I encounter a lot of friction in my work. Too many obstacles get in the way of me doing the things I need to do and the things I like to do.

I know all of you out there have friction in your work too, and if you’re in the manufacturing business you likely encounter friction when you have to achieve the necessary quality to be ISO certified.

Today’s guest on the show, Adam Marsh, has a company called Ledge Inc. that guides manufacturers through the ISO certification process.

Getting ISO certification can be an overwhelming undertaking, but like so many challenging and complicated tasks, if you just have the right guide at your side to lead you through, it’s not nearly as difficult as it first seems.

Reducing friction is Adam’s specialty. In addition to talking about quality, we talked about how he reduces friction in hiring new employees, creating a skilled manufacturing workforce, and even figuring out what to make for dinner.

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Interview Highlights

Ledge Incorporated

Noah Graff: Give me a brief overview of what your company does.

Adam Marsh: We help manufacturers meet quality management system requirements. If someone has ISO 9001, we help them manage and achieve those certifications. We also help them implement new quality systems.

I’ve been doing this since 2011, supporting my father who started in 1987. We have a team of 11 serving about 250 companies across the country. Our target is small to medium manufacturers who struggle with this. They might not have the internal knowledge to meet customer requirements, especially when selling to major OEMs.

Noah: What are the main sectors? It’s not just machining, right?

Adam: We work with a lot of machining companies, but also medical device, environmental certification like ISO 14,001, aerospace, injection molding – you name it. We also have a food safety division with experts in that field.

Noah: ISO has always seemed complicated and intimidating to me, with all these numbers.

Adam: We don’t make it easy. We have so many abbreviations that if you’re not in the industry, it can be hard.

I don’t feel like quality people have historically done a great job of helping manufacturers simplify this. That’s what my company does – we take complicated standards and turn them into something you can actually deliver day-to-day.

When I see a 10-person machine shop with a hundred-page quality manual, I want to throw it out the window and start over. It’s too complicated.

They’ll never follow or keep up with it. The idea is to say what you do and do what you say. If you say too much, you make it really hard on yourself.

Facilitating Apprenticeships

Noah: You mentioned one of the associations you belong to has an apprenticeship connection, so companies don’t have to have their own personal apprenticeship program.

Adam: I’m past president of our local manufacturers association, called the Manufacturers Association of South Central Pennsylvania.

Manufacturing wages have really gone up. It’s a great alternative to college at this point, but our schools are filled. Our local tech school is full; they’re turning kids away. So we built this alternative where we’re able to teach classes and embrace that old apprenticeship model. People work at the company during the day, take classes at night at our Manufacturers Association facility. After a two or four-year apprenticeship, they’re able to get state papers and we sponsor.

Noah: How does that compare to an apprenticeship created by a certain company?

Adam: You have to build your own program and get it approved by the state. It takes years, and the state doesn’t work particularly quickly. To attract young talent, they all want education and a pathway forward. Our association has those apprenticeships already built, and companies can essentially jump onto our program.

Environmental Regulations

Noah: I see environmental regulations as a complicated issue. What do you think about the complaints that when Democrats are in power, regulations get ridiculous?

Adam: I haven’t seen as much on the federal side environmentally that is hurting our customers. I’ve seen more problems on the local side, often related to water systems.

Our approach is to ask: do you even understand what your compliance requirements are? Because many don’t.

It’s not that they don’t want to do the right thing. They would be okay doing the right thing, but they don’t even know what the right thing is. And they’re afraid to ask questions for fear of being fined.

Using LinkedIn to Find Customers

Noah: We met on LinkedIn. You often have one on one conversations with several people in a week?

Adam: Yeah, I have a decent LinkedIn following. I reach out and they reach out to me. I get a lot of work from LinkedIn, people looking for ISO support. 

I focus on good content if I’m going to post anything. I don’t do the “post a day” thing, but I try to connect with people. If they’re in quality or manufacturing, I’m absolutely up for connecting.

Noah: Yeah. Well, you knew where I was going with this.

Adam: It’s going to end up with something. You did the podcast on serendipity, right? I look back at how I’ve grown my business, and it’s a lot of that. We put ourselves out there to meet people. I have a new customer in Ohio who sent me a very cryptic message on LinkedIn. I said, “Sure, I’ll jump on a call.” And now I’ve got a new project.

Advice for Manufacturers

Noah: Do you have any final advice for people with manufacturing companies or people in quality?

Adam: The factory of the future is the real deal, and we have to embrace it now. Whether that’s Industry 4.0 – we have to get out of our own way and start using technology to remain competitive. I love it on the maintenance side – predictive maintenance. Can we start putting sensors on things to know when they’re going to go bad?

We just spoke to my team today. I told everyone to get an account for whichever AI they want to work with. I just want them messing with it and figuring out how it can help in the day-to-day, because that’s going to make our team strong. Some use ChatGPT. One of my teammates said today he’s using Copilot. We’re all kind of all over the place. I want to know what works out there.

Question: What processes give you the biggest headaches as a manufacturer?

Transcript was aided by claude.ai

The post ISO Without the Headache, Adam Marsh-EP 227 first appeared on Today’s Machining World.