Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (MTD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
February 28, 2023
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Kristina Johnston
executivePlease note that we are going to be recording today's session for future marketing purposes, including the possible sharing on the Mettler-Toledo website as an on-demand webinar. Welcome to today's weighing automation, integration webinar for Mettler-Toledo. We are thrilled that you're able to join us. [Operator Instructions] We have 2 individuals assisting us with today's presentation. We have our presenter, Craig Nickoloff; as well as our business expert, Andy Kletrovets. So Andy will be answering questions during the presentation through the chat box as well as will be able to pause the presentation at appropriate times. Myself, my name is Kristina Johnston. I'm your moderator for today's presentation. And at this time, I'd like to pass it over to Craig. Over to you, Craig.
Craig Nickoloff
executiveGreat. Thank you very much, Kristina. Hi, everyone. And welcome to the webinar again. So let's go ahead and get started. So as a brief overview of Mettler-Toledo. We're one of the biggest providers and marketers and measurement of technology worldwide. We have a broad portfolio of solutions along our customer value chain, covering areas from laboratory solutions and process analytics to product inspection; logistics solutions; and finally, retail weighing solutions such as your local deli counter. But today, we're -- about our industrial weighing solutions and more specifically, those in the automation industry. We have a worldwide setup in our facilities that are spread around the globe with organizations in 40 countries and have over 8,150 local sales, marketing and service specialists to support you. Now let's get into the automation side of things. We'll take a closer look at automation connectivity. Well, let's clarify first. What is the automation world? Automation is the control of the process by a program or a device. There are different control devices that control these processes, PLCs or programmable logic controllers, DCS or distributed control systems or simply just PCs or a server. Industrial Ethernet is a communication standard, so to say. Here, we have the most commonly used communication standard worldwide, the Industrial Ethernet. Industrial Ethernet is a deterministic technology. So you see here set up between sensors, the terminal and transmitters and the PLC in this case. We have different ways to connect the scale or the scale system to an automation system. [indiscernible] in USB or kind of technology and older technology and are no longer of use in these systems. They're outdated, and the speed is not very high, and USB has security risks. Now weighing sensors, similar to vibration sensors or temperature sensors, are an input to a control system. Weighing sensors connect to a terminal or a transmitter, something you may be familiar with already, but then connects to a PLC, the Industrial Ethernet. Some smart sensors such as our WMF APW device connect directly. But it's important to note that some weighing sensors require a terminal or a transmitter to make that connection to the PLC or DCS system, but some connect automatically or directly. Additionally, there are software drivers available from the likes of Rockwell or Siemens or Emerson or Beckhoff. And of course, the manufacturer in this case, that's us, Mettler-Toledo, these make the installation easy in the form AOPs, AOIs or system drivers where you can essentially plug in the device. It recognizes it and ready to go. On the left, you can see where weighing sensors sit. Weighing sensors are an input to the device or to the control system here. They control or they connect to a terminal or a transmitter and then connects to a PLC. The PLC then can connect to the cloud or a PC. It doesn't really matter what happens from here as long as devices can connect to a PLC or control system. So we talked about connectivity, but what does that really mean? Well in the past, weighing specifically was done in a sort of disconnected way. You'd manually put something on a scale and you pull up a wait and read it. This connected non-digital industry in the past basically had separated items of automation. In some factories, certain areas will be automated, and others wouldn't. And in general, we do see that in weighing with floor scales, bench scales or lab balances. Those are not connected to automation. You might pre-batch or load something on for shipping and then read the weight, write something down, print ticket and send it along. That's what we saw in the past. But now as the industry starts to move to digital manufacturing and more connected automation, we see remote access, industrial security and full automation throughout the entire factory. This provides full process transparency, vertical integration and, very importantly, central alarming. And that's all possible through full automation, and we're starting to see companies shift in this direction. Some chemical companies and pharma companies have been very good at leading that charge, but other industries are kind of catching up. We see issues brought to light by COVID-19 in food plants, where manual labor had to be reduced because you weren't allowed to have people that close together. Now those are going to be taken over by automation. There are some core components of weighing automation that need to be considered to ensure that you're getting the most out of your weighing automation process. Speed is the number one. When we increase the speed, this increases the throughput or allows you to at least increase the throughput of your overall system. We'll talk about that in a little bit. It contributes to accuracy. So the faster we communicate, the faster the device says, "I have 100 pounds of my device to keep." The PLC can make a determinism based off of that, for example, to close a val to shut off the pump. The faster the communication, the more accurate our overall processes can be. High-speed touches incidents faster, alarmed events. If there's an issue with, say, a dynamic weighing application where things are moving very fast, the faster we communicate, the faster we weigh, the faster we can catch incidents and quickly stop that production line to ensure that nothing gets passed there, and it's incorrect or maybe out of compliance. What goes along with speed is that it sends more data. The faster a weighing device communicates, the faster we can send more data in the same amount of time leading up to that point. Data is very, very important for weighing automation. For data, we can better we can increase uptime and understand how our processes work that then allows us to maintain the processes, and we're not shutting down to perform maintenance or calibration on those devices. Or we can schedule it at the time that's most convenient for us or most convenient for you so that you can get back into operation more quickly with minimal disruptions. Data helps make more informed decisions. It can improve your processes through reporting and you can also stay compliant with this data. It's also just -- it also just provides smarter systems. Some of the data that we provide includes alarms, events, some of the alibi memory, it just gives you more transparency. It makes the system smarter because you can see into it. You're not bound to only what you could see by simply looking at the device or looking at the products sitting on the weighing device. You can look into the system during operation. And then finally, connectivity. Connectivity ensures easy setup. We can connect devices from 1 milligram up to 1,000, the same exact way. That means that if you have a very small application and a very large application in the same facility, you don't have to require a significant controls engineering effort to make those talk together. You simply plug them in. They work for the capacity and the application that they're designed for, and the connection to the PLC is all the same. This reduces overall cost as well because you can reduce engineering time. You can reduce the overall setup time. You can reduce any other sort of third-party equipment that may be needed to bridge gaps. So reducing the overall cost simply through broad connectivity is a core component of weighing automation. And finally, better scalability. Some of you may be end users, and you may be looking at scaling up your entire plant for weighing automation and integrating more and more weighing sensors into your process. Broad connectivity and wide applicability ensures better scalability. Because again, buying the device that's best for your application, select it, you know that it plugs and communicates with your PLC or DCS the same way as all the sensors and weighing devices in your facility. Now all system integrator or an EPC or a machine builder, this simply means that you can copy and paste the same design into different applications, into different facilities because you know, again, everything communicates in the same way. So back to speed. This is just common sense, right? The faster something communicates, the faster something reads, the better it is for the overall process. If you have weight sensors that communicate quickly and accurately, you can speed up your overall process by reducing latency, which is shown here in these pictures. The 4.2 millisecond is to read and communicate the weight in a standard process on the left. 4.2 milliseconds really isn't very much time at all. But with a fast automated weighing process, you could see in, say, 1.8 milliseconds to read the weight, see the wait and communicate the way. We're doing that 2.3x faster with low latency, high speed, highly accurate weighing systems. Now that means that you can essentially, if all the other components in your system can handle it, you can speed up your process better. 4.2 milliseconds and 1.8 milliseconds are both [indiscernible]. But just think about taking thousands of weighments a day and how the 2.4 milliseconds in time savings could allow you to make that many more weighments adding that much more value to your processes. Now, for example, a filling application. That means you can speed up your filling application because of faster readings and you can shut off valves quicker resulting in a more accurate fill. For check weighing, it just makes sense. If you have a conveyor belt that's moving and you're passing product over it, the faster you can communicate, whether that weight is okay or bad, the faster you can divert that product, the faster you can communicate back that something is wrong and you can essentially speed up your entire dynamic weighing process to have a faster throughput, simply through faster weight sensors. In order to fit with modern production processes, weighing devices must communicate in at least 10 milliseconds. So we are still in the world of speed, and we call this section the magic of 10. That means, as I said, the weighing device process information at least 10 milliseconds. For example, valve that is necessary is to transmit to weight from the sensor to a communicating network to the PLC and to the terminal in order to make a decision. On the left, in a decentralized control, this can happen even in 1 millisecond, nearly real time. So the sensor terminal directly decides to close the valve. Here, you don't have a control system in between. As we discussed, not only the weight goes into the PLC, but also other sensor parameters end up in the control system. As you can see here in the upper graph, the scale sends the control, and the control system reads if the 0 is centered or if there is an alarm. Heartbeat means that the weighing device is still active, so it can tell us the component is still live. So now we talk a little bit about the attributes of automation and integration of weighing sensors. Let's talk a little bit about the different types of existing connectivity, which are available and not meeting it. So what we also had, this is the legacy industry standard. We see that still quite a bit in low-end filling applications, where simple filling is needed and where safety is an issue, where signals have to travel a long distance. So this is still available in our case, in our ACT100, our IND360 and a majority of our transmitters and anyone wherever they are on their automation journey. The next, serial connectivity. This is not the future in the connectivity standard worldwide anymore, but we still see it for point-to-point communication between a controller and a single device, which is still quite common. It's also used quite a bit for barcode scanners and printers, but not for automation due to the amount of data that needs to be related quickly. Moving forward, I already said there's point-to-point connectivity, and that's where we still see serial communication is quite common. So you see here that on top with a lab balance where you can have one balance, which you then connect to a laptop or to another device, then we have daisy chain networks, which can connect our different weighing modules with each other. Then on the bottom, you see a ring network. In this case, those are weighing controllers, which are hooked together in a ring topology to have a redundancy in the signal. So if one cable gets lost on one side, you still have the other ones with a different controllers. And then on the right, you have a [ star or tree ] topology. This is where there's a switch with different devices built to it, which you mostly see with PCs. So here, you can see examples of technologies that utilize each connection type. Serial and USB connections are point-to-point connections. Mettler-Toledo's power cell network utilizes the daisy chain topology. Industrial Ethernet benefits from a ring network, and then most PCs and standard Ethernet follow a star or tree topology. Now before moving on, I want to emphasize again how beneficial the ring network topology is. It allows you to save on switch space while also introducing a redundancy into the system in case the connection goes bad. In addition to that, we're able to easily stack many devices with ease. Our newer devices, such as the IND360 have the ring network capability built into them. For example, in one installation, we were able to easily integrate 86 devices, 86 devices, onto one automation network through ring topology. But also by capping and casing the profile, as I mentioned earlier, during setup from one transmitter to the subsequent 85 transmitters. So 86 devices, this installation was all accomplished within a couple of hours. Now for our first full question. Do you use automated weighing or have weighing devices connected to your automation system? If so, what kind of technology are you using? I'll go back a slide to show you the different topologies again. Feel free to enter those in the chat as well. Kristina, do you have something?
Kristina Johnston
executiveNo, I just wanted to invite people to write their answers in the chat box.
Craig Nickoloff
executiveOkay. All right then. I see point to point. Question or -- question, sorry. We'll move ahead real quick. Do you use automated weighing or have weighing devices connected to your automation system? If so, what kind of technology are you using? Okay. Great here to learn. That's awesome, and the [ P ] and star Okay. Just one more minute here, and then I'll move on. But thank you very much for your contributions. Okay. Cool. Well, let's move on a bit. All of your feedback. Go ahead here. Okay. So what we also need to talk about when we talk about the automation world is that there are 2 different worlds if you want to say it like that. There's a discrete manufacturing world and the continuous process world. Discrete manufacturing means that device, so the weighing sensor needs at least a part of the second where it can read the weight of whatever you put on top of the device. So here, we usually use PLC to control these discrete manufacturing processes, also known as discrete production or batch production, and it's best used for batching and mixing or blending of multiple components. This type of production is used in the food and beverage industry, in the chemical industry and other traditional manufacturing processes. The other world is that of continuous process. As it sounds, continuous process means that a process is continuously tracked, and this process is usually in-line measurement. So here, you measure in line, for example, the oxygen level or the pH of a substance maybe in a bioreactor. This is continuous production, and it's commonly used in the oil and gas industry. So in the discrete world, popular communication standards are PROFINET, EtherNet/IP and EtherCAT because of the very high speed in PROFIBUS DP. On the other side, in the process world, we have things like FOUNDATION Fieldbus, 4-to 20-milliamp and IO-Link. So PLC manufacturers are really trying to push customers to Industrial Ethernet because this is the standard today in the discrete world, because it's just very simple to communicate over Industrial Ethernet, so PROFINET or EtherNet/IP. Now you could argue, why did they push towards Industrial Ethernet? Well, 85% of the network devices are running on Ethernet today. The key difference in Industrial Ethernet is the timing of the events. They can be very tightly controlled. So this is what I mean when I say deterministic or real time. The security is a lot tighter, and the air detection protocols are also available. In addition, if devices run on industrial Ethernet, they are certified against secured data transfer agency. Also, the host devices are usually separated exclusively selected for industrial environments. So whether it be connectors, cables, switches, all of those are robust and can withstand the industrial environments, which are usually a little bit more rough. There are also components which are built for explosive and hazardous areas. But every message is transmitted, received and acknowledged, so you won't lose a single message. Also multi-cast messages usually don't occur in most systems with Industrial Ethernet. Now to show the growth of Industrial Ethernet, let's take a look at this graph from 2018 from a study done by HMS Anybus, where Industrial Ethernet already took over the network market share. I'll point out here that Industrial Ethernet in 2018 was sitting at 52% of the market, and Fieldbus had gone down to 42%. So in the subsequent pie chart from 2021, you'll see that the Industrial Ethernet grew from the 52% in 2018 up to 65% of the network market share. So obviously, today, it just continue to grow and will grow and grow some more, and Industrial Fieldbus will decline more and more. So now to our second poll. I'll ask this. Are you getting data out of your weighing devices? If so, how are you transmitting it? Go ahead, enter that in the chat again, and I'll go back a slide just so you can see the various types of data here in this pie chart. So go ahead. Are you getting the data out of your weighing devices? And if so, how are you transmitting it? Okay. EtherNet/IP, PROFINET. EtherNet/IP and PROFINET. Okay. Cool. Some consistency here. EtherNet/IP. Okay. Cool. This is some good feedback. So again, thank you for participating. And I'll keep going here with the presentation. We pass poll question. So now to summarize a little bit of what we talked about in the past 10 to 15 minutes. What is important now for industrial networks? Maybe 5, maybe 6 things. The physical media, so which type did the customer pick? Ethernet? Or is the customer still using serial or maybe standard 4 million to 20 miliamp out? The transmission distance, so really the physical distance between the network and the sensor, this is important because some connection types have distance limitations. Or one type of connection of ours, actually which is an older one, it can only handle a cable length of 50 feet or less. Other types of connections such as Ethernet or fiber optic can handle much farther distances. The amount of data being utilized, so best data equals faster transfer. The speed that can be consumed by the customer, note that this could be the speed that the data is refreshed. And think of this like a tachometer. How fast is the motor running? How fast is the internal processor? How fast is the internal calculation being done? A lot of companies will call out the communication rate when really it's the internal update rate of the equipment. So for example, our IND360 has an update rate of up to 960 hertz, which is pretty darn close to real time. And finally, the security of the data. Can we trust the data that's been received to be accurate and not tainted by process lag or because of vulnerable USB connection has allowed and unsecured influence into the system? So now we move a little bit forward and look at a concrete example when we look at scale integrated automation system. There's simply inputs into a system. So here, we always have the role of a client. A scale, system input, is always a client device. In other words, the server controls the network and acquisitions the distribution of the data. In each device, so each client, has a unique IP address determined by the network. And those IP addresses are automatically or manually assigned. Here, you can see, for example, if there is 1 server and 3 scales, which are just 3 inputs, you have 4 IP addresses. So this would just follow any traditional server/client input relationship. So now we're going to talk about SAI. So SAI or standard automation interface is our communication standard for Mettler-Toledo. We have this because there's no industry standard for weighing. And with our standard, we connect all our scales to automation systems. So for instance, we can plug in high-precision modules, and they directly talk to the controller once the IP address is correctly at. Then the sensors also communicate as fast or faster than the PLC itself. So really, the data is available at the point where the data is needed, and the sensors react extremely quickly to weight changes. Also, if you have filters set, the reaction time is still very fast. Weight is typically sent with synchronization bits, motion, center of 0 indication, and alarm status, data, okay and heartbeat. Those will share 100% uptime in good measurements. So we have 2 devices which are directly able to talk SAI are the WMF and SPC APW sensors. All of the rest are usually used as a combination with a controller or so-called weight transmitter. It's also important to note that because of the existence of SAI, you can swap out one controller for another controller with even more functionality and will still talk the same way to the rest of the existing equipment. So I'll emphasize again that SAI has Mettler-Toledo's communication standard since there's no industry standard for weighing. So the story of SAI is really to eliminate the pain of super complicated connection with different prices. They unify that in one communication standard. So users plug in different devices, precision transmitters, future terminals, and they immediately talk the PLC after they have the IP address right. This eliminates a lot of commissioning pain and programming training. The connectivity-related report cases also dropped quite tremendously, and we have an increase in satisfied customers because it's so easy to connect all of our scales, terminals and transmitters through SAI with control systems. But how you configure a device through SAI? Well, devices come with a default configuration, so they can immediately communicate with a provided sample code or sample program, which you get for free. The byte order is also automatically selected based on the bus type. So also here, you don't need to do anything. In addition, a special PLC command is available to cause the device to automatically match the PLC byte order. SAI will automatically find the information. So in the end, only a floating point is needed. So you can connect scale or floor scale, a bench or APW sensor without the need to change the program or to look for a decimal point. SAI is able to work with 2 basic types of messaging. So cyclic means that there is a scheduled and implicit kind of communication messaging. Here, the priority is on the timing. So the updated data automatically appears in the PLC, which is why most PLC programmers prefer to work with this kind of messaging. So the PLC may be set up to request -- set up the request packet interval or RPI time at 25 milliseconds, which means that the messaging will be exchanged in both directions every 25 milliseconds. Cyclic data is composed of smaller UDP packets that do not require a handshake between the devices. So the timing can be faster, which means you have great automation control. Also, PLCs are now starting to support implicit messaging cyclic data. Data transfer is just as important as the weight transfer. Then we have acyclic. That's unscheduled exchange of data, which means explicit. Here, the priority is not timing. The priority is reliability. It requires that the messaging, the message instruction or function, is set up in the PLC program, and the program must know how to properly ask for the data and how to handle errors, which might occur. So here the PLC needs to ask for the data. Smart weighing sensors that are integrated into PLCs or DCS systems provide critical condition monitoring detail. For example, is something going wrong? Is there a calibration here? Is there something underneath the scale that's preventing it from moving? Is there a temperature error? Scales or pieces of metal or sensors attached to them, they're affected by temperature. If there are wild temperature fluctuations, you need to know, if that's an issue, if that's impacting the measurement. Is there a 0 out of range? These are things that weighing sensors can provide on the sensor level to the PLC to make sure that your process is accurate, is remaining fast and helps you to make sure that you don't really need the batches or have to rework anything because your a sensor [indiscernible]. Now that brings me to the end and to the key takeaways. First, weighing components are sensor inputs into a control system. I can't emphasize this enough. Some of the automation industry look at scale as a more complicated mechanism due to the engineering and internal processes of the scale. However, when it comes to an automation network, scale is simply a sensor into it. Second, connected automation is the future of weighing in manufacturing processes. Third, speed is one of the most important parts of any automated process, and weighing components must transfer data at least 10 milliseconds. Fourth, data from sensors and previous processes and increases overall system uptime. Fifth, broad connectivity ensures hassle free setup and configuration and facilitate easy scalability. And then finally, proper device selection is crucial to system accuracy, performance, safety. So that essentially concludes my presentation. I'll give it back over to Kristina, and I believe we can take some questions as well. So thank you all for your time.
Kristina Johnston
executiveThank you very much, there, Craig. Yes, I did put one question in the chat that it would be interesting to see what people's responses are in terms of what are your key challenges that you're seeking to solve. So with today's knowledge, what are some of those challenges that are taking up some of your thinking space and so forth? We'd love to be able to learn more about that. As well, we do have other webinars that are coming up just want to let you know that we have some industrial weighing webinars on March 9, 14 and 22. We have a couple of process analytic ones as well on March 15 to 21 and one for vehicle weighing on March 21. We invite you to register for those as well. Do any of you have any questions? Okay. It doesn't look like we have any questions there, Craig. So I want to say thank you to Craig and Andy for taking time today to help with today's presentation. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Thank you very much, there, Hannah. Andy or Craig, do you wish to comment on Hannah's challenge?
Andrew Kletrovets
executiveCraig, this may be a better one for you for your time in T&L.
Craig Nickoloff
executiveYes. So I see here -- so Hannah mentions dynamic weighing solutions of nonuniform product. So when it comes to this, you see this a little more in the logistics industry. So I'd be curious kind of where along the production line that you're referring to this usage, Hannah. I say that because, like, for example, like an Amazon or a FedEx or UPS, you've got many different types of packages that are flowing along the conveyor belt. And because they've come in from different sources, from different cities and stuff and are being distributed in a different way, you'll see many different sized packages. When it comes to product inspection, I will say that I've seen a little more -- at least if you're on the production line, usually, you're set up to handle a particular size package at once. And then maybe just because it's coming from production and then you change over the line or you have a separate line that might be handling that same -- a different type of package. So usually, the system is set up specs a certain weight. But otherwise, when it's the different types of packages, that's kind of going more so into what we call catch weigh, and catch weighing is really just catching that weight and feeding it into your system. So maybe a checkware doesn't necessarily divert that, but it allows you to divert it. So we do have T&L solutions like our TLD215 or TLD450 -- or TLW450, I'm sorry. That essentially handle in-process or in-motion weighing for different types of packages. So those controllers can take that information and feed it into your system to allow them to be diverted downstream. So weighing raw product before it's in the package. Okay. That, I'm not sure, Hannah, if you're automating -- or like are you trying to sort that or whatnot? Because I know at least downstream when I get into sorting products. There are settings made strictly for hygienic-type applications when it comes to that one.
Andrew Kletrovets
executiveThere's a few different locations when it comes to like raw food weighing before it gets into production, right? Whether you're trying to find pieces of uniform sizes, so you can package everything that weighs 1 pound together or whether you're trying to get everything together in one cohesive 1-pound chunk to a packing side. So regardless of the individual piece sizes themselves. But the good thing is with automation and with weighing automation, it's quick enough that you can basically set up that logic in the controller itself. So if you have a photo eye or a barcode of any specific product that you're weighing, you can tell the PLC or code the PLC to sort based on final package weight. Hey, just get me 1 pound and then we'll move on from there. Or if you want everything, that's 1 pound to go that way, 2 pounds to go that way, X, Y, Z. So that logic can be set up in the controller. The important piece is the speed and then obviously, the data as well. But whether you include other types of sensors in there like photo eyes or dimensions themselves, it's all how you build that system out. So that's something that we can help with on the weighing side for sure, to make sure that whatever you're trying to do it that weight, the data gets to the right place.
Craig Nickoloff
executiveAnd just to kind of to bring that around, that sort of solution, Hannah, would come from our product inspection division, from our check weighing side of things and they can address machines maybe for a more hygienic application or something like that since we're inspecting the product and feeding it along the facility.
Andrew Kletrovets
executiveFrom an integration standpoint, though, you're more than welcome to talk to one of us, either Craig or myself. And we can help you with the integration side of things if you have an existing check weigher that may need to communicate weight to your control system for sure. But if you want to prebuild a system that has a check weigher and that has all that logic built into it, not only is there software, but there's the functionality of the machines themselves, that can help you.
Craig Nickoloff
executiveGreat. Thanks for the question, Hannah.
Kristina Johnston
executiveAny other questions?
John Felder
analystYes, we're at the end. I would like to add, maybe this is -- I don't know if it's in line, but to keep looking at the key takeaways you're thinking about them. This is John Felder from Carlton Scale. You have the IND360, we have the IND930. And I'm trying to figure out kind of one IND360 takes like to the PLC, kind of do the majority of the work, right? And then you have the IND930, which can be a real nice interface, you could do pretty things. But it's also -- and it's still under development, it seems to be getting more and more elements. Which way is Mettler-Toledo going? Are we going to go into the PLC world full log? Or are we still looking at keeping IND570, 780, the 930s kind of the stalwarts of the automation corner?
Andrew Kletrovets
executiveSo that's an interesting question. So kind of both, right? It behooves us as an equipment supplier to be agnostic and to kind of play well with everybody. For that, we kind of have to just invest in kind of broad automation connectivity. So the IND360 will certainly be a core piece of our product portfolio moving forward. That being said, the IND570, the IND780, the IND930 will start to get enhancements that make them a little bit more suitable for automation applications, right? The IND570, if we go back to the speed point that Craig made, it communicates I think, at 25 hertz. So like a check weighing application or a relatively fast fill application, it's not really suited unless you have multiple ingredients that you need to batch in its current form. So the successor to the IND570 will be a little bit more automation-focused that we'll have SAI. It will communicate very quickly, but then it will have those kind of additional features that allow it to be hooked into more complex automation applications. Same with the 930, I don't know if any pure features that would be built into that. But I know the successor to the IND780 eventually when it gets launched, will do the same thing. So we're going to bring all of our portfolio up to match the speed and data that the IND360 kind of provides now, but we want to give several options, right? The IND360 for people who want to do it themselves. 570, 780, 930 for those people that may have applications that fit in nice clean buckets where they can just kind of use that to play around with it themselves or use our prebuilt applications inside of them to accomplish their needs.
Kristina Johnston
executiveAny other questions. At this point, I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today. We look forward to having you on future webinars. Please take the opportunity to take a look at them if you're in the pharma industry, the food, the chemical. There's a wide array of topics. And again, thank you to Craig and Andy for your time today. Thank you.
Craig Nickoloff
executiveGreat. Thanks very much, everyone.
Andrew Kletrovets
executiveThank you.
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