Emerson's Sudhir Jain joins us in this FIRSTHAND Operational Certainty in a Pod podcast as a follow up to our earlier 5 Questions for an Emerson Expert podcast with Sudhir.

As an Operational Certainty consultant, he shares some of the oil & gas applications for operational improvements and describes how he works with clients to improve overall performance and sustain it over time.

We hope you'll enjoy this episode and will consider subscribing to the whole FIRSTHAND: Operational Certainty in Pod series on your iOS or Android mobile device.
https://www.emersonautomationexperts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Sudhir-Jain-FIRSTHAND-Podcast.mp3
Transcript

Jim: Hi, this is Jim Cahill with another edition of "FIRSTHAND: Operational Certainty in a Pod." Today I'm joined by Sudhir Jain. You may have heard our earlier "5 Questions for an Emerson Expert" podcast with Sudhir. Today we'll explore how he works with clients to improve business performance in their production and manufacturing operations. But first, some background. Sudhir is a process automation and digital transformation specialist on our Operational Certainty Consulting team. And he works with clients in the oil and gas refining, petrochemicals and chemicals and life science industries. He has over 35 years of process automation experience and has been with Emerson for over 20 years. He has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in instrumentation and control engineering and an MBA. Welcome, Sudhir.
Sudhir: Thank you, Jim.

Jim: All right. Well, let's start out, how do you typically first get engaged with our customers in solving their operational challenges?

Sudhir: We do go to various trade shows. And, you know, we have our application suites on the web, as well as we have the field salesforce, like our Impact Partners and our account directors. So, whenever they hear about the applications or solutions which we can provide at operational certainty consulting, they basically contact us to meet with the customer or to talk to the customer.

Jim: So, once you've gone through the introductions, how do the projects typically begin?

Sudhir: Well, once our salesforce finds the opportunity for the applications which we do, they connect us with the customer. And we either meet on the WebEx meeting or face to face, and during face-to-face or any other discussions, we find out what are the customer objectives for the application he's looking for, because most of the time in oil and gas upstream as well as downstream, which is my focus right now, we see that there is a little difference of the process workflow which they have. And that's where we find out what are their objectives, can we meet their objectives, and if we can, then address them during the meeting to engage him more deeply.

Jim: What are some of these applications that you help them with?

Sudhir: Today, the upstream applications are common, whether it's conventional or unconventional. But in North America our focus is more on unconventionals, because that's what is more engaging nowadays. Most of the unconventional fields, since they are fracking, we find that they have to use an artificial lift whichever way they want to. So, we provide the solution for artificial lift optimization, for example, gas lift optimization. In our applications, we have some of the good experience in dynamic lift optimization which can use either gas or the ESPs [electric submersible pumps] or beam pumps, whatever customer is using.

Jim: Okay. And when you work with them, I guess a lot of times you're bringing in some new technologies that might not be familiar with them. How do you familiarize them with new technologies you might be introducing in a solution?

Sudhir: Yeah. Well, most of the time, customer expect us to talk about systems and control systems.