Unknown: 0:00

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Matthew Weitzel: 0:07

celebrating 10 years of trailblazing in ground support Xcēd marks a decade as your leading partner in ground support equipment leasing at the forefront of both short term and long term leasing solutions. Xcēd adapts to your unique operational needs, whether you're ramping up for peak season or planning for long term growth, we provide the right equipment to keep your operations running smoothly. This anniversary, we renew our dedication to empowering your ground operations with efficiency and innovation. With Xcēd, you're equipped for success today and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. Exceed driving excellence on the ground year after year. Explore more at exceed gse.com this is Brad Compton. This is Luke brown. This is Jeff Barrett. This is Tessa Vaasen, and you're listening to the GSE podcast. All right. Well, welcome to the GSE Podcast. I'm Matt Weitzel, and I'm here with a group today from from EBIS. So I have sun thush nachu, the general manager for EBIS. I've got Eric ball, he is the CTO and co founder of EBIS and Crystal Wittig, the customer success manager in Rick Agnor, the director of customer impact. How is everyone doing today? Doing great, awesome. Well, I really appreciate you all coming on. EBIS has for me, at least. I've known about you guys for a very long time. I've been in the industry for 17 years, and ever since I've started, I've heard of EBIS. It's a very, very well known software out there and ground sport equipment, and that's the reason you all are on here today to kind of talk about that. And what I would like to do is start out by having Eric kind of walk us through how this product kind of came to be. Eric, would you mind doing that for us? Yeah,

Eric Baal: 2:08

not a problem. Matt, yeah. So originally, it started in 1999 I knew a guy down the street. I was 16 at the time. All right? I knew him since I was 16, and then he had called me up during my freshman year of spring break, and he said, Hey, I bought a repair station. Like, what does that mean, right? So then we, I come home over spring break and basically start following around the technicians on the shop floor, right? So basically, he had needed work done on his aircraft. Couldn't get work done because everything was full, so he bought a repair station. And then, which, you know, of course, that's what anybody does, right? So then, yeah, we started following the technicians around. And I had no idea about aviation other than being an airplane, and, you know, been up a couple times in this private plane. He had a beach craft at the time. And, you know, start following the technicians around, understanding what the problems are. And then everybody was writing everything down on paper, right? So it was just this really weird process to me, from coming from a computer background. And then started making notes, doing things for him to like, you know, capture technician time, how you add parts to an aircraft, start accounting for things. And then, you know, we kept working on it kind of got some traction. And people like, Hey, this is good. You guys should sell this. Like, huh? Guess maybe, maybe we should. So, you know, we kind of worked on it. Worked on it over the summer, came back home, we sold our first one to a guy at Walt magnet up in Petaluma, California, older guy, great guy. He'd come back down pick me up on his airplane. We'd go back up there work on it over the weekend. So really learned a lot from, like, the the whole process right from the shop floor up. So that was, that was, it was really cool to, like, be a part of that. And then we, we sold our second one to a place in Salt Lake City, millionaire at the time. And now it already we started getting, like, the differences, right? You have like, smaller aircraft. You have jets now you're working on, so you start understanding, like, the little fragments of the market. So we kind of continued on that path for the next, like, three or four years, and then we're at a trade show in about 2004 I remember Rick from from Southwest, he walks by, and I just, I'll never forget this moment, because, you know, we're this with two guys. It's Michael and me. We're in this booth, and it's like, there's no decorations in the background. It's like, the most ghetto booth you'll ever see. And then, you know, Southwest Airlines walks by, and they're like, What do you guys do? Like, you guys are too big for us. Just keep walking. He's like, no, no. Like, what do you guys do? So we go through showing the demo of what we're doing on the aviation side at this point. So this is like more for mros at this point. He's like, Hey, we're actually looking for something exactly like this. Let's talk more. So we, you know, we talk a little more. He ends up bringing his whole team out to Reno at the time. And then that was really kind of scary, actually, because it's like this big group. It's like the whole leadership team. Or the whole ground support division of Southwest. And then, you know, they had told us that they had gone around the country looking at all sorts of different products, UPS, FedEx, whatever it was, and there's nothing out there, you know, here's like, we've got this solution that potentially can work for them. And we're two guys, like, all right? This is kind of crazy, right? So then we go through the process of, like, No, this is exactly what we want. We just need to build it more for, like, prevent. More for like, preventive maintenance schedules for equipment versus for aircraft. And obviously, scale was different, because it wasn't just like a one size shop of six or 10 aircraft. It was 20,000 assets. It was hundreds of users. They had a small team managing all their users and their accounts, right? It's just different, different problems, but overall, the core concept was the same of what we were doing. So yeah, we built it for Southwest, took it to market. We grew over time, and we got other commercial airlines in that process, and then we started adding ground handlers. So is this already that it was just saying back to, like, how it was aircraft, and it was, you know, maybe just jets, and then it was helicopters, and it was repair stations, then on the on the ground support side, it was, well, okay, like, Southwest has their own equipment. Other people have, sometimes their own equipment. Sometimes they work on other people's equipment. So all these kind of different factors came into it. But no, it was, it was really exciting to be able to grow the product out. So we kept doing that until, well, continue to do that. And in 2017 we were approached by Tron air. So it was Michael and me the whole time, which was absolutely crazy. I don't think I'd ever do do that again. Yeah, I bet. So then, you know, we got acquired, and Tron air was a great fit. In a lot of ways. They really let us, they understood our vision of what, like I wanted to do, so they really kind of let me have that ability, still with the product. And then we grew the team out and, like the first thing, so Rick was still at Southwest at the time, and then I said, Well, Rick's got to come aboard like we want. I want Rick on on the other side of it this time. Like I loved having Rick at Southwest. He would send me drink coupons or something occasionally, or whatever it was, but, you know, it was great to see him on on the other side and be part of it, because he really was a critical part of the whole process. And we had so many ideas we got just from him being out on the field and on the ramp, and he would just tell me about what was going on, like, Well, why don't we do this? Right? We would just kind of be solutioning without even solution, not even knowing about it, right? It just kind of organically happened over time. Yeah, and then yeah. So then, you know, got acquired. We brought and started growing the team out, which was exciting for me to just obviously have have a team around us. We added a couple more people here or there, and now we're up to 18, which is crazy to go from Yeah, from two

Matthew Weitzel: 7:49

to 18, yeah. So, Eric, when did you start coding? When you were like, eight?

Eric Baal: 7:55

No, no, yeah. I was like 14 or 15. I was always into graphic design. Originally started a wrestling newsletter back in the day. I liked WWF, you know, so, yeah, you know, Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, all that back in the day. No, it was, it was fun. I started getting into the graphic design, and I'd make these newsletters every week. I was fifth grade at the time. I got more interested in the not necessarily content, but I just changed layout every week. So I always liked, kind of the the UI portion, and just like how visually you read things and how you understand things. So I think that was, that's kind of where I started, and then programming at Pascal in high school yearbook. And I just kind of all over the place, right? I never really thought I'd be a developer. From a programming standpoint, it's like, yeah, maybe, like, do special effects for movies, right? I always thought that was cool,

Matthew Weitzel: 8:48

yeah? But instead, you ended up in ground support equipment. So, you know, I think it's a win for you.

Eric Baal: 8:55

You never know where you're gonna end up, right? Exactly.

Matthew Weitzel: 8:58

I love it. That's a great story. That is just, yeah, you were telling the story, and I kind of got, like, this Marty McFly vibe, you know what? I mean? Like, you hanging out with an older guy and in this workshop, I mean, you didn't create anything like the flex capacitor, but you got EBIS out of it, yeah? No,

Eric Baal: 9:15

exactly. I mean, I guess we defied gravity a couple times up in an airplane, Michael would go up there, and he'd take his little kid, and we just like, he'd dive it down in a way that his kid would just like, float to the top in the back. So oh

Matthew Weitzel: 9:26

my gosh, we got, well, yeah, he sounds like quite a pilot there. That's, that's amazing story. That's such a, such a cool story, and cool beginning of of EBIS. And I appreciate you sharing that story with us. And, yeah, so let's talk about what's going on today at EBIS, and kind of how, you know, how things have changed over there Since being acquired by Tron air. And then what kind of like, what the features are. Let's kind of like deep dive into explaining exactly what this product does for. On support equipment, and whoever wants to take that on, you know, let's go. Yeah,

Santosh Nachu: 10:05

I'll, hey, this is Santosh NAU I'll go ahead and set the stage here, but really, let the experts talk here with Rick and crystal. But yeah, as Eric mentioned, I mean, phenomenal product. You know, I'm relatively new to the aviation industry. Just joined the team about crazy, but it'll be about three years in September here. But you know, really was drawn by the story, Matt. I mean, as you recognized, I mean, heard that story from Eric, and met the team, and just thought we had something really special here. And furthermore, is like you're doing something right if you're getting Southwest Airlines as part of your basic customers, and then the other great brands that we've added since then, and great companies that continue to be partners with us. And so as we started to dive into this deeper and the biggest realization that I had, which obviously Eric and Rick already knew about, but just someone coming in had to learn this is that it was really built, as Eric said from the shop floor up. And I think it's important to recognize that ultimately what we do is maintenance software. The ultimate outcome here is maintenance and maintenance in the world of AI, I think it's going to be a while before AI is going to take over what a technician does right? And truly, what we have at the end of this is a craftsman or a craftswoman, and really what we are doing is enabling them to do their job effectively. And then there's a whole organization behind that, at the company level, various different stakeholders that rely on that data that is being input by these technicians. And so if you're not able to bridge that gap and seamlessly allow them to bring all that information in, you really can't make decisions. And so that was a key insight, I think, for us, and recognizing that ultimately, EBIS is just an enabler. We're a tool, just like any other tool in their toolbox. And so if you can really get out of the way and let them do what they can effectively, and that's that's always a constant battle, I wouldn't say that we're perfect at it, but what we have is a commitment to continue to do that, and the realization that once you capture that data, then you can do some amazing things with it, especially when you add expertise to that. And that's really where our team's grown and bringing on someone like crystal with the experience that she's had on the other side of it, and obviously Rick a big part of that coming over just that knowledge, that experience of not only how to use the tool, but how to use the tool to actually make progress and to achieve a certain outcome, and that was a key part. And so really, what we have is not just the product, but the product coupled with expertise and that partnership so that we can continue to help these great operations excel at what they do.

Matthew Weitzel: 12:59

Yeah, and let's dive into that. Let's start with Rick, just because Rick was was brought up in the original conversation, and he came over from the southwest. So Rick, why don't you kind of tell me about what you found so special about this product, and then why you decided to go ahead and join the team. Great question.

Rick Agnor: 13:17

Well, we knew we wanted to develop a world class maintenance organization, and we didn't have the visibility to do it. We knew we needed a tool to be able to pull this off. And I got to tell you, we were so excited when we ran into Eric in the booth there in Vegas, and it was just like it was a fantastic product. All it needed was some GSE logo, and we were off to the races. But I think it was more than that. I think it was a more of a partnership where Eric was able to really help us design out a lot of our failures, a lot of our problems, by being able to give us that visibility, everything from productivity to parts kits to what assets cost to maintain, how to optimize schedules, how to optimize parts ordering. There was just so many aspects of it that really just fell into place. And we worked close for about 14 years, and it's pretty much weekly, I would describe maybe a problem we're having, you know, doing ramp walks, going out and actually checking equipment and verifying it was being maintained properly by a contractor, and he just come up with different ideas. Well, why don't I give you a tool you can do ramp walks, and you can have multiple people and iPads, and so there was always the solution aspect of it, I thought was just fantastic. And I think the more, the more we peel back the layers, the easier it got. And I think one of the the main challenges that we threw his way was, how do we manage, you know, 100 city operation with just a handful of leaders? So he really put things in perspective, where you could have a small group of leaders, and you could run a huge fleet, and you could do it consistently, and you could standardize that process, and you could replicate it, and then you could see where you were, where you're. Men was not performing optimally, and you could see why. You could look at these KPIs and really see, you know, if your cost went up and your unscheduled maintenance started going up, chances were pretty good your maintenance wasn't being performed. And it kind of highlighted where we needed to go visit. And sure enough, as soon as we landed, we could start lifting hoods and pulling dipsticks and see that it wasn't being maintained, it was being pencil whipped. So, you know, as we started using those KPIs, we really knew what was going on, and so it really helped us optimize. Do you

Matthew Weitzel: 15:32

have a specific story about how you all were able to see a trend in like, one piece of ground support equipment where there was, like a constant failure, and you would have never recognized it and kept ordering that same part or whatever. But because of EBIS, you were able to kind of figure out really quickly about what was going on within your operation. Absolutely

Rick Agnor: 15:55

1000s of those stories, but I'll give you one, one example. This was the MX four bag tug, you know? That was manufactured by, oh, I do know that one, yeah. So we started seeing this trend that no steering and no brakes are on a$20 million aircraft. That's always a good thing, right? No steering, no brakes. So it came down to a set of brushes on a motor that controlled both the steering and the hydraulics for the steering and the brakes. And it was an inspection that was being missed, and we could see that, you know, the brush was the cause of failure. And we implemented a an inspection process to design that out. And you could really just trend that out. This trend happened, you know, we we spotted it in one location, but it was something that was happening everywhere, and as we peeled peeled it back, we just needed to put a set of eyes on it, do an inspection and change the brushes out. So when we first saw it, Eric helped me define it. It was about a$70,000 problem in one location, and as we looked at it, it was those $11 fix as you start understanding that, you know, you want to maintain brakes and steering around aircraft, that's kind of an important thing, but those were kind of examples that, you know, we were able to get that information, that transparency. So

Matthew Weitzel: 17:12

yeah, think about how many, yeah, how much money was saved in the long run, even though you're paying for the EVA software, just because you were able to figure that out so quickly,

Rick Agnor: 17:23

absolutely. Yeah, that data is so critical to make those good business decisions.

Matthew Weitzel: 17:27

Yeah, I remember that actually, I was at tug during that time. I believe so, yeah, bringing back some stories here, you

Rick Agnor: 17:34

know the, I think one other important lesson that we saw is, you know, you can, you can keep a piece of equipment forever. It's just how much money do you want to throw at it? You can fix anything, but there's a there's a point when you should retire it, when it's useful life is done. And so we're really able to identify those assets as well,

Matthew Weitzel: 17:52

you know? Yeah. So EBIS will tell you something like that absolutely.

Rick Agnor: 17:56

You we have an equipment cost analyzer which will show us both the parts and labor, and you can see that based on the age of the equipment. You can see it spike. So as you start looking at things, you know, you could, you could have a brand new fleet of catering trucks that run cost you about 10 grand a year, but you could look at a group of catering trucks that might be 20 years old, and they're costing you three times that much. You know, doesn't make sense to keep it. So as you start doing the fleet planning, it really helps you optimize the fleet. And then you can start standardizing if you're going to bring in, let's say you've, you know, this new fleet cost you 10 grand a year, and it's going to cost you 110 man hours to maintain that if you add 20 trucks, you know what to budget for additional labor at additional parts. So now you can really do some fleet planning on what your future is coming your way. And you can really optimize budgets. And I think we got really good at optimizing budgets by having this data, and we knew when to replace, and we could really look at the assets that were the dogs of GSE, so to speak, what we'd get the biggest bang for our buck by retiring it. So we had that hit list, and I think that was really great. When you're when you're dealing with capex budgets, you really want to get the biggest bang for your buck. So there was just so many examples like that, just through the through the 14 years we worked together when as as I was a customer, and Eric was the developer and the co founder, and CTO, kind of did it all, so he really helped us optimize that with our team. So yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 19:25

for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing those stories. I'd like to get to Crystal now and kind of talk about how you ended up at EBIS and what you found so interesting about the product.

Krystle Wittig: 19:37

Yeah. So I was also a customer of EBIS before I joined the team, and really I was in a position that I met Rick and Eric, I think, in about 2019 and at the time, as the customer, we were looking for a solution that was really in user friendly. We had already been through several different systems prior, but really changed. Putting the product of EBIS. I had seen it before, but I needed to sell it to my leaders, so we brought Rick in and his counterpart at the time, and really put him through the ringer. We joke about it now, but really put him through the ringer with about eight pages of questions that I just wanted to make sure that the leadership really understood that EBIS was the right fit. And through that process, as we got to know each other in 2021 it was known, and Eric actually called me and said, Hey, give me a call. We want to talk, and the rest is history. So I've been with the company for about two and a half, three, close to three years. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 20:38

wow, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. How's it going over there? What? What are y'all working on?

Krystle Wittig: 20:43

Yeah, so for me, I spend a lot of time with the existing customers that we have, and also, you know, talking to future customers as well, but really just making sure that we're listening, and also really partnering with them to make sure that they're being heard. We understand if there is a problem and how ebis can solution that problem, and really just going through different process changes and process flows and really just helping them get the best bang for their buck out of the product.

Matthew Weitzel: 21:11

So there's still a lot of like product development going on based on the feedback from the customers. Yeah,

Krystle Wittig: 21:16

always. We're always taking feedback. Everything that we do and every change that we make is really from customers feedback and really listening to them. And some of the stuff that we do isn't necessarily them telling us this is what we want. It's just listening and saying, Hey, I think we have an idea for you.

Matthew Weitzel: 21:33

Yeah, that's so key is getting the customer feedback for sure. Yeah, and Eric

Eric Baal: 21:38

can kind of talk on it too, a little bit. Yeah, no, we're continuous development over here, right? So I always like to tell the story about when we, you know, got acquired, start building up the dev team, then they, they're like, Oh, this is great, but what are we going to do when this is done? And I'm like, that's cute, guys. That's, that's really, it's just, no, it's always, it's continuous, right? And we're always, you're always smarter than you previous were hopefully, hopefully smarter, and then, no, it's always just like trying to improve. And, you know, we get people become more sophisticated, right? Like, dashboards are a bigger deal than they used to be 15 years ago, no one, no one even knew what a bar chart was versus a line chart. Now, it's like, we want all sorts of these kind of charts, and we want them on our phones, and we want them to be able to access them from anywhere we are. So it's just as technology, technology has changed. We we obviously have evolved as well. And I mean, and we've rewritten the product. We're more mobile friendly. We use the same framework that Facebook was developed on from a front end standpoint. So I mean, we're about as modern as they come.

Matthew Weitzel: 22:41

Yeah, it sounds like it, yeah. And so tell me about, like we talk a lot in this podcast about telematics. How are you all integrating with telematics? I'll

Santosh Nachu: 22:52

take that one. Yeah. I mean, I think Telemetry is the talk of this town, right, always, and it's brilliant. And from our perspective, it's another data source, right? Just as we were talking about earlier, technicians are a key data source, but so is telemetry. But it's not enough by itself. And so our take on this is we're very agnostic. We will work with anybody in terms of telemetry vendors. And obviously the other trend in the market is OEMs, as they're putting out new product has their own telemetry built into the devices or into the assets. And so for us, our take on it is ingest that data source, because it actually will really help you make decisions. I'll actually give you a story, a little example here. One of the beautiful things about EBIS is just with the, you know, that longevity that we've had in the play the marketplace, we have tremendous amounts of data. You know, all the stories that Rick's been telling you about this particular brand, these parts were failing. Then we change it to this part and it, you know, things got better. Well, that data is there, and that data tells a beautiful story. And so we were actually experimenting with, can we predict part failure? Can we look at a certain asset type, look at the usage hours on that asset, how many times you know, and what was the time between unscheduled failure and when that happened, what parts were replaced? We have all that data, and we started to build a model to see if you can predict which parts may fail based on usage. And so one of the data sources there is obviously a technician putting in information about how long that asset was in play. And you know, one of the things that we learned is you can have a lot of dirty data there, right? So you're you have a whole bunch of users typing in information. We put some validation around that input, but ultimately, nothing beats the telemetry being involved in that process and feeding us that data. Then we have some level of fidelity around that information, and now you can actually normalize. The usage of that asset over some clean data that you can trust and that, I think that's the role telemetry plays. But I think it, by itself, I would say, is not fully helping you get to the outcomes that you're trying to achieve, the stories that Rick shared. How are you going to make decisions about which asset to retire and which one to continue to invest in. You know, how do we change pm cycles, etc? You have to be able to also capture the technician generated data of how long have I used or how long does it take for me to fix that? What parts are we incorporating and tying that in with the telemetry is, is where I think it's the Holy Grail in a lot of ways. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 25:42

yeah, I completely agree. I wonder if, do you ever see where you're looking at a preventative maintenance schedule on a unit, you know, and then specifically, like, let's say that the manufacturer says at 1500 hours, this needs to be changed. Are you all seeing like trends where you know more than the preventative maintenance schedule that the manufacturer is giving out.

Rick Agnor: 26:08

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think a couple things with you know, we've got the capability to take that telemetry data and do meter based maintenance, not just calendar based. And as we started optimizing that, you could start dialing in your vehicles to do the maintenance schedule. Let's say 250 hours. If you're dealing with some of the IATA rules, you might have to do it every 250 hours or every 90 days, whichever comes first, and we can do both. So let's say we have a unit set at 250 hours, if it doesn't hit that but at 90 days, it'll automatically trigger that preventive maintenance. So we could really capture both, and you can really standardize. Instead of just doing it every three months with various hours on the unit, you can start dialing into 250 hours or 500 hours and be very specific. And that way you can really standardize that maintenance based on the actual utilization. The other thing is, you'll see a lot of units that you know, if the meter breaks and it quits working, that fallback will also trigger that event at your fallback date, whether it's 90 days or 120 days, they'll automatically generate it. And you'll also get that for units that aren't being utilized. So maybe you have an air start that only has four hours on it, you're still going to get that unit pop up in 90 days. So you really have the best of both worlds. And I think telemetry really dials that in, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 27:22

for sure. And then talk to me about like parts and parts management and parts ordering. Is your system capable of telling you when to order parts and then actually ordering those parts? Or what does that look like? Yeah.

Rick Agnor: 27:35

So we have, we have supply chain integration. We we build parts kits for those units so the techs don't have to figure out what parts they need every time the schedule comes due, they can just push a button that says, Add forecasted parts, and it puts those filters on their work order. But we also work with the vendors that we're purchasing those parts, and they'll get a forecasted list in advance so they know what your demand is going to be in the next 30 days, 90 days, et cetera. So they can be working your forecast report, and as you request it, you've got those. And then we have integrations so we can order directly with both Napa and sage and do direct order. So I think it really streamlines the ordering process. And then we'll also map and catalog the parts that were used on that specific asset, so the next time you need it, it's going to be there. So,

Matthew Weitzel: 28:21

man, that's incredible. I mean, you got to think about it, the amount of man hours that that would take, and you could actually cut down on your employee cost just by having that system. It seems like,

Rick Agnor: 28:33

yeah, we've, we've seen groups where you have a 10 man crew that started with they could do about 2000 work orders, and we've taken them to 4006 1000 that same group. And the only thing we changed was the streamlining the parts ordering, so you can really have a big impact on productivity by really helping them organize what they're going to need for future demand. Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 28:54

yeah. And then talk to me about warranty. So I imagine that you know, it'll tell you whether this, this tugs under warranty still, and then does it help? Like, create something to send to the company, you know, send to the to the OEM. Or, like, how does all that work? I guess

Rick Agnor: 29:11

it does. So as soon as if you can set up a unit with the warranty date and a drop date, so anything that fails on that unit within the terms, let's say it's a two years, it'll automatically generate a warranty claim for that item. And what we do is we make it easy to batch those and send them to the OEMs, so you can run an export for those specific units, and you could send those warranty claims directly. It's gonna have all the critical information make model serial, as well as the hours on it, the parts that failed and how much money you spent on labor, whether you fixed it or if you had the OEM come and fix it. But that makes it easy to file that claim and really understand how your vehicles are performing, brand A against brand B. And you can also see how well your OEMs pay their warranties as well if they if they're slow paying you, you know, but it really helps during the capex process to really. Understand how well those vehicles perform. You know the cost, but you can also see warranty failures. So when they tell you this is the best unit, you could really look at it and see, does it fit, and is it really the best unit? You'll have all the data. So if you have high, slow pay, you certainly want to take that consideration in if you're spending millions in capex,

Matthew Weitzel: 30:21

yeah, definitely seems like it'll help you decide which OEMs are treating you the best and kind of help you make decisions moving forward on your fleet. For sure, absolutely. All right, so what else do we have? Like, what am I missing here? What else does this system do that I haven't asked you about yet? Yeah,

Santosh Nachu: 30:41

I think, you know, I think it's, it's pretty just once again, given the track record we've had and just a sense of partnership with our customers, we've been able to, you know, slowly and organically build all these capabilities, but I think just even more so than the product, which think we continue to put work into, and we're continuing to invest in, I think there's also the whole total experience, right? Given the changes that our customers face on a regular basis, the dynamic market out there, especially with COVID and all the things that it created in terms of operational challenges. You know, we recognize that, you know, as we're in these long term partnerships, it's to really help our customers navigate, you know, the sea change that they face. And certainly we are one part of it. But by no means do we solve everything, but we certainly play a critical role in helping them direct their attention and resources in the right space. And what we recognize is you can build some beautiful dashboards. We can try to really build some predictive models, etc. Still work to be done there. However, you need to also be able to translate that and help actually implement that change. And I think there's, there's still that element of it. It's, you can highlight insights, but how do you turn insights into action? And that requires a level of understanding of what the customers are going through, being up to speed with that and being able to bring some of that capability to bear. And so I think that's a key part of also our strategy, and that's why you have our customer impact team that Rick is leading up, and then you have crystal as part of that team, as our customer success manager, working directly with these key clients of ours and really helping them navigate that. Yeah, and

Matthew Weitzel: 32:32

I think it's also it's important to state that I think our industry is different than other industries, and the fact that this was born out of the GSE industry, and you all have really stuck to GSE. Now, I know you do have your your separate business, but it's still in aviation, right? And I think it's important to point out that this is specific to ground support equipment. You understand the OEMs, you understand the customers and what their needs are. And it's built, you know, purpose built for GSE.

Krystle Wittig: 33:05

Yeah, I agree. I would say that it's a tight knit community across the OEMs, the airlines, the ground handlers and ourselves, and we all know each other somehow, some way. And I would just say it's a really tight knit community and everybody truly cares?

Matthew Weitzel: 33:21

Yep, I would completely agree with that. So I'm going to ask Eric a question here. So Eric, where do you see you all moving towards? Is there something you're working on, like, future state that you'd like to like to see EBIS moving towards? Or, like, what do you have upcoming that we should all get excited about? Well, I

Eric Baal: 33:40

mean, there's always much, much on the backlog, right? No, but we're working on, like, more dashboards, more more analytics. I think we're starting to play with AI, right, like seeing where that can fit into it to really, kind of help make things easier. I mean, you know, a lot of it's experimenting, right? And it's talking to customers and understanding what they need. You know, more advanced notifications, right? That's something that we're working on, parts catalogs, working from an industry standpoint, to really go at it. From the OEM standpoint, of, like, what is the standardized parts list that each you know, that a bag tug has, or, like, a specific model, and then, because that really goes across all of our customers. So it's easier from an ordering standpoint, you know, coming up with just standard parts catalog, like the PDF manuals for that, the photos of the parts for the technicians, making it easier for them to identify. These are all things that, you know, we've been working on for I mean, Rick and I worked on this back in at Southwest, like when he was there, right, going through the whole supply chain system. And it's, you know, it's always evolving. Now it's back to really trying to have that standardized list for for our customers. So, yeah, a lot, a lot of things in the works, ultimately,

Matthew Weitzel: 34:53

where do you see AI playing a role in this?

Eric Baal: 34:56

Yeah, I mean, we'll, we'll see, right? It could go in a lot of different ways. Yes, on, on that, yeah.

Santosh Nachu: 35:02

I mean, look like I said, I think AI is going to completely change the maintenance game in terms of actually fixing GSE assets and planes anytime soon. Never, say, Never, right. However, I think it goes back to our our thesis here. Our thesis is technicians are key to any of these operations, the more we can help them do what they are really good at, which is fixing things, and, you know, working on their craft. And if we can kind of blend into the background, then that's what is our vision and what are what we need to achieve. And I think AI has a great role to play in that, because we believe that in the market, we're the most intuitive. And I'm sure every software company you talk to says that, but the proof's on the pudding in terms of how technicians actually use our product and enjoy it, and the amount of people that will come around when we go through to some of these user sessions, et cetera. But there's more to do there, and I think AI is going to be a key role, we believe, to streamline that further. How do we remove more steps for that technician to be able to put in the right information each time without it being burdensome, and then that resulting in better results and outcomes for the business. And so that's kind of our, our take on it,

Matthew Weitzel: 36:24

yeah, for sure. And so, all right, we're to the point of the podcast where I ask for a GSE story, and since we have a panel of people in the room there who wants to tell a good GSE story, have to go with the Rick first. Rick does have the most years in GSE, so he doesn't seem like the right choice.

Rick Agnor: 36:47

Drawing a Blank, right now,

Matthew Weitzel: 36:50

that's all right. Take your time. So this is something I'd like to do and all the podcasts, because, you know, it seems like we all have, like, a really good story. Now, we did hear the the good story about the MX four. So maybe this is an Eric question, because he's been in the industry for quite a long time as well.

Eric Baal: 37:09

Oh, man, all that. Rick's got all the stories normally, you know. So

Matthew Weitzel: 37:14

tell me about a great customer success,

Krystle Wittig: 37:17

yeah, so I can share one from last year. So we actually onboarded a customer last year in May, May 1 last year, and they really were facing a challenge. They didn't have all the visibility that they were looking for. And we one of the contingents was service, service request, or taking the line on the ground, handling, the ground handlers and reporting into the GSE team on what if a piece of equipment failed, and they really just had kind of like a broken process in that. And so when we implemented we also implemented with the contingency of this feature. So it really was exciting that not only were we bringing in a new customer, but we are also helping bridge the gap between the ground ops and the GSD team and bringing them together. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 38:09

that's awesome. See, that's a great story and and a great customer success story, and I appreciate you sharing that. So let's, let's kind of just go, I'd like to run through just kind of all the features of of EBIS, because I don't feel like we've done a really like, we've kind of like jumped around to all the features. But if somebody want to kind of give me a rundown of just all the features that you offer within your program, kind of like a live demo, without anybody being able to see it. Because I think what, what's going to end up happening is, is, you know, it sounds like to me, from from talking to you all, there's so much cost savings that can happen with this product that it'll easily pay for itself over and over and over again. And I think once people listen to this, they're going to be very interested in the product. And what I'd like to do is just kind of somebody give me a rundown of all the features that are involved. None of there's a ton of features, and you may not be able to get to all of them, but just kind of like a high level of what, like a user could expect from your product.

Rick Agnor: 39:11

Okay, yeah, great. I'll take you through that. So I think it really starts off with the equipment. You know, you can load in your fleet, you can have all the information about your fleet. You can set the schedules, the maintenance schedules. You have all the history, the parts that are tied to that, all the work orders. And then as you start going through, you can set up your vendors, your locations, your stock rooms, your inventory within master parts. As you get into the parts, you have the ability to kind of set things at a specific warranty. You can track course. You can track it through POS and orders. Obviously, we have the warranty claims portion, where it makes it easy to file warranty claims and recover money that's due to you based on the contract you signed with the OEM. And then what's what's really great about the development that Eric and his team have done is really give you the ability to. You leverage media, media for the parts. You can access illustrated parts list manuals. You could actually take pictures of a specific issue. And then you have the ability to push out technical service bulletins as they come out from the OEM. You can really deliver those TSBs specifically to that asset, no matter where it's located. And you could do all of those units at one time through that technical service bulletin, just do a quick push. And you can also see in trend, if there were critical TSBs, where they're at in that process. Are they 20% complete? Are they 10% complete, and which cities haven't completed them? You know? So you really have that ability to see end to end that workflow. But I think one of the bigger pieces is really understanding productivity. How many people you need to do that job, how productive they are, what are some of the roadblocks? Is it and not being able to get their parts on time, not be able to get the asset, you can really start peeling it back and understanding what's working and what's not. The other thing we work on is the PMI efficiency, where it really gets into how good are you doing your maintenance, and what's failing within two weeks after it leaves your shop, what's your average days to failure? What's your average cost on that unit? What's your warranty cost on that unit? So as you start understanding how well the vehicle performs, let's say your average time to failure is 90 days, but your maintenance schedule set at 120 you're never going to get ahead of that maintenance failure. You actually have to understand when it's failing on average, and then optimize your schedule. Whether you're doing that based on hours or you're doing it based on days. It doesn't matter. You just need to be ahead of it. So I think as you start understanding kind of where those pain points are, you know when it fails, and how to get ahead of that and design out that failure, I think, is what's what's so nice about EBIS, it actually tells you what's failing. You can make a change, and then you can actually see the needles move, and you can actually see, or is that unit having less failures, less labor, less parts, and you can really start optimizing those schedules. So I think it's a it's a great enterprise asset management system with the really good productivity, parts flow, warranty flow, being able to track course, and it's easy to use, I think, is probably the, the nicest aspect of it. You can train a technician in about 45 minutes. You can do it on any device, whether it's Android or iOS, Mac, desktop. It doesn't matter what you're running it on. So I think you're seeing a lot of mobile hardware going out. We're seeing a lot of the iPads. 10 inch iPads is kind of the hardware of choice. So you really kind of have a mobile workforce now with those same capabilities.

Matthew Weitzel: 42:40

That's kind of Yeah. That show yeah. That's incredible. I mean, it just yeah, like I said before, before I asked you the question. It just seems like you could find so many ways to save money and definitely easily get the cost back of whatever EBIS is, just just in warranty claims alone, it almost feels like Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really, it's really great. So, so I appreciate that. And then, do we have any closing remarks, anything that I've missed and we haven't talked about?

Santosh Nachu: 43:11

Yeah, I think in closing, I mean, we're, I would say this, and I think in general, there's plenty of solutions out there, absolutely. And there's, you know, enterprise asset management. Put it in Google, and I'm sure you'll have a list. But I think a key part of this is understanding that it's the tool, the data, and even understanding, you know, the nuances of it, right? Like, one of the things that we often talk about is when you buy, buy kind of a one size fit all solution. You have just a whole bunch of user defined fields that you have to go define. And so if you've never really set up a system trying to achieve some of these outcomes that are your, you know, our customers are trying to achieve, you can spend a lot of time setting up the wrong data for really, you know, years, and then you're dealing with that dirty data, because actually quite unusable. And so I think our focus in this arena and for these specific use cases under the umbrella enterprise asset management, but given that we're able to really set up the system for that sole purpose or objectives within, within GSE, and so I think, you know, that's, that's probably my biggest message is it's easy to just look at individual elements, you know, we can talk about feature sheets and just kind of like we did the rundown here of all the capabilities and modules. But I think you have to look at it holistically and understand, you know, what does it take to actually get started on a system that's robust and then being able to track the data that you should be tracking so that you can get to those metrics that Rick talked about, ultimately, how do you set all of that up, and then how do you leverage that to actually take action in your operation? I think that's really the. Uh, these discrete parts that come together quite beautifully. And I think that's, that's really what, you know, we want to share with with your audience,

Matthew Weitzel: 45:08

yeah. And again, it's just, you know, being specific to GSE definitely helps. Because, I mean, the worst thing in the world is you fields, you know, I think we all know that. So nobody wants to see that on their screen. They want it all done for them. And with the amount of years that that Eric has put into this product, I doubt that there's a lot of those user defined fields that that any kind of ground support equipment person would have to put in there. Oh

Eric Baal: 45:34

yeah, no, no, we've we've got all the fields, trust me on that. You got all the fields?

Matthew Weitzel: 45:38

Yeah, yeah. You've been asked for them before, this would not be a new request. So, so that's awesome. Well, I just really appreciate you guys coming on today, and just, it's great to learn about this product, and kind of diving a little bit deeper into into EBIS, and just seeing what you guys have to offer. And then how should, like, if you know, if anyone's interested, how should they go about getting, like, a demo of the software and talking to you guys?

Santosh Nachu: 46:07

Yeah, first of all, thank you so much for having us on. You know, I've been, I've been consuming your content here as I try to learn myself. And so really appreciate what you do and bringing on some of the great guests that you have. So really, be really happy to be part of this as well. Yeah, absolutely. You're welcome. And yeah, in order to answer your question as to where you can find us the best places to get on ww.ebiscloud.com, and you'll have a good sense for exactly what we offer, and get a hold of us. And you can ask for a demo request right there. But you know, we're approachable. We are happy to share my email, Rick's email, Crystal's email, Eric's email, and you can reach us directly. So we're happy to and you can anybody's more than welcome to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm sure with the pronunciation of the day. I could spell it out as well. We'll put that in. Yeah, I wasn't gonna

Matthew Weitzel: 47:06

go. I wasn't gonna go down that route again. But so are you all gonna be at any upcoming conferences or expos that people can see you at?

Santosh Nachu: 47:14

Yeah, great question. Yeah. We'll be at GSE Expo in Lisbon here coming up in September, I believe. So it's always a great show. It's gonna be a big show. Yes, very big show. Oh, and then, actually, we'll, in June, before that, I'll be there at GHI with one of my other colleagues, Ken Mulhall, so we'll be going and talking to a few customers there as well, in Toronto. So Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 47:36

great. We can meet in person. I will be, I will be at the GHI Americas conference as well. And we're gonna do, we're gonna do a panel up there about electrification. See y'all to come and join that panel and check that out. And yeah, so look forward to seeing you there. And again, I just appreciate you all coming on today and definitely reach out to the team at EBIS if you're interested in learning more, but I think that'll that'll wrap it up for this episode of the GSE podcast. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the GSE podcast. We hope you found it informative and engaging. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with your colleagues and peers in the ground support equipment community. Your support is invaluable to us. We'd appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate and review our podcast. Your feedback not only encourages us, but also helps expand our reach within the GSE community. Keep an eye out for more episodes as we continue to explore the dynamic world of ground operations, bringing you the latest trends, insights and stories from the industry, thank you for listening to the GSE podcast until We meet again, stay grounded and keep pushing forward.

Unknown: 49:02

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