Name: Insights: Ecolab CEO On How to Build a Smart City
Uploaded: 2020-03-10
Duration: 2 min 49 s
Description: Doug Baker outlines one approach to building smart cities at Fortune's Brainstorm E conference. (September 2015)

[MUSIC PLAYING] BRIAN O'KEEFE: Ecolab is a company that's been around for a while. Your business is mostly based around water, testing chemicals in water, water systems, water management systems. How do you come at this topic? Where is the opportunity for Ecolab to capitalize on this sensor revolution and apply it to systems in cities? Is this something you're really energized about? DOUG BAKER: Yeah, I guess if I was to define-- we do water, we do hygiene. Hygiene invariably, prime ingredient is water so. Yeah, we treat water in many applications and pretty much throughout the industrial complex. Look if its power, steel, mining, paper, water is kind of the secret elixir that we use in virtually every manufacturing process. It's pretty obvious in food, but it's probably not as obvious in everything else that's made. So we see all these applications. I guess two things-- one, we're already wiring in industrial applications because we have the advantage of scale. And so you have-- if you can reduce water and energy by 30% in a very large industrial application, you can justify a lot of capital. That same justification math doesn't quite work yet on smaller building sites, but it soon will over a piece of time. So I'd say right now what we're working and concentrating on is learning how to do this in industrial applications. And so we're literally monitoring tens of thousands of manufacturing sites now in a facility, that happens to be in Pune, India could be anywhere, to understand water usage, when they're out of spec, what's going on. And that learning, obviously, is something that we can learn to apply. But it's purpose specific. And I think, when I hear smart cities and even in prep is this concept of this big bang and all of a sudden we're going to have all this data. And what are we going to go do? I mean, at the end of the day, you've got to design something to accomplish something. I don't know how you're just going to make a-- you know, take a dumb city and make it smart. For what end? And I think there needs to really be a conversation about what we're trying to accomplish here. And if it's water and energy reduction, that's easily targeted. And I think something that we can get after. If it's also reducing capital pressure and everything else on systems, then you might end up targeting and getting after the process in a different way. But a city is a big complicated beast. I think we're going to tackle it, I would imagine you're going to do it a process at a time. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Insights: Ecolab CEO On How to Build a Smart City

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Doug Baker outlines one approach to building smart cities.

Ecolab CEO On How to Build a Smart City

Doug Baker outlines one approach to building smart cities at Fortune's Brainstorm E conference. (September 2015)

Wow is a, uh, company has been around for a while. Your business is mostly based around water testing chemicals and water, water systems, water management systems. How do you come at this topic, where the opportunity for ICO to capitalize on the sensor revolution and apply it to systems in cities? Is this something you're really energized about? Yeah, I guess I'm going to find we do water. We do hygiene hygiene. Invariably, prime ingredient is water, so we treat water and many applications and pretty much throughout the industrial complex. Power, steel, mining, paper Water is kind of a secret elixir that we use to virtually every manufacturing process. It's pretty obvious and food, but it's probably not as obvious and everything else it's made. So we see all these applications. I get two things. One, We're already wiring and industrial applications because you have the advantage of scale, and so you have. If you could reduce water and energy by 30% in a very large industrial application, you can justify a lot of capital that that same justification Math doesn't quite work yet on smaller building sites, but it soon will over a piece of time so I'd say Right now what we're working and concentrating on is learning how to do this on industrial applications. So we're literally monitoring tens of thousands of manufacturing sites now in a facility that happens to be in pony. India could be anywhere to understand water usage when they're out its back, what's going on and that learning obviously is something that we can learn to apply. But it's its purpose specific. And I think when I hear smart cities and even in proud, is this concept of the Big Bang. And also we'll have all the data on What are we gonna go do? I mean, the end of the day, you've got to design something to accomplish something. I don't know how. You just gonna make a take a dump city and get smart for what end? And I think there needs to really be a conversation about what we're trying to accomplish here. And if it's water and energy reduction that's easily targeted, and I think something that we can get after if it's also reducing capital pressure and everything else on systems, then you might end up targeting and getting after the process in a different way. But a city is a big, complicated beast, and we're gonna tackle it. I would imagine they're gonna do it a process at the time.