Breaking the Mold: How Marcos Carlotto of Schneider Electric Is Reimagining Industrial Automation | Talking Industrial Automation

Welcome to Talking Industrial Automation, a podcast where you get to know the people who make modern industrial automation possible. You will get to hear from CSIA system integrators and industry partners to get a better understanding of how they help their clients solve process challenges and how they've earned success in their careers. Along the way, we will touch on system integration best practices, technology, trends, and challenges. Whether you are a manufacturer, end user, supplier, or system integrator, you will enjoy the insights these industry professionals bring to this podcast. Let's get started. Hi, my name is Lisa Richter, the host of Talking Industrial Automation, a podcast where you get to know the people who make modern industrial automation and processing possible. In today's episodes, we are talking industrial automation with Marcos Carlotto, who is the director of software-defined automation at Schneider Electric in Atlanta, Georgia. With a background in electrical engineering and international business, Marcos joined Schneider Electric in 2011, where he has held leadership roles in sales across industrial automation and power products. He has also developed a reputation as someone who drives innovation and creates customer-centric solutions. Born and raised in Brazil, Marcos brings a global perspective to his work, Blending Technical Expertise with Strategic Insight. Marcos, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Lisa. Thanks for having me. Let's get started. Tell me a little bit more about your career trajectory and from there, how you boil that down to describe to lay people what it is that you do. Yeah, of course. Very well said. Born and raised in Brazil, San Paulo, Brazil. So first of all, I went to the engineering school, joined a couple of automation and electrical companies before some of these companies are competitors of Schneider Electric. And in 2011, I moved to Schneider Electric. And here, I had technical roles, sales roles, pre-sales roles, both in machine automation side and plant or process automation side. And now I hold the responsibility for software-defined automation here in Schneider to explain what I do. We help factories, plants to modernize automation systems. Our approach is a little bit different. We go with software-defined automation and with open software-defined automation. So we are against hardware-locked systems. We are flexible. Like I said, we are software-defined. I compare our automation strategy. We are like a smartphone, right? We really unlock the innovation and we enable quick adaptation to changing business needs. So basically, this is what I do here. Thank you. Let's talk a little bit more about Schneider Electric and its role in the automation landscape. Okay. Yeah. Schneider is a $40 billion global company. We have 150,000 employees, globally 21,000, about 21,000 here in the USA. It's a company of 135 years in the market. And we serve 40% of the Fortune 500 companies. When I compare Schneider Electric with our competitors, we are pretty unique. I think we have a strong position on energy management with circuit breakers, switch gear, meters, and softwares to control all these products. And we are pretty strong as well in automation. So we are a company that we have a very relevant presence in both sides. We have a platform called Equal Structure that connects all the products, all the devices that we sell, all the way up to cloud analytics and AI. So this is our digital transformation platform to customers. Our key differentiation in automation is open software-defined automation. The product that I'm responsible is called Equal Structure Automation Expert, is the first open software-defined solution in the market. We launched years ago. We promote hardware independence and application-centric solutions. We are against controller-centric solutions. We are very, very present in all types of industries, from pharmaceutical, food and beer, oil and gas, we are strong in data centers. And the main three focus of the company is sustainability. So we are sustainable, we promote efficient and resilient solutions. So this is Schneider. This is us. How would you say Schneider Electric helps partners and customers differentiate and deliver value? Basically in three ways, right? We are in the leadership of technology in terms of industrial automation. We are a company that promotes ecosystems. So most part of the business that we do, we go through partners like System Integrators, for example, and we have a big, big, big focus in sustainability. So when I say we are in a leadership position for technology, like I said, we are a pioneer for a true open and flexible automation solution. We go against proprietary systems. We promote engineering efficiencies within this solution. We have more than 500 system integrators developed in the world. So we deliver most part of our solutions again through System Integrators. And we have an alliance partnership program called Alliance Program that manages all the more than 500 system integrators that we have. We promote through our automation platform, what we call digital conduit that basically we talk about software connecting with software to enable productivity. And we consider, I think, ourselves very agile, very efficient and sustainable and we promote future-ready solutions. Tell me a little bit more about that alliance partner program for system integrators. Yeah, great question. So we have three levels for the alliance partner. And it varies. It depends on the level of expertise and the specialization. With the alliance, for the alliance partner, we provide a 24/7 portal access for support, dedicated technical support and extensive training. We also promote badges, certifications for specific products like SCADA, software defined automation, networking. Around the partners, we have account managers, architects and events to promote the business. And it's a joint business opportunity. We consider that we work pretty well together with system integrators. We go to the market. We go to customers together. Like I said, most part of our solutions, we deliver via system integrators. So system integrators are a big part of our strategy. And lastly, I believe with the alliance partnership program, we bring a very unique mix of solutions. So we bring a different way to do automation with open software defined automation and a huge package of industrial software with our affiliate company Aviva. So I think this really sets us apart from our competition. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about the relationship between Schneider Electric and Aviva for people who may not be aware. Aviva belongs to Schneider Electric. It was an acquisition now I don't have on top of my mind, but we complete the acquisition a couple of years ago. And Aviva, it's a giant provider for industrial software. So it really complements our automation strategy. We walk, they are 100% independent, they report to the same board of the organization. But it's very complementary to our automation strategy. More now with software defined automation, where we promote connectivity between software, industrial software and control platforms. So Aviva is probably the largest industrial software supplier in the world and belongs to the Schneider Electric Group. Hi, Lisa. Danny, come and get people who you are and why you're here. Sure. I'm the director of digital learning at CSIA and I'm here to tell you about the new CSIA Learning Hub, a professional development platform specifically designed for system integrators by system integrators. Sounds amazing. I hear all the time how challenging it is to find content for system integrators so they can get their people up to speed quickly. And the content is exceptional, I will say. We've worked with system integrators to create over 20 curated playlists, covering essential skills at every level. We have content for team members who need the basics as well as content for those advancing their expertise. Our skill levels range from building awareness all the way to practicing, entry level to season professional. Help me more. Well, it's an online platform, which means it's super flex. Teams can access training and learn at their own pace, which should be a given in today's digital environment. But what is unique is that each organization gets a customized training site. So learning managers can track progress, generate reports and really see how their team is developing. So you'll use what CSIA built as a foundation, but from there you can really customize the experience for your team. So let's come back to the part where you said it was built for SIs by SIs. How was the content sourced and vetted? That is a great question. So our playlist curation was led by Eric Schaefer, a true subject matter expert with over 20 years of experience in the system integration space. His expertise guided the selection, organization and skill level alignment for each playlist. Think of it like Spotify. All the content is there, but imagine having a personal DJ who spent over 20 years getting to know your preferences and tailoring the perfect playlist just for you. That sounds super useful for onboarding and developing employees. What's the catch? Is it super expensive? Not at all. Introductory pricing is just $900 for 2025. With that, you get four active learner accounts and a learning manager license. That's a really great value. There still must be some sort of catch. No, there really isn't. Well, except that you do have to be a member of CSIA to be able to participate. Where can people go to find out more? They can visit www.controllsys.org/learning-hub. Thank you, Dany. You're very welcome, Lisa. Share an example of how collaboration within Schneider Electric's channel ecosystem has helped solve a customer's challenge. Yeah. This is a very recent example that we have here and we are replicating a lot. We partner with the municipality in the USA and an SI to upgrade pump stations. They had the demand to upgrade pump stations, but in a record time. They were suffering with the pressure of the population migration and growth. They had a challenge to really, really, really scale fast. We use the product that I represent, EcoStruxure Automation Expert, our software defined automation offer. The challenge was to retrofit 60 pump stations in six months in a different way, in a more simple way to do automation, connecting with a third-party SCADA platform, not with Aviva, not with our SCADA platform. We accept the challenge and we implemented a really fast and simple way to scale. We made their lives and the system integrate their lives very easier compared with the classic approach and we finished the work, in our point of view, twice as fast as if we would work with the traditional POCO, traditional approach. This is one of the examples that we have. What major strategic shifts or innovations have you seen in the past year and where do you see the company focusing over the next 12 to 24 months? Of course, AEI is part of one of the main shifts, right? And I also include software defined automation, right? We consider that with AEI and with the level of industrial software that we have in the market, the convergence between classic automation systems with these two new components will be very hard. So two of the main disruptions that I can mention is AEI and software defined automation. In the next two years, AEI will dominate cold generation. So this is what we see, but we will also be applied on predictive maintenance, quality control, not only on cold generation. We see edge computing not only on the cloud, but locally as a growth that will also change the legacy automation systems. And we also see the scale of open automation systems. We believe that proprietary systems will become a very difficult option for plants and auto automation users in this kind of environment. Then the last one that goes after the quoting, the language of PLCs, we have a big challenge on the workforce development, right? We see that the education pattern is changing, right? We may talk more about that later, but there's no way the industries can continue to grow attracting or hiding the same professional that they were hiring 25 years ago. So the workforce transformation is a big trend as well. What would you say is unique about how you approach a project? With software defined automation, we are very asset centric, right? We are not controller centric. And we promote a lot IT and OT integration due to the capabilities of software defined automation. So every time we start a project, I believe we design a system for flexibility. We anticipate the change from the beginning. We talk about software changes, not about hardware changes anymore. We promote real-time data flow, right, from the sensors all the way up to the business systems, right, automatically due to the advantages of software defined automation. And in the end, as a final result, I think we are more agile, more future ready than the traditional approach. I think that would be our key points, our different approach to a project. Why do you think your customers return to you project after project? I believe engineering efficiencies, I think, are one of the key points. As I mentioned on the partnership with the municipality and the system integrator, we promote doing automation faster and simpler. So engineering efficiencies are one of the main points. I think we solve business problems. We are not just a technology provider. I think we implement our solutions faster, more aligned with the business. To our alliance partnership program, we work, since we have a lot of partners, I think we work pretty close to the end user, since we work through system integrators. We always have a regional presence through a system integrator close to the end user, and we help them to stay close to these new trains, AI, cybersecurity, sustainability, and everything that is related with industry 4.0. What advice would you give to a prospective customer researching you versus a competitor? Great question. I believe the advice that I would give would be to look beyond the current requirements. Try to anticipate the future needs and all the flexibility that you may need. Ask yourself how can you easily modify your systems or expand your system when you have a business change, for example, pay attention on the cost of ownership, not only on the initial investment. This happens a lot when you are trying to incorporate industrial software. Put on your decision, engineering time, flexibility, any type of efficiencies on maintenance, on in energy, and this goes on accessing vendors and the ecosystems that are very committed with true openness. Try to avoid vendor lock systems. If you can't avoid vendor lock systems, I think you'll have more adventures in the future in terms of integrating with other types of vendors or softwares that may come in the future. Pay attention on business results, pay attention on an openness of your supplier and also on the ecosystem. I have to mention that having a good number of partners, I think it's a main advantage. What challenges are your customers facing right now? We talk about that, but the first one that I always highlight is the workforce shortage. We have numbers that the industries may need, two million manufacturing positions by 2033. If we look back with how hard is to hire a single automation engineer today, we can try to understand how hard will be to fulfill these positions. POC programming, SCADA development, engineers responsible for integration, those are already SCARS and it will be even more SCARS. We have to think about the way we do automation and connecting with these challenges. We won't find this amount of automation engineers in the future. The second one would be the legacy systems, old systems with AI and with industrial software will be very, very hard to be replaced or to scale. Legacy systems of 15, 20 years old are a big problem. Cybersecurity, the more software we have, the more connectivity we have. We have to always secure a cybersecurity design as we are expanding and probably the most important one that we see today with all this revolution and the needs for to incorporate more AI and industrial software, we have a big concern on the speed of change. Regulations, markets, or how people think on the automation space, these may prevent us to really scale in the future, so speed of change is something that is really concerning as well. What kinds of trends and challenges are you seeing overall in industrial automation right now? The AI, like I said, we will accelerate more and more, it won't stop in our point of view only in program coding, it will go beyond, it will go to quality control, predictive maintenance and process optimization, software and fine automation. It's a trend that we start at first, but we see that it's a reality and it's here to stay. With connected with software defined automation, the way we talk about edge computing is changing as well, so before edge computing was just a local processing device, now we start to talk a lot about cloud summarized data, so cloud computing is expanding, is evolving, we talk about skill gaps, skill gaps, the more software you have, the more IT, the more AI you have, if you are 100% or just an automation engineer, we have a lot of gaps, the convergence, the integration complexity, so these trends are, it's very complicated today to integrate legacy with new systems and that's why, again, we promote software defined, we want to go more software in order to enable more productivity in this integration. Let me ask you a question, don't get mad, how many people in your life truly understand what it is that you do? I'm willing to guess the answer is, not too many? I get it, so many of us toil in anonymity, but what if I told you that I have a place where you can go to meet and talk and commiserate with people who do understand what you do because they do the same thing, amazing, I know, but that's really the bottom line what CSIA is all about, and recently we've expanded our learning and networking opportunities to help you find your people, we are calling them special interest groups, these groups are aligned around topics such as emerging leaders or marketing and they meet virtually throughout the year with some plans for meeting in person as well, probably in conjunction with the CSIA annual conference. We will be bringing more online throughout the year, but for now, if either of those topics sound interesting, go to www.controllsys.org/events to check out what we have lined up, full disclosure, you do need to be a member of CSIA to join the marketing sig, but the emerging leaders one is open to anyone who wants to give it a try, so why not take a minute and check out the upcoming schedule at www.controllsys.org/events, your people are waiting. Is there one challenge that you would say is like this is the biggest challenge facing the automation marketplace today and in the future? I don't know if I can mention the main challenge, but I would highlight the convergence and complexity crisis that we have today due to this new trend of having AI and software coming closer to the automation, so AI, edge computing, cyber security, everything is I think together is one big challenge and the second one is the skill multiplication, the lack of skills that we have to work with automation systems and also with more IT like kind of systems or AI at the same time. So I think as the future comes with, I don't know if we will see this or I will see this but with quantum computing with other types of materials, I think these challenges will grow even more, so summarizing everything it would be like skills and the convergence challenges that I said due to AI and software, but these both would be the main ones. Do you think that change is accelerated, like if you look back from like 1800 to 1900, maybe we got the phone and maybe we got a train or something like that, but now it seems like every five years like there's a major thing, innovation happening, is that just me getting older or do you think that's a real thing? I think it's a real thing and I think that's the importance to do not be stuck with black boxes or with systems that cannot evolve, I'm not, I don't have a crystal ball to predict the future but the progress of AI, we hear that everything that happens in three months is compared with what used to happen in 10 years, so it will get faster and faster. I think automation will be more, we have a democratization of automation, you have to be more simple, small companies with AI, small companies, we have access to automation, the global trains I think will help democratize even more, sustainability, supply chain, we have the ships issues years ago after COVID, so we may have this again, the labor change and different competitors coming to automation, so I think these challenges will continue to increase and we'll see a different automation world in the future. What makes you optimistic about the future? It's a great question, all this technology, I think we leave an industrial, a new industrial innocence, I think all these new technologies, we've never seen an infusion of new technologies like what we are seeing today, if automation is about solving problems, we will solve more problems with better technologies coming on top of automation, so I'm not negative about the future, I'm very positive, I think automation will change and the world will become more automated with the help of AI and all these IT waves that is coming towards us. Alright, now I'm gonna switch directions completely and focus a little bit more on CSIA because I'd like to hear your thoughts on why Schneider Electric is a member of CSIA. So we are an automation provider but we are not a system integrator, we provide more solutions to system integrators and end users, but we really believe since we are a company that we do business with partners, we really believe that the success of the industry depends on system integrators, right, and we really believe that our success depends on our access to system integrators, so since CSIA represents hundreds of system integrators in dozens of countries, we consider CSIA as a system partner, we stay connected with system integrators, so it's a perfect way to stay connected, it's a great platform for collaboration like this podcast here, right, to stay together and to collaborate with system integrators. I personally, and I think Schneider believes as well that the certification process with system integrators may reduce or reduce a lot the project risks, right, so it's something that we always respect, right, if I have the chance, if I'm representing Schneider Electric in front of an end user and that is a decision to not use Schneider Electric direct anymore but use a system integrator, I would promote for the end user to go to the CSIA website and try to understand who is certified, right, we talk about the future as well, all these challenge skills, right, that we discuss here, it's a great platform to discuss the future and I think it's a partnership based on success, right, not just that we are not there to sell products, right, we never talk about selling products, but we talk about we have progressive discussions around developing the market together. From your perspective, how should a customer go about choosing a system integrator? Don't focus only of course on price, right, or technical capabilities, right, every time I have the chance to participate in a discussion where the end user needs help to decide about a system integrator, I try to recommend to evaluate the business stability of the system integrator and CSIA may help a lot on this kind of process, right, finance, health, project management, track record, right, with this type of projects. Of course, access the expertise, right, the industry expertise with case studies, with requirements, try to assess the system integrator as a technology partner that will train, that will help the end user, right, and also the vendor with relationships, again, project management, project management approach, right, pay attention to documentation, communication, change management, long-term support capabilities, right, you know, how long the system integrator has relationships with vendors, with suppliers, and sometimes the lowest bid is not the best value, right, it's look for more professionalism and long-term partnerships. Alright, we're going to switch gears again completely and focus a little bit more about you personally because I'm interested to hear how you would answer the question. If you had to choose a completely different career, what would you choose? Well, now that I have more experience, so before when I was young, probably I would pick airplane pilot or something more exciting, but more and more I work and working with automation is building relationships and working with people I learn and I teach all the time, right, so being a professor, I think it would be something really exciting, I think, I have a passion to help people, mostly people in the next generation, to understand technology, I have a passion to simplify messages, try to simplify the complex in a more simple way and bring probably my background to this next generation, right, international background, someone that, you know, came from one country to another and continue to do the same thing in a different way, I think in the end, education is like, it would be like automation, right, it's about solving problems and improving lives. One final question, what's the best advice you could give your younger self just getting started? Embrace the change to my background, embrace every type of multi-cultural or international experience or opportunity that you may have, be, of course, be adaptable, it's a little bit cliche, but the most valuable skill, I think, it's being adaptable for any kind of technology, for any kind of situation that you may have, focus and build relationships and networks, right, investing people more than in numbers and in technologies, learn the details of business, right, do not be only high level, right, there's that phrase that the devil is on the details, right, so pay attention to the details, try to understand the details of business and how business are done, be patient, right, patience is a big challenge, nowadays everyone has everything in your hand, so try to be patient with your career development, I would say focus on creating an impact to customers and to counterparts, right, do not focus only on the career development, focus on the impact, this is big in Schneider, we are big promoted internally, our people value chain is all based on the type of impact that we create for the communities, the customers and the counterparts, and the last advice will be with all the challenges that we see today with AI and all these things, I think the automation market, this industry offers an incredible opportunity for, you know, people that is, you know, someone that is curious and can be an adaptable learner, right, so stay with automation, stay in the electrical world that I think the future is amazing. Well that's it for today's episode of Talking Industrial Automation, if you are interested in learning more about Marcos or Schneider Electric, you can find them on the CSIA Industrial Automation Exchange at www.csiaxchange.com, thanks for listening and thank you Marcos for joining me today. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also really help the show by leaving a review and sharing with colleagues, we're all just slave sea logarithm now so I gotta ask, thanks for listening to the Talking Industrial Automation Podcast, thanks also to bensound.com and Wistia for the music bumpers, until next time.