The professor of possible
Imagine a world in which AI trains your dog; a robot prepares your evening meal; and your digger sends an Uber to collect your children from school. Welcome to the brain of Bobcat’s Vijay Nerva.
What a time to be alive. We live in an age in which traditional metal-bashing, heavy engineering construction equipment manufacturers employ people with the job title: “Innovation Accelerator”.
While many equipment manufacturers focus upon what they SHOULD do (improved safety, greater productivity and emissions reduction) Bobcat’s Vijay Nerva is focused upon what the company COULD do.
In construction equipment parlance, most manufacturers are driving forwards while keeping one eye on the rear-view mirror. Nerva, however, is staring straight ahead, through a transparent OLED heads-up display and with his foot pressing the innovation pedal to the metal. Want to know how much he is living in the future? He is using AI to help train his dog!
I recently started a video podcast show in which I speak to the Chat GPT 4 o platform about all things technological. Five episodes in and it has been very well received and is slowly gaining traction. But I cannot claim the credit. The show was actually inspired by Vijay Nerva who said on LinkedIn that he was using the same AI to discuss and to “spit-ball” ideas.
So when we sat down together at Bobcat’s Dobris facility, it seemed appropriate to start our conversation with the subject of artificial intelligence. I was not prepared for his answer when I asked how he is currently deploying AI.
“I am using it to help train my dog,” he says, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. “The dog has an issue with recall so I asked Chat GPT to create a suitable training programme. It’s working very well.”
Nerva says he is also employing AI to recommend supplements for him to take. “I take vitamins and herbal supplements but I didn’t think I was getting the right mix and I was concerned that one supplement might be counteracting the benefits of another. So I consulted AI and it created a custom regime based on my specific requirements.”
Not surprisingly, the man that entrusts his dog’s training and his physical well-being to AI also utilises the technology in his workplace. But the way in which he does so is equally surprising.
He started by asking Chat GPT to ask him questions so that it better understood his needs. He then asked it for ideas and recommendations from other, allied industry sectors that might be of use in the construction equipment business.
“We have allied and parallel sectors like agriculture, transport and waste that can influence our thinking in construction,” he says. “But we also have sectors like IT and healthcare that have the potential to teach us something too. For instance, how could we integrate crypto currency into equipment rental contracts? Of course, Chat GPT doesn’t know construction equipment as well as we do at Bobcat. But if you combine what we know with what Chat GPT knows, you can make miracles.”
One of the things that strikes me about Vijay Nerva is the breadth of his vision. He is employed by a construction equipment manufacturer. But his outlook goes WAY beyond that.
“Today, construction equipment is increasingly filled with ‘black boxes’ of technology. There is a black box taking care of machine guidance, another managing telematics, another one to monitor machine functions. In all likelihood, there will be a black box for generative AI in the very near future. But currently, they all work in silos,” he says. “But what if AI could tell the telematics system that the weather is about to change for the worse. As a result, the operator and his machine might not hit that day’s productivity targets. That can then be communicated automatically to stakeholders. But that same system could also notify your spouse to let them know you will be late home as a result. It could order an Uber to collect your son or daughter from school. It could notify your food prep’ robot to start preparing dinner an hour later than originally planned. We are working in silos today. But the ecosystem will come together one day.”
Nerva admits that one of the greatest stumbling blocks standing between construction and his technological and futuristic nirvana is the industry’s innate conservatism. But he is not deterred.
“I was listening to a podcast recently in which it was predicted that we will see a billion dollar company owned and operated by a single person. That sounds far-fetched. But it would be entirely possible for a single person to own and manage a fleet of 200 machines from his back room,” he adds. “Just think how much that would disrupt the industry.”
That may be some way off. But Nerva and his Bobcat colleagues are already harnessing technology to disrupt the industry in their own way. “Look at our T7X compact tracked loader. There’s lots of companies doing battery electric machines now, but there are still emissions - vibration, noise, fluid leaks. We said ‘zero emissions means zero emissions’. So we replaced all the hydraulics with electric motors and actuators, eliminating all fluid leaks. And the machine is now so quiet that customers are asking us to install a white noise generator to alert workers of its presence.”
Just a few years ago, Bobcat publicly stated its aim to become the world’s leading manufacturer of compact equipment. It was an ambitious target but one that it remains on track to achieve. But the company has quietly and simultaneously become one of the industry’s true technological leaders. It has shown off electric machines; machines fitted with a transparent OLED heads-up display; personnel recognition systems; and even a safety system that temporarily shuts off parts of the machine if the operator’s hands stray from the controls. They’re not done yet.
“We’re great at making machines. And we have a strategy to be every bit as good at technology. We are learning from all these other industry sectors and we are constantly searching for ways in which their technology might be harnessed in a construction equipment application,” Vijay Nerva concludes. “There was a time when the construction equipment sector was lagging behind the automotive industry. But that’s not the case any longer. With innovations like the transparent OLED screen, we are doing things they haven’t even thought of because they are driven by a desire to be sexy and cool. In construction, we are driven by need. That is what allows us to do bonkers stuff. And that’s what I want to do. Bonkers stuff.”