Industrial Insights with Ryan Robinson

Ryan Robinson 00:49

Yeah, Justin, thanks for having me. Excited to dig in.

Ryan Robinson 01:49

Mr. First and foremost, thanks again for having me on. I've listened to a bunch of episodes for you. actually listened to yesterday, the episode I wrote it down, the electrifying industrial property, I think with John D'Aglio. Super interesting. I love the way he kind of explained the coffee maker analysis, right? And there's only so much water behind the dam, right? So really, really interesting stuff. But in terms of kind of... Who AES, what we've done, right? AES is a national electrical services contractor. We're headquartered in Northeastern PA. I myself am down in Carolina, down in Charleston, but we've got a team throughout the country. You know what? No, we're good. We're good. We dodged that bullet. So at least this time around. So all good there. But AES is...

Ryan Robinson 02:46

really from an origin standpoint, we really started as a lighting retrofit company back in 2018. I'm one of the founding members of the company and really we came from the core group of executives came from the ESCO world, right? So really focusing on energy efficiency upgrades, For industrial spaces, municipalities, things like that. But what AES has always focused on very heavily is really lighting projects, lighting upgrades, lighting retrofits, right within the industrial warehousing space. So that's really how we started. What we've evolved into is we've been fortunate enough to be able to kind of follow the demand of our customers. And that's allowed us to really evolve into a full electrical services contractor, right with a very, very heavy focus on you know, what I would, what I term, you know, electrical standups for either a new development for a warehouse or, you know, new customer moving in, There's, there's a lot of electrical infrastructure in place, but you know, that orientation of that building, right. So the amount of racking, the automation, the amount of material handling equipment, the amount of power just in general that they're going to need really dictates the scope. so that's what we've been focused on. and. That's really allowed us to gain some really strong partnerships, right? So we are really part of the Essentials, the Prologic Essentials team. With those guys, they're unbelievable. The program, specifically on the lighting side, has been kind of game changing within the industry. We've done, as a whole, roughly about 500 million square feet within the Essentials program alone of lighting upgrades. So it's been successful, long standing and it's really helped us grow and kind of follow where they need us to be as well.

Ryan Robinson 04:59

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ryan Robinson 05:28

Yeah, I mean, I would say that as far as what I'll call fluorescent LED technology, the market's pretty mature in the industrial warehouse space where, I guess, in the simplest terms, there's more LED than there's not at this point in time. There are still some pretty significant rebate programs that are out there. New Jersey, Baltimore, Atlanta, they've all got decent programs within those, and there's many others as well. But I would say that really we're still busy, right? You know, the work and the opportunities are still coming. You know, there's enough non-fluorescent out there, right, that it definitely, I would say, justifies focus, right, from an industrial warehouse standpoint. And yeah.

Ryan Robinson 06:25

Yeah, those I haven't seen those in a while. I will say that. But thankfully, those are those are pretty much out of the space. You know where where it's going right at the end of the day, LED is an electrical component. And over time, obviously, electrical components fail. Right. There's you know, there's there's a generation one LED right wave that we feel is coming right within the next couple of years. where you're going to see a pretty large demand for LED to LED replacement, really going in as the Gen 1 LEDs fail, doing a full another turnkey upgrade for those customers. The old generation was really driven off of energy savings. I think this next wave, in my opinion, is going to be more heavily focused on Yes, some savings, also avoided maintenance, right? And the safety component of that. A a failed fixture is a failed fixture, right? It doesn't matter really how much you're saving, right? The space has to be well lit. So I think those, those times are coming, right? It's kind of like, can, I can see the waves off in the distance, right? It's not here, right? But the, day is coming right where we're going to be doing a pretty significant amount of LED LED replacement.

Ryan Robinson 08:38

Yeah, I would say the data that we're seeing right now is kind of pointing to that failure anytime between with an installation at any time from 2015 to 2017 right now. So in the past month, we've probably had 10 to 15 conversations with customers that are starting to see that failure, where 15 to 20 % of their lights are already out and they're starting to feel that pain. I would say that between that 10 and seven years ago timeframe, right, is where I'm seeing it in the industrial warehouse space, right? I would say that manufacturing could be a little bit different, right, especially if you've got high heat environments, things like that, But it's starting to get to that point, right? It's not quite there yet. You know, drivers are going to start failing, LED chips are going to start failing, especially in higher heat areas. So what we're kind of focused on with ourselves and then also with Essentials is trying to start to get out ahead of that for our customers and make sure that they see us as a resource and really put together a plan that's more effective than a reactive maintenance program. if that makes sense.

Ryan Robinson 10:12

Right.

Ryan Robinson 10:44

Yeah. Yeah, totally. think We're starting to see that more and more where the landlord needs to be a little bit more cognizant of when the LED fixtures were installed as part of a renewal or a TI budget because not all LEDs are created equal. At the end of the day, like we talked about. Yeah.

Ryan Robinson 11:16

Yeah, I've seen enough times where, you know, space is marked, marketed as LED, right? And that, that a lot of ways, at least from a customer perspective can be viewed as I don't have to touch this, right? This is a done deal, right? My space is, space is good. But, you know, when reality kicks in, right? And, you know, 20 to 30 % of those fixtures have failed or the lighting doesn't align, right? With a BNA racking system.

Ryan Robinson 11:44

example, right, and they need to add 30 % more fixtures to the space just to properly light it. Those are kind of worth pointing out and that's what we focus on, is how do we work with customers, right, that are coming into a new facility to understand the conditions versus what their operations is going to be. So, you had Parth, Tania, he's awesome, know, heavy on the essentials team.

Ryan Robinson 12:14

For the automation side, we work with the essentials racking team, particularly other racking vendors across the country to where we're working hand in hand with them and sitting down with the customer saying, hey, this is the design that you have from an operational standpoint, right? VNA racking, whatever, 35 forklift chargers, X amount of conveyor, right? Et cetera, et cetera, right? Here's how we need to get out ahead of this from an electrical standpoint to make sure that you support it. and to make sure that you're not blindsided when these measures come into place, right? And really not blindsided by timelines such as a permit, right? So that's kind of our focus within the industry.

Ryan Robinson 13:02

Okay. Okay.

Ryan Robinson 15:16

us.

Ryan Robinson 15:47

Yeah, I would.

Ryan Robinson 16:12

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting points there, right? know, it sometimes can be taken for granted, right, during that process. But when you get down to it, there's actually a ton of details to it. So what we try to do is we try to be a resource for all parties, right? And try to get out ahead of these projects as much as possible, you know, put together rough order of magnitude. You know, one of the larger three PLs that AES works with, they'll actually have us walk potential sites, right? Multiple potential sites within an area and put together rough order magnetic pricing for the entire electrical scope, right? How that takes into account for lighting, just to kind of tie into your pain point right now is we're gonna document, these things have five foot whips right there.

Ryan Robinson 17:19

general distribution fixtures, you know, and if you were to put in VNA racking, right, you would likely have to add 35 to 40%, right, or all the whips would need to be replaced, or the entire system is modular wiring.

Ryan Robinson 17:42

Exactly. mean, I guess the best way that I describe it is you're essentially putting up walls, right, from a lighting perspective, right? So you're going to need to add lighting, right? Typically, unless the existing face also had VNA layout. So, right, there's a lot of components that we try to get out ahead of, right, so that all parties are kind of aware, right? So if we're working with a broker like yourself, we're going to give it information. you can kind of do what you would with that to help understand the total impact of the deal and the operation based upon the existing conditions.

Ryan Robinson 18:43

Yeah, for sure. I think our partnerships on that side of things, right, with material handling equipment companies and things like that is we want to take the work off of them, especially from an egress standpoint. So all these different jurisdictions have differing or varying egress codes, right? Do you need an exit sign at the end of every aisle and in the tunnels, right? California? Yeah. California generally, yes, right, other parts of the country, a little bit less stringent from a code perspective, but our job is to understand what the code requirements are for that particular jurisdiction and help them with that design to make sure that they're not going to get an F on the inspection and they can actually utilize the system that they're installing.

Ryan Robinson 19:48

Yeah, I would say a good amount. I really take that with a grain of salt. think every one differs, right? But when we work with a developer, like for example, regardless of essentials, they're heavily involved or heavily engaged because they really, really care about that white glove service and to make sure that everything is done right. Right. So

Ryan Robinson 20:14

I find it very refreshing when the landlord wants to be heavily involved because we can, helps us one gather information, right? Understand the history of the building a little bit better and then work. Like I said, work proactively on existing conditions versus what's the goal of when this customer wants to be in and what is that operation going to look like? Right. So, I love when landlords are involved. think it. It makes the project 20 % faster easily, but it's not always the case.

Ryan Robinson 20:53

Thanks, sir. Mm-hmm.

Ryan Robinson 21:26

Yeah, there's a couple of good rules of thumb from a lighting density perspective, right? So generally, if you're looking to hit like in a warehouse standard, I would say the most common foot candle that we're designing to is 15 to 20 in racking and then 25 to 30 in open areas, dock areas, things like that. We can usually hit that. of what I would call a one-to-one ratio of mounting height of the fixture versus spacing of the fixture. So if you've got a 30-foot ceiling and you space the fixtures out 30 feet apart, that can give you a pretty good understanding of the amount of fixtures that you're going to need, obviously depending on the number of rack aisleways that you have. But that can give you a really good starting point. At least from a budgeting standpoint of hey, how many fixtures am I going to need in this building? Right. You're safe with that number from from our perspective, right? so the other really good rule of thumb is When you have a rocked aisle way Utilize the right optics right possible, you know LED fixtures Different optics. So there's like a general distribution optic which you know is met for a dock area, you know, you spread that light better.

Ryan Robinson 22:56

So yeah, good question, right? fixtures are really an integrated full fixture, right? Where the LED chips, the boards are mounted directly in the fixture. So there's no real LED tubes, right? And any high quality LED high bay, right? So the optic is basically the angle that the light is going to be punched out at, right? So if you have a six foot aisle way in a VNA rack, there's narrow optics. that help punch the light down, right? And make sure that you're not wasting 60 % of the light on top of the top of the pallet, right? And you're getting five foot candles in the aisle way. So that would be my only other kind of suggestion or rule of thumb is, you know, always keep that in mind. It makes a huge difference from a light level standpoint, from a safety standpoint.

Ryan Robinson 23:59

For better or worse. Yeah, I would love to.

Ryan Robinson 24:57

I mean, AES's president, CEO, Tony Acronis has kind of set a culture for us to make sure that we're following the demand of our customers, right, within our core competencies, right? So we've evolved from a lighting company to a full electrical services contractor, right? And really that is a direct result of customer demand, right? That ties it... Actually, the origin story behind that is, you know, we're doing the lighting project, but there's another significant amount of other electrical requirements for the space. problem is you can only have one open permit, right, at a time, right on the electrical side of things. So, you know, years ago that cut us out of that project. So we evolved, we grew, right, we grew our team. Yeah, that's right. Now we are, right now we are in this project. So

Ryan Robinson 25:55

The demand is, which I'm sure nobody's going to be surprised at this, right? But the electrical demand is growing rapidly, right? Especially in the industrial space, you know, in terms of advanced automation, right? Like you said, know, material handling equipment, electrification of both forklifts and fleet vehicles, you know, all of these things, right? Power upgrades are more more prevalent. Right. And, you know, we have a pretty significant amount of non lighting electrical work that helped drive the value that we provide to the customer. So our job, you know, from our perspective and probably most perspective is we need to understand really what that timeline is from a go live date. And there needs to be a pretty concise work backwards plan. Right. And what that What that boils down to most time is by when do we need to have the permit approved to have this installed by the projected go live date, right? So we're more focused, you know, obviously the blocking and tackling is the actual scope, the measures, but from my perspective, I am way more focused on making sure that we're proactively working with developers, brokers, customers. right, and making sure that everybody's on the same page for what the operation is going to look like, because electrical is dependent on the layout, right, and the layout is dependent on electrical. So they need to kind of work hand in hand, right, in order to meet these deadlines because sometimes that long pull in tech can be the electrical side of things tied to a kernel.

Ryan Robinson 27:59

Yeah, I think it's definitely gotten.

Ryan Robinson 28:08

Yeah, I think that, um, think it's definitely gotten better. I think from my perspective, it's somewhere in that 30 to 40 week range. Um, you know, there are some folks on my team that would, definitely know better in terms of those exact time, timeframes. But, um, lot of times 30 to 40 weeks is still way too long for customers, right? If there's not a proactive effort, right. Um, so, you know, you're, you're talking six months plus.

Ryan Robinson 28:37

right from elite time, that's still a major problem. So it got better for sure. So we're, we're also kind of focused on the next evolution of it and kind of helping source that heavy electrical equipment and providing some different options and, helping really act as both, you know, the contractor, but also sometimes the agency and distribution partner, right. To help source this equipment and ensure that it gets to the site fast.

Ryan Robinson 29:22

Yeah, so there's a large 3PL, I would say one of the top tier 3PLs that we work with pretty consistently. We've done probably 10 to 12 million square feet with them in the past 18 months of warehouse stand-up. just some examples of that are it starts with a rough order of magnitude analysis of multiple sites, right? We're walking, we're analyzing drawings and we're going out in a specific area where they're looking at sites to compete for that business on. And we're helping them develop that electrical scope per site so that they understand what that looks like and they can make their proposal and their budget tighter. From there, that building is selected and we're immediately working under contract with that 3PL and pulling the permit as quickly as we possibly can. We're working hand in hand with the facilities, talking with them, understanding the total timeline, the total layout of the facility, and

Ryan Robinson 30:34

Yep. That 100%. I mean, there's areas with had mac areas, right? Washdown rooms, BNA racking, significant amount of forklift charging. Obviously lighting is needed everywhere, right? But anything from the switch gear to a backup generator down to a power drop or a workstation and it falls under that scope of work in our purview. So you know, our job is to understand that. And that's what we've been, thankfully, successful in building a long-standing relationship with this customer to where the entire electrical scope is handled as proactively as possible. And the electrical, which was the longest pole in the tent, is no longer really holding anything up from a go live day. hopefully that answers your question. It's not necessarily one specific project, but it's more of a portfolio I partnership that was enabled to develop.

Ryan Robinson 31:47

Yeah.

Ryan Robinson 32:24

It's been fun to work with 3PLs and especially ones that are really starting to dive headfirst into the automation game. So it's pretty cool to kind of be that electrical support arm of their automation because frankly, we get to learn a lot and it's really interesting stuff. You know, there was one we were talking about the other day that's putting in, know, mobile racking right within their space and...

Ryan Robinson 32:50

Our job is to develop the scope for the electrical infrastructure to set that up. I don't know much more about the racking system other than, right, it's just that, right, it's a sliding scale, but what a cool technology to be involved in.

Ryan Robinson 33:36

sorry.

Ryan Robinson 34:28

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, John's interview, your harsh interview with you, like where we're going, right? It's, you know, at some point, right, you we're going to get to that dark warehouse space right down in the distant future where it's 100 % automated, right? The lights may not be on, but there's a significant electrical demand that still goes with that. And then combining that with John's point, it's really cool to kind of listen to the way that he describes it. You know, I love the call. And I also appreciate it. Utilities are painted as very, difficult to work with, but data in, data out, right? The more information that we can give them proactively with existing conditions and what's to come, right? The faster that we can kind of get these permits pushed through. And so I would mirror that sentiment very, very closely.

Ryan Robinson 36:36

Yeah, I think that there's a couple of things, right? It's, without sounding too cliche, right? It's never too early, right? To start understanding what the electrical requirements going to be, right? That's kind of the reason that we are putting together rough order magnitudes for these large partnerships, right? So they can understand obviously the cost, but more importantly, the timeline. The timeline can get away from you so fast, right? So.

Ryan Robinson 37:09

Exactly. Right. So is it, you know, what's more expensive, you know, you know, a little bit more proactive approach, right, from an electrical standpoint or missing two months of operation, right, from from a warehouse standpoint. So it's never too early. that what we found successful is a true work backwards plan. Right. I think that gives you that timeline to understand it. There's a lot of different directions you could go in from an electrical infrastructure standpoint. But as simple as it sounds that's kind of been our recipe for success, right? And you know really really lean on the folks that understand how to work with the utility and don't take those folks for granted because it's like we said data in data out right from a utility standpoint and There's a lot of really high level people in the electrical industry that understand kind of how to play that game and understand what they're looking for. So that's super valuable.

Ryan Robinson 38:37

Yeah, it's a good question. think that As we follow demand, right, with our customers, with one of our key components, right, for AES's culture, right, you know, we're actually that next evolution for AES is really around a advanced distribution model of heavy electrical equipment, right. So, you know, if we're talking about transformers, switch gears, right, understanding what those lead times are and even working with foreign-based manufacturers to help on the importing side of things, but also really make sure that that QAQC process is rock solid. So we're talking about a transformer, getting it to the port and then getting it to the port to make sure that it's installed properly, working with the right logistics company, the right QAQC testing companies, making sure that The digital gas analysis, sorry, DGA, right? Those are US based, right? To kind of eliminate any kind of fear there. So that's definitely on the horizon for AES. Kind of the advantages that we've seen is, it's not a great deployment, right? And with the proper turnkey partner, right? Is what we're going to be. of taking all accountability for the entire success of the deployment. It can be a very feasible model to kind of help shrink that timeline.

Ryan Robinson 40:13

Exactly. Laser laser focused on that. So that's the, I guess, today and really future from a focus standpoint for AAS.

Ryan Robinson 40:42

Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, for sure we do. But I would say that definitely some US based manufacturers, a lot of the componentry regardless is still coming from Asia. So I think that the demand is just so high with this data center push and it's not really going anywhere. So I think the other thing that John said on the previous is it is first come first serve. having that equipment more readily available and getting it in with a very, very concise process, right, is going to speed up, you know, those utility approvals and the go live date, right, for these substations. So hopefully it's not too much of a long-winded answer, but, you know, that's kind of where we're focused.

Ryan Robinson 42:09

Awesome. Yeah, I appreciate it, Justin. Great to meet you finally on the podcast. Thank you again for having me on. Hopefully we'll do it again someday.

Ryan Robinson 42:20

All right, thanks.