From Data to Decision-Making: How Machine Intelligence is Shaping Cash Operations – Barrie Foley [Season 2 | Episode #18]

Shaun Ferrari 00:00:33 Hey everybody, thanks for joining us again on the next episode of The Pit Exchange podcast, where we talk about the latest in payments innovation and technology. it’s me, Shaun. I’m your host from Currency Research today, and we are thrilled to be joined by Barrie Foley, CEO at CPS Group. And we’re going to spend some time today talking all about machinery and data and all that fun stuff and how the industry is really evolving around this latest technology. So Barrie, welcome. Thanks for thanks for joining us.

Barrie Foley 00:01:04 It’s great to be with you. Shaun, really, really pleased to have a conversation with you.

Shaun Ferrari 00:01:08 Yeah. And you were just with us, recently.

Shaun Ferrari 00:01:11 out in, out in Bangkok where, we got to spend some time together, and you got to meet a bunch of customers and potential customers, and, it was great to see you. See you in person.

Barrie Foley 00:01:20 I thought that was a fantastic, show you put on there. Really, really enjoyed it. Great networking. And there was some I thought there was some really good discussions on that. And quite exciting. I think we’re exciting time with the industry. I think.

Shaun Ferrari 00:01:33 It is. It’s definitely an exciting time in the industry. And maybe to that, to that end, you know, we’re going to talk a lot about data today. So tell us, tell us what’s so exciting in the industry and exciting with data right now. What should we be thinking about?

Barrie Foley 00:01:46 Well, there’s a lot of people talking about data and how you use data, and they’re talking about the fantastic AI, how it’s going to be the solution for everything. And data is something that’s been along along many, many years.

Barrie Foley 00:02:00 We’ve had data from different industries for many years, and it’s a case of the good guys. How do you use data and how do you actually take machine data? And that’s the stuff that we’ve been concentrating on, trying to make intelligent systems that use data, then take that data to actually join up the industry. Because when you look at what we’ve got here, to me, data is the actually fair to join up your partnerships, join up the industry together. You can share data, you can use data, but it’s got to be the right data. So this is an interesting time for the industry where data can be pretty bad for you if it’s not the right data. But if you’re picking the good data, it can be improve your business tenfold.

Shaun Ferrari 00:02:46 Yeah. And maybe on that in terms of of finding the right business need, I think you’re right. I mean, the world and all of us now are swimming in data, as you say. There’s there’s data everywhere. It’s noise. It’s valid.

Shaun Ferrari 00:02:58 It’s good. It’s bad. It’s when you look at the eye stuff. there’s potential hallucinogen hallucinations and all sorts of all sorts of things that that happen. So from a business standpoint, how does business drive what data they need or what are what are you seeing out there in terms of how to find that data or find the right business case?

Barrie Foley 00:03:19 Well, what you find is people get overwhelmed with spreadsheets and taking information from their businesses. You know, you might have pivot tables I’ve looked at over the years trying to work out what we’re trying to do here and what the data does. If you do it in a very intelligent way, you can do it automatically. You can pick up information from wherever you can, but you’ve really got to look at how do you gather data. And the way we as a company, we try to make our machines intelligent to give you data. For instance, if you’ve got a machine that is running banknotes through it, there’s a lot of talk about the industry in terms of what information you can take off the bank, but also what information.

Barrie Foley 00:04:03 How can you use it to take machine data? Now, when you’re actually running an operation today and you want it to be efficient and you’ve got a multi shift operation, you want to know one shift compared to another shift. Is it as efficient as the other shift. You want to know if there’s something wrong with your machine, or is there something wrong with the way you’re driving your machine? So the only way to find out is to get data off that machine. And then when you get the data off the machine, you can make the comparisons. You can do forecasting. You can do capacity planning. Now what’s happened in our industry there’s not so much talk about machine data. There’s a lot of talk about data coming from the notes and information from the lots. So we as a company are using data to improve efficiencies and make sure that we are actually measuring the right data. That’s even before you get to AI, because everybody thinks AI is going to fix the world here, but it’s not.

Barrie Foley 00:05:02 You’ve got to know what data. You’ve got to start measuring, and you’ve got to have an idea of that data. And then you go on to a next level of AI, which basically allows you to work out what you don’t know. But it starts off with a basic take data. Take information. Use your common sense. Say I want to know what the output from shift is. I want to know when a machine breaks down. I want to know what throughput it is. You start with that basic data. Now if you’ve got that across 20 machines, my God, the information you’ve got in comparison is fantastic. So basic data is what I believe is what this industry is now at the crossroads will actually be using properly.

Shaun Ferrari 00:05:40 Yeah, I think that’s a good point. I mean, there’s the, the basic kind of that basic data, a lot of comparisons between different machines that are running. But I think one of the things you said there is, you know, there’s still that need for the common sense check, right? I mean, I think that’s where particularly when you’re going down the AI route, if you don’t.

Shaun Ferrari 00:05:58 And we saw this before. You mentioned pivot tables and you know pre I, I mean people would analyze data and come out with conclusions about what it meant. And if you didn’t understand the business, you could make some really wrong decisions because you, you know, the it would take someone that knew the business two seconds to be able to say, oh, that doesn’t make any sense. Let’s not do that. Whereas I, it doesn’t have that kind of filter.

Barrie Foley 00:06:21 Yeah. And I’m sure, Shaun, you’ve been on many, many discussions in terms of what is the human input to I guess that human element today is there. Now what happens is, is you’ve got to start with the basic information, and you’ve got to do the checks that you’re getting that kind of information off the machines, if you like. And then you can start letting I go and be a bit creative. But you’ve got to know when, how far you do go. And it’s got to have the human element check in it.

Barrie Foley 00:06:47 But you can’t do it with lots of data. You’ve got to have something automated. So you take that information because you can’t do it longhand. So you need the basic data to do it.

Shaun Ferrari 00:06:57 Yeah. Well and I think that’s where companies like yourselves come into play, where, you know, you are the experts in note processing equipment and and the data that comes off those machines. So you understand those. Not to oversimplify it, but you understand those common sense business intelligent applications of it so that you can already prepare that filtering or help with what should you be looking for? What is the basic data? Whereas, you know, some folks that aren’t necessarily as in tune with the industry and are just providing flat out AI solutions, might not have that type of industry knowledge, which I think.

Barrie Foley 00:07:34 But but I.

Barrie Foley 00:07:35 Can talk to you, Shaun, about.

Barrie Foley 00:07:36 How great a machine can give you bits of data. To me, is is a good thing to have. We’ve really got to shift the needle.

Barrie Foley 00:07:43 Here is how did the industry get better? Because when you take a data from one machine and you got different parts of the of our businesses, you’ve got central banks, you’ve got commercial banks, you’ve got cities. And what’s happening is if you’re doing your data strategy properly, all those can join up. Now, what I found coming into this industry, they’re not joined up. So if you’re got an organization where, say, you’re a central bank and you want to know information on how your partner is doing with the assets, how you’re using some of that information and data with retail banks, you can get it so that those partners can work together and join them up. So data is not just they’re just looking at machine data in one area. It’s looking at how you can join up as an industry with all those different players in the industry. So they can all partner together and you can all be talking about the same thing. How do I work with my partner? If I was a central bank working with my partner, who is a city, how do we make it so that I know my cities are efficient? You know what you can do now with data? You can put it on the cloud and I can give you what we do today.

Barrie Foley 00:08:53 You can be sat at your desk looking at the information on machine data. Of course, the other side of the world. Now, our industry took a long time to get there because of encryption and the risk averse in terms of using the cloud. And that’s why the manufacturing industries, aerospace industries, they’re 15 to 20 years ahead of us because they were prepared to do that. Now, I’ve worked in in the airport industry where they have terrorists and they have bombs, but they’re still using the cloud because of the usefulness and the efficiency of doing it. So we’re going back to your question about where states are going to be good for us. It’s not just good for the individual companies, it’s good for the industry. And I think the sooner we get on board with that, the better. And, you know, now you combine that with data off your machines, with intelligent machines, with data off the nodes, which we we do with AI supports and things like that. That is a very, very powerful tool to use to work out.

Barrie Foley 00:09:48 Are you doing things the right way? So I think this is an exciting time for the industry, not just talking about AI and data.

Shaun Ferrari 00:09:55 Yeah, I know you’re right. And it’s it’s how do you move that needle because it is a it is a culture shift in this industry, right? And it’s because it’s not just about, you know, you’ve had some experience and it has some thoughts around how do you create kind of a data centric organization. But to your point right there, it’s not just about creating that within the organization. It’s all the different companies and organizations and viewpoints in the entire industry that you almost have to create the data centric, which is no, as you say, it’s been done. You use the technology industries and all over the place that’s been done. But you’re right, in the cash industry, you know, we’re still struggling. Getting off paper manifests in certain areas, right? So it’s a it’s a challenge.

Speaker 5 00:10:35 But I do understand.

Barrie Foley 00:10:36 Why because I think you can’t criticize our industry for taking their time and doing it because, you know, once you get it wrong, it’s very scary.

Barrie Foley 00:10:44 Put it right again. And, but I do understand why it did take more time. But now what I’m saying is let’s learn from the other industries because I’ve said I’ve said on previous things is I’ve got Six Sigma lean back rap. So to me, it’s all about efficiency. It’s all about. So when I look at an organization, how efficient is it? Have you got the right machinery? Have you got the challenges to do with renewable energy and sustainability? You know, those kind of things. So the information in the days there just is actually trying to control those things comes into play. And data is the one that’s going to join you up in different challenges you’ve got for your businesses.

Shaun Ferrari 00:11:24 Yeah. And I was going to ask you about the sustainability angle. Does, you know, when you look at some of the data and what are the benefits of the industry or to the industry? There’s obviously the efficiency piece. You mentioned sustainability. Maybe a little more about that because that is everybody’s interested in making making sustainability improvements.

Shaun Ferrari 00:11:41 How can how does this type of of data centric outlook improve chances for for sustainable processes.

Barrie Foley 00:11:49 Well, what we’ve done as a company, we we wanted to give our customers choice because I’ve talked about using smaller machines rather while in big high speed machines and you can get more output, you can get more data. The power to run those is minuscule compared to some of the big machines. But what you’ve got to do then you’ve got to start measuring those machines, how efficient they are, what their power requirements, how green they are. And what happens is that you start to do the comparisons of different machines, of different machine types. So to me it’s all part of the efficiency. And the cost thing is, how do you make sure that you’ve got a green low power machine compared to a heavy high power machine and data coming off those machines? You can measure that data straight away. You can then go back to the governments. The central banks get, you know, a lot of their government.

Barrie Foley 00:12:42 You can then go out to them and sort of say, yeah, our green policy is doing lower power machines and here’s the data to show it. So that’s where data links up with the sustainability part, because you can actually show that you are being more greener than the next person if you are. So it all joins the industry from different angles. It joins your partnerships up. It joins up how you do when your processes and the data is the thread of all this. It’s at the center and it comes back to that. But if you haven’t got automated data it’s very hard to take that data longhand. And that’s what we’ve got to make sure get your machines intelligent the first thing you do. Then you can start looking at I can put an AI strategy in place, but what we’re doing is we’re leapfrogging. We’re saying AI is going to fix it. It’s not going to fix it until you’ve got information coming to it to to measure. And that’s where I’m strongly pushing that card.

Shaun Ferrari 00:13:37 Yeah, I know that makes sense.

Shaun Ferrari 00:13:38 And I think you and I chatted I think it was in London. We did one of our digital currency events and an AI event along with it. And I think one of the, one of the things that that we were discussing and one of the things that came out in that event too, was you need the data first before you can jump into AI. You know, you’re right. People, People think, oh, just just throw an AI engine on top of the world of data, of whatever you have, and it’ll solve everything. But that’s not the case. It’s it’s really take the time, figure out what your data is, structure the data, get it in a way that’s understandable. And then you can start putting some AI tools on it.

Speaker 5 00:14:15 Yeah, I call it there’s.

Barrie Foley 00:14:18 I have different levels of AI. So you start off taking basic data and you start to measure things that you understand. And then the level two AI, you then get that to actually say what if? And then you’ll end up having a process that you never thought you had problems with.

Barrie Foley 00:14:35 But the I found it for you and therefore it can do the thinking. And then you can put your human check in again. So I’ve had situations where we’ve been measuring data in a, in a, in a manufacturing organization. We said, oh, the problem with our manufacturing organization is the equipment is not good. Well, we found that after a while is because the way we were doing our spares Fast. We didn’t even think of that. And as our spheres turning upon time. We didn’t even think of that because we started using data to teach us. Because data has been managed with algorithms for many, many years. And AI is is like a boosted algorithm. It’s a bit more than that. But it still needs that human inter interception. Like like what would you say.

Shaun Ferrari 00:15:18 Yeah for sure. So as folks that are in the cash industry are listening listening to this, what would you what would you say to folks that would say, why are you spending all this time doing this with cash? What is the the future of cash is should we spend this time on this right now, or is it a payment system that might not be as important going forward?

Barrie Foley 00:15:39 Well, I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t believe there was a future in cash.

Barrie Foley 00:15:42 And to me, you vote with your feet. And if I look at the cash business because I’d been in different businesses, and the cash business to me is very exciting. You know, you’ve got governments, you’ve got different governments coming up with different reasons why they want to keep cash. To me, it’s a growth area and there is always going to be, you know, you just you got just got some. Listen to some of the presentations by experts in cash. Cash is always going to be around but the industry will change and they’re going to come together. You’ve got cities now joining forces. And with that kind of information you’ve got to be more efficient. It’s more cutthroat. So data’s going to make it more efficient. So if we’re going to carry on doing what we’re doing now is going to be hard. If we’re actually going to get our data act together, and we can become more efficient and combine things and work with our partners, it’s going to be a lot easier. So what I’m saying is, is the future in cash is going to change shape, but the good guys have gone out of their data together, and they’re going to be able to survive a lot easier than ones that don’t do it.

Barrie Foley 00:16:41 So what I’m saying is upgrading machines to be intelligent and get on the journey is if you don’t, the world’s going to overtake you.

Shaun Ferrari 00:16:49 Yeah, no, I agree with that completely. I think that’s a that’s the right way to look at it. As, as the the industry evolves and cash isn’t. Isn’t going away. Many, many people are using, in fact, more cash than they have in the past. But where it is, you know, downsizing, maybe as a percentage of transactions overall, it will still be there and needs to be managed as efficiently and effectively as possible. And it’s those that can figure out how to do it that are going to.

Barrie Foley 00:17:14 We just got to be better at doing.

Barrie Foley 00:17:16 What we’re doing today. And then the good guys will survive. And if you don’t change your way and data is that key. And I think that as I say, join us all that it’ll be able to look at our efficiencies, look at our sustainability etc..

Shaun Ferrari 00:17:29 Yeah for sure.

Shaun Ferrari 00:17:30 So I think, you know, if folks want to want to talk to you more about this, you’re obviously doing a lot in this and you’re going to be partnering with us in things that are upcoming. I think we’re going to going to see you coming up in Miami and also in Bali. at a couple of, of events. Are you are you looking forward to those?

Barrie Foley 00:17:48 But very much so.

Barrie Foley 00:17:49 Because.

Barrie Foley 00:17:50 You guys put on a great, a great show and and the networking is fantastic and the debates you can have. And it’s not just the actual presentations that go on, but in the evenings you can have some good network sessions, and I’d be very happy to talk to people about, you know, I’ve been in this industry only a short period of four and a half, five years, and I’m learning like mad. But I’m hoping people will listen to me a tiny bit because I’ve got experience outside. And I think what I’m trying to say is don’t reinvent the wheel. Let’s see how other people have got it right going wrong.

Barrie Foley 00:18:22 It’s like the automation automating a whole cast centre. Once you do, that kind of thing is out of date. And there’s a lot. And I’ve said this in presentations before. You’re the manufacturing industry with automation. If people are done what people are talking about now, if I’m fully automated, you’d see more robots out there. Guess why you don’t see more robots? Because they spent money and they lost money and they’re not around to that. So you’ve got to be selective of putting the right automation strategies in place. And again, that’s where data will play a part to help you targeted automation, but it’s using data to teach you. And I’ve come across so many graveyards of bad companies that have spent a lot of money on big automation systems and failed because as soon as you put the automation system in, it’s out of date. You’re also a slave to your supplier. So there’s lots of other discussions on that, but the data is the card that’s going to actually give you that information, what you really need to do.

Barrie Foley 00:19:22 So before you do your strategy, before you do your automation, after you get your get your data basic data going first off your machines.

Shaun Ferrari 00:19:30 Perfect. I mean, I think there’s, as you said, there’s so many, so many ways to take the discussion and dig in in deeply to these, these conversations. And that target investment piece, I think is really, really important. Yeah. Where where does it make sense to spend the money for that, particularly the data strategy going forward? yeah. Because if you, if you.

Barrie Foley 00:19:48 If you start to get that information coming back to you, you send things. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to spend all that money doing that. I want to spend my money doing something else because you’re starting to learn more about your processes. And that’s what data will give you. And if you’re running with ten machines, you’re going to find out a lot quicker than if you’re running with one machine. So data is going to help you make those decisions.

Shaun Ferrari 00:20:07 Awesome. Well, Barrie, thanks for taking some time to chat with us today. do you have any any final, final thoughts before we we kind of wrap up?

Barrie Foley 00:20:16 Basically, you know, come to see me when I’m in Miami and when I’m in Bali, we can talk about data, we can talk about efficiencies, we can talk a number of things. But I just ask people to be open minded and learn from the mistakes of other industries, because this is an exciting time for us. And I’m really pleased that we’re getting our act together now to make sure that we can be better than manufacturing in the aerospace industry if we go away. Attitude. And that’s why I love this short time I’ve been here. I love it. And, and I’m wanting to stay with it, but I want it to be successful. There’s some good people out there, and we want to help them.

Shaun Ferrari 00:20:51 Awesome. Well thank you. We always love partnering with you, having these conversations, and we can’t wait to, to see you again in person in Miami and Bali coming up later this year. Maybe some other places to stay tuned for for some announcements around that. So, Barrie, thanks for taking the time. We love partnering with CPS and yourself, and, we look forward to continuing these conversations. So thanks everybody for listening. Hope you enjoyed the conversation, and we look forward to talking with you on our next episode of The P.I.T. Exchange, where we talk about the latest in payments innovation and technology. Please like, subscribe, download, do whatever it is, wherever it is you, you listen to your podcasts and we appreciate the support and we look forward to talking with you next time.