{"id":13349,"date":"2025-06-23T09:39:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T09:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/article-hub\/interview-with-shawn-shockey-manager-of-manufacturing-us-at-abb-electrification-service\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T14:38:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T14:38:01","slug":"interview-with-shawn-shockey-manager-of-manufacturing-us-at-abb-electrification-service","status":"publish","type":"article-hub","link":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/article-hub\/interview-with-shawn-shockey-manager-of-manufacturing-us-at-abb-electrification-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Shawn Shockey, Manager of Manufacturing US at ABB Electrification Service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My guest is Shawn Shockey, Manager of Manufacturing, US at ABB Electrification Service. Shawn, what does your role look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Essentially, as the Manager of Manufacturing for our US Services division, I am responsible for our factories that produce aftermarket products, including older equipment or non-active products that support our installed base across the US and globally. We really focus on power delivery, specifically more switchgear, circuit breakers and relays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talk a little bit about what you see as the most important and the biggest changes taking place right now in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the main change is the modernization of the power delivery or the transmission and distribution setup as a whole. The industry has been around for 100 plus years, delivering power and keeping the lights on. This equipment is antiquated. It is very old. The technology is electromechanical. It is not smart. But the world has gone digital on us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. In this issue there is a summary report from DISTRIBUTECH Part Two where it is apparent that this may be the most significant time for change in the power industry since the 2000\u2019s and deregulation. So how is this impacting your efforts in Florence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How customers upgrade their existing infrastructure to include this new modern technology that is out there, as opposed to just rip and replace \u2013 our service team is here to help with that kind of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes it harder too, because you have got another aspect of service. You have a lot of people that you require. It is not just the subject matter experts that are retiring, it is service matter experts, people who are out there on rigs, on trucks doing truck rolls. We have an aging equipment issue, and a skills and experience gap issue which places you right in the middle of a tsunami. How are you handling these changes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our utility customers, or any customer really, start losing that team that knew how to do maintenance or repairs on the equipment. They could have 357 different types of products across their system because they have procured it or they have sourced it new. They have retrofitted it before, or they bought another company who entered their business, and now they have what we refer to as a \u201cmixed salad\u201d of power delivery equipment, and they are really looking to find a common line so as they bring on new people, it is a lot easier to keep them trained. Spare parts are easier to keep on hand because it is all common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Britain, we call it a dog’s breakfast of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s talk about transformers. You are obviously a major point of the supply chain. You are the aftermarket. Talk a little bit about supply chain challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a fairly broad supply chain setup. What we try to do is go back to standardization. The more custom you get in your supply chain, the harder it is to ensure a robust backup program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to the development of our retrofit designs, we try to find commonality. We try to make sure that we are balancing, using similar types of items so that we can build out additional supply chain measures. We also rely on ABB themselves. We make sure we use our core technology and really invest in that supply chain so that it is very much sustainable across that delivery system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that I have always recognized about ABB is the word collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did an interview with Doctor Luiz Cheim, who invented that little robot that goes inside. What struck me about that interview was how robotics at ABB had to work with him and his team. It was a four-year project and proved the importance of collaboration. How is everything impacted by the culture of collaboration that ABB has built?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really has to do with us putting the customer first and knowing that we want to be part of that customer’s full journey. In service, we are talking about the process from installation through decommissioning, if you will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us that vested interest of knowing what the trends are for wanting to go digital, we are willing to invest in newer companies, newer ideas that will be the future of service for the customer’s system. We know that that it is a requirement for us to maintain that relationship with the customer throughout the life cycle of their equipment. That is why it is easy for us to make the decision to collaborate. It is hard to maintain it because you must have the long view, rather than just thinking short term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you spend a lot of time face to face with customers out in the marketplace, personally?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t get that opportunity as much anymore in the position that I am in, but I do see customers regularly, I would say, but when I was in product management, I was much more in front of the customers getting that pulse of not just satisfaction with current product but digging out those questions about where they are going with their system, what they are looking at. Their problems are going to be there in three to five years. We wanted to get ahead of that curve and develop those solutions or ensure that the solutions we had would still protect customers as they grew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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100 plus years, delivering power and keeping the lights on. This equipment is antiquated. It is very old. The technology is electromechanical. It is not smart. But the world has gone digital on us.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn, you just gave me the next set of questions we are going to talk about. You said to the customer, \u201cwhere do you want to be in three to five years?\u201d One of the things I am sure you heard was we need to go digital, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I think digital is the easy answer, but I don’t think it is a single answer. Providing the capabilities of their system, circuit breakers, relays, switch gear, balanced against the affordability to standardize to maintain their system. They have affordability concerns as well as.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is getting more and more expensive to maintain older gear. So, how do they upgrade? They are also looking at balancing security needs. We talk about digital and that is their underlying goal, but I think a fear around the digital is the security aspect of it. Is it hackable and the Internet of Things, so they are balancing affordability, security and finally, I would say, sustainability matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do they do it in a clean way and really get a good mix? We are seeing a falloff in coal and natural gas growing. You mentioned the new nuclear plants in GA. There is one planned in South Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, clean energy solar fields; I see them pop up all over the place. We put one here at my site in Florence, SC. These are really exciting times and I think those are the three things that they are really balancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about microgrids? Do you see them as part of the new, modern grid?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think about it as decentralizing these massive grids that are interconnected, they are always going to play together. I think about it like the Internet.  The Internet started as a bunch of little micro sites and then we linked them and now look at where we are at and that is the brilliance behind microgrids. I think you get a very strong sustainable grid that can utilize a lot of sustainable energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be it wind or be it solar, all of those things tie in at that micro level to build up to something greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to switch gears a little bit because this really came up for me when I was looking at your background on LinkedIn. It says, \u201cyou are an inspirational leader\u201d. What does that mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason I put that out there is that I don’t believe I can do anything alone and the only way to really help people around me is to inspire them to be their best and help them get there. I think we all face challenges every day and you need that bit of inspiration to kind of lift you up and help you get past the tough times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would be the one decision, that you would make as Shawn Shockey, in the power industry, trying to help the industry move forward?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a big question, right? I don’t think there is one panacea, one solution out there, but I would say that I would encourage the industry to do more retrofitting of the legacy products. A lot of that gear is just so antiquated. While it isn’t smart, we do not need to rip and replace. I would just encourage people to do more retrofitting versus just maintaining older gear. Get the new equipment in and really take advantage of what a smart product has to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is an excellent point, because we can’t replace it fast enough. Because of supply chain issues, which are happening with transformers right now, people are having to retrofit. Talk a little bit about this idea of retrofitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey  <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We agree that you cannot maintain your way to reliability, right? It is that predictability issue; you cannot be predictable with an old electromechanical product. You have no way to know how good that product is doing. You just trust it. Because it is a tank. We have been doing that this way for 40 years. With new products, though, you get digital input. You can actually monitor the voltage required to throw a switch. You can time it constantly and you can start to trend those micro trends to tell you how soon you might need to look at doing some kind of a maintenance or that you need to take it out of service to look at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turbines have been doing this for years because they could monitor the vibration and you could really predict when it is time to shut that down because you have a blade problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Circuit Breakers and power equipment are starting to look in the switchgear for early signs of arc flash, that is all in its infancy. This new smart technology that you can install and the new smart breakers that monitor things really will help industries have more predictable or sustainable infrastructure, versus having to guess and check and just put a three-month maintenance window in place. You could do more damage than good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any thoughts about AI data management? Is AI going to save us all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly AI is going to help us. I think humans are still going to be required to save us. But because of these large amounts of data being generated, AI is going to be super essential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this data you and I could never sift through, these AI models are going to help distill that data and then allow the SMEs, the subject matter experts, to really be effective to go somewhere where their knowledge is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Image\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of red herrings out there if you take all this data; you could go down a bad rabbit hole, so AI, in my opinion, is going to help to direct our attention to the right places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Ross   <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excellent. Shawn, thank you so much. You are very knowledgeable about the industry, and I appreciate your subject matter expert view of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shawn Shockey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you, Alan.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12358,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"article-category":[5],"class_list":["post-13349","article-hub","type-article-hub","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article-category-interviews"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-hub\/13349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-hub"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article-hub"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transformer-technology.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-category?post=13349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}