Zombie artwork and EMAT technology with Thomas Beuker

Rhett:
Alright, thanks again on this week’s edition of the PPIM -23 ARC, where we talk to different technology providers. We’re talking with Mr. Thomas Boyker from Rosen. So we cover some great stuff. In addition to EMAT, we talk about the zombie apocalypse and his love of artwork, if you’ve ever seen the background in Chris’s office on a meeting with him. So we hope you enjoy this episode, it’s a lot to do with EMAT and a lot to do with technology.
Thank you.
 
Rhett
Alright, we are at PPIM 23, I’m sorry, there we go Pipeline, you want some of that action too? Look at it.
 
Chris
No, we do this Thomas.
 
Rhett
This is a really awkward intro, so we are trying something, we normally don’t shoot our segway with a guest, but I felt like this time we need to so neither one the guests nor my co -host –Welcome to pipeline things. I’m your host Rhett Dotson and my co -host Mr.. Christopher De Leon and our guest Mr. Thomas Boyker from Rosen– have no idea how I’m about to open the show and It’s you go this way some people don’t know this about you You’re a bit of an artist on the side from what I understand
Yes, and so there’s a very famous drawing in the background of Christopher’s house.
All of our clients ask about this drawing.
And so I just want to say if you’re one of our clients, if you actually just want to have a meeting with us to see what I’m talking about, you’ll know very quick. This drawing, we’ve asked people to define it. People say it’s a child’s drawing, but they just don’t understand true art.
 
Thomas
No, it’s a nightmare from Christopher.
 
Rhett
We need to hear, will you explain your side of the drawing?
 
Thomas
How it happened?
 
Rhett
Yes, how it happened. He gives his own story, so now I wanna know what yours is.
 
Thomas
He was getting very excited about a certain topic. He may talk to it, but he went very excited. And so I tried to turn him down, visualize what he was thinking. And so, and that’s what it was. I’ll give the story, it’s short. So we’re in a meeting, and Thomas, if you’ve ever worked with Thomas, he’s brilliant, right? Great, creative, artistic, just phenomenal. And so we’re in this meeting and I say, you know, customer feedback. Dave Chittick, formerly TC Energy, still does work there, says, you know guys, we’ve got to be careful because the best analogy I can think of is zombies on the horizon yeah he goes they’re coming , you know they’re coming it’s slow enough to where you can prepare, are you Preparing? And so we’re in a meeting and I strategize it and I’m like hey you know we got a Dave Chitty said this and meanwhile Thomas is in deep thought he’s sitting there taking on it I’m like oh man Thomas gets this he was an artist of work he was he turns this thing around it’s a zombie well one of them missing a leg I said Thomas I’m framing that and now it’s easy I did and now you guys can see it.
 
Rhett
So do you do you do that freelance on the side can you do another one when we’re done with this show will you give an artist rendering of what happened on this show
 
Thomas
Sure yeah
 
Chris
It was like it’s one of those moments of genius right where it’s for the moment it just happens
 
Rhett
So did that segue work for you?
 
Chris
That was phenomenal
 
Rhett
All right, see there sometimes as a host I kind of know what I’m doing. So here at  — Every Now and Then I have a good idea. Most of the really good ones come from you, but what do you think, Second String Sarah, did that work? It was good. All right, so our backup producer is here.  She’s doing great.
 
Chris
She’s fantastic.
 
Rhett
And you’re gonna bring it out on every episode, how fantastic that you were doing. So, at PPIIM here. Thomas, one of the things that we’re doing is we’re doing a series all with guests. So every episode in this Arc is gonna have a guest. And it’s targeting primarily technology vendors. And Christopher and I chose vendors that we get asked about a lot. So as independent consultants out there, people alwayscome to us wanting to know our opinion about X or Y or Z. And I would say by far and away, when we get asked about crack inspection and natural gas pipelines, When we get asked about EMAT, it’s generally with Rosen’s name attached on the back. You guys are the market leader in that aspect. People, when they think EMAT, largely think Rosen. So really, it speaks to Rosen’s capacity and presence in the market and the depth of the technology y’all have developed, so great job. And that’s what we brought you on today. So we want to hear a little bit about EMAT, but before we do that, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to introduce yourself to our audience. Mr. Thomas Boyker, what’s your role at Rosen? What do you do? Who are you? When you’re not an artist, what do you do?
 
Thomas
Yeah, so yeah, I’m with Rosen, working there for the last 30 plus years already.
Chris
So you can’t join YPP is what you’re saying?
 
Thomas
No, no. —
Yeah, and I’m responsible for the group side of the track management, meaning everything in the company with what has to do with track inspection, ILI track inspection, will somewhat land on my table.
 
Chris
And E -Met falls in that, obviously.
 
Thomas
EMAT falls in that.
 
Chris
But you’ve been doing E -Met for a while, Thomas.
 
Thomas
I’m doing it since almost 25 years. 25 years you’ve been doing EMAT. So you must have been on the ground floor of the development at Rosen? Absolutely yes yeah we anecdotally, it was a company in California who actually had a prototype EMAT tool yeah and they did a robotic inspection for an operator in California and they were interested so we kind of –
 
Chris
made some magic
 
Thomas
yeah we we met a couple of times and then we kind of moved it on from there so look in our relationship we don’t know which one chose the other if Chris chose me or I chose him did you choose emat or did emat choose you
 
Thomas
that’s a good question actually I think I think it’s like a marriage
 
Rhett
Are you bound to EMAT now? Your fates are tied together as one?
 
Thomas
Every so often we are cooking together.
 
Rhett
Do you get in fights? In fights? With EMAT, yes.
 
Chris
And who usually says sorry? — I always have to say sorry.
 
Thomas
Well, as a You know, in the evening, if you go to bed, you’re friends again, right?
 
Rhett
You’re just like Miss Producer. Second thing straight is like, where are y ‘all going with this? I have no idea. I love it. So, Thomas, I want to jump in to make good use of our time. So as the market leader in EMAT, can you share a little bit about this? What’s coming down the for the technology. What do you guys see in the 192? The updates were pretty expensive. Gas. Gas related to cracks. What’s on the horizon?
 
Thomas
Well, let me start a bit on the pipeline side. So your question is going more in the market direction than in the technical direction. And if we look at pipelines in general, and we see this even on and in Europe even more, you know, the new emerging fuels are getting more and more important, right? And I think E -MAT is playing an important role there. The focus, or the two main aspects, I would like to emphasize. One is the high density of the data customers actually asking for, more data, higher sampling rates, higher accuracy as well. But on the other hand, it’s also the structure. It is reliable data. It is reliable information which has to be taken out of this data. And if you look at standards like API 1163 or 76, you have both aspects, the verification side as well as the process side in 1176, so I think that’s kind of where the market is going, asking more from the inspection technology on one side.
 
Chris
And it may be a little more standardized with regulations and standards and recommended practices that’s kind of like maybe molding it maybe the service of it or –
 
Thomas
well I I think it’s more the procedural part you know that you have a process in place that you that it’s repeatable what you’re doing yeah and these repeatability these reliability, I think that will be the element which is actually required from the market and is something we need to drive as a company.
 
Rhett
So I want to throw back at you what I’m hearing, make sure I’m hearing it right, this goes to both of you. Kind of what I’m hearing is you want to move from like a bespoke unique analysis every time to this is something that’s standardized, it’s say like MFL, I mean MFL is well understood, it’s mature, it’s a process for running it. They expect certain things from the data, when they go in the ditch they know what they’re looking at and you’re saying EMAT get there, EMAT’s going to be, but I don’t want to liken it to MFL because that’s problems, right? But that’s where you see in the future.
Thomas
Well I would not say standardized, because you still need to be flexible, pipelines are different, and you need to be able to address the different aspects of a pipeline, but you need to have a transparent process, which is where you can actually follow up what has been done. So, I mean, the INGA JIP is a very good example, I think.
 
Chris
Knowledge transfer.
 
Thomas
Yeah, and it’s knowledge transfer on one side, but it’s also guiding people through the different steps you have to do and it’s on both sides. It’s on our side, it’s on the operator side, it’s maybe as well on the regulator side.
 
Chris
That’s a really good point. What it makes me think of Thomas and I like where you’re taking this is it’s you know if we were to like it as a MFL as a solution. We could say you know MFL is a well understood process Cradle to grave the market knows how to use it, right? You know who to approach you know what you’re expecting, there’s lessons learned already the world understood. When you think of EMAT up until again the latest, you know revisions to the gas regulation is it’s you had to get a special permit to use EMAT as an integrity assessment –. if you think about a system that has momentum as operators now now there’s this exposure to EMAT where you know I think you hit it on the head where there is that that that guidance where EMAT is now becoming more extroverted maybe in its process management where we can lean on things like 1163 or API 1176 so.
 
Rhett
Or the INGA or the JIP. That’s really what kind of helped me bring it around so for the audience out there I think I was the slow one on the right there because I was trying I was like, where is he going? Now it makes sense. And I don’t like the comparison with MFL because I think we see problems from people actually comparing MFL to EMAT or trying to use EMAT like MFL.
 
Chris
You cannot have the same, the processes are similar, but there’s way more structure to it and way more detail.
 
Rhett
But I like when you look at what’s happening with the INGA EMAT users guide, you see that kind of becoming, that knowledge transfer making it easier for users to begin to pick up EMAT and use it and that is novel, and then also its application to other you said other fuels when that that sparked a different thing and can I ask you thinking hydrogen for it?
 
Thomas
 Yeah, so so I mean if you if you look that’s more from the market side again, and then yeah looking farther ahead in a way, right? so and without you know being an expert or you a visit for the future, but in a way pipelines will be there as long as possible. But our customers need to adapt. The customers who need support in pipeline integrity, they have to adapt. So they are now using or they will have these emerging fuels, which is whether it’s green, brown or grey, Hydrogen, ammonium, CO2, so you have all these mediums and that is now, that’s different from the process side, that is where you need to adapt to improve the technology, change the technology or change the way you are dealing with an ILI system.
 
Chris
 In its environment and how it acquires data and all that. I want to maybe go a little bit on a tangent because again I was thinking about you’ve been doing this for 30 plus years and maybe not everybody fully appreciates the journey of EMAT. So just briefly about About when did Rosen begin EMAT? What was that time frame again, where y ‘all put it on an ILI tool and started doing projects, roughly?
 
Thomas
Yeah, the first runs we did was actually in the Netherlands.
 
Chris
Oh, the Dutch, young Dutch.
 
Thomas
Yeah, it was a short test line. It was 2006.
 
Chris
So do the math, how many years is that?
 
Rhett
16. 17 because we’re in 23, sorry.
 
Chris
See how quick he was at that? That was brilliant. That’s a long time.
 
Rhett
I’m only good at one thing and apparently it’s math.
 
Thomas
Yeah, so can you do the multiplication also?
 
Rhett
No, we gotta stop there. You know what, this is getting out of hand. This is actually a good time for us to take a break.
 
Thomas
The third route is a break.
 
Rhett
You know, you said you were nervous about coming on the show. I don’t think he’s nervous anymore. He’s fully adapted. No, he is adapted. No, this means we absolutely need to take a break. Plus, we had Dr. Keith Lavis in the background shooting me hand signals. It’s getting distracting. We’ll be right back. I want to dive in more to where EMAT’s going, and we’ll be right back.  We’re here a word from B .J. Lowe and Ben Strauman, our sponsors at PPIM 23.
 
 
PJ Lowe:
PJ Lowe here, Clarion Technical Conferences, and if it’s February, it must be PPIM.
We’re here, that’s right, for the 35th time in Houston, Texas, starting in 1989, and here we are in 2023 with another record -breaking turnout for the world’s largest pipeline technology – related event. We’ve got almost 3 ,500 people coming for four or five days, almost 200 companies exhibiting on the trade show floor, another sellout. It’s not too early to begin thinking about 2024. We sell out around June or July, so clarion.org is where you go to sign up. We hope you can join us for the next conference if you’re not here this year. Another big part of the conference is our training and education program, which takes place on the Monday and Tuesday of the week. And this year we have eight really, really great courses, world -class instructors, and almost 300 people showing up for these specialized courses on different aspects of pipeline integrity technology. I’m here with Ben Stroman, my colleague at Clarion. Hey Ben, what’s up?
Ben
Hey, doing good, always happy to be here because it’s, as we say, PPIM season, it’s February. So I would like to remind everybody that we also have a very specialized technical conference that’s associated with PPIM. And this year I’m proud to say that we have the largest conference program that we’ve ever had, it has 94 technical papers that were chosen from a large selection of submissions that were very high quality so we’re very pleased to be putting on these 94 papers during the week. I’d also like to mention that we do have online training if you aren’t able to make it to PPIM each year. We present online training throughout the year. You can check more of that out at clarion.org and we hope to see you in one way or another online or in person and if you’re not here at the 35th version of PPIM I hope you’re here at the 36^th.
PJ
definitely.
 
Rhett
All right, we’re back here with Mr. Thomas Boyker from Rosen talking about EMAT and that’s really great So you just you you took us through kind of I don’t think a lot of people appreciate the very earliest runs were in 2006, you guys have had a lot of experience with EMAT seen a lot of elements. You’re like what Gen is it Gen 3 or Gen 4? What are we at now?
 
Thomas
Yeah, it is it’s always it’s if you if you would count it like that. It’s Gen 3.
 
Rhett
Gen 3, okay So So what’s new? What’s coming on the horizon for EMAT, you guys see in the next couple of years? What do you see as a game changer being?
 
Thomas
Yeah, I think there are two things. One is on the hardware side, I come to that later. The other thing is very much addressing what we have talked before. The process side, the reliability side, repeatability. And that is something which you cannot achieve with the hardware on its own. So you need to look at the analysis process, the data evaluation process. And there is this term of saying turn data into information, right? And that is exactly happening there. And what we found now, and that is where we from Rosen actually put a kind of a separate department on the road we’re looking at artificial intelligence and it’s not that we start that we now starting with this we were doing this for the last I would say eight years or so machine learning calibration algorithms and so on but what we are now looking into is not into algorithm it’s more looking at an artificial intelligence as a colleague yeah so you have Somebody sitting beside you the analyst now gets help has somebody beside her or him never gets tired do what? She or he is –
 
Rhett
Do you need a cardboard cutout with a voice like do you need a voice like Siri
 
Thomas
Like this buddy?
 
Rhett
You can grab that and that will be
 
Chris
Oh, there you go. Can we get some assistants? (laughing)
 
Rhett
Look, look at Dr. T. This is something. (laughing) – We are, we have got off track. I love this. And thanks to Dr. Levis for the assistance there. It’s like, you know, we have, we’ve got second string Sarah and now we’ve got off the bench support.
 
Chris
And then RI.
 
Rhett
And RI. So this is your artificial intelligence colleague, — you think you can get it on the plane if you can get it on the plane back to Germany, — So I like what you said about the the artificial intelligence because those those have been but buzzwords, and a lot of times when people say machine learning. Yeah, AI their buzzwords have to be honest-
 
Chris
Help us understand it, you know, so what’s the purpose is almost one of the things I want to ask
 
Rhett
But when he said it and I want to hone in on that because a lot of people view it as a replacement Yeah, right like the big buzz right now is using chat GPT to write your essay rather than you doing it yourself But you’re
not describing that you’re describing it as an assistance and I actually think that’s Kind of unique and I think it’s a very healthy way to look at Using AI –  that’s it’s the maybe the appropriate way
 
Thomas
That’s also there’s also There’s also the aspect with it that you need to train the AI. That means the AI is never getting better than the analysts, right? And what you can do, you can grab all the experience, you know, from an entire group and put it in that person helping you. You can and you can make the decision as an analyst saying, OK, this is too too difficult for my colleague here, I’m doing it by myself, but you can also delegate and you need to, so it’s, you’re getting, you need to develop some management skills and makes obviously also the job much more, much more interesting, right?
 
Chris
That’s so clever.
 
Rhett
And I’m just saying that that, that assistant could have a voice and a personality that could speak up. Absolutely. Like, you know, like the little paperclip that used to be on my phone.
 
Thomas
 I’m not sure about the personality.
 
Rhett
It just, it pops up on the screen with the analyst and says, “Rhett says you should classify this feature.” You don’t have to give it a ride. Just think about it, run it by Rhonda. Think about it. I think it’s got potential.
 
Chris
Okay, so quality control. It goes back to just data reliability. I think that brings it home. So that was software. Talks a little bit about hardware.
 
Rhett
Wait, are we at 20 minutes, second string, Sarah? We’re almost at 20 minutes. I need to know if we have to take a hard break right at 20 minutes. –
 
Chris:
Are He’s not allowed to be more than 20 minutes.
 
Rhett
I don’t know. Somebody told me 20 minutes or less. I say, let’s keep going.
 
Chris
That’s customer feedback. We need to consider it.
 
Thomas
We can cut out every second work.
 
Rhett
You put your time on the show? We’ve not shown it, let’s keep going.
 
Chris
So yeah, that’s software. I think that’s brilliant. What about hardware?
 
Thomas
Yeah, hardware that, as I, I mean, from a market point of view, we discussed it. Yeah, there is also a need to move on or to further evolve on the hardware side. What we currently are working on, it’s not ready yet, it’s in the make, is an EMAT technology with a higher resolution, redundancy, so that first run success is a big topic, so that would address this aspect.
 
Chris
So, sensor redundancies for sensor loss, for example.
 
Thomas
Yeah, And then also a clockwise, counterclockwise ability so that you have full coverage of seeing features from two sides.
 
 
Rhett
So this hardware development is going to be like, this isn’t like adapting your current tool fleet. This sounds like a new build.
 
Thomas
This is a new tool fleet, yeah.
 
Chris
Yeah, but that’s Rosen DNA, right? I mean, Rosen’s known for always building new things, developing new technologies. And it’s kind of neat, I mean personally for me, I mean obviously all of you guys know that the history we have with Rosen is it’s really neat because you guys are, I mean leaders in developing ILI technology and most people will see that manifest itself as a tool, right? And so you know, you highlighting this, it’s a tool and the software and how you guys are advancing on the software. You know, we saw some things earlier, I mean we’re here at PPIM about like the data warehouse and all that fun stuff which you know provides data and all that fun stuff so it’s it’s neat to see what you guys are doing.
 
Rhett
Right, but what I was getting at with that is right so like the AI improvements and the the Rhett voice over that’s going to come down the line that will be applicable to all assessments independent of diameter because you can be able to utilize that but when you talk about the hardware component that’s something that’s going to be a longer lead time because you’re going to have be building I assume we’re going to be seeing this development take place over the span of years. We’re going to see, I guess, Gen 4 or Ultra or whatever it is you’re going to call it coming out in the next several years.
 
Chris
Cool. All right. Anything else? Yeah, what else? What else are you guys working on? What are y ‘all doing? What? Get in trouble a little bit. Get in trouble a little bit, Thomas. Get in trouble a little bit.
 
Rhett
 Rhonda just went that way. You’re good.
 
Chris
We just saw Rhonda get over there. She went after
 
Rhett
Wait, can we get into the Rosen party?
 
Thomas
Oh, let me see.
 
Chris
Oh, you’re about to get in trouble. (laughing)
 
Thomas
You need to ask Ronda.
 
Rhett:
 We know who controls the keys.
 
Chris
What else are you guys cooking?
 
Thomas
What else is cooking? If we, I mean, we can blow up the balloon, let’s say it’s a little bit bigger, right?
 
Chris
We blow up balloons in the US.
 
Rhett
Yeah. Oh my gosh, are you talking about wow?  Oh gosh, that’s a current event reference. That was well done.
 
Thomas
Oh yeah, needs to be checked out. But if we look at the crack inspection site as a specific element of a pipeline integrity  this can also leverage from other data, like, for example, material data, like, for example, inspection data from a geometry tool, a corrosion tool, and this is the POI probability of the identification, for example, on the crack side, is improved from all these other data.
 
Chris
And That is integrating data sets.
 
Thomas
And that is integrating data sets is also an element where we as a company are focusing on it.
 
Chris
Because you guys have the ROMAT technology, the PGS for example. Exactly, that’s clever.
 
Thomas
And the latest development we are doing will also address axial strain based on ILI Data so that that would be on the horizon as
 
Chris
well there’s a reason why you’re the 900 pound gorilla in the room Thomas
 
Rhett
So on that note I want to say Thomas thanks for joining us it was fun see what’s the nearest as difficult as you thought it would be it was easy it’s great and I look forward to that order spendering so
 
Thomas
I invite you on my show and it’s on German
 
Rhett
Fair point I’m your host, Rhett Dotson, Christopher De Leon on our guest, Mr. Thomas Boyker and our new AI, R .I., are signing off. Thank you so much for joining us at PPIM 23. We’ll be back in another two weeks. Thanks.