Welcome to the future technologies and innovations that sculpt our industry.
This podcast recorded live at the 2024 National HVACR Education Conference sponsored by Daikin
Comfort.
Learn more about Daikin at Daikincomfort.com and visit Daikincity.com.
Alright everyone, thank you for joining Did You Know?, the ESCO HVAC podcast.
So we're hanging out at the National HVACR Education Conference.
We're learning about new technologies, new innovations.
We just had a general session where we had our manufacturers and we had the US Department
of Energy helping us direct towards new opportunities for our educational programs.
So today we're hanging out with Ben Middleton.
How you doing, sir?
I'm doing great.
I'm Ben Middleton, National Cells Training Manager for Deichen Comfort Technologies.
Yeah, and thank you so much for having us here, Clifton.
Oh man, this has been a wonderful conference that is sponsored by Deichen.
We're so grateful to have you here.
The biggest topic that we have been discussing and pondering over this entire conference
is we know that the innovations are coming.
We know that we're making transitions into inverter technologies and cold climate heat
pumps as well as refrigerant transitions at the same time.
And our educators are finally going, holy smokes, it's time to step up the game, right?
Absolutely.
I mean, there's just been so much change.
And you think about it, I don't think the amount of change that we have in our industry
is going to get any slower and any time in the near future.
So I mean, from the regulatory changes that we had with the regional efficiency standards
to refrigerants to safety standards that are in the equipment and the list just keeps going
now this big push towards electrification, there are so many changes that are happening
in the industry and it feels like it's everything all at once.
Yeah, it really does.
And sometimes it's overwhelming.
But we've been helping everyone understand where their resources are and where they go
to learn more about the technologies.
And previously, we've always had, I wouldn't call it a stigma, it's just been a kind of
an understanding that the high end brand specific training typically goes into distributors
and into contractors, you know, to educate on those products.
And our vocational programs haven't always been directly accessible to that.
That's all changing.
And Dyken is at the forefront of providing the opportunity for educators to learn about
this stuff directly from the manufacturers.
So tell us about all the training opportunities that Dyken has been focusing on.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I mean, the task is monumental, if you will, with the number of people that need
to be trained.
You've got a lot of people that have been in the industry for, you know, 20 plus years,
decades.
And we do know that the average age within the industry is something that we're sitting
at, you know, the average age is 55 right now within the trades within plumbing and
within an HVAC.
And so that's a big challenge that we have that we look at.
And the problem with it is, is so you've got this group that needs to be retrained.
And then we got this brand new group that's entering the workforce.
There's a big push right now.
A lot of people are talking about, you know, get into the trades, you don't need to take
on all of the school debt, you don't need to take on all of this other information,
all of this, you know, the four year college, getting into the trades is a great career
for somebody to just starting out to get into and there's a ton of opportunity.
But with that, as we look at inverter technology, as we look at electrification, there are skills
that we need to make sure everybody is doing.
In the past, when you talked about your inverter equipment, it was about two and a half percent
of the industry, two and a half percent of the equipment went out with inverter technology.
As we've had these regional efficiency standards change, now you start to see that get deeper
down into the mid-tier segments.
Now you're looking 30, 40 percent of the equipment as we move forward is probably going to have
inverter technology in there.
And we saw a big shift, you know, not too long ago, even with the blower motors inside
of air handlers and furnaces, where we went from just a standard, you know, PSC motor
that you have there.
And then we went into a constant torque motor and then we went into, you know, full variable
speed drives.
But that was a learning curve that everybody had to go through.
When people first looked at the first variable speed drive blower motors that went out, there
was a lot of people that said, all right, I don't know if I can take all of this change,
just give me the simple motor.
But the fact of the matter is, is we drive for more efficiency as we look towards electrification.
The other issue is heat pumps.
There's a lot of guys that you can't just change a straight cool air conditioner out
with a heat pump and expect it to deliver the heat capacity in all of the markets without
doing the proper heating and cooling load, without doing without taking a look at the
duct work and making sure you have enough airflow and all of those issues.
So there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen when training.
And you look at the number of trainers that are available in the industry and you start
doing the math.
The math does not add up.
There's just I get it.
And so trainers right now are more busy than they've ever been before.
Classes are fuller than they've ever been before.
Because I travel the industry and stop by at a lot of these different events.
Your attendance is up here at this event.
Right now we're just talking about that.
And so there's a big demand for training.
But the cool thing is there's a lot of new technology that's emerging and becoming available.
So the three things that I look at is there's definitely VR.
And so what role does that play in training?
There's augmented reality.
How does AR play in there?
There's AI.
How is AI going to start to help us?
And so I'd love to talk a little bit about some of the things that we're looking at to
be able to roll out that's going to help.
So back in about 2018, we actually started working with a company called Interplay.
And I'm sure you're familiar with Interplay.
And so what I love that they're doing is they're making training available.
It's on demand and it's an Omni device.
And so those two things are really, really important.
Number one, how many times have you signed your techs up for a class or instructors scheduling
a class?
You get all these registrations, but then the weather hits.
And now you've got a whole bunch of people.
It's really cold out.
It's really hot out.
And you got to say, I'm sorry, guys, you can't go to the class.
We've got all kinds of calls that are coming in and we need to make sure that we take care
of our customers.
But then when do you do the training?
And then the next week you have this lull and you're like, I really wish there was a
workshop available right now because I don't have any calls for the guys.
And so the nice thing about having on demand training is you can be flexible and you can
say, OK, guys, today I want you to go ahead and complete all of those inverter heat pump
modules that you needed to do.
I really need you to understand about duck sizing and how you assess the duck system
that they have.
So I need you to complete this module right now.
And so our partnership are working with Interplay.
We've developed a lot of different simulators that guys can go in and they can do inverter
installation and commissioning.
They can do inverter troubleshooting and they can do this at their own pace.
And you can access this from a tablet.
So a technician out in the field, let's say that they just had a call cancel, they could
jump on it with a tablet real quick because most technicians have tablets that they're
using anyways and they can complete a couple of courses.
The other thing that they can do is you can actually access the training in VR.
And that's so, so important because what I have learned in the VR learning environment
is that you get a lot of muscle memory.
You're not just standing static or sitting looking at a flat screen.
You're actually truly in a 3D environment.
And you know, the one question Interplay brought this up to me a long time ago, and it makes
a lot of sense.
But just think about your brain and how it processes information.
If I were to ask you, Clifton, what color is the carpet in your living room?
And don't answer the question, but think about what happens to the process in your brain.
What you do is your brain automatically transports you back to the living room and you literally
look down at the carpet and you see the color.
So that's what happens.
And so the exact same thing happens.
If I can have a technician go ahead and set and level a unit 10 times.
So let's say I have a brand new technician, just new to our team, and they set and level
the unit 10 times in VR.
Now when the lead installer says, hey, go set and level that unit, they know exactly
what to do.
And so this reduces callbacks, it increases efficiency on the job site.
It allows you to be able to do that one or two extra installs per month, which, you know,
that can make a huge difference on the bottom line.
And so those are the types of things that we're doing.
And then you start to think about the troubleshooting side of things.
If they're literally taking the voltage meter, OK, so I go ahead and put my probes here and
here and this is the reading that I'm looking for.
Again, they're moving their arms, they're doing it when they get out in the field.
It's the exact same board that they've been working on.
And technology is changing at a breakneck speed, right?
Crazy.
So the cool thing about doing this in VR is almost as soon as you create a training lab
and you hard install all of the stuff into your training lab, the equipment's outdated.
Yeah, it's ready for an update.
And so that's this perpetual changing out.
It's costly and it's something that you get to put time and resources to to continue doing
those updates.
Whereas in VR, we can just go ahead and push an update and everything is updated in our
whole entire database for everybody that's out there.
So VR, I think, is from that standpoint, the simulation side of VR is really, really important.
But the other thing that we've really been working on.
So we partnered up with a company called Chalk Bites.
And what they do in VR is that we've actually literally built our own virtual campus.
Oh, really?
And so now I can have instructors that don't have to get on an airplane.
They don't need to go to a hotel and they can go into our virtual campus and I can have
40, 50 students that didn't have to get on an airplane, didn't have to go to a hotel,
didn't have to drive.
And so we can do more classes and again, making them more available.
But now they're getting a live classroom instruction.
And I will tell you, it just blows you away the first time you put on this VR headset.
The instructors inside of there, there's a little bit of a God complex that happens with
the instructor because I literally can tell everybody to sit and push a button makes everybody
sit down in the chair.
But I can mute everybody, which is kind of interesting and fun.
But there's this thing called 3D sound.
And so now I can say, okay, I want you guys to go work on this furnace over here.
You guys go work on this air conditioner over here.
You guys go work on this ductless unit over here.
And they're getting in groups.
But in Zoom, everybody's always talking over each other.
And it's difficult here.
This group's huddled over here.
The instructor can walk over and hear the conversations they're having and talk with
them.
Then the instructor can walk over here and he can work with that group just like you
would in a real classroom.
Now VR physics don't apply.
So the other thing that's really cool, I can blow a furnace up to 20 stories tall.
I can literally walk into the furnace or walk into the air conditioner, walk into the heat
pump.
And so there's some things or I can shrink it down and put the unit in the palm of their
hand and every student can have their own furnace or air conditioner and the instructor
can point different things out.
So there's some great advantages that are happening there.
And all of this stuff, because you're in a 3D environment, the learning goes way up.
The other thing is when you have a headset on, guess what you can't do?
I can't check my text messages.
I can't be distracted by emails.
I can't be...
Right, you're locked in.
I am completely 100% focused.
And so there's been studies that have been done in the military.
In fact, one of the education institutions that really pioneered a lot of the VR learning
has been the medical industry.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
And so what they have found is the retention is 80% higher in VR than it is in a live classroom.
Now that's very interesting.
And so it's really interesting as we start to look at this.
So you start layering technology utilizing VR with live training.
And then we get into things like augmented reality.
I'm really excited about this.
Oh my gosh, I love it.
Yeah, I spent a lot of time with Zspace.
They're really intriguing.
You think about augmented reality and what they can do.
Now literally, I can go ahead and bring up the unit on my phone and somebody can literally
go in there and say, put your probes here and here.
And so again, they're teaching, but you've got somebody that can either live through
the augmented reality working in there.
Also in augmented reality, now I can bring a huge rooftop unit into a conference room.
Put it in your hands.
Everybody can walk around it.
Take a look at it.
Take panels off.
And so there's just all these great things that are happening with technology as we see
this emerging.
But what I see this doing is it's increasing the bandwidth for the number of instructors
we have and the challenge that we have to be able to get out in front and really prepare
us for this as we continue to move forward and we see all the things that are happening.
And so that's VR and AR.
Now we got this thing called artificial intelligence.
It seems to be like this super big buzzword that everybody's looking at.
And so what can you do with it?
So imagine if you took all of the podcasts that you've ever recorded and you ran it through
a software program that did voice to text, took all of that text.
Now I can upload all of that information into an AI engine.
I can create an avatar and now somebody can ask any question and AI will search all of
the data, all of the information that's ever been recorded on this podcast and it will
give real plain English answers back to questions that people have.
And so I really see AI being one of the things that's going to start leading as we continue
to move forward because now a technician out in the field, what is the biggest challenge
everybody has?
I can't get a hold of tech support because everybody would like it instantaneously.
I need tech support now.
And so what this does is it allows you through the power of AI, I can take all of those conversations.
So utilizing technology like what XOI has been doing out there.
XOI is doing some great stuff, but imagine if all of those tech support calls that we're
recording, we input those into this AI engine.
Now instead of somebody trying to search through just all of this information, all of these
calls, now I can leverage AI to get those answers back and to help the technician real
time in the field.
And so I just seen where AI is going and what it's doing.
And again, this is going to help us be able to accomplish some of these big tasks that
we have with all of these changes that are happening.
So we talked about VR, we talked about AI, we talked about augmented reality.
The other big challenges that I see just in technology as we continue to build this stuff
out is going with a platform like XOI.
So what sort of apps are going to be available that are going to provide that real, you know,
those workflows and that tech enablement out in the field to enable technicians to be able
to solve all of the challenges that we have.
What I'm excited about, we've never been at a point where we've had all of this technology
available.
So we're going to be able to allow the end user to experience comfort like they've never
experienced it before.
I truly agree with that.
I've worked with all of the software that you were just now discussing.
And when you actually witness it and you feel it, you go, wow, think about the possibility.
We were just experimenting with some text to voice and text to video animation.
And so we built a profile actually used about an hour worth of my audio complex and then
actually did a audio repeat of content that we were creating off directly from Word content.
And I had to delete my profile because when I heard myself talking to me, I couldn't tell
it was not me.
So then it gets to a point, well, who would you like to give you the answer?
Now it doesn't have to be just some generated computer voice.
It could actually be your service manager.
It could actually be a trainer.
So there's so many interesting opportunities moving forward.
And that's going to aid in the education.
So my friend educators come and they say, I know, I see that.
It's really cool.
But I don't have time to integrate that in my program now.
And we go, don't do it during the day.
That's what we call homework, isn't it?
And they go, oh, I said, you know, if we think about Gen Z and we think about alpha, both
of them spend hours and upon hours every night into the digital immersed media right now.
So why would we not want to give them the opportunity to take that as a new interest
for them to go, oh, by the way, you know, you love doing this environment.
How about I assign you a project and let you run through this tonight, get yourself comfortable
with it.
And then tomorrow in class, when we do our hands on, you've probably already done it
10 times.
I'm only going to assign it to you to look at once, but you're probably going to do it
five times, 10 times, because you're going to challenge yourself to get better at it
every time.
And then when you come to class, you're going to be more than prepared for this assignment.
Absolutely.
You know, a couple of things that I found very interesting.
So go back to the VR.
We've had VR stations set up, you know, for the last five, six years.
We had all of the trade shows that we've done in just kind of my non scientific observation
that I've made.
And it's been very interesting is it seems to be the age range of 50 and over.
They're very excited about being involved in virtual reality and and putting all of
those things together.
You know, there's a lot of excitement there.
Then we get into the age range of 30 and under.
They've been playing in VR for a long, long time.
And so they're real comfortable with it.
But there's this group in between 30 and 50.
They're very hesitant to getting involved with this technology.
And so that's been fascinating to me as I make those observations and see that I also
see for all of the instructors that out there, some look at this technology almost as a threat.
Yeah, you know, is this is this technology going to replace me?
I am never.
And the answer is no.
What it's going to do is it's going to help you be on a bigger stage, if you will, a bigger
platform to be in front of more people and just be more accessible.
So for so long in training, I think what everybody has always been thinking about is I'm trading
time for money.
Well, you only have so much time that you can trade for that money that's out there.
And so if you kind of flip the script and you say instead of trading that time for money,
what I'm actually doing is we're finding a way to monetize on the knowledge that we're
putting out there to everybody.
And there's a lot of different ways to look at that.
But everybody needs to start thinking differently about the way we're doing it.
We talk about all of the technicians are going to have to change all of the HVAC businesses
are going to have to change as this technology changes.
Well, it's the same with the instructors.
And you know, the funny thing about human beings is we all know we need to change, but
nobody likes to change.
We're all very reluctant to change, unfortunately.
It's just human nature, like you said.
Yeah.
And the big message I've been saying is we all have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
We just have to go out there and try new things, have fun.
And that's where we're going to see, you know, the biggest advances happen as we're putting
all of this stuff together.
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.
That is the podcast name, my friend.
I'm so glad you joined us.
These are just great conversations.
We all have our part to do.
We all have things that are going to require a little bit of discomfort, maybe.
And it's okay.
Absolutely.
What's at the end of discomfort?
Growth.
That's what we're looking for.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Ben Middleton, Dyken Comfort Technologies.
So glad you joined us today.
Let's listen to some of those questions.
Okay.