Agile Businesses: Matthew Miller Of Helios On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be accepting and learning to let go of things. You need to be able to trust your team with flushing out solutions and generating ideas. Investing in them and allowing them to develop new technologies, even in times of economic downturn, set your company up to advance the industry. With that, always ask questions and seek out better solutions — like I’ve said before, technology moves at an incredible pace, and the second you stop looking for better solutions that innovate and improve your processes is the second that you are no longer a pioneer in the space.
As part of my series about the “How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matthew Miller.
Matthew Miller is a technology director with expertise in bringing products, processes and technology to life. An expert at aligning technology solutions with customer needs, he has successfully led teams to build products that have led to significant commercial growth and increased business productivity.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I spent nearly two decades at General Electric (GE) in various capacities, including leading software development projects and programs such as Brilliant Factory and Predix, GE’s IIoT development platform. I currently lead the commercial and technical efforts to bring to market Helios, an IIoT SaaS offering that provides remote monitoring and predictive maintenance through machine learning for manufacturers in the corrugated industry.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
When I was a young manager at GE I reported to a Director named Baji Gobbouri. Baji is an inspirational leader who has had a storied career in the Water and Wastewater treatment industry. At the time, I was very new to leadership and how to perform at a professional level and Baji took me under his wing and taught me how to lead and realize my potential.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
SUN Automation Group® started out manufacturing components for machines, specifically in the corrugated industry. When we eventually began manufacturing our own machines to compete with other OEMs, our founders were inspired by the endless possibilities presented through constant innovation. Their vision was for SUN to become a pioneer in the corrugated industry, developing and creating value through new ideas and creative solutions. To this day, our passion for problem-solving and forward-thinking guides our employees and delights our clients around the world. It’s the reason we invented Helios. This constant innovation creates an atmosphere where we can think creatively about problem-solving and understand, address and mitigate our customer’s challenges.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?
SUN provides corrugated box plants with innovative equipment for feeding, printing and converting. Our wide range of products are proven solutions for increasing production, efficiency, and profitability. We aim to provide outstanding service to our clients with 24/7 technical support, and are constantly looking for ways to improve and innovate in the space. We developed the machine learning IIoT platform, Helios, to improve uptime and help box plants run more efficiently through Ai/Machine Learning. The Helios IIoT solution increases profits and minimizes loss for box plants around the world.
Which technological innovation has encroached or disrupted your industry? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?
The future is digital, and that’s true in manufacturing as well. For years, troubleshooting in manufacturing was entirely done by humans — the people designing and working closely with these machines were the best equipped to solve any problems. Now that these operators are aging out, clients are asking for these knowledge bases to be embedded into a digital platform. By relying on digital and AI technology, IIoT platforms like Helios are able to interpret many more data points per second, saving time and making more accurate predictions than ever before.
What did you do to pivot as a result of this disruption?
We invested in ourselves and embraced developing IIoT software because we knew what a game changer it would be for our customers. Investing in operations and advancing capabilities is crucial to remaining a pioneer in the industry — even in times of economic uncertainty, investment, research and development can set you up for success for when the market does bounce back.
Was there a specific “Aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path? If yes, we’d love to hear the story.
Any “Aha” moment for SUN Automation Group is usually born out of talking with and understanding our customer’s challenges and pain points. And developing Helios certainly was no exception to that rule.
Access to the data and the insights of an AI platform tailored for the corrugated industry decreases an operation’s dependency on individuals with very specialized institutional knowledge, experience, and training. This is a huge concern of manufacturing facilities around the world as skilled labor becomes harder to find and the “silver tsunami” of older, more experienced workers retire from the workforce.
With our customers consistently lamenting that these individuals are increasingly harder and harder to find, keep and train, many operations are not performing at the highest level or are at risk for major malfunction. Even the most highly skilled and experienced people in these roles are still not able to detect and predict issues with the degree of accuracy and foresight of AI tools. This means that even if these individuals are able to be found and hired, it is not guaranteeing the maximum throughput, uptime, and efficiency within the operation.
With Helios, these concerns are mitigated.
So, how are things going with this new direction?
We’ve seen major success implementing Helios thus far in the corrugated industry, and customers have seen the major benefits of this solution in the daily operations of their box plants. Corrugated manufacturing is just one example of a traditional manufacturing industry that can be supercharged by AI by uncoupling processes and insights from the bandwidth and attention span of the humans in charge. Nearly every vertical has inefficiencies that can be spotted and corrected, as well as voluminous data streams that can be synthesized and acted upon by AI, with the end goal of a more effective, more efficient operation. Some of the industries in the midst or on the cusp of AI revolutions include education, healthcare, agriculture, customer service, supply chain management, manufacturing, energy, information technology, and software development and we’ve got our eyes on those industries as well for future growth.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this pivot?
Recognizing the massive success of IIoT in other industries, such as agriculture, oil and gas, and automotive, one corrugated manufacturer with a global footprint of more than 100 box plants decided to evaluate the potential of leveraging our machine learning (ML) technology to reduce its operational inefficiencies and improve its approach to reliability and maintenance. The company launched a pilot at one of its flagship box plants to evaluate the ROI of predictive analytics to predict machine downtime.
Our data science team received two and a half months of operational data from one machine to build a better predictive capability for the manufacturer. After some data quality cleanup, our data scientists performed a train-test split procedure, training their machine learning models on 75 percent of the data, and testing the validity of the predictions on the remaining 25 percent.
The models predicted machine downtime with 74 percent accuracy on a 30 minute time horizon. Specifically, in the 11 days of runtime on which the machine learning models were validated, Helios accurately predicted 18 hours and 37 minutes of downtime at least 30 minutes in advance. This is a statistically significant portion of the cumulative 24 hours and 30 minutes of downtime the plant experienced in that 11-day period — a considerable increase in the plant’s predictive capability. This advance notice of downtime empowers plant leadership to make smarter decisions to improve the reliability and uptime of their fleet, and provides better visibility into which maintenance interventions need to be prioritized at what time.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?
The best leaders, and certainly during disruptive periods, should surround themselves with people smarter than them. In the case of pioneering a new technology, we brought on and worked closely with people who were experts in the technology and could present solutions. With teams like this, micromanaging can put everything at a disadvantage — you have to give your team autonomy and room to grow. Tech specifically moves at such a rapid pace, you have to move as fast as you can to stay in front of the wave of innovation rather than riding it.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that leaders don’t always need to have a master plan for everything, but they do need to be adaptable. Setting broad visions allows everyone to rise to the occasion of delivering on these goals in their own way. Leaders should trust their team’s expertise and while listening to their needs — if some need more concrete direction in order to improve performance, you need to be willing to evolve your leadership style and build up your team most effectively.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
In times of economic growth and in times of economic crisis, companies should be investing. consistently researching and developing new ways to innovate and improve processes is the only way to remain a pioneer in your industry. It goes back to trust — trusting that your team will be able to deliver and that the bad times never truly last forever.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make when faced with a disruptive technology? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
I mentioned it before, but trying to stick to a rigid master plan and micromanaging every aspect of every team can only slow you down. Not investing in your own technology, not being open to change, and not listening to the teams you surround yourself with are all mistakes that are easy to make.
Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to pivot and stay relevant in the face of disruptive technologies? Please share a story or an example for each.
If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be accepting and learning to let go of things. You need to be able to trust your team with flushing out solutions and generating ideas. Investing in them and allowing them to develop new technologies, even in times of economic downturn, set your company up to advance the industry. With that, always ask questions and seek out better solutions — like I’ve said before, technology moves at an incredible pace, and the second you stop looking for better solutions that innovate and improve your processes is the second that you are no longer a pioneer in the space.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I don’t have a life lesson quote. Life and leadership are too complex and not everything needs to, or really even can be, encapsulated into a catchy phrase or mantra. I try to stay humble, kind and forthright. I think that’s the best way to go through life and business.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Readers can check out www.gohelios.us or visit us on Twitter @goheliosus
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Agile Businesses: Matthew Miller Of Helios On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
