from the whole company, giving access to everyone or managing raw materials, Ignition can help companies make the most of the resources they have.

21:00
Kent Melville: It really is awesome to see these companies accomplishing their sustainability missions. And there are many other members in this community who are working to improve people's lives. To show some more examples of how this community is doing that, I'm gonna hand it over to Inductive Automation's Chief Technology Architect, Kevin McClusky.

21:25
Kevin McClusky: It is good to be here. It is good to see everybody here. I am so excited to be partway through the conference. Is everybody having a good time? Thanks a lot to Kent for sharing those last few. Over the years I've had the opportunity to be on the review board for these projects that we're looking at here. As Travis mentioned, we had 80 different projects that were submitted this year, which is a record. It's the most that we've ever had, and there's so many good projects, right? We see fantastic projects every year. This year was really no exception to that. One of the things that really struck me about the projects that we reviewed this time around is how this community is using Ignition to improve people's lives on a massive scale.

22:09
Kevin McClusky: Travis talked earlier about how automation is a force multiplier. It can give single organizations, or even a single person, the power to help improve the lives of millions of others. And the next three Firebrand projects that we're gonna be highlighting are great examples of how this community is using Ignition to do just that. Let's start by taking a look at the work that Gold-certified Integrator company, the Madkour Group, is doing over in Egypt. Madkour is working with the Egyptian government as part of a massive effort to revitalize agriculture in the region. The goal of the project is, and I quote, "To turn Egypt's desert into a green paradise by reclaiming and cultivating three million acres of desert across the country." They're taking previously barren land and creating farmland to help feed the people. Standing at the edge of the project, it's farmland as far as the eye can see. The first phase is 750,000 acres. Managing 750,000 acres isn't an easy task. The Madkour Group was brought in to help build a system to bring visualization and control over that farmland and the supporting systems spread across the vast desert region of the New Valley in Toshka.

23:29
Kevin McClusky: The Egyptian government has had the engineering project underway for decades, starting with a barren area, adding pump stations, sprinkler privets, but initially with no single unified control ability for monitoring the massive engineering project. Madkour's challenge was to help build an automated irrigation system with centralized control that could be up and running quickly and scaled over time. It was a huge challenge, and they chose Ignition to help them get the job done. Using Ignition, Madkour built dynamic templates to give them the ability to build and deploy the extensive system quickly. With the Ignition platform's ease of connectivity, they empowered the operators to monitor and control all elements of the irrigation system. That includes more than 200 irrigation pump stations, five main lifting stations, 20 voltage switch gears, transformers, electrical panels, and more than 2,000 individual sprinkler privets. The new system also provides the operations team with analytics and reporting tools to help provide that real-time insight and improve the decision-making. A new alarm system was also implemented in Ignition to help them take quick corrective action to ensure the system keeps working properly.

24:42
Kevin McClusky: The project's first phase has been a big success. It's helped the Egyptian government work toward its final three million acre goal of creating new farmland to improve agriculture in the country, setting the stage for an improved food supply in the entire region, even beyond Egypt's borders in the near future. The additional food this effort could supply will help many people, and I'm proud that the Madkour Group is using Ignition on such an ambitious project and with the ability to impact so many lives. Coming to our next project, this next Firebrand Award winner shows a different way another Ignition Community member is helping people by improving health. Cinfa is the leading pharmaceutical brand in Spanish homes. Its mission is to provide high-quality healthcare treatments to everyone. Their product line covers everything from well-known and common treatments, such as ibuprofen, to highly specialized medicines to support transplants and to fight cancer. Cinfa's pharmaceutical plants in Spain manufacture over 126 million treatments yearly, which are supplied to over 100 countries. Recently, they were having a challenge at one of their newest facilities. The facility had a high degree of automation, and a multitude of isolated systems managed all the production and logistics operations.

26:08
Kevin McClusky: This included more than a dozen legacy applications for ERP, LIMS, RFID, and many more. The challenge was creating a hub where all of the applications could interface without replacing the applications or changing their native communication protocols. The system also had to monitor and dispatch messages according to their production plan. The solution envisioned by Cinfa was not a simple communication middleware, but an orchestrator of all the messages at each step of the production that were required at a specific moment based on the overall status of the plant. When Cinfa realized that without such a system, they could not run their new plant in the way that they wanted to, it was less than a year before the launch date of their first batch of products, which, given the size of the operation, regulatory landscape, it wasn't much time at all. Producing pharmaceutical products to help people isn't an easy business to be in, and introducing a new system that late in the game of a greenfield startup can be really challenging, especially in the life sciences industry. Cinfa chose Ignition as their platform because of its ability to connect to other systems and data, create flexible architectures, rapidly design new applications, and its ability to build a system compliant with 21 CFR Part 11 regulations.

27:28
Kevin McClusky: Cinfa's Industrial Systems Manager, José Esteban González, worked with production teams to bring in the best technology to meet the plant's needs. He worked with Marco Busatto, the Director of Industry 4.0, at Gold-certified integration company IDOM. They chose to use Ignition because of its ability to connect to data through various protocols, including web APIs, RESTful communication, OPC UA, and Modbus TCP, so they could connect and interface with all the plant's multiple applications and devices. Supported by Ignition's UDTs, the team created a Unified Namespace for all data exchanged across the plant, independent of connectivity protocols. It's created a centralized, non-hierarchical structure for the plant's data to be exchanged across IT and OT systems. And by adding visualization, they were able to use that data to create a new factory management system to orchestrate whole plant automation. With the new system, visibility has been increasing, human error has been reduced, productivity is up, compliance regulations have been met, and Cinfa continues to fulfill its mission to help improve the health of people around the world.

28:42
Kevin McClusky: It's pretty special to me to think of the good that Cinfa is doing every day, and I feel privileged that Ignition is a part of that. So far, I've talked about how this community is using Ignition to help improve people's lives through revitalizing agriculture and improving health. The organization showcased in the next project also enhances people's lives, but in a much different way, through the power of the universe. Welcome to Fermilab, one of the nation's top quantum physics particle accelerators. Since 1967, Fermilab has run experiments to try to discover answers to some of life's greatest mysteries, such as what we're made of and how the universe began. As the United States premier particle physics laboratory, they work with some of the nation's and the world's most advanced particle accelerator experiments to dig down to the smallest building blocks of matter and uncover their secrets. Fermilab is located on more than 6,000 acres in Illinois, but its organization extends far beyond that. It has thousands of scientists that are spread across the world and collaborating with more than 50 countries on physics experiments based in the United States and elsewhere. The main focus of Fermilabs experimentation is neutrinos.

30:02
Kevin McClusky: If you don't know, neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe and can help us understand many aspects of it, including its structure, evolution, and the universe's origins. Neutrinos have virtually no mass, so they rarely interact with other matter. In fact, trillions of neutrinos pass through our bodies each second without leaving a trace. It just happened to you. It just happened again. The incredibly small size of these neutrinos really makes them hard to detect, which is why scientists use advanced cryogenic systems inside their experiments. The lab's newest experiment, the Short Baseline Neutrino Program, or SBNP for short, basically it works by taking a look at everything, and before those neutrinos are detected, particles are accelerated over a long distance before smashing into each other, creating a beam of neutrinos. The SBNP monitors that beam using a large-volume detector filled with 112 tons of liquid-cooled argon. The atomic nuclei of the liquid argon are so dense that some of the neutrinos, a few of them, from the particle beam interact with the argon.

31:13
Kevin McClusky: They leave traces of their movements through that argon. These movement trails, as they're called, can then be analyzed, giving Fermilab scientists important information about the neutrinos properties. However, to keep that argon in a liquid state, it must be cooled to extremely low temperatures, so around -200 degrees Fahrenheit, or -130 Celsius. This is done through an elaborate cryogenic system, which uses numerous pressure sensors, control valves, and other devices. The lab's old system required that all of these devices be manually configured, and alarm management had to be handled in the PLC. If you ever tried to do that, you know how hard it can be to make that maintainable. It resulted, for them, in a hard-coded set of alarms that was risky and labor-intensive to change. Inspired by solutions that were sitting in other laboratories around the world, Controls Engineer Trevor Nichols set out to create a modern system for Fermi that could automate the monitoring and control of these devices.

32:15
Kevin McClusky: He worked with Lead Cryogenics Engineer Michael Geynisman to implement a new solution using Ignition. Trevor used Ignition to create a library of standardized objects, and with this new framework, adding sensors, valves, and other devices really is a breeze, without any manual tag configuration needed at all. Alarm management was also moved out of the PLC and into Ignition. With Ignition, personnel are instantly alerted when problems occur so they can quickly make necessary changes to keep the system working. The new Ignition system has been a big success. With it, the team at Fermi are able to keep the experiment running efficiently with minimum effort.

32:53
Kevin McClusky: There are also plans to expand the system's use in the future. Fermilabs is working with other scientific organizations to build one of the world's largest accelerator projects, underground. The project is called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, or DUNE for short. It's an ambitious project that will take years to complete, and Ignition will be a critical part of the system's operation when it's completed later this decade. So, I've got to tell you, I've always been fascinated with physics, and for me personally, the fact that Ignition's being used to help engineers run experiments like this is incredible. The future breakthroughs that Fermilab is going to create and the scientists could find could have the potential to shape our future and help us understand the very fabric of the universe. It's so exciting to me that this community is part of all that. As you can see... Sure, you can clap.

33:58
Kevin McClusky: As you can see from all the Firebrand projects that we've shared with you this morning, this Ignition community is making a big impact around the world. But you don't have to work for a world-class laboratory or a multinational company or a government agency to make a difference. Some individual members of the community have already made a difference. Some individual members of this community are using the platform to make a big impact in the local cities where they live. For more about that, please welcome to the stage Inductive Automation's Industry and Education Engagement Manager, David Grussenmeyer.

34:38
David Grussenmeyer: Thank you, Kevin. We just saw some incredible examples from this year's Firebrand projects of how Ignition users are making positive impacts on our future and in the lives of millions of people. When it comes to making an impact, one of the most meaningful ways to do that is by making a difference in the communities we live in. As part of my job, I get to work with people who are using Ignition to help improve their local communities by leveraging the power of automation. They're doing this through efforts to improve access to life-saving medical supplies, food, community centers and more.

35:13
David Grussenmeyer: And I'm excited to share those stories with you this morning. Last year we were inspired by the volunteer work that many of you did. Hundreds of community members donated their time to help build a new Ignition system for Room In The Inn, an organization dedicated to helping those struggling with homelessness in middle Tennessee. It's an amazing project that won a Firebrand Award last year and it inspired us to launch our own Community Impact Program. The program allows for individuals to apply for a free Ignition license in order to create a non-commercial project that benefits their community. So we launched this program last September, and many community members have applied for their project to be part of the program. And one of the first projects that we approved was for the charity organization SERV Kent. The SERV in SERV Kent stands for Service by Emergency Response Volunteers.

36:07
David Grussenmeyer: They're nonprofit organization that provides emergency courier services for transporting vital medical supplies such as blood donations, test samples, and medication for the major hospitals in Kent, England. The charity typically makes over 6,000 transportations a year and has made around 50,000 deliveries since its founding. There are approximately 250 volunteers in the organization who cover all of their own expenses so that SERV Kent can provide its critical service free of charge. And that saves the hospitals a lot of money, which then they can use to improve patient care. In 2019, the UK-based Premier integration company BIJC got involved with SERV Kent by donating their services to the charity. They worked to develop a cloud-based management system using Ignition. With the system, the charity's 250 volunteers can now manage their own work schedule by adding or removing themselves for the days that they're available. Managers can also track their volunteers locations and display them on a map, which helps protect lone workers and allows for coordinators to make real-time decisions.

37:15
David Grussenmeyer: The project has played a critical role in helping the charity fulfill its mission to help save lives in the area. And in order to keep that project funded, BIJC's founder Chris Taylor applied to the Community Impact Program. Now, Chris sits on the board of SERV Kent and was the one who volunteered the support of BIJC. Not only has BIJC built the new system for the charity, but they've also covered the licensing costs to keep it running. As part of the program, Inductive Automation is proud to support this project by providing free upgrades for Ignition, including the upcoming release of 8.3. This will help BIJC engineers maintain the charity's volunteer management system free of software costs for years to come.

38:00
David Grussenmeyer: Now, through his work on SERV Kent, Chris Taylor has greatly impacted his local community. Chris has also been a pillar of our own Ignition community for over a decade. In fact, Chris was one of the first community members to take the long flight over the Atlantic Ocean to join us for our first community conference. Chris has been an outspoken advocate for Ignition. He has worked on hundreds of projects over the years, and shares his knowledge with many people. He's appeared at multiple events and participated in numerous presentations and discussions. In fact, you may have caught one of his presentations yesterday on stage three. Through his work, Chris has brought many new people into the Ignition community and helped thousands more people improve their processes with the software. For his passion for helping people with Ignition, both in his local community and in our user community, we're happy to recognize Chris Taylor with a special Firebrand Award for community involvement. Chris, can you stand up real quick?

39:12
David Grussenmeyer: Truly, thank you from Inductive Automation, for being an amazing member of the Ignition Community. Now, we have some great community members doing some really impactful work in their local area. Another person using Ignition to help their community is Taylor Daming, who's using it to help fight food insecurity in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Taylor and his neighbors discovered that many people in their community struggle to get access to fresh food 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The local food pantries in the area do wonderful work, but they typically are, they're only open during normal business hours and often only once per week. During the pandemic, many communities across the country developed innovative solutions to address this challenge, one of which was setting up community refrigerators. These fridges provide access to fresh food throughout the day and year round. The neighbors started by finding a good location to set up a community fridge.

40:09
David Grussenmeyer: They met with the local police chief and got permission to put the first fridge on the front steps of the community policing center, not only securing a location, but also a power source for the fridge. They worked with a local granting organization to get some startup funds. And when they got their first donation of $2,000, they were able to buy a new refrigerator and materials to build a shelter to protect against the cold weather. Next, they partnered with two local grocery stores to rescue their unsold food that they can in turn stock their community fridge with. Food waste is a significant problem in the United States with estimates of 30-40% of the food supply goes uneaten. With projects like the community fridge, a portion of the food can go to hungry people instead of landfills, and that's what this project's all about.

40:59
David Grussenmeyer: Thanks to the donations of participating stores and many other generous volunteers, they've been able to keep their community fridges stocked full of food donations 24/7, for free. To ensure that the food stays cool and fresh, they use Ignition Edge and MQTT to monitor the refrigeration energy usage, temperature, and when the doors are opened and closed. They also use Ignition to get automated reports for the fridge's activity, and alarms for when they need to take action. So for example, if the doors to the fridge were left open for an extended period of time, they can dispatch a volunteer to the fridge before any of the food is spoiled. Thanks to the outstanding efforts of Taylor and his neighbors, the community fridge has been a great success and they've even expanded by opening another location in the area, thanks to a very sizable grant from the Green Bay Packers. We're happy to donate the software to this project, and we are looking forward to continuing to support the efforts of Taylor and his neighbors as they expand to supply more community fridges throughout Green Bay.

42:04
David Grussenmeyer: Now another example of an Ignition user trying to help their local community is Andrew Tait. Andrew is a new Ignition user. While earning his Ignition credential through Inductive University, Andrew had an idea of how to help the village where he lives. Andrew lives on the Shetland Islands, a group of clustered islands located about 130 miles north of Scotland's mainland. With a population of only a few thousand people spread out across 500 square miles, it's pretty sparsely populated, which can make connecting with your neighbors a little difficult. One place that makes it just a little easier in the village of Bixter is their community center.

42:44
David Grussenmeyer: The Bixter Hall has served as the village's local hub for 96 years. Over that time, that's hosted craft fairs, weddings, funerals, parties, dance lessons, and the occasional yoga class. They don't have much in the way of entertainment or venues in Shetland, so the Bixter Hall is local getaway where community members can meet, talk, and build stronger bonds, but it's facing a big challenge. The war in Ukraine combined with government regulations has steadily increased the cost of energy. It's gone up over 360% in recent years. This is a nationwide crisis in Scotland, which has led many businesses and households to make sacrifices with their energy usage. With Bixter Hall, they've had to turn off heating completely, remove the internet, and even remove the bar's alcohol license to cut costs. All of this has meant that the hall is barely being used and without a better way to manage its energy uses, it's hard to see that changing.

43:45
David Grussenmeyer: That's where Andrew's idea came in. Although he was still learning Ignition, he wanted to use it to build an automation system to help keep the hall's energy costs down. He continued or he's currently working on an application to make it easy to book the venue, and then he wants to use Ignition to automate the hall's heating system so that when... So that it turns on only when events are scheduled and then turns off when they're over. These changes could dramatically reduce energy costs, allowing Bixter Hall to remain a hub for fostering strong community ties. Andrew's work is ongoing, and we're happy to support the effort to keep the hall open. The thing I love about this story is that it shows that you don't have to be part of a huge company or an Ignition expert to make a difference. You just have to have an idea and a drive to make it real. Dream It. Do It.

44:40
David Grussenmeyer: At Inductive Automation, we strive to support people like Andrew in realizing their vision. We do it with our software and we also do it through education with things like Inductive University and our Educational Engagement Program. Recently, we've had a lot of interest from teachers and students in using Ignition within their learning. In the last year, 65 more schools have joined our Educational Engagement Program, and now over 200 schools in the US and other countries are participating. We hope that number will grow even more in the new year as the schools start using the new course materials we recently released. This month, we published a five-part lab series that teachers can add to their curriculum. These labs help students learn about SCADA using an interactive Ignition project. Dozens have already received the materials and plan to start using them this next semester. We're excited to see how teachers use the new educational content to help teach even more students about SCADA and Ignition.

45:43
David Grussenmeyer: Helping more students through the Educational Engagement Program to learn about the benefits of automation can open up new possibilities for them and their communities, and one example of that is the Volt Institute. The Volt Institute is a vocational school located in Modesto, California. For years, manufacturing in the region suffered a skills gap crisis with hundreds of jobs going unfulfilled each year due to a lack of qualified workers. The Volt Institute's mission is to close that gap by training high-quality candidates to enter the workforce with the skills that local industrial businesses need. They partner with local businesses for mentorships, so that students can get hands-on training from active industry professionals who know exactly what it takes to succeed.

46:30
David Grussenmeyer: By working with government programs, the institute can also offer grants and scholarships to in-need students, which has been life-changing. One beneficiary of this was a local community member struggling financially and living out of their car. Through a granting program, this person enrolled at the Volt Institute for free and got valuable training. With this new knowledge, they were hired by a local manufacturing company for a good paying job. Now they can afford a place to live, and they also have a promising career ahead of them. We proudly sponsored the Volt Institute by offering full Ignition licensing for their classes. The institute's efforts are another excellent example of how members of this Ignition community use the power of automation and education to improve the lives of people in their local communities.

47:18
David Grussenmeyer: For every one of these examples I shared with you today, I know there are many more stories just like this, and I encourage you to share them with us. Our Community Impact and Educational Engagement Program are open and accepting applications year round. If you have an idea for an Ignition project to benefit your local community, or if you work for a school that wants to help more students learn about automation, I urge you to come find me. Sit down with me and my team and let's talk about it. Let's explore your ideas. Inductive Automation is here to support your efforts. Again, whether those are academic or looking to improve a community that's close to your heart, Inductive Automation is here to help you. The Community Impact and Educational Engagement Program are just two ways to do that, and there are many more efforts our company is working on to support Ignition users everywhere. To talk more about that, please welcome back to the stage Inductive Automation's Chief Operating Officer, Kat Jeschke.

48:16
Kat Jeschke: Thanks, Dave. Aren't those some incredible stories? I'm absolutely blown away by the amazing impacts this community has made using Ignition. These impacts are what inspire us all. In those examples, you saw the impact Ignition is having on this community and in the world, but behind the scenes of that, there's many groups of people who work tirelessly to enable those solutions. For example, there's the Inductive Automation team, there's our integrators, our distributors, our partners, and our customers. I'd like to highlight some of those teams for you. Many of the amazing examples you just saw were thanks to our integrators. We were born out of integration roots, and it's thanks to our Integrator Program that Inductive Automation is the best SCADA company out there. We could not do what we do without our integrators. It's been a tradition at this keynote to announce our new Premier Integrators. Our Premiers are leading the way for Ignition adoption in the industry. Reaching Premier status means that these companies have reached an expertise and experience level with Ignition that makes them the best of the best. There's five integration companies who have elevated their program status to Premier. Those are Jsat Automation, SL Controls, Mac Engineering, EOSYS, and Deloitte Australia Smart Manufacturing. Let's give them a round of applause.

50:00
Kat Jeschke: Another team I'd like to highlight is Inductive Automation Australia sitting right over there. At last year's conference, we announced the opening of our new office in Australia. Since that time, there's been a great growth down there led by Francisco [Carrión] and Jamila [Auret]. As the team has grown, they've needed more space. So earlier this year, we moved into a beautiful new office in downtown Brisbane. I was able to attend the open house, and the appreciation and enthusiasm from the Australian customers was palpable. To help drive even more interest in the region, our team also spent some time on the road. In July, they visited the cities of Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, and Perth, and hosted a series of Ignition Discover Day events. Each event featured an Inductive Automation speaker and an end user case study. It was geared to help grow our integration community in the country. The road shows were a big success and each city was at capacity.

51:08
Kat Jeschke: The next team I'd like to highlight is the Inductive Automation team. I wanted to take a moment here to share with you what I think is one of the most important factors in the success of Inductive Automation, and that is the care that each one of our team members has. We now have over 300 employees, and the main differentiating factor in our success is that we hire people who truly are passionate about what they do and care about others. The focus of this keynote is on the people and the heart and soul of Inductive Automation is exactly that. All the amazing individuals who make up each division of our company. It's thanks to them and their work that we're successful and our success is measured by how much we're helping this community grow. Our mission is your mission, and that is what our entire team works on day in, day out. Every division, department, and individual plays an important role in helping you accomplish your mission. From Software Engineering to Support, to Training, to PR, Sales, Marketing, IT, Cyber, Finance, Legal, it takes the entire team.

52:29
Kat Jeschke: I started out today by saying how much I care about this community and all the people in it. For the last 12 years, this community has come together at this conference to celebrate and build. Every year, we get asked, when are you gonna expand this conference? We've been hesitant. We love this venue. We have so many great memories here. From the announcement of Inductive University, to the unveiling of Ignition 8, and when Travis and Kevin faced up on the first Build-a-Thon, all those moments happened right here on stage one of the Harris Center. The Harris Center has been the home of ICC. It has served as the ideal location for us to grow this conference, and we've gotten amazing support from the venue staff over the years. But as everyone who's aware, we are at full capacity at this venue, and for the past few years, the demand to attend this conference has exceeded our capacity to host it here at the Harris Center. So in order to expand the reach of ICC, I'm so excited to share with you that starting next September, ICC will move to a new venue in downtown Sacramento.

54:02
Kat Jeschke: We will be hosting it at the convention center, which has been fully remodeled. It's now a state-of-the-art venue with expansive exhibit halls, open-air patios, meeting rooms, and over 200,000 square feet of space for this community to network, share, and learn for years to come. It's also surrounded by hotels and restaurants, so you can experience some of the best hospitality Sacramento has to offer, all within walking distance from the convention center. We can't wait to make new memories with you next year, so we hope you'll join us in 2025 for the next chapter of growth for the Ignition community.

54:43
Kat Jeschke: And that brings us to a close of today's Keynote. We hope you've enjoyed exploring the different ways that this Ignition community is making a positive impact in the world. To all the community members highlighted today, and to all the others who are doing great work around the world, thank you for trusting our software with your ideas. Ignition is a great toolkit, but it's what you build with it that really makes an impact. And we saw the incredible impacts you're having today, both big and small, in the lives of others. Inductive Automation is proud to support you in your missions, and we promise to continue to do everything we can to help turn your ideas into reality. So from me and all the teams at Inductive Automation, thank you for your trust and support. It means the world to us. Thank you.