The Ultimate In Excellent Customer Service? Partnership with Your Clients

Welcome to the trillium flow, past a podcast sharing expertise and insights on engineered valves, pumps and actuators across power, oil and gas, general industry and water and wastewater sectors. Tune in and learn what it's like to have the confidence U1 through every stage of the life of your operation. Welcome to this episode of cast by trillium fellow technologies, I'm your host, Shelby scart. Today, we're talking valves and services within trillium with Nick adcock, divisional managing director. Nick, welcome. Hey, thank you, Shelby. I'm excited to do this. Well, good. So, yeah, we're going to be we're going be talking a little bit about everything in your world. But let's start with understanding your background. I mean, this is one of my favorite questions, because everybody comes from such different backgrounds to find their way to, you know, to companies. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you made your way to trillium. Yeah, Yeah. Well, as you can probably hear, I'm a brit, but I've had the pleasure of working in a number of countries and living in a number of countries, too, like Germany and Sweden in the US for a four year period not so long ago. And I'm an engineer. I'd like to think of myself as a manufacturing engineer more than mechanical or electrical engineer. And, you know, because I love the plant. I love the smell of the plant, the noise of the plant. And I love I love the products that go with manufacturing. And I started my career in automotive with a great company called BMW and Rover. And, you know, that was all about Fantastic products. And you can imagine, you know, being part of a team that built a next generation BMW car was pretty exciting. And I guess through my career then, you know, it has been about products, you know, I've been involved in building high speed rail systems and precision axle systems for commercial vehicles. And and then I found myself in flood control with imei, who I had, you know, 10 or 11 great years with running some of their great businesses in the energy sector or in the beverage sector, and worked with some really just tremendous customers with them. But I got courted by the new owners of trillium first reserve and, you know, and they really impressed me. I like the people. I like the strategy that they had. I like the vision. And, you know, I got talking to a lot of people within trillium, including David paradjanov, CEO. And, you know, I got hooked. I thought this company's got great brands. It's got fantastic customers. And it's a chance for me to be part of something special, to get some real customer focus into what I do. And so, as I think, David, sometimes terms you know, trillium is 125-year-old startup. And I like the startup element of that, more so than the 125 years old. But I've been here 12 months plus now and and I'm really enjoying it. So, you know, we've got a few more things to do and a lot more customers to serve. And I'm excited about the future. Well, you know, you do come from, you know, from a background of focusing on products and you've worked in several sectors. You mentioned automotive capital projects and energy markets. So this is kind of a large question, but what are some of the consistent themes that span across those sectors that you've been able to identify and capitalize on? I mean, what unites all of these different markets and makes for a great best practice? Yeah, no question about all markets and all sectors in recent times. And I've just been evolving at such an exponential rate. And I think that all businesses have had to be very nimble and think about innovating much more, caring more about the global economy and, you know, becoming more international. And all of our businesses want, you know, better, more competitive, more efficient, more reliable, more compliant products, you know, because our consumers are demanding it. So one thing that's been quite consistent is that, you know, customers and business people, you know, they want to do things locally. They like doing business in their own language. They like to impose their own culture time zone. They like to have things local, you know, come to your business and see and talk to you about projects. And in trillium, we work really hard to ensure teams in the americas, in Europe, in Middle East and Asia, and our plants there, you know, are able to really support our customers locally while we try and support them globally. And the other thing, shaabi, that's been really consistent, no matter what sector you work in, all customers highly value, great service. We all do. You know, as consumers to and before the sale, during the sale process, after you know, you've delivered your products. Is that after service? And people remember great service and of course, we all naturally demanded to. And then the last thing I'd sort of reflect on is that as we've all been evolving at such a rate, our challenges and the big problems that need solving, you know, just get greater and greater. And so as a business partner, you know, I think that if we as a company, trillium, can help our customers solve those big problems, then, you know, we're onto a winner. And a good example for me is just this week, only this week we have a night, we have a great contract with a great customer who's building a new refinery. And they've encountered some problems on the design. And, of course, it would be so easy for all of us to say, well, you know, that's what we offered you and therefore that's what you got to take. But of course, that's not going to help them solve the big problem. And so our whole team has spent the week, you know, being extremely focused on helping them find a new technical solution and provide some new product and keep them on schedule, because we know that, you know, it will be very, very difficult for them to overcome if they had to start again. And so, you know, it's that kind of attention to solving problems that, you know, really excites me and I think is a way for us to create value for them. Well, and that's I mean, that's the thing. You're an engineer by design. You're a problem solver. And so you want to help customers solve the problems. Not so. You're not just a vendor that supplies a service or product and then, you know, see you later. Tell next time you're truly a partner, right? That's right. It's all about it's all about providing service and supporting them to overcome the challenges and solve the big problems that they have. Because I think if we can solve problems and we can give great service, then we're going to create value. And, you know, creating value for customers is really the key behind all great strategies. The more value you create, of course, the more value you're able to capture. But, you know, if you can't create value, then you just become a meta meta business partner. And that's not our strategy in trillium. Well, and, you know, you're looking to deliver that level of service that differentiates you. And you do that by helping develop strategy and being your true partners. Something that has really changed the valve industry is the industrial Internet of Things. So I'm curious your take, how has the rise of digitalization and IoT really changed the flow control industry? Wow it's a huge subject. Yeah, it has. It has changed the flow control industry greatly, but it's going to change even great. You know, even more greatly is accelerating. I don't think the macro challenges of us have changed. Of course, you know, we're all still striving to address the challenge of decarbonization from climate change. We all still got population growth and urbanization. And digitalisation, of course, is one of those macro challenges. So I don't think those have changed. But I think our customers needs, because they're operating in such complex environments, I think those have changed. You know, we think of a liquefaction plan, an LNG liquefaction plant in operates at minus 160 degrees Celsius. And there's gas and rock and sulfur and, you know, all sorts of media running through that process upstream of that and some of the pressures our products are operating under, you know, 10,000 PSI, the wellhead, all of. These complex processes are becoming more and more complex, and so the so-called disruption technologies, the artificial intelligence, the machine learning, the augmented and virtual reality, you know, those are the technologies that are going to help our customers and help us serve our customers much better. And I think about prevent, you know, shifting from preventative maintenance to predictive maintenance. You know, when our valves were able to sense, you know, the rates of where the rates of erosion on some of the key components, how the products vibrating in the temperatures it's operating under. And of course, if we're able to give, you know, early Warning and early alerts to our customers through that technology, it can only help them, you know, maintain that reliability, the safety, the compliance and the efficiency that they need so much. A great example on the augmented reality front is, of course, we have all had to adapt to covid-19 challenges of doing business. And, you know, we've got a great business in the US and in the Boston area. And we've got some installed trip throttle valves in a refinery in Australia. And they needed to do some significant maintenance on that. Now, of course, we couldn't just fly out a guy from Australia to from the US to Australia to do that because of all the restrictions. So we employed some great remote guided repair technology, some, you know, some equipment to enable them to do that. And we got the job done. And it was just a nice example of how we had to adapt with the digital world, and that is disruptive technology to support our customers. Would that sort of augmented reality and doing this these repairs remotely, I guess, how prevalent was that before covid, before it became a necessity, before you had to do it that way? How often was that used and has covered then kind of changed the course of being able to do these things that at one time were thought of as science fiction? Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, it's always been available, hasn't it? And and some customers have adapted to it much quicker than others. But I think the COVID pandemic has kind of accelerated that. Like I said, you know, there's been that watershed moment where actually people have had to employ a new technology to get a job done. But now they actually think, well, we're not going to go back to the old way. You know, this is the future for us. We can see the benefits. We can see the connectivity with our supply partners. You know, in trillian, we're working really hard to, you know, to keep developing that and to keep supporting our customers, you know, in all facets of a project. There are many sign off points, you know, in these critical control valves and safety valves and isolation valves that we make. There are many, many sign off points to control the quality and the safety of those products. And, of course, if we can eliminate the time and the travel required to do that, to do that kind of work, we can deliver we can deliver our products and our projects faster. And, you know, time time is critical in today's world. So I think people will not go back to some of the old ways, will go forward using the technology to support the needs of the future. Definitely also, you know, we're talking about smart valve technology. I guess the big picture, what's the promise of it for customers? I mean, how does it make customers' lives easier? Yeah, well, you know, truly, I mean, certainly and I definitely believe this ethos, giving customers the tools to solve their own problems is really valuable. You know, I think customers are striving all the time to address the challenges. And if we can incorporate our own technology into that equation, you know, by giving them those tools is going to be a much greater assistance than just standard products. And so the smart value is all about that. It's really the industrial Internet of Things in action. It allows our customers to slot, you know, a key component in their system and connect it with the rest of the system. You can imagine a larger refinery or a nuclear power plant or, you know, a green hydrogen plant is really very complex, highly connected facility. And so being able to slot into that system is really important. And so the valve, our valves have the algorithms that to enable us to self learn. They have the integrated sensors to ensure that we were able to measure, you know, those things that I said, the pressures, the temperatures, the vibration, and were then able to connect with the rest of the plant system, which, of course, is vast compared to our own product with any we're able to connect to that and enable our customers, you know, to manage those key processes with our key technologies. And I think the point is the integration of that and the connectivity that delivers the great value. And, you know, I'm really excited about our smart valve and our smart valve technology because more and more customers are interested in adopting it more and more. So I understand that you recently completed the General management program at Harvard Business School. So I'm curious, what did you learn at Harvard that you're employing at trillium flow technologies? Well, firstly, it was a real honor and a privilege to attend a program at Harvard Business School. It was the general management program, a shout out to my GMP 25 colleagues who hopefully will be listening to this podcast at a later point in time. But it was a wonderful experience. I met some fantastic people. Of course, I built the network that I already had established as well with those people. And you get to learn from great teachers and great colleagues and great professors. And so it was a real honor and a privilege. But there's sort of three key things that I really brought away with me and started to employ much more. The first, of course, is around the business strategy and, you know, putting the customer right at the center of that strategy for us. And that's exactly what we're doing in trillium now and set and building a strategy that enables us to satisfy our customers' needs in a way that our competitors can't. You know, I call that our uniqueness. And of course, we try and do that through leveraging all our capability. But it's to try and bring some uniqueness into what we do, but also generating great value. So, you know, I learned a lot about business strategy and customer business strategy and trying to connect with that. The second thing, of course, is, is really that point about customers. And, you know, I learned a lot about innovation and how to show customers the benefits of innovation and how to help them demonstrate the benefit that goes with fixing and solving problems for them that we call that sort of looking in from the outside, putting yourself into the customer's shoes and thinking about, you know, what are the big issues that they have to face and how can we help them? Because I remember I remember one little quote from one of the sessions. You know, it was something like features get made in the factory, but benefits are what customers really value. And so it's those benefits that we're trying to bring to those customers through service as well as through technology. And then I guess the last thing was, is about leadership, and the role of leadership in running and leading good businesses, innovation, leadership, higher order thinking, bringing those external factors onto the table and thinking about them much more than just, you know, our usual general internal challenges and the importance of our employees in that whole process. You know, employee satisfaction equates to great customer satisfaction. And so I think, you know, I certainly learned a lot about my own leadership style, but also about how we can drive greater leadership in our business to deliver greater service to our customers. It it was a great experience. And, you know, I've got some lifelong friends from it, too. Well, you're right. I mean, you have to take care of the people that take care of your customers. And so, you know, developing and investing and in your people is crucial. And so, yeah, I think that's also just the mark of a great company. That's that's absolutely right. You know, we have got some great people in trillium. And, you know, part of my job and part of our job in the leadership team is to enable them with some, you know, with the tools and the capability for them to grow in the job that they do. And if they do that and when they do that, they're able then to provide greater service and value to our customers. And I just think it's so inextricably linked that, you know, paying attention to that is vital to a successful business and to be a successful partner for customers. Well, great insights from you today, Nick. I really appreciate your time and your thought leadership here. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. And thank you, listeners, for listening to this episode of flow cast by trillium flow technologies. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes until next time I'm your host, Shelby.