How to Work Smarter with Tech Companies to Maximize Impact

Successful food processing automation requires strong partnerships with a variety of companies, including technology providers. However, meat processors and tech companies ascribe to very different structures, processes, lexicons, and workforces. 

In this video, PPO Customer Success Manager, Jamie Poholko, gives seasoned advice on how to bridge critical gaps and facilitate mutual understanding. Whether you operate in beef processing, chicken processing, pork processing or another environment, tap into Jamie’s insights to help reduce risk and fully embrace the benefits that come from working seamlessly with the right tech partners.  

Time to watch = 9 min 45 sec. Don’t have time? Skip straight to the highlights!

Working With Tech Companies Video Highlights

Seeing builds understanding (1:31):

“When you’re in an industrial application you’re more cautious. You’re not moving quite as quickly. And the tech company needs to understand that. And as a meat processor, you need to understand how [the tech company] operates as well. So, one of the things that I would recommend is bringing that tech company into your operation. Show them how they have an impact on your day-to-day and how expensive it is if something goes wrong. Make sure they meet all the different players in your organization.” – Jamie Poholko, Customer Success Manager at PPO

Be specific with language to avoid miscommunication (2:32):

You have to try, at the beginning at least, to step out of your comfort zone of knowing all of these things… take a look at AI. In [the tech] industry, that’s artificial intelligence. When you look at beef or others, the same acronym means avian influenza or artificial insemination.” – Jamie Poholko, Customer Success Manager at PPO

Future-proof your workforce support (7:37):

“Every plant I’ve been in, every employee has a smartphone. So, working with something that has a screen is probably not too scary for them…but there is turnover. That’s a reality that happens way more frequently in a meat processing plant or every other industrial application. So, make sure that the tech company is supplying you with the resources you need to retrain or keep training up with your employees – online resources, training manuals, those kinds of things.” – Jamie Poholko, Customer Success Manager at PPO

Keep Learning with More Behind the Scenes Videos

Read a Transcript of Jamie’s Interview

Jump to the section of interest: 

• • Understanding Industrial Processes

• • Bridge the Gap: Language and Communication

• • Pace and Timelines

• • Industry Experience and Operations

• • Guiding Tech Companies to Support Workforce Differences

• • Open Communication Drives Success

Heather Galt: Welcome to Behind the Scenes with PPO, a video series that looks behind the curtain at how meat processors are working with tech companies like PPO and why.

I’m Heather Galt, the Chief Customer Officer here at P&P Optica. Today, I’m joined by Jamie Poholko, one of PPO’s customer success managers.

Jamie’s been with PPO for about three years now, and he’s worked with a variety of different meat processors during his time.

Before that, he spent about twenty years working in customer success for technology companies in a variety of different industrial processing applications.

Welcome, Jamie.

Jamie Poholko: Thanks, Heather.

HG: Let’s jump right in. Tell me a little bit from your experience, when a tech company starts working with an industrial processor, whether it’s a meat processor or something else, what are some of the things they need to keep in mind right from the beginning?

Understanding Industrial Processes

JP: Keep in mind that meat processing and high-tech are culturally very, very different from each other. Tech companies move so fast. They pivot almost daily, maybe even weekly, and they are not afraid to make mistakes because they can just revert back. You make a mistake in your code or something like that, you can go back to the next one that you had before that was working perfectly fine. 

Meat processing, and industrial processing in general, does not have any of that luxury. 

HG: No undo button.

HG: Exactly. No undo button. So when you’re in an industrial application, you’re more cautious. You’re not moving quite as quickly.

And with a tech company, they need to understand that. And as a meat processor, you need to understand how they operate as well. So one of the things that I would recommend is bringing that tech company into your operation. Show them how they have an impact on your day-to-day and how expensive it is if something goes wrong. And make sure they meet all the different players in your organization.

HG: That’s a great idea. So basically, what you’re saying is…come in, get to know each other a little bit, and understand the risks and benefits of whatever the technology is inside the context of your organization before you start moving ahead.

JP: That’s right.

Bridge the Gap: Lamguage and Communication

HG: That makes sense. So tech companies have a pretty specialized language. You and I both know all the three-letter acronyms (or TLAs) that tech companies have.

Right. And what I’ve seen with meat processors is they have the same thing, but those two languages are very different. So how do you bridge the gap?

I think that you have to try, at the beginning at least, to step out of your comfort zone of knowing all of these things and take a look at, for instance, AI. In our industry, that’s artificial intelligence. When you look at beef processing or others, you have avian influenza or artificial insemination.

There’s many different ways you can say the same two letters. That’s going to exist in your industry, and it’s also going to exist in the tech industry. So break down those barriers, explain what that means, and then each of you will be on the same page with what these acronyms or these short forms mean to each other. So the next time you say AI as a tech company, you say artificial intelligence versus avian influenza, as an example.

HG: Maybe avoiding the assumption.

JP: That’s right. Exactly. Avoid the assumption that they know what you mean when you say AI or other acronyms that exist in your industry.

HG: Right. Because everybody’s industry has their own kind of perspective. 

JP: Correct.

Pace and Timelines

HG: Tech companies move really fast. And the meat industry, as an example, in a lot of industrial applications, they don’t have that same speed and pace. So how does a meat processor kind of help the tech company to make sure they understand the timelines that each is working in and get to the middle in the agreement on that?

JP: Again, I highly recommend both companies get together in the plant. Tech companies that you want to be working with as a meat processor will have some industry experience. That’s the hope and goal. Unless you’re an early adopter. If you’re an early adopter, then you are going to have to teach these tech companies a little bit.

So have a little bit of patience with them. They’re very keen. They’re very curious companies usually. There are also different structures in a tech company versus a meat processor.

A tech company is usually very flat. So the person that is developing software is often talking directly with the CEO, maybe once a day, maybe once a week.

Oftentimes, a meat processing person that’s cutting, making trim, or deboning a chicken is never going to meet the CEO of an industrial processor. 

HG: Or even meet the person who runs their plant.

JP: Perhaps. Or a complex manager that has multiple plants that kind of moves around to different locations frequently.

HG: Right.

JP: So, bring those people into your organization. Bring them in. Share as much as you can, because they’re going to be very curious. Teach them about you. Teach them about your operation and how they have an impact on what your day-to-day looks like because it’s going to be very different than what their experience has been so far.

Industry Experience and Operations

And if you’re working with a company that has been around for much longer, they’ll have some of this experience already, right? They will often have industry people working for them like we do at PPO, or they’re going to lean on industry experts to get a bit of an understanding of how their operations or your operations are going to work.

But as we all know in every chicken processing plant, every pork processing plant, yes, the product comes in and the product leaves. But how it gets done? There are some subtle differences. And where this piece of equipment or software or whatever new tech that you’re bringing in can have a different impact on your entire operation.

HG: For sure. Okay. So, one last question, and it’s sort of in a similar vein. 

Guiding Tech Companies to Support Workforce Differences

HG: The workforce inside a tech company and the workforce inside a meat processing plant can be pretty different, not only in terms of size, but in terms of background and education – like you talked about: culture. 

JP: Absolutely.

HG: So how do you as a meat processor prepare the tech company to succeed in helping your workforce use their tools? What can a meat processor do to guide a tech company in that regard?

JP: Tech companies typically, like I said earlier, are fairly young organizations, fairly flat. They have no problem talking to different people, and they’re usually fairly educated people.

When you look at a meat processor, or most industrial applications that I’ve worked in anyway, some of these people that are working in these plants maybe have a high school education or maybe didn’t finish high school, and then all the way through to PhDs, right? So you have a wide variety of people. 

So, as a meat processor, I think one of the things that I would recommend is bringing in and sharing the level of education for your equipment. Some of those people that are on the plant floor, every plant I’ve been in, every employee has a smartphone. So, working with something that has a screen is probably not too scary for them. Working with different software applications, your teams that are working with that probably already work with a computer every single day.

So it’s probably not that scary, but there is turnover. That’s a reality that happens way more frequently in a meat processing plant or every other industrial application.

So, make sure that the tech company is supplying you with the resources you need to retrain or keep training up with your employees – online resources, training manuals, those kinds of things.

HG: Like a checklist so somebody knows exactly what to do every day.

JP: A daily operational checklist. Yes.

HG: Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. So, any parting words? What would your last piece of advice be? What haven’t we talked about?

Open Communication Drives Success

JP: I would say that one of the biggest things that a meat processor and tech company can do together is really have open communication. That’s going to be critical. Share your insight into how this new piece of equipment is going to help you, what your main goals are, and give them the opportunity to help you reach your goals and be successful in the end. 

Open, honest communication has really worked for me in all of my industry experience and has gotten the results that everyone has been looking for. 

HG: Awesome. That was super insightful. Thank you, Jamie.

Don’t forget to check out the other videos in our Behind the Scenes series, including our interview with Alex Heater, who dispels some myths that we often come across when we talk about foreign materials. See you next time.