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Power Onward is the podcast that unveils how power technology shapes your everyday life.
From the tech powering your daily life to the innovations driving industries forward, we talk about it all.
Brought to you by Cummins, each episode explores what’s fueling the future and why it matters for your mission, business, and community.
This is Power Onward,
the podcast that unveils how power
technology shapes your everyday life.
You are listening to Power Onward.
What is power in your world?
This is Power Onward,
the podcast that unveils how power
technology shapes your everyday life.
Picture yourself staring at a generator.
At first it looks really industrial,
heavy, technical. To some
it might seem unappealing,
it's just a metal box. But to
someone who sees beyond the surface,
it's actually quite beautiful. In
every design, there's intricacy,
designs that power residential
areas like malls and grocery stores,
even more complex designs that
power mission critical spaces,
think hospitals and data centers.
These are the details that turn
those metal boxes into possibility.
Hey everyone, I'm Kim.
Hi, and I'm Tanya.
Okay, Tanya.
So tell me a little bit more about the
beauty that you see in these products.
So I think the beauty
in our products is quite
multifaceted. First of all, they're
really compact. The way they're made,
the structure is big and bold and robust.
But where it really came to life for me
was on some photo shoots that I did for
the work I was doing lots
and lots of years ago,
where the technicians would unpack
or and disassemble the whole engine.
They'd call it a tear down and they'd
pack for an overhaul or a rehaul.
They'd pack all the bits and
pieces and the parts very,
very neatly as they always do.
And when I was walking through
the workshop at the time,
there was just some sort of light that
was shining through on these parts and
they had been recently cleaned.
They're nice and shiny,
and they became more than
just parts lying on the table.
They became shapes. There's actually
an artist called Mark Escher.
People can go and have a look at his
work where there's a lot of ambiguity.
And when I do this,
one of his famous pieces is actually
two hands holding each other,
A lot of ambiguity in shapes
and forms and et cetera,
and surfaces and reflections.
So I had a look at all of that and put
myself, this is really fascinating.
So I dived deeper into that. Took a whole
lot of series of photographs on those.
The open heads at the top
with the bits and pieces,
the springs and quills are
out. It really was fascinating.
So I find them beautiful
because I actually know what
goes on inside of them and
how they all fit together. And it really
fascinates me, to be honest with you.
They really are beautiful.
There is something oddly satisfying with
seeing them disassembled and knowing
there's a method behind the
madness that you might see.
And you mentioned them
organizing it into rows,
and I do think that's a really
beautiful thing. So given your response,
it seems like you've got
some creative background.
Do you want to tell us a little bit more
about what you've done here at Cummins?
It's been a fantastic journey the last
13 odd years as an employee and in the
previous 20, 25 years odd
as a supplier to Cummins,
a graphic design agency for Cummins.
So essentially I created
the visual material that was
needed for the advertising
campaigns, billboards, et cetera,
branding for over all the years.
And through that we had many
iterations of the brand.
The brand changed quite a few times
in those years. We had the sunsets,
there was a whole sunset
scene, which was, or theme,
which was absolutely stunningly every
day, every sunset, every moment,
every mission, critical,
beautiful material to be
able to work with the parts,
the interlocking gears
and things like that.
Really beautiful visual material
to work with to the red stripe,
et cetera that we had right
down to where we are today.
So I've really been involved in
the creation of the visual identity
over all the years. Two examples
that really stick close to my heart.
Way back in the early two thousands,
we did an advertising campaign
for repowering of old train
engines, train engines and mining
underground mining equipment.
And we had to try figure out how are we
going to bring this breathing new life
into the engines back, make
that visual connection.
So we created a scene of a little
boy sitting on a train track
and blowing a dandelion wishing
for a new engine type of thing.
I mean, looking back not, it may
have been, it was a slightly cliche,
but at the time it really, really
did resonate. It worked very well.
And the second one to that series was a
little girl that was riding her bike and
she dropped her bike because she
heard a new sound underground
being the new sound of the Cummins
engine that has now been repowered
underground. And she was listening
with her ear to the ground. So yeah,
that was just two of the immediate
ads that I can think of that's who
interact around the globe.
Powerful imagery.
And I was saying you were tugging on
my heartstrings as a brand marketer.
It's so interesting to see that you
come from a background where you were a
creative first and not actually a
technical background like most people may
think.
I think that is something I
really want to bring home.
And one of the things I love the most
about Cummins is when I came to join
Cummins back as an employee,
I realized you don't just
have to be an engineer or a
scientist or an analytical
type of person to belong in a
manufacturing kind of
company like Cummins is.
There really is space
for absolutely everybody.
There is creativity that can
be found absolutely everywhere,
and it might not be a FMCG
type of campaign, et cetera,
but the depth of what we found,
what I found anyway in Cummins
as a slightly different
talented person has been
extremely rewarding.
It really has been extremely rewarding.
And that's one of the things that I was
told when I first joined is you can make
your career your own at Cummins.
And I thought, okay, sure.
But honest honestly,
that is truly the way Cummins operates,
where you're able to make
your career yourself.
You can make your career your own.
If you have a view in mind almost.
If you can dream it, you can do
it. I'm living example of that.
So that's exciting about what
I love about being at Cummins.
I agree and that resonates with me deeply
because I've had that same experience
here and I can still see the bricks
kind of unfolding in front of me.
So a lot of times people ask, what
do you want to do next? I'm like,
I don't know. I really enjoy what I do,
but there are so many
different opportunities here.
So I want to talk more about
Cummins in your region.
I need you to tell everyone where you're
based and I would love to know a story
or show us how some products are making
real impact and differences in people's
lives there.
Okay, so I'm based in South Africa,
in Johannesburg in South Africa.
Our products are very,
very needed in our region.
I work for the Malcolms team and
for the Africa Middle East region.
So our region spans Africa to Middle
East to Kazakhstan, which is really,
really, really vast. I can honestly
say in across the entire region,
power solutions is critical and is key,
whether that be a generator or whether
that be a data center or a train or a
boat or a underground
mining equipment or normal,
huge big haul truck
equipments or on highway.
So there is so much opportunity
in our region and our
product is really,
really critical because power and
utility power specifically and
specifically lowering home to South
Africa, really, really is a challenge.
And I know a lot of parts in Africa
as well. Utility power is not stable,
it's not reliable.
It's on for a couple hours a
day or for most of the day.
Oftentimes when we are on Zoom calls
with partners across our region,
it's sorry, we have bandwidth issues,
we've got to switch off, myself included.
And that is because our power is unstable.
It's interesting you bring that up
because I have come across a couple of
meetings where we've had to also turn
off our cameras to help with those
bandwidth issues to help people,
but I did not realize that was due
to the grid reliability and the grid
constraints in your area.
In fact, even our telecom
towers obviously rely very,
very heavily on backup power.
So I know that was a really big
market for us at one particular point,
telecom towers, we needed some
gensets to back that power up.
And of course I'm excited now because
we've got battery energy systems, battery,
BESS battery,
and that is going to revolutionize the
way that we are able to operate in our
region. Taking solar
power, taking wind power,
harnessing that and storing the
power within our BESS system or
and slash additionally having backup
power in the form of a diesel generator
in Africa, Middle East. Well, Africa
specifically, diesel is still widely,
widely used.
Our transition will take slightly
longer than other parts of the world.
So that's why I feel passionate. I
really wish I've had a magic wand,
put a gen set, a Cummins gen set in
the hospitals, in the broadcast towers,
in the airports absolutely everywhere. So.
I'm really happy to hear you mention
BESS or Battery Energy Storage Systems
because I just spoke with Aaron Gold about
how they are so vastly different than
our average household
batteries from toys and phones.
But now beyond and knowing that,
well actually learning that best is
able to take power and store it and also
distribute it when it's needed the most.
Really, really interesting to know.
It has a mind of its own to be able to
manage those loads and the power that it
owns.
So I can see that making a world of
difference into how people live and how
people work.
Absolutely. That really
is absolutely the truth.
Our region has become quite socialized
with battery storage based on
inverters and things like that from
solar power or just a plane inverter.
But if having battery energy storage
systems as a common way that a
households or small companies or
commercial sectors or the whole industrial
sector and more,
because I know that they're able to be
strung up in parallel and and to be able
to provide really large power
really is fantastic. In fact,
the facility I work at in Johannesburg
is going to be powered very
shortly by a BESS system
if it's not by December,
then early in 2026.
And one of our regions,
Cummins Arabia has only as literally
as I think last month installed a BESS
system at their facility
as a backup power.
So you can't sell something if you
don't use it yourself. So there's proof.
Absolutely.
We're using it, we believe
in it, customers can buy it.
I want to see how this is installed.
I love seeing on-site
installations because it is
so nice to see our products in
real life placements
actually making a difference.
You'll have to send a picture.
I would love to see one.
So what I'm hearing a lot is for you,
our product does make
a world of difference.
It does change the way people operate and
it is almost like a lifeline depending
on when these grid constraints happen.
But I know one thing about you,
you have a superpower and it's
not always about the product.
So tell me more about this superpower.
I love you. I love the fact that you
call it a superpower. I haven't had...
It's a superpower.
It falls. I am going to take
that on from now onwards.
But I think one of the
most important points,
when I first started
working with Cummins in 97,
I was told we are not in the engine
business. We're in the people business.
And that is the truest thing,
absolutely the truest thing ever. Yes,
we have amazing product, but without
our people, and when I say people,
I'm talking right from the very,
very first person you walk into at
the facility right up to our CEO and
chairman. Every single body is very, very,
very important across the whole
spectrum. Something that I feel really,
really passionate about: our people.
As I said,
links to what I was saying earlier,
you're able to craft your own journey,
your own story at Cummins is the fact
that we have got so much talent at
Cummins. We have got so much
talent, but so many people,
and it's maybe not just at
Cummins, people in general,
they're doing a fantastic job.
But when you converse with them,
you might realize that they're just a
little bit lackluster and they haven't
realized that they actually have a
talent or a skill or an aptitude to
something which is very, very,
very, very obvious to other people.
And my mission on this earth is basically
to point that out to people. So, hey,
have you noticed that you really, really
seem very good at A, B, C or X, Y, Z?
And I won't just do that flippantly to
everybody I meet, but when that happens,
and the most fundamental thing at Cummins
is that if you find somebody that's
really good at strategy, let's
say, and it's identified,
Cummins is leaders are those kind
of leaders that will then definitely
organize and make sure that you land up
in that type of place so that you can
fulfill and be your complete and total
unique self. We value difference at
Cummins, right? We value difference.
We don't value copy pastes.
We value difference. And that is your
talents, your skills, the way you think,
where you come from, all of the
diversities, not just the sex dimensions,
but all of the diversities. And
so the superpower I have is just,
I dunno how you want to put it,
but basically tapping into
the people that we have,
we have the most phenomenal people.
And Cummins is value
of caring is so unique.
It really is so unique
that I feel we don't make a
big enough noise about that amongst
ourselves sometimes. We all know it.
We all feel it.
It's like being in your granny's house
when you're having really nice food and
you have the nice food or if you go, but
can you take that moment to say, wow,
this is really great.
And the caring culture that we
have at Cummins is really unique
together with all our d and i philosophies
and culture philosophies and of
course values difference. Put
all of that together in a bucket.
And we are an employer
of choice. We really are.
I can tell it's more than the
products. It's the purpose.
It's what we can bring out the
best in everyone we've worked with.
And for what it's worth, Tanya has
given me a pep talk once, twice,
maybe even three times.
And she really does hone in on our
differences being our biggest strength.
Sometimes I feel like I'm a little much,
little different or maybe I stand out
too much, but Tanya's like, no, no, no,
you're shining bright.
And so it takes people like Tanya
to really harness the best out of
people in all the best ways and to make
us see the value that we are able to
bring to Cummins as well.
That's exactly it. Thank you.
So Tanya, I'm curious,
aside from grid constraints,
what are some other challenges
that you face in your region?
Okay, and I'm going to speak on behalf of,
I would say the whole
Africa Middle East region.
From my perspective as a marketer
or a communications person,
not a business person per
se, the challenges in our
region is that it is vast,
really it's a vast, vast area.
We are blessed in that it's
only a two hour time zone,
basically from GMT to GMT+4. So
four hours across the region.
So it's not that large.
Especially compared to Australia.
Exactly that, really.
So the difference though is that and
all the challenges that we face or the
realities that we do face,
and I don't think a lot of people know
this is the multitude of obviously
currencies that we face across
all the regions, languages,
dialect of languages, specifically
South Africa has 11 official languages,
which we don't all obviously use.
English is the business language,
but together with one or two
extra languages with that Chinese,
Portuguese, French, Arabic, and Russian.
So that is one really big point that needs
to be considered. And then of course,
I'm sure the whole world faces that too,
but different holidays across the
region where people might be having a
national day in Nigeria, but in
Kazakhstan it's business as usual.
And for us that trade across the same
region the whole time, it's great.
It flexes our diversity thinking,
if I can put it like that brain to
say, okay, are they working today?
Is it a public holiday?
What is the situation?
We haven't even got into
cultures, religions,
all of that stuff across the
regions. It's fascinating. I love it.
It's such a rich, rich, rich tapestry.
That's the best way I can describe it.
It's a rich tapestry of
cultures, foods, landscapes,
colors for people that haven't been
to our region. I would just want to
be a little small advocate and
say, come you, you'll be very,
very surprised as to
the way things are here.
It's different. It's
really, really different.
As our regional leader Thierry Pimi,
he is a native to Africa
and he's from the Cameroon,
and he often says that you can't imagine
what living in Africa is like because
he's a US citizen. He's like, you cannot
imagine what living in Africa is like.
So in a good way, it is good.
I'd love for people to come and have
a look and see what goes on here.
Yes, we'll have to schedule some type
of interactive tour that you can lead us
through in the interim,
because I do want to see,
and I like how you positioned that.
You said you're developing your diversity
brain and then you're training and
constantly flexing the diversity muscle
and then the beautiful visual of the
tapestry where everything
is woven in together,
but there's distinct
differences in every detail.
So given the myriad of constraints
and challenges that you have just
described, why should people
reach out or contact Cummins?
Let's just go with the product first
of all, because our product is really,
really robust. It's brilliant. It's over
a hundred years old, as we all know,
lots and lots of innovation, technology
development that is in there.
But one of the things that isn't
spoken about often I don't think,
is the fact that our
engines are customizable.
And when I first became
involved with Cummins,
that was one of the top selling points
that the business development leader was
explaining to me is you can customize
the engine to operate at different
types of terrains long,
there's a drive or up and down to
the coast or mountainous or whatever.
So that's one of the points. I know
our warranty system is really, really,
really very good. And also, once
an engine has been reconditioned,
it does reset back to its
factory warranty. So to me,
those are just three top,
top things of our
products that are amazing,
let alone the move
towards destination zero,
where the transition that we are busy
going through and developing for the plan
that's in place, and the
engines, the helm engines,
all of these things are
really, really, really,
I would say phenomenal. And I'm very
excited to see how we are able to
transition all of those
changing technologies together
with the way the world's
changing at the rate and
where you find your customer.
We change with the rate at
which we find our customer at.
But let's go to the people. Cummins
people are very, very, very committed.
One thing I've noticed is that Cummins
colleagues form relationships or
partnerships with the customers.
I've really seen this over the longest
amount of years where long-term
relationships are formed and partnerships
with our customers and people stay at
Cummins.
You'll find people staying at Cummins
from being a technician when they start
right up until when they retire
and they're in their sixties.
I've seen that across and I know
why. I'm on the inside. I know why.
Is every day fabulous? Not every
single day, but most days. Most days.
So to be real, our people are
committed, they're dependable,
they're committed, and they're dependable.
That's why people should contact us.
Test us.
That was lovely. So Tanya, before we wrap,
what's one thing that you really
want to leave our listeners with?
I think the one thing I'd really,
really like to leave people with is
trust yourself. Believe in yourself.
And if there is something that you would
love to do and you're not currently
doing it and it can add value
to Cummins, then speak up.
Talk to somebody, find that something.
Because if you can do something
that doesn't feel like work to you,
but you're adding value and you
will automatically be good at that.
Something we all win.
And Cummins wants people to be really
happy in their jobs and in their roles
and feel like they're making a
really wonderful contribution.
So I want to say to people,
take five minutes, sit down,
think am I doing what
I love doing? If not,
let's talk about why not just take five
minutes and think about who you are
and how you can really make a
difference to our organization.
Well Tanya, it's been
lovely talking to you today.
I can see that we're powered by
purpose in everything that we do,
and we love the shining, smiling Tanya,
always bringing some positivity
and some sparkle to the world.
So thank you again for taking time today.
It's been my honor.
Thank you very much, Kim.
Alright, so what's the big idea for
this episode? For over three decades,
Tanya has been a part of the
Cummins story, and during that time,
she's learned that power
isn't just about the products.
It's also about lifting people up and
finding opportunities and hard moments and
creating a future where beauty
and function can exist together.
Power onward.
Thank you for listening to Power Onward.
Your support means the world to us.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please don't forget to subscribe,
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If you want to dig deeper
on what we covered today,
check out the show notes for
additional links or go to
cummins.com/podcast. Until next time,
power onward.
We are from Cummins,
the company that's been innovating
toward the future for more than a hundred
years. We're no strangers to rapid change,
global shifts and economic uncertainty.
We want to be your constant during
the energy transition whenever,
wherever, forever. Power onward.