Dave Nordentoft - The New Technology of Heat Welding - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with BLANK AND BLANK FROM BLANK. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade, listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another episode of Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and I'm heading east towards Chicago land. To visit with a dear friend Dave Nordentoft from Leister. And Dave and I have crossed paths many times in the industry, and who doesn't know the name Leister. So we're going to be talking about the new technologies of Leister today. Dave, welcome to the show.

Dave Nordentoft: Thank you, Heidi. It's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the opportunity.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Ah, I'm so excited to have you and I love technology, anything around technology, so I'm really excited for this conversation today.

Dave Nordentoft: Thank you.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So before we get started, let's start with an introduction. So if you could introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you, about Leister, so everybody knows you.

Dave Nordentoft: Absolutely, thank you. I've been with Leister now for about nine years in a role and a manager of the roofing product category. So in that role, core responsibilities include managing our distribution network throughout the United States. So that's from product management to education, training, that sort of thing. I also have responsibilities for industry relations within the industry because we don't live on an island, we don't operate on an island. So we have a lot of key partnerships within the industry from material manufacturers to other complimentary tool categories and that sort of thing. So that's been my core responsibility since I've been with Leister. I've had some responsibilities in the marketing arena as well and get involved with a lot of our trade shows and that sort of thing. But again, roofing industry has been in my blood like it is for a lot of other people.

And I've been in the industry my entire career. Prior to Leister, spent quite a bit of time in material distribution side of the business locally, again here in Chicago. Been field sales for material manufacturer as well. So spent a lot of time in the industry. It's been good to me. But Leister, so Leister as a company has been around since 1949. We are a Swiss space manufacturer. We're involved in a lot of different industries and a lot of different sectors. So a lot of people obviously think of us for what we do in the roofing category, but really get involved with a lot of different things, a lot of different tool categories.

A lot of it all revolves around utilization of hot air and hot air technologies. And so much of it is tied in to the plastics industry. So again, you think about the roofing industry. We weld thermoplastic roof membranes, that's our core competence. But when you get outside of the roofing category, there are just an infinite number of different types of thermoplastics and products and so forth. And so the tools that we manufacture across so many different industry categories from plastic fabrication and process heat tools, flooring to textiles and all that sort of thing. So we operate eight different subsidiaries globally and our products are shipped into over a hundred different countries around the world.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. I mean, who doesn't know the name Leister? I mean, it's just so well known out there. One of the things I don't know if everyone is aware of is beyond your hot air heat welding technologies, which you're so well known for, Leister has been doing a lot with overall technologies and app solutions. So I am really excited to talk about the leister quality system or LQS technology. Can you kind of explain to everybody what that is?

Dave Nordentoft: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So going back as far as around 2017, Leister rolled out a platform we call LQS, which stands for Leister Quality System. We first really rolled this out into our geosynthetic membrane category. So those are the types of membranes that are installed. Most of them are all below grade or in tunnels for securing waste containment for say landfills or aquaculture or fracking applications and mining and that sort of thing. So basically what's happening in a sense with this Leister Quality System, it's an overall quality management system. And so any tool that is LQS enabled now records and tracks welding data in the background on the machine.

So the different features that are built in all revolve around the ability to track what we're doing and be able to document what we're doing and archive what we're doing. And there's some other features that allow for you to be able to monitor and track the quality control process in real time as well. So that's where we got our start again around 2017. And so we saw the benefit of being able to say, take a look at this technology and carry it across some of these other industry sectors. Like I mentioned before, roofing being one of them. And so just in the last year or so, we've had the process of introducing this LQS concept into the roofing industry.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And it's really about being able to monitor the quality of that heat weld and track that, right? I mean keeping the project within parameters. I just find it so interesting because I'm thinking about, okay, here's everybody out on the roof and they're heat welding, and you're actually able to set parameters to make sure they stay within the quality specifications, right?

Dave Nordentoft: Yeah, sure. Now, heat welding process is not an exact science. There's art and science to the whole thing. So through education and training operators get to utilize our equipment and learn how to use our equipment, work with the different material manufacturers, sort of figure out and get us sort of dialed in with the right balance and mix of temperature, speed and welding pressure. I mean, those are the three key welding parameters. You really need that fine combination and balance of those three things for successful welding of thermoplastic.

So every project's different, every manufacturer's membrane has different welding characteristics, you have different ambient air temperatures, you have different varying voltages, let's say, coming into your machines. So all these different things can be different on every single project you do. And so if these installers are doing their due diligence, they're working on a project every day doing test welds and that sort of thing to see that they get that temperature speed combination sort of dialed in and checked to make sure that their weld looks good before they do the production work.

So what we're doing here is we're taking the machine, we're able to set these parameters in the machine, and now there's a feature that we built in that's tied in with LQS. We call it monitored welding assistant. Okay. So what we're able to do with each of these key welding parameters is establish a range plus or minus from that set welding parameter. And so what the machine's going to do is it's going to monitor each time that the weld is initiated, that nozzles inserted and the weld starts, that data's being tracked to the background, but this monitored welding assistant is watching.

And if there's anything that happens, whether it be electronic or mechanical, that takes one of those key welding parameters outside of that established, say, limit range that you would've put in the machine, then you're going to get an alarm. There's going to be a visible flashing red display and an audible alarm on the machine that would tell the operator, Hey, something's happening here that's taking us potentially outside of our welding window, that perhaps whatever is happening here may potentially compromise weld quality.

So the thought would be, Hey, let's stop this process right now. Let's assess conditions. Let's figure out why this is happening. Rather than just continuing on it and potentially have hundreds or thousands of lineal feet of compromised weld. Let's go ahead and stop. Let's assess the conditions. Let's take corrective action before we continue on. Now, this incident, let's say, would've also been recorded in the background. And so in the end, when you're able to go back and take a look at the data report that can be generated at the conclusion of all this, you'd be able to say, okay, on weld number, pick a number, weld five, we had an incident. So we can use that to say, Hey, or we take our last step off of this roof, Hey, let's go back and check that area of weld five again and let's just double check and make sure that everything's good.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I mean, that is really important for a contractor to be able to look at those reports, those data reports at the end of a job or even throughout the job on a daily basis and say, oh, we had some monitoring issues here. We're going to go check that out and just make sure that everything worked. I mean, to me, that seems like it is definitely a risk mitigation. And it also somewhat of a labor savings too, because you aren't checking the whole roof, you know exactly how everything has been performing.

Dave Nordentoft: Right. Exactly. And so the thought would be that under most conditions, we're not dealing with these alarms going off and everything is smooth sailing. And so in the course of regular project management, I mean, they're doing all the things they should be doing anyway, and that's doing visible inspections of their seams when they're done running a seam probe just to probe the seams, the things that the material manufacturers teach them and work with them all the time. So this is again, sort of a safety net, so to speak, to be able to say, okay, well, let's just double check. We have this data, we have this information at our fingertips. Let's utilize this again. So before we walk off this project, we make sure that we've checked all these different things. We have this right here in our hand.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And just in talking about this, I'm thinking, does this also help new employees who are learning how to weld, help them stay in once they learn how to do it, the machine also is going to kind of warn them when things are not going? I mean, it seems like it could be a learning mechanism also.

Dave Nordentoft: Well, if anything else, what it does is it helps sort of establish norms.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dave Nordentoft: Let's say under normal conditions or under this type of condition or that type of condition. Because for instance, one of the other features built into is called recipe management. So you can go either through the app that we have or directly into the display itself, and you can create custom recipes or starting parameter combinations. So let's just say you're working with X, Y, Z manufacturer on a 60 mil TPO or whatever, in a normal late spring to late summer type temperature environment or anything. With fairly standard in the same conditions, you can create a starting recipe. So you can say, okay, we're going to start at this temperature. We're going to start at this speed and this airflow, we'll name it, we'll save it. And then they could be used as starting reference points when we have these different conditions, you can either create recipes for a good different kind of ambient, or you can create recipes based on different material manufacturers or mill thicknesses or whatever.

And so again, there's standard starting points that are getting used. And I stress the word starting points because again, every manufacturer will stand in front of a contractor and say, Hey, what are you doing at the beginning of your day? Are you running your test welds? Are you checking to make sure that you're getting the right well quality before you're doing your production work? So again, this is just a way to give them something that's at the fingertips, so to speak, in the starting parameters, so they can all be saved into the machine, it can be saved in the app, and it can be saved and put on multiple machines. So it's consistent across manufacturer's or contractors fleet of machines, let's say.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That is so cool. So let's talk about myLeister App. I mean, that's the cool thing. And so you can have all this equipment and they talk to each other, I assume bluetooth or some sort, but you can set these parameters from your phone. So when you're up on the roof, you're foreman, your project manager or whoever is handling the equipment can set all of this easily from their phone, right?

Dave Nordentoft: Well, so the way this works is when a new user purchases an LQS enabled machine, they want to download the myLeister App onto mobile device. It's available iOS, Android, Windows. So download the app and create a myLeister account. So you create a user account. And so the app on the mobile device actually communicates with the LQS enabled machine via wifi. So yeah, you either have Bluetooth or you have wifi, protocols. So the machine puts off its own unique wifi signal that is picked up by the mobile device, and you pair it and you register the machine to your myLeister account. So that connects everything together. And again, so every time that the machine is operating and actively welding, it's recording that data in the background. And so the way that the data ends up in the mobile device is you have to just synchronize it, and it can happen anytime you have connectivity.

So you can do it on the roof during the project, you can do it at the end of the day. You don't have to do it at the end of every day. You can do it whenever you like, but it is going to pull that data and it's going to bring it into that mobile device. So the user will have the ability to be able to view that and analyze that data on that mobile device. But the nice thing about this is that because it's cloud based, there is connectivity and shareability, so this data can then be synchronized to the cloud account.

All right. So there's a little cloud in the upper corner of the app. So the next time that mobile device is in the presence of an internet connection, if you hit that cloud, it syncs that data to the cloud account so that anybody within the organization who then would have that myLeister login credential available to them could log in, whether if they're running the app on a notebook computer or a different mobile device, log in with that joint connection or joint account, and then they would've access to that same data.

So it could be an owner in a office in another state, it could be a superintendent in the office, anybody would have access to that same welding data. So on the job, you have the ability to see a live view of the screen, but the actual interface from setting and changing parameters happens right in the display itself on the project. So you can set and retrieve that custom recipe or a standard recipe, or you can put your own in real time, and then when ready to start, you start the heating and the welding at that point in time.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: This makes so much sense, and I keep thinking about it from the productivity of the machines and the operators and how that data really helps the crews with, I don't know, I keep saying that, but risk mitigation through the inspections, through the documentation phases of the job you are gathering. I mean, what do they always say, Dave? Data, data, data, that's all that people care about anymore. But you're gathering so much data off every single job it has to help productivity and the overall inspection process.

Dave Nordentoft: Well, sure. So you're able to utilize and analyze the data from the app in the LQS tab of the app. So once we pull that data off the machine, it's in the app, you can analyze it. So what's that look like? Okay, so when you analyze the data, basically what you're going to see first are a series of what basically look like EKGs. There's individual graphs for each of those parameters. So we're tracking temperature, we're tracking speed, tracking airflow, and we're also tracking incoming voltage into the machine, which I think is kind of a big deal today because a lot of issues related to machine performance and optimal welding performance are tied into improper power supply. And so now we'll be able to see that in a data report, if there becomes some issue with how a generator's operating on a job, we would see that voltage drop or a spike or something like that.

And a lot of times, whether it's serious enough to cause damage, but serious enough to maybe take one of those parameters and change it, would then be documented. We'd be able to know that that was the source of the problem. So anyway, you can analyze this data in the app and take a look. You have the ability to go in and create a table that basically documents everything about the project from project name, what type of membrane, the manufacturer, what kind of roof deck is used, what kind of vapor bar... A to Z. You populate all the kind of information in there about the project itself. Then you can go in and start analyzing this data. So it's a dropdown menu. So weld one, well two, it's all in dropdowns. I can select my weld that I want to take a look at. And then again, you're going to see what's going to look like EKG line.

So if we have a nice consistent temperature, it's just going to look like a flat line, which most people for EKGs, we don't like flat lines. In an LQS report, we love flat lines.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We love flat lines.

Dave Nordentoft: We like nice, consistent, even temperatures and speeds and airflow and voltage across, it's measuring across distance and time. So then you can go the dropdown, you'll look at weld number two, and again, you're going to see the same sort of thing. And so then we can go to subsequent pages in the report that would show summaries. So you can see, okay, how many welds were done in that session. You can see how many lineal feet were welded on each weld. So, oh, by the way, I guess with this app is yeah, you're going to be able to glean some productivity information on this as well.

So at the end of the day, you might say, oh, we had 18 welds and we welded 1,391 feet total, or whatever. So going circle back here again on the alarm system or that monitored welding. So if we had a situation where the monitored welding assistant was active because we had a problem that would be shown in this data. So if, again, using my example from before, if it was weld number five, I go to weld number five and say, my temperature dropped. So when I look at that line and then the temperature, you would see that drop off, and then during the duration when the monitored welding went off, it would be highlighted and red. So you would be able to see, oh, okay, from 120 inches to 400 inches down that seam, this is when that alarm went off. So that would be the indicator.

Okay, well, that's where we're going to go check. So I could do a short report. Let's say I just want to get cut to the chase here, and I just want to see where did I have alarms, where did I have issues? Well, there's an ability to go in and do what's called a short report. So I can click short report, it's going to filter out all the good welds, all the flat line ones, and it's just going to give me a dropdown where any time where that monitor welding assistant went off. Okay.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Dave Nordentoft: So in that data table, again, you're going to be able to see all these different marks of time and intervals down to seam, and I'll have a snapshot of what the parameters were at that point in time, temperature, speed, airflow, and what the voltage was at that moment in time.

The other thing that was captured, and all this as well, were the GPS coordinates of that seam when it was initiated. So in the data report, you'll have latitude and longitude and it'll be hyperlinked. Okay? So when you're finished and you want, you can click on this, it'll take you to Google Maps, it'll drop a pin on that roof surface as to where that data was collected. So again, it's a way to sort of corroborate and say, yes, this was the project, this was the roof section where this data was collected from. So when we're all done with this data report is saveable as a CSV or a PDF file.

So again, it can be archived for the future. So if a contractor has a situation where they have to refer back at some point in time in the future and say, what did we do during that project? Or if there's some other party who may be interested in that information, maybe it's a material manufacturer, maybe it's a roof consultant, not really sure. But if someone else wants to say, Hey, what did you do? What did you weld at? Or whatever, boom, I've got this archived for the future. And it's shareable.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: You can show the quality of the welds or the fact that you recognize and went back and fixed it, and that can all be documented. That's pretty huge to have on a job because you never know with warranties and everything else that's going on, that kind of information. Yeah.

Dave Nordentoft: Yeah. Let's face it, things happen and we don't know if it's going to be a year, it could be five years or whatever. And if somebody starts pointing fingers and saying, oh, we think it was a welding issue or whatever, we say, well, at least this is what we did. This is one piece of overall comprehensive quality control program that we run. We were on safety program, we want quality control. These are all the things we as a contractor do, and this is just a piece of it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think it's brilliant. And wow, whoever came up with all that, that's just great. Since 2017 and to see where we're at with technology. So how can contractors incorporate LQS into their company?

Dave Nordentoft: Absolutely. So right now we have LQS on one of our machines. I do see a point in time in the future where we're going to want to integrate them into more. So again, today it's on our unit of 700. So that's where we started with, okay, so that's one of our welders in the more compact class of welders. So again, if they went on and purchased a unit of 700, downloaded the app, the app's free. There's no charge for the service. So they can download the app and create that cloud account with us, connect to their machine, register it, and begin the process.

And here's the thing, I mean, I know there are going to be certain circumstances where maybe they just say, we don't really need to do data collection or that sort of thing. It's still a welder, fundamentally it's still a roof welder and it'll still right weld. I mean, you can go into the display and you can disable and just say, okay, well my next project, I'm going to collect the data and whatever, and you go back in and you enable it. So it's there. It's at your fingertips to use whenever you feel like you need it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I think this is going to become more the norm as we move forward. I mean, we hear about this all the time, that equipment that is GPS enabled so you can find it so that where it's at, I mean, there's just so many things that are changing with our machine, whether it's heat welders or whatever it may be on the job site. That's all fair.

Dave Nordentoft: Sure. Well, the GPS topic is really huge. We get asked all the time, once I mentioned that we're capturing GPS latitude, longitude, their eyes light up and say, oh, can I track my machine? Can I find it right now? We're not there at the moment with that, but it's an active project for us because we get asked all the time, Hey, our machines get stolen. We love to be able to use GPS to track them and be able to recover. Or even just from a fleet management standpoint, just say, Hey, listen, I own 10 welders.

I'd like to know where my machines are. This machine's supposed to be on this project. This machine should be in the shop. This machine should be on that project or whatnot. And it'd be nice just to be able to manage it from that standpoint and know where their equipment is. And so these are some things that we definitely are working on and see some advantages to helping the industry and integrate that into machines of the future as well.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, so everyone stay tuned. It's on its way. But right now, please check out the LQS. I tell you, this is the kind of technologies that are changing the rooftop, and we're going to continue to see that it's only going to go faster and faster and faster. That's what we're seeing every single day. So Dave, thank you so much for all this information and for being here and a part of Roofer's Coffee Shop.

Dave Nordentoft: Well, thank you so much, Heidi. It was a pleasure being here today, and I appreciate your time.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Ah, it was great. I learned so much. And for everyone out there, please visit the Leister directory on Roofer's Coffee Shop and find out about all of this information and so much more. And we are constantly updating. There's some great articles out there. So check it out. Dave, one last time. Thank you so much for being here, and we're bringing you back to talk again about tips and tricks, and also I want to hear about that GPS step down the road.

Dave Nordentoft: Sounds good. We'll see you then.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: See you then. And thank you all for listening. Please check out all of our podcasts under the re-listen watch section of our navigation under podcasts and Roofing Road Trips, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. We'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Audio: Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.