The Manufacturers' Network

Connect with Christopher NguyenWebsite: www.aitomatic.com. Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Christopher Nguyen. With a decades-long career, Christopher's tech bona fides are second to none. Since fleeing Vietnam in 1978, this multiple-time tech founder has played key roles and everything from building the first flash memory transistors at Intel to spearheading the development of Google Apps as its first engineering director. Today he's become an outspoken proponent of the emerging field of Ai engineering and a thought leader in the space of ethical human-centric Ai. With his latest company Aitomatic, he's hoping to redefine how companies approach Ai in the context of life-critical industrial applications. Christopher, welcome to the show.Christopher Nguyen: Hi, Lisa thanks for having me.Lisa Ryan: Share with us a little bit about your background and what led you to do what you're doing now with Ai.Christopher Nguyen: The most relevant thing about what I'm doing now can be considered a failure, starting after my previous company's acquisition by a company called Panasonic. We all know Panasonic as a global engine. However, many people don't realize that Panasonic is less of a consumer company than an industrial company in manufacturing, avionics, and automotive. The acquisition of my previous company was the apply Ai machine learning to that global engine. Very quickly, we found that a lot of our, let me call it Silicon Valley techniques of digital-first companies like Google and Facebook, and Twitter run into apparent limitations when it comes to dealing with the physical world. The discussion or debate between atoms versus bits, and we've had to develop a whole bunch of techniques that involve leveraging a lot of human knowledge and expertise. We are automating all of that with machine learning to solve these industrial problems. That's the thesis of Aitomatic, the company.Lisa Ryan: So how do you do that when you talk about taking that human knowledge? How are you taking what we do almost automatically as human beings and turning that into machine learning?Christopher Nguyen: Maybe I can share why we do that because too many of us today, that is counterintuitive. We thought the future is only data-driven, and we only collect enough data with sensors on machines, and then we feed them and do these machine learning algorithms, and they'll know and don't predict they'll do everything for us.It turns out that doesn't apply not today and enough for a very long time to the physical industry. Take the problem of looking at sensors on a machine by refrigeration system and then trying to predict in advance. Is this likely to fail over the next two weeks? Is a compressor going to conk out or something like that? To do that, we still rely on human expertise because it's not in the data we're collecting. It's in their life experience. 30-40 years of seeing various refrigeration systems, models, operating conditions, and so on and building up instead of intuitions in their minds over time. We failed trying to do it the other way. We succeeded in incorporating human knowledge. That's the reason we do that. I can talk about how we do that.Lisa Ryan: That's interesting because when you have somebody that's been in the job for 20 or 30 years and, as you said, that's that feeling that intuition and being able to take a human feeling and turn it into data, that's just fascinating. If there's an easy way to describe how that happens, that would be great.Christopher Nguyen: If we learn like humans, we're building learning machines. We can either learn from examples, or we could learn from instructions. Data-driven machine learning is essentially learning. For example, learning by example requires lots and lots of examples before you start to build up some experience around it. But learning from instruction, you could say if the temperature is too high, but the pressure is too low, then signal something that may be problematic soon. So the basics of clarifying or encoding human knowledge are about capturing some of these rules from the past. Their so-called expert system where people tried to do these things. But advances in technology in terms of machine learning itself are enabling us to do this. We can take the natural language you, and I can speak like this, and then it can be translated into something that a machine can understand. Then we can sit down with a domain expert, a manufacturing assembly person who knows machines well. They can say if the sound that comes off sounds like the knock-knock of an engine, then I know to take that offline. We can take the sentence as is, and now our machine learning algorithm can understand it and translate it into code. That code becomes automated and part of the automated system's knowledge set.Lisa Ryan: One of the surprising about automation is that it's so widely used, and yet according to your information, only 9% of manufacturers are currently leveraging it. So what are some of the challenges you've seen that have stopped that from expanding wider?Christopher Nguyen: One of the challenges or surprises that I've learned in the last five years, being part of Panasonic before launching this company, is how the meme or the fear is that robots are coming to replace us. Replace thousands of people, and we just put a bunch of robots doing that; it turns out, the lab we use the word profit with most profitable, the most promising applications are not that right. So it is more about solving the problem of not having enough students than not having enough expertise.In one example, because it's Panasonic, we also operate in Japan. There are these supermarket chains that run refrigeration systems. There are 10,000 supermarkets in one chain and hundreds of thousands of refrigeration equipment. And three experts in the entire country are qualified to diagnose this. It's very much a human expertise constraint. The solution is to quantify what they know and their lifetime of experience, then try to replicate the scale here in the US, where we're facing the same crisis. We've all come on software in the last 30-40 years. We've outsourced our manufacturing - all the tooling or the physical stuff. Now we're finding that it's not just a like economic risk but geopolitical risk.Lisa Ryan: Especially with the labor shortage we're facing right now, there are two sides to that equation. Number one, it's great to have automation to do the jobs that nobody else wants. So we can start making people's lives easier while requiring fewer people. But, on the other hand, if you're talking about three people in an entire country that has that knowledge, there's gotta be some fear around, "Well, if I communicate everything I know to the machines, then I'm going to communicate myself, out of a job." So how do we balance that where we can get away from the fear of where we're not that we can work in harmony between man and machine.Christopher Nguyen: I'll give you an example. Here in the US, you may have heard of a company called Huntsman. They make refrigeration equipment. They are a Panasonic subsidiary, a very large operator. They sell in supermarkets. If you go into the freezer section, you'll see the huntsman logo. To build, run and operate such a network, you need a  very large force of service personnel who understand this equipment, have experience and can go out and repair them. Unfortunately, there's a massive shortage of people willing to take these jobs. So what does Huntsman do? Believe it or not, they set up universities, but for schools to try and teach these people, they've been paid very well. So this is a general example where we were short on people willing to take these jobs or right because everybody goes to college and gets a computer science degree. Ai machine learning will try to help those solve those problems first rather than working people out of a job.Lisa Ryan: Right, exactly, and we certainly need both. I know I was talking to my mother today and her air conditioner went out while she's in Atlanta, Georgia, where it's 100 degrees today, and she's in her late 70s. And nobody can come out. They have nobody to come out until Monday. So the labor shortage is real regarding not only people's health, like my mother's what air conditioning, but also at you just said with 10s of thousands of air conditioning units, how do we get the people to do that.Christopher Nguyen: That's an important example of when you share it. There's a field called predictive maintenance. You're in manufacturing and instrumentation. Where we try to prevent right failure is better than predictive maintenance is better than even preventive because preventive maintenance, you go out and replace everything every six months. Maybe there's a bit of waste, but predictive means you can try to predict that something is likely to fail.The value of being able to do so is far more than the cost of that piece of that compressor or the labor to go out; it's a life and death situation. It's not like a Google or where you click on the wrong ad. What he stands for is that you are trying to essentially build intrusion detection system cybersecurity for automotive because soon, cars are computers on wheels and will be hacked. If you get that wrong, someone dies, so I think this is a crucial combination: applying Ai machine learning to the essential processes in our lives. We're still physical people. We still drive cars. We do eat fish, and so on. So the impact of failure can be quite consequential.Lisa Ryan: Well, the interesting thing you just said about the predictive is that Carrier reached out to my mother yesterday via email to let her know that they sensed something wrong with her system. Still, unfortunately, AT&T was putting in fiber, and somebody cut her line, and she didn't have Internet, so it's a perfect storm. But that predictive maintenance is such an interesting concept because if they can let you know. Hey, there's a good chance we're seeing something that's not working. Then, you can send those people we have so few to fix or do preventative maintenance because they know. That there's a good chance that it's going to fail.Christopher Nguyen: On a typical factory floor, one failure can easily shut down the line and costs $20,000 an hour. The cost of that screw or compressor you're trying to replace can prevent that from happening. So it has a very, very meaningful economic and human life value.Lisa Ryan: Well, you also brought up an interesting point that ties in with Ai and automation. That is cyber security. The more that we outsource, automate, and take it out of the human control and put it into the machine control, there are a couple of people out there - one or two - who are the bad guys. So what are some of the things you've learned about the risks? Also, you talk about putting that human intelligence back into the driver's seat when dealing with cyber security.Christopher Nguyen: You may be familiar with SPYCAR legislation. In the US, SPYCAR stands for safety and privacy in your car. The US Senate likes to have these clever acronyms. But essentially, by a specific year, it was initially envisioned to be 2023 but maybe push that a little more. All cars on the road must have an intrusion detection system. Because vehicles are becoming computers on wheels, they are subject to attack. The way technology has been built is that when people first computerized the car. There's something on the vehicle called the canvas, which you think of as this network. So you have all these sensors and actuators and the processors talking to each other security when that was first built was not top of mind.Because the cars are moving, they think, who will connect to them and hack them? Now cars are getting connected. There have been demonstrations as far back as 2015. That was when a Jeep Cherokee was controlled and was driven off the road. Because it is life and limb, it is human life at stake. It's not just again clicking on the wrong ad. Congress is trying to get ahead of all this and requiring that manufacturers put these intrusion detection systems into cars. My company provides some of the intelligence that goes into that. These things have to be a knowledge infection. We can see car communication patterns that have not occurred before. So that may indicate a kind of a cyber-attack going on and then being alerted to alert the driver and perhaps shut down the systems before it goes too fast and cost somebody death.Lisa Ryan: So, as the hackers get more imaginative and innovative and out with that, is that something that you're just continually monitoring and looking at and patching. How does that work? You're getting better, but the chances are that they're getting better too. So how do you continue to protect these devices, these cars, and trucks?Christopher Nguyen: It is an escalating ever-escalating battle, and the hope, wish, and the promise is that machine learning or learning machines can be better than machines that are not learning. Computers are pretty dumb. All of the intelligence in a computer comes from humans. We tell them exactly what to do. We tell them, step one, do this step. They're very inflexible, but when you apply Ai and machine learning, the hope is because those machines are now learning. They can adapt. They can adapt sufficiently so that they can see new patterns faster than we expect to have a sort of human response. They essentially can begin to pass themselves, which affords us not perfection, but an additional layer of defenses before things get terrible.Lisa Ryan: So what is it exactly that you do at Aitomatic? Tell us a little about your services and how you work with your companies?Christopher Nguyen: Some use cases I mentioned include refrigeration predictive maintenance, identifying and counting the number of fish under the ocean using sonar echograms. This is for keeping fish for something called fixed net fishing off the coast of Japan, as well as cybersecurity, automotive cybersecurity, and avionics. So these are the various use cases. We don't implement directly what our customers do, so these customers have teams called engineers. So you have computer engineers, software engineers, and now you have these emerging people skills called Ai engineers. They use automatic tools, so we have tools, and we have a cloud service that enables them to build these systems. We offer the capabilities that I just mentioned here. They integrate them in specific ways to fit their particular use cases.Lisa Ryan: We talked a lot about Ai and some of what's happening. We also covered the small percentage of manufacturers that are currently leveraging that. Then there are the automotive cyber security issues. What would be your best tip for somebody looking at taking their manufacturing to the next level of using that human intelligence along with automation? Whether it be the Labor shortage or the technology, what would be some of your best tips for somebody listening today.Christopher Nguyen: What our expertise is and what we believe in. There are lots of tools and techniques to force someone to get into machine learning to develop Ai solutions. If they think that they have an asset that is human expertise right from years of experience and so on, and they want to apply that to their Ai system, they should seek out tools and techniques companies like ours that specialize in something I call knowledge first Ai.Lisa Ryan: And so, and this year tool, you mentioned earlier about just being able to talk to it in everyday conversation, it sounds like a knock-knock when it does that or how do you how would you even know what to say to the machine.Christopher Nguyen: Communicating an international language is the first step on the journey. That starts the knowledge encoding. Once that knowledge is encoded, we then automatically generate what's called the machine learning model. Then the whole thing gets deployed into production, and once it's in production, data is still coming in, and incidents happen. New events occur. All of that is then looped back into rebuilding or refreshing the system, so essentially the whole thing is an operating system learned from human instruction. So as well as more data comes in, it will also learn about what's happening in real-time.Lisa Ryan: And are some industries better than others when it comes to using Ai, or is it across the board in manufacturing that everybody can benefit.Christopher Nguyen: There's nothing that is best for everything. The difference between the digital and physical industries is that I used to be part of the digital industry right now at Google and so on. Some tools and techniques work with big data that move quickly in and out, and the process itself is also digital. That works very well for certain classes of companies, I think, for manufacturers for automotive companies, for a bionic company, anything that has a physical dimension, we find that those tools and techniques don't work.We need to have this human expertise, and so I think, for you know, an Ai company like Automatic that focuses on what's called knowledge first Ai is much more suitable for the physical industry.Lisa Ryan: On the other thing that just popped into my mind as we look at the graying of America in manufacturing, we have all these people walking out the door and taking that knowledge with them. It also gives them a chance to leave a legacy. So all of those decades of information feel relevant because they're contributing to the company's future and truly leave a legacy with the knowledge they've built up in their career.Christopher Nguyen: yeah, for us, they're not just relevant. They're essential, literally. Sometimes, this knowledge is lost forever and then has to be somehow built up from raw data. That isn't easy to do essentially like eventually, 50 years from now, machines will learn everything, but what we do the in the intervening 50 years.Lisa Ryan: Right. We speak a lot on the show about workplace culture and helping employees feel that they're valued, appreciated, and part of a bigger mission. In this case, with that human intelligence, that human factor, you can work it into your conversations. Let the managers say. This is your legacy. We value you, and that's why we're doing it. We're not trying to take people out of the equation. We want to bring your knowledge into the equation.Christopher Nguyen: Machines, when used correctly, will always augment us rather than replace us.Lisa Ryan: Exactly. Christopher, it has been a pleasure having you on the show today. If somebody does...

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Nitin Govila. Nitin is a management leader, entrepreneur, engineer, and meditation trainer. He is the Senior Vice President, air Pacific and MEA for the French manufacturing group Serge Ferrari, a flexible composite material sector leader. So, Nitin, welcome to the show.Nitin Govila: Thank you, Lisa. I'm glad to be here and delighted to be speaking with you.Lisa Ryan: Share with us a bit about your background and what led you ultimately to do what you're doing with composite materials.Nitin Govila: I was in the initial years of my life. I was born and brought up in India. I studied there and worked there for six to seven years. I started my career with paints after a few years in the dairy and food sectors. Building materials and paints were the first building materials I started with. I needed to kind of update or upgraded myself, so I felt a need for an international management degree.I came to Paris to do my MBA at HTC Paris, which opened me up to work in an international environment. I started working with another French company, which was in home automation. Then in early 2007 and eight, I felt the need that this part of the world was growing. At that time, I was working in France also, and then I felt the market that this part of the world was growing, and I wanted to be back in Asia. So that brought me to Singapore.I've now been in Singapore for 14 plus years. For the first seven years, I worked for a French company, also in roofing. I moved to a very niche product category in roofing. Then this opportunity came, which was unique and different. I did not know about the sector. We used to see some shade structures, blinds, and awnings, but they were in detail in the industry. When I was with the home automation, we used to supply moderation systems for the blinds and awnings. So I was exposed to that, but beyond that, not so much. It was an interesting journey for me to enter this business category. That's been six and a half years now. In this industry, as you mentioned, I've been handling the role of Vice president of Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa.That's nearly a more significant part of the world regarding geography. It's also a growing part of the business for the company. I'm based in Singapore, but most of the time travel across all the countries and regions I am responsible for.Lisa Ryan: What has changed as far as these composite materials? Why are people moving towards them? And what are some of the benefits of using that in architecture and outdoor equipment applications?Nitin Govila: Great question. When I joined, it's already been six and a half years, as I mentioned. I also ask this question regarding what has been evolving in our company. It's touching 50 years next year, and what I've seen when I look back at history, I think the main thing has been technology and innovation. If you look at composite materials, how it starts may start with a pellet. If you're using polyester, you begin with those pellets. You crush them you. You make yarn.We process the yarn through our process and then quote them what drives the product's innovation and quality. More and more companies that have invested in innovation have always been able to lead the market, continuously bringing out new products. Based on the market's needs, if I look at significant structures now, I'm talking about stadiums, airports, and large shading structures when we talk about great architecture. Earlier, nobody thought it was a guy maybe 15-20 years back. You might call it a kind of a tarpaulin or a canvas, depending on which country you are from and what words are used. Over the years, companies have leaped to make some innovations. Serge Ferrari is one of the leading companies with innovation. We put nearly four to 5% of our turnover into R&D and innovation. What happened was slowly, the minds of the architects and the designers and consultants also changed and evolved.There was also a field of study that evolved in engineering, called ten cyl or the fabric or ten cell membrane engineering. Many colleges came up with a couple of them, offering specialization in Germany. These courses became a field of study. When those people came out to start their professional careers with architect or design firms, they also began experimenting. As time went along, when you see those structures, there are still structures that were done 20-25 years back and are still there. That also created more and more openness for the architects, designers, and the final client to look at it. Over time, they also realized that one of the unique ways for every architect or designer is always to have a signature structure made. A unique one and composite materials being free-flowing have been able to give that to feed into their imagination.It boils down to what kind of yards are used. Are you using glass yarns are using. They have a proven history of projects which have lasted 20, 30, and 40 years and are still standing. That's why now it's moving in the lines. It's the fifth element of construction, other than the classical ones. The concrete and other elements we talk about are moving as a fifth element. It looks like a prominent open structure or a close structure. Even in close structures, people use membranes and fabrics because they can roll up the building. They can make a façade. They can create a perforated facade or single-skin facades can, depending on their needs.The structure you see behind me as my backdrop is made of a facade material. It's in a public park in Queensland. I visited this place last week to see the project because that also gives a lovely perspective. It's a public space. You can walk and be underneath it. It adds to the aesthetics and creates that iconic structure, which goes in very hand in hand with the city's identity. For that matter, the countries and entities, so if you asked me briefly, it's a long answer, but I would say innovation. Being able to show a proven history, that you've done it, you've done it successfully, and being able to go and meet the right influencers and tell them what the product can bring. Then you have all the test labs and the reports to complement to prove that these are three-four elements that are leading plus the flexibility of it. Even non-combustibility or sustainability in companies like us have taken the lead in that direction. So that building norms or the local norms of a city or a country are also filled in that direction, whether you're going to greener way, whether you're going the noncombustible way, or you want to have more fire-resistant buildings or structures in that sense.Lisa Ryan: Because this is audio-only, people don't see the structure behind you, but I can verify that it is super cool, so just from the sustainability aspect, that's great. But the creativity, because you have the opportunity to work with those flowing materials and create something unique. You have a lot more flexibility. Let's talk about its sustainability of it. Using glass and polyester and those different fibers, from a sustainability standpoint, is that, like recycled materials, we can incorporate our, I don't want to call it, our waste, but our waste into these types of projects? We'll talk a little bit about the sustainability aspect of that.Nitin Govila: Certain companies are working on it again here. We are taking the lead. We have been leaders in developing PVC-free products. In that sense, which is mainly for interior applications, so instead of somebody wanting a polyester coated PVC polyester yarns and PVC coated product if they wish to a PVC free, that's a trend which is going. Because sustainability also has very different meanings in different countries in certain countries. They want to understand the entire back end of the process in the value chain of the whole manufacturing. We consider the terms of how the raw materials are sourced. The raw material supplier companies are doing in terms of their processes. In Australia, you have a concept called PVC best practice, which means that vinyl and PVC are not bad, but it's more important to see what the processes follow to make a product.We also have a second development we had in the past, and now we are doing it uniquely also is to create, how do we recycle these membranes and then recycle to what is it recycle to a bad waste in a way that okay. It's recycled, but still, it's not such a usable way. Maybe you can still make some applications not related to structures. But some other things or are you able to create even the yarns and pallets which are of good quality so that you can use them to make another fabric, which will be a good quality. The company is working on the second step earlier, we had the recyclability that it created pallets, and you could use them for various things. Maybe low-end usage now, we've gone one step ahead to develop a technology where we are working on it. We should have it launched at the end of this year or early next year.If you're also able to show that the pallets you create are of high quality, then when the yards you create and through that, the fabric you make will also have better quality. Then other elements are what coating process use what environment are you using to, then and classify production in that direction. So there is a very, very strong effort towards that. We are aligned with the overall objectives of Europe or other parts of the world. We have allocated a specific part to ensure we are moving in that direction. The world is moving or as expected of companies like us.Lisa Ryan: The other thing I find interesting about what you're doing with your materials is the difference between sound and noise. What are you doing with those internally, as far as helping workers to be more focused on what they're doing because you're able to reduce or eliminate some of the day-to-day noise? Talk about it from that standpoint? How are your products and your technology helping today's manufacturing workers?Nitin Govila: It's not only the manufacturing workers that's important. But it's also overall. I would say workspace so whether it's manufacturing, whether it's an office, whether it's a restaurant or a public space interest public space or, for that matter, include swimming pool or a sports gym or whatever. What happens is that acoustics is, and I'll prefer to use the word acoustics here because acoustics is misunderstood or misconstrued. When you talk about acoustic, people first understand this sound reduction of soundproof. That's where I have learned it. Before joining the company, I did not understand that sound and bad noise are different.What is essential is to have a good sound or up and reduce the effect of bad now is not bad noise means that you are an area, you have a lot of people. There's a reverberation of sound, which affects that even when you go to a restaurant. It's packed on a Friday evening or Saturday. You're not even able to hear the person across your table for which you've come for dinner. Suppose you have an environment that ensures that those sound reverberations are what the coefficient NRC or the Alpha. We say the noise reduction coefficient is measured in terms of the material. In that case, you're not saying you're making a soundproof. It's not like a recording room. But what you're recording also insulates you. You don't feel much of anything in a recording room. Here it's different. You remove the bad noise effects and have a good sound. You're able to sit comfortably and be in a good space. You can also hear the other person, whatever the other person is saying, and communicate comfortably even if people are around now. What's happening is over the years and still happens. There's a lot of effort put towards in an office, not only the aesthetics, or how do we manage the heat, the terminal part the glare, part all those elements are being looked at more seriously.Even though there is an element of exterior protection outside the window or inside, that has its pluses and minuses. The acoustic part is never looked at, and when you look at it now, try to get people back to the office after the covert. You become pertinent to creating a good space that people would want to return to; otherwise, they were happy in their homes. They have created a space of working for the last one and a half years doing these calls like zoom calls or teams calls, and then, when they come to the office, they see it's an open space.You may feel heavy or not so comfortable, so I think that's an element I see sometimes gaining but not so much a part of it is also lack of information and knowledge available. Maybe there are not so many acousticians who can share the difference between all those elements. Part of it is also design and awareness. The moment all that comes together, we are playing a part, when we try to show at different exhibitions or displays or even presentations to architects to discuss this. Because the free-flowing fabric word that it ensures it can fit into your design environment. You can envelop it with the lights, so if you have a light, you can cover the lights. Instead of glass, you can do fabric. Nobody will ever realize that you can do ceiling baffles. You can do panels.You can even do the walls and print on them; nobody will even realize there is fabric. It provides the acoustic effect that if you take swimming pools, you can do the ceiling underneath any roof. It could be a membrane roof. It could be a steel roof. The sound does not get reflected. That improves the whole acoustics of the place. Many times when we see stadiums being designed, they are always double-skinned. Part of it is also because of that; our product is included in the Qatar World Cup, which has five stadiums. There's one stadium, designed like a Bedouin, a Middle East tent where the outside surface is a membrane. The inside part is done on the ceiling. The design of what the intent in the Middle East inside will look like. We designed it from the yards. We did not color it. The yarns are of that red-brown whitish color to give that look from the inside. That's an acoustic fabric that was put inside the top membrane, which is also to show that effect but also provide comfort for the spectators who will be there to watch the game. So it's evolving, but I think it will take some time to get that across.Lisa Ryan: It sounds like it's quite an education process because when you were talking about a noisy restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night, that makes sense because it detracts from the experience when you can't hear the person across from you. But if you go into a manufacturing plant or an office where sound is not something we even think about, what would be some signs to look for? How would somebody know this could be an issue that could be helped by looking at their acoustics?Nitin Govila: The first point, as you just mentioned, is the element of education. If we are taking the lead, there are not so many companies that can manufacture fabrics that can give these acoustic properties. We have a couple of products in a range, so we have to take the lead in educating, so when we talk to architects or consultants, we do our presentations in public forums or at different events. We ensure that we try to bring that element to education. We cover it in our catalogs and other communication. We have also changed the way. Sometimes we communicate so when we do big events or even exhibition booths. We try to create an experience room.In that exhibition where people sit inside that space, they will feel the difference, so that's also what we are trying to do, and then obviously. We sometimes tell people okay, let's start with one of your rooms. Let's not start with the whole office. Let's take a meeting room, for that matter. Can we do a different way of a meeting room, and we are happy to support you on that or work with you on that, so maybe once they see the difference there, they'll come back to us, okay, let's look at the design of the whole office. It's a long effort, so it's all about communication and talking about it. Using case study methods, where we've done a lot of projects like this, to show that it could be a church and a restaurant. That's why sometimes more specific, very targeted audience-specific events started happening. If we decide to participate in that, we also try to bring in those elements.Lisa Ryan: I also see in your background that you're a meditation trainer. So that mental health of workers falls right into that category, so talk a little bit about that because it sounds like you're doing a lot with the architects. Who would then have to sell the concept to the end-user? Whatever the benefits of mental health for that end-user, whatever that building is? How does that work, and what are some success stories that you have experienced?Nitin Govila: So I would say it's still very nascent where people look at mental health from the office environment. The design environment is still a different category to look at. One thing that has happened over the last few years is magnified, so you have bigger companies with specific HR and specific people-focused departments that are being created for workplace wellbeing and wellness. That's real positive development. Mental health is being talked about. Also, stress is being talked about. Breakdowns are being talked about in companies. But it's still connected to an element that's related to people. Somehow I am not yet able to see a connection that the office environment also could play a part, I think it will happen, but I suppose it's too early for that. At least we are talking about this subject. It's a very positive direction because many years back, it was not even talked about, or it was not even considered good to talk about. At least now we are open about it; companies are taking specific actions to help their employees to understand supporting them. I do a lot of weekly meditation sessions with certain companies in Singapore virtually. They made it a practice that they gave their employees a half an hour option, not forcing them but they have a choice.Those kinds of things companies are doing. They are also doing other things to help them maintain that. Ideally, it would be nice that the whole thing becomes holistic and that even when you design your space, you're already thinking of what colors I use and what kind of protection. I'm doing outside my glass, how I manage the heat, how I manage the air conditioning load, how I manage the aesthetics, or the glare or whatever when I'm looking at my screen. The sound or whatever, am I, creating space where I can have an opening for myself when I can connect with myself either meditate either pre or whatever I do that maybe you know. I worked with some companies that are creating meditation boards, or they've completed separate rooms called introspection rooms, where people can walk in whenever they wish to sit quietly for whatever time they want to and then come back. Part of it is happening now, the overall integration to combine all those elements. Maybe a little bit away, but it will take some time.Lisa Ryan: Well, I think it's funny because there's probably a certain percentage of people listening or who have been in manufacturing thinking there's no way my people...

Connect with Andrew:Email: crowe@the-mfg.comWebsite: the-mfg.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/expertandrewcrowe/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Andrew Crowe. Andrew is the leader of the new American manufacturing Renaissance and host of tv's project MFG. Andrew, welcome to the show.Andrew Crowe: Thank you so much for having me.Lisa Ryan: Share with us about your background and what led to your passion for changing the face of manufacturing.Andrew Crowe: I would love to. My name is Andrew Crowe. I grew up in inner-city St Louis. The area I grew up in was violent, and there weren't a lot of opportunities. In the school district or the radius of where I was, I didn't have a lot of options or platforms to see what I was good at outside of sports and entertainment.Seeing many people around me with jobs that weren't paying enough to survive on it led me into crime - to do something to lift my family out of poverty. Unfortunately, the only examples I had around me were people doing badly and illegal things. Before I was 18, I was a two-time felon and a teenage father. I didn't have a lot of focus, and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I didn't have much opportunity to express what I could be.Fast forward to jobs not working out because of felonies and getting into more trouble. I finally had enough. I put the word out that I was looking for a job and a young lady introduced me to a place where she was working. It was a manufacturing plant, and I walked in and took a machinist test and failed horribly. I had never seen micrometers or calibers or anything like that. But on the back side, there was a math test with fractions and decimals, which is what we measured. I did well on that side, so I got hired to run the saw on the third shift, cut material, and drop it off at the CNC machines and the manual machines. I took this job in that factory, and my mind exploded with all the opportunities for the first time. I felt like I was the guy that got left in the museum or the kid in the candy shop.I walked into this new world and had never considered how things were made. I didn't know anything about manufacturing. It lit a fire under me that I had never felt before. I wasn't passionate about the other things I had done in life. I didn't know what that felt like to have a passion. So I stayed in that environment as long as I could. I would work my eight hours, clock out, and then I would stay for four hours and watch the machines. Finally, I would stand and take notes.I bought a lot of coffee and donuts, and I tried to find some teachers and mentors that would teach me more about this field. At the same time, this thing kept me from the streets and making bad decisions because all I could think about was how important my job was. We were making things that went into the fighter jets, the tanks, the cars, and stuff like that, then that moves America and protects America. I didn't feel like a felon, and I didn't feel like a teenage father. I felt like I was an American, and I felt like the things I was doing contributed to America. I was important here, so I would come to work early and stay late. I would study and at the same time.I understood that the culture wasn't conducive to people who look like me, and frankly, not people who look like you. So, as I fell in love with this industry, I realized that this place isn't a great place for people of color and women. Because women raised me, and I am a person of color, I felt there were some things we could do to change that.I watched how manufacturing could uplift my life and brought me from feeling like I didn't have a place in America and wasn't important. I wanted to ensure that people who came from could have that same feeling. At the same time, my career started rising because I put as much as possible into it, so I went from the saw to running the manuals. Then from the manuals to running some CNC machines. At that time, I just started, just diving in.I looked on YouTube there weren't; there was no titan at the time. There was nobody that was teaching that looked like me and represented my community. So I made that my mission - to return to the community and teach them skills as much as possible. I will work with the youth. I organized the youth offenders and organizations working with the boys and girls club. My sister works at a place called the Wyman group, where she runs programs for teenage mothers and single mothers, and battered women, and I would teach these skills, so people could get these jobs that are paying high. So they can work around their schedules and keep pushing the industry forward.At the same time, my name started rising in the industry because I became a conduit between the open jobs and the job list in these communities. I would go into some major brands and give them the skill set and the tool set to start communicating with these pockets of society that have been overlooked by our industry and build that bridge. I was making that connection because the workforce, the face of the workforce, and the workers are changing. How our industry has been recruiting workers isn't going to work if we want to continue to thrive.A gentleman said something on one of my LinkedIn posts, saying that manufacturing is a global heavyweight division. So we need everybody on our American spectrum, everybody in that boiling pot. We need the opinions and creativity in our minds to have a manufacturing sector that will compete globally, and this is how we do it.I'm noticing that we had a significant void in hiring, recruiting, and retaining the next generation of American manufacturers and leaders. So I decided to get out on the road, and I started with friends of mine. Master cam has been a great partner. Edge factory is also helping me get on the road and put American manufacturing at the forefront. Getting in front of communities and showing them awareness and access to these careers, training for them, and showing them local opportunities around them that they can get in front of right now to change their lives and become whatever they want to be in manufacturing. Whether that's the saw guy, the CNC operator, the machine is, the programmer, or the engineer, this is the new American dream and is accessible.I also go to companies and teach them how to recruit and retrain. Then, when I'm done, they use the programs there to find and educate the people on their own. It's a beautiful thing.Lisa Ryan: I love the energy and passion and everything that you have coming through. People listening to this show think, "Man if I had 100 of him, it would be great." There are a couple of things that immediately come to mind.With almost 3 million manufacturing jobs going unfilled by 2030, we must look at nontraditional sources. Being a felon, you look at that population, and we're afraid or don't think they will work. You turn that on its head because somebody gave you a chance. Now you're coming in with a whole new world that you had never been exposed to, and with jobs pay great. You are contributing to a bigger mission because, as you said, you're not just making pieces-parts, you're contributing to aircraft carriers, and you can feel a part of something. It seems that manufacturing is not where you see many people of color and women, so that needs to change. What are some of the things you're doing? We know that we need bodies to fill these jobs, but why should manufacturing look at more ways of bringing in diversity and changing the face of their workforce?Andrew Crowe: When looking at underserved populations in nontraditional populations, especially felons, you get an 85% recidivism rate drop when you introduce fellas manufacturing careers. People who get paid high amounts, not high amounts but good enough amount to be able to survive. They are less likely to supplement those incomes with the street in illegal activities, so number one, our reentry population, I like to call it, needs society's validation. They need to say you're more than the mistake you made now. Let's help you reenter society.In a way, you can pay your restitution, your parole officer, whatever that may be, and you can still have life and food and take care of your kids, and that's all people want. At the same time, you're looking at numbers in a manufacturing environment. If people can work hard for you, you're looking past some of those things they may have done in the past. There's an avenue to go to school and get different labels. There's a real opportunity.Another thing that I'll say is a lot of the companies that I talked to in the beginning think that they must make a significant investment, or they think that they must drastically change some of the things they're doing. It doesn't have to work like that. There are happening around you and in your community that you are going to call them. Some of those fears you have, especially felon based, are things like bonding insurance you can get for that felon trying to reenter. That will protect him from anything you think will happen while they're on the job and insure you.At the same time, there are a lot of programs that do background checks that work on soft skills. The Urban League has a lot of beautiful ones that will help work on all the things. They provide transportation to these jobs so that all you have to work on is the hard skills and train them on the job. Another thing, why do we have to diversify. We've got to diversify because we've only traditionally, have given a seat at the table and mouths to speak and consideration of the opinion of one type of person, and that's been an older white male. Our industry is full of it, and that's great. There's nowhere that that they need to go, but our table is big now because we're still a global competition.Our tables are even bigger, and more seats need to be here. But they're going unfilled because we're only replacing the seats there. So we need to look at this table as hey let's introduce more cuisine, whether you like it or not. Whether it's something that you're used to eating, it's still an option. Let's introduce more people at the table who have an opportunity to speak and put in their opinion. At the same time, you don't have to go anywhere. We're not pushing you out. We're just adding seats to this bigger table that we've created.The more that we can say, hey, I like a little bit of this type of food that type of food. It all works in harmony. This is the balance that we found. These things go together with the best.Then we're humming, and we're able to put ourselves in a place where we're the top global manufacturer again. But, again, we're going against on a global scale with countries that don't traditionally cut out parts of their population. So we're not even given ourselves a good chance to say we've all this traditional old manufacturing knowledge. Plus, we've got all this new knowledge, angles, opinions, and experiences that we can add to that that will make us even more robust.Lisa Ryan: When it comes to it, it all sounds like a great idea. What would be a practice instead of just looking at it from the standpoint of Okay, we need some more people of color? We need some more women in the organization. What can manufacturers do to start building their diversity and their diversity programs in the right way and the way for the long term? Where you have not only diversity but also belonging and inclusion.Andrew Crowe: 100%. That is a great question, and I think that going along with looking at other industries. Almost every other sector has adapted things like this. So we've got an advantage in that. In that event, we can look at industries like the IT industry, which started and was typically for nerds. Whatever that definition was, then, and then there was an explosion of computing, and everything the Internet, made everything more digital were digitizing. So now there are more jobs than the stereotypical nerd can feel.So we started looking at things like coding boot camps. And coding boot camps are now. So if you're a peg-leg unicorn that identifies as a pirate, there's a coding camp for you. They've rebranded the industry to something easy to get into, no matter who you are. You can upscale quickly. You can learn from, and with people that look in, whatever like you and in you have that comfortability. Plus, you matter. If we can adapt some of those things, like coding camps in pockets of communities and empowering those communities to have the resources to teach these camps.We can change what it looks like and change, the the the culture of manufacturing as well. But, at the same time, the industry is in a weird place where most of the knowledge is with the people enforcing the toxic culture. So if you're a manufacturer, you have to make the hard decision to say, this guy's got a lot of knowledge and is making us a lot of money and parts. He's got a lot of power around here because he's been here for a long time. But he's not a good culture fit for what we need going forward. So do I get rid of him, change the culture now, and lose all that knowledge and machining stuff or do I not take the stand and change the culture and do the right thing. It's tough. It's tough to decide for many companies, especially when they don't see the replaceable talent already clearly on the horizon, if that makes sense.Lisa Ryan: Part of that is having mentor-mentee relationships, where you're putting that older ten-year-old worker together with that new person and giving them the opportunities. We're seeing a lot of mentoring and reverse mentoring because those new and diverse employees see the world differently from exposure to tech, life, and what they've had.So again, companies can start the conversation if they are open. What success stories or things have you seen in the industry supporting those types of workforce development programs? What are you seeing?Andrew Crowe: So I'm seeing a lot of success with companies that tie in with official apprenticeship programs or local tech schools via shared technology. Some of those machines are sitting empty that have work available. They're using those and maybe donating to those Community organizations that have the time to train people from the community. They can then give them workers who are already trained and precisely what they need. Companies with apprenticeship programs put the young with the seasoned, allowing those conversations to occur. Not only that, they're incentivizing those things so that other people within the company see that there is value in those relationships. They're making that the culture.I also see national brands like Master Cam happening out here and taking a stand and trying to make their software and things more accessible and affordable. So hence, programs that couldn't traditionally afford them are around the pockets of the population that needs them. So laying those seeds and then tying them back to the companies that use Master Cam.They can start to build those bridges and build those bonds. Other companies are thinking outside the box, and it's working. For example, there's a city where we help initiate a live-work program where the local manufacturers are on board. The regional economic development Council is involved so that if you work at one of these manufacturing plants and satisfy a certain amount of KPIs, they will match your down payment and your closing costs on a home. The Economic Development Board will match the other half. So you've got a taxpaying worker committed to that job and city for at least the next 15 to 30 years. You're helping break generational curses by assisting people in getting real estate and owning homes quicker through working. Those situations include relationships and collaboration with industry and government, tying it into the community working in the cities I've been to. I've been consulting with you for sure.Lisa Ryan: Well, and it's a win, win because not only are you helping individuals to get off the street, to get a good job with good benefits, and like you just said, the potential for homeownership that makes them more stable and committed to the organization. It's a win for the company because they are again getting loyal workers coming in. They're showing they care and can feel good that they're making a difference. I believe, is there some tax credits too.Andrew Crowe: So hiring felons and hiring disadvantaged people there 100% are tax credits that the government will give you that you can again put back into a recruiting and retaining programs and make it stronger and apprenticeship program. So all these different things will benefit you in a karmic way or help the industry because we're bringing more people in, but there's a financial aspect to that as well.We also know from studies that a happy worker is a more loyal worker is a more productive worker. So if you go into a company, this company allows you not to gamble with your life and your family's life and be a good productive member of society. They helped you become a homeowner when when when other opportunities arise, there's an aspect of that that sending you that you're not going to jump ship. When companies reach out to me, it's either hey, we've got this population we can't reach it all, or we can call them, but they won't stay here right once we get them in. These are some of the tools that you can have to build that loyalty to your company and build it up to keep people here. No matter if they find somewhere that will pay them a little bit more, they won't consider that as much.Lisa Ryan: Well, and I know that when you're looking at that person that's been there for 30-40 years, they're bringing in all these young kids, and they start to feel irrelevant. If you begin to put together these relationships, you have to force them at the beginning to happen. But then you put together people who wouldn't necessarily gravitate towards each other, and then those relationships, and we come to a different level of understanding. Because now people have a different story where they can understand where people are coming from, they're a little bit better at developing those types of relationships.Andrew Crowe: 100%. I'll even take it a step further. It gives you data you can then use to build an actual manual. Then, you can build out actions to continue fostering those relationships in the future once you force them or naturally let them happen. You can start to build a program and a culture that says this is how we work with these two gaps. This is the pathway that they go through to achieve ultimate cooperation and ultimate collaboration.Then you can start measuring these things. When you bring in new or older people, you can say, hey, are they hitting these standards? Are they moving through this process? Let's put them through it. Or if they were underperforming, their culture isn't what we needed. Here's a process that we develop from doing it less reenacted. I mean re-engaging and putting everybody through it again, which improves the company.Lisa Ryan: Well, and the other thing manufacturers got this reputation and not only among the underserved communities but every parent on the planet, that has...

Connect with Miranda MartzPhone: 717-843-3891LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miranda-m-1b742a198/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm here today with Miranda Martz. Miranda is a Pre-apprenticeship Coordinator for the Manufacturers Association. She started as a journeyperson machinist and is committed to the manufacturing industry. Miranda, welcome to the show.Miranda Martz: Thanks, Lisa. Thank you so much for inviting me.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. Please share with us about your background and what led you ultimately to commit to your manufacturing career.Miranda Martz: It's been an interesting journey and not one that many people have had. Many people like listening to my journey because it's very odd. I grew up in Hannover, Pennsylvania, the snack capital of the world. When I was younger, I wanted to work on cars for a living. I worked with my dad on the weekends. I went underneath the car with him. He showed me how a car works. I grew up with a bunch of mechanics, so that's where I got into loving working on machines and with machinery, even at an age I didn't know what it was.I started there in high school. I never did good in high school, so that four-year college degree wasn't for me either. I never even thought I would graduate from school. I went to a place called Mannheim central, so it was a very Ag-centric school. I was either pushing towards going to ag or going to a four-year college and getting my college degree. I met my counselor maybe once or twice. That was odd to me to pick a career for the rest of my life.  I thought I had talked to them, but they didn't know me well. They knew I wanted to work on cars, so I went to the art Institute of Pittsburgh for industrial design technology, and I did the auto track. It's no surprise, probably, but I was the only female to do that, so that has its challenges. But unfortunately, I was there for a year, and it got too expensive because I ended up paying for it myself. So I had to drop out. It wasn't something that was for me. I found that the four-year college route wasn't for me, and it was way too expensive. I couldn't pay for it, so I came home and immediately got a job.But it was at a gas station. I worked there like three years, and I knew I needed to do something else. It wasn't something that could sustain me for the rest of my life. I needed more money, so I started looking into different things and was offered a job by a friend at the time at a place called electron energy corporation. I went on to be a Hone operator. My first machine was a honing machine, making precision holes.From there, I became a machinist III. I worked up through the company. I learned one machine after another. It was something that I could healthily express myself. I was good at it. I knew every single machine that I could in that area. I worked in the ring cell, and it was something that I learned one machine after another. It clicked for me. I thought this was what I meant to do. This is what I'm good at it. It was a way for me to express myself.I wanted more. Over five years, I gathered enough information to be a machinist three at that company, and then after five years, I moved on in my career into the CNC machining world. I got exposed to my first machine – a Hoss CNC. I took CNC classes one through Levels one through three with House, including the programming classes and the turning classes on the laser levels one and two. I went to a company called tape towers. Many people know them as Droplets, but they do staging for the entire world through the largest staging company in the world. I went into their machine shop and learned about one of their CNC machines. It was the same thing. It was easy for me. I learned a lot. I was on one machine, and I couldn't get enough, and I loved it. I started showing them that I could run two machines simultaneously, but I could set up the machines and then program the machines. Within the six years at that company, I became a lead machinist.I was the only woman in the machine shop for them, so that came with its challenges, but it was great I got to custom make things and express myself in that way. After that, I got the opportunity to become a journeyman or machinist. Through them, I was offered to go to school, and I did my apprenticeship at the Manufacturers Association.I finished my journeymen in 2020. In June of 2020, I got offered the position of helping to teach their CNC classes at the Manufacturers Association at night. I support the teacher. His name is Bob, and I teach CNC levels one, two, and three in the evenings. I enjoyed that, and I got immersed in the teaching and training realms a little more.I got into it when I taught the adult classes. I enjoyed it, and they had an opening for a pre-apprenticeship coordinator. I didn't know what that was currently. But I found out that it was helping to teach kids, and it was helping them learn the trades. This is something that I wish I had when I was growing up or had somebody to look up to me.I wanted to let them know that what they want to do isn't stupid. It's not dumb, and it's worth the same as a four-year college degree. Suppose you want to be an apprentice. I didn't know what machining was until my late 20s. Manufacturing opened my world. It would have been a different way for me to get here. It called me because it's my passion to help kids and guide them into manufacturing and the trades if that's something they're interested in. That's how I got here.Lisa Ryan: Well, and it's such an exciting journey. Let's break down a couple of parts of it. When people listen to the show, you are exactly who they want - somebody who is passionate about it, loves it and takes on the extra responsibilities of learning all the machines. They want workers who decide to take the extra step to go into the journeyperson program. Everything that you are doing is showing initiative. And yet, in a culture where we're looking for more women to get into the trades. You had your share of trouble. Not getting into a ton of detail, but if somebody is again listening to the show and looking for ways to connect not only with more females to bring them into manufacturing and machining. Once they get there, what would be the type of treatment or respect you expect.Miranda Martz: Well, I grew up with it. We all know that discrimination exists because we wouldn't be talking about it if it didn't exist. I knew what I was getting myself into, but at the same time, I had to learn to shut that all out, not listening to what they were saying and what they were believing. I had to believe in my instincts as a person and know what was right for me. I believed in myself and knew where I was going. I was not to condone or like stand for the disrespect. I wish I had known when I first started.Miranda Martz:  I have my views and my own opinions. It doesn't matter who I am, where I am, or what I look like. It's how I do my job and how professional I am. If somebody doesn't appreciate that, then maybe that's not my company. That's not the company culture, and I'm sure that's not how the company wants them to react. If you're ever in that situation, think about what's best for you. I think a lot of women try and please other people. I know I did. When I was younger, I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be part of this mold. You want to empower your women on the job. That's why I went into this trade. I keep that in my mind because you only need that one person. If you need that little bit of confidence, or you need that little bit of push, there's that one person that you can go and talk to who gives you that confidence like the look, you are doing a great job, like you, don't have to go above and beyond, or do ten times more work or, to try and prove yourself, because what you're doing.You're proving yourself already. Focus on yourself. Focus on the excellent job that you're doing and try your best. I hate when people think other people's opinions make them their reality. You are your person. Do what's best for you. Don't let other people's views or people bring you down for who you are. I've been there, and I know what happens.I know the horrible things people can say to you and try and do to you to trick you into making you think that you're not worthy or you're not good enough, but all that's crap. I wish I would have come into that knowing that as a younger person, but that's something, especially in my class, being a pre-apprenticeship coordinator and having so many kids. I'm talking to these kids and especially the young girls in the class. I'm creating an open environment where they can be honest and tell me what they face. For example, I'll wear a pink jumpsuit in the class because the machine doesn't care what I look like, as long as I give it what it needs. It will produce what I want it to produce, so that's something huge for me.Lisa Ryan: When we also think about the fact of it's not necessarily, especially in today's market with the Labor shortage that we have of looking for somebody with all of the experience. What you want is that passion, that desires to learn - male or female - or anything else, it doesn't matter. It's looking for that person who has the commitment, who loves what they do. It's seeing that passion because you can always train on the skills.We also want to get away from being away from judgments when it comes to what a woman can do versus what a man can do in a machine shop environment. If I've heard it time and time again in the welding industry, which is where I come from, that women make better welders.Miranda Martz: Absolutely, we are more detail-oriented for sure. They're more dexterous with their hands. I hear it all the time from our member companies. We were a nonprofit we run from our members, and we're here for the community. They say we want our workers to show up and show up on time. Those are the two big asks by all these companies. It's not like, Oh, we need more men, we need more women like it's not that. They need people. We're in this massive crisis. I'm going to call it a crisis because, by the year 2030, we're going to have three million open manufacturing jobs worldwide. I want kids and young people, and even women or anybody that doesn't think that they can do it, but there are so many different things in manufacturing that they can do.There's a common misconception about manufacturing and machining that it's a dirty, dusty environment - it's air-conditioned. There might be a shop around, and if you go and walk around these manufacturing facilities now, they're super clean, bright, well-lit, and air-conditioned. They're all automated.Lisa Ryan: it's something that I want people to understand. The other important part you talked about is having a pre-apprenticeship and working with kids. Right now, so many people wait until kids get out of high school or get out of college or go to tech school. It works when you can get kids at the earliest age possible and use things like manufacturing day to go into the schools or have tours. When you work with the guidance counselors to bring them to walk into a clean, automated shop, it's not like when I was in the welding industry, which was everything your mother ever warned you about. So many people still have those preconceived notions. Talk to talk about that a little bit as far as your introduction. How are you awakening that passion? What conversations are you having?Particularly with the girls, you have come through the program - how do you inspire them to follow in your footsteps.Miranda Martz: I think, well, especially for the girl thing seeing me there, seeing me hearing about my journey and knowing that there's somebody that's been in the industry that looks like them, and has been through the things that they're going through. Having somebody to talk to you about it is huge. Having that representation is huge. I try my best in the classroom. I try to identify with the kids - I'm a big kid myself. You can see it on the back of a 3D printer.I love what I do. I have a passion for what I do, I love making things and conceptualizing things, and I see that in the kids I see kids who want to get involved and get their hands dirty and make things. So I allow them the freedom to do that. I let them have the space; even if they don't like it, tell me if they don't like it. The whole point of having a pre-apprenticeship is taking up a pipeline into an apprenticeship and telling them that line of success and saying that if you don't want to go to a four-year college, that's okay, not to take that traditional path.I want that to be gotten rid of. I don't want somebody to think that if they go to a trade school, they are less of a person than somebody who goes to college because that was a preconceived notion, especially what I had to do. Try and integrate, like all the manufacturing companies. There are 2500 and South-central Pennsylvania. We have over 400 companies that we work with that are members. I try and encourage them to come and talk to the kids. They do; they speak to the kids, and we take tours. I try and get them internships when they graduate high school.So, when they go through a program, it's a two-year program or two-season program, and they get immersed and the introductory things that these companies need. We did ask the company what they're looking for. They're hiring people, so we do lean with the kids and solid works. I like using solid works. We make a race car with the kids, and they get to make their models, and they get the hands-on experience, but we try and make it as fun as possible and as relevant to them as possible. They're like, okay yeah, this is fun.And then, when they grow older, they get to see, think, and say, " Yeah, I could be an engineer, or I could make this, or I can do that. That is the best feeling. What gets me through to the next season and the next kids is seeing their faces light up when they see something they made. I can see myself in them. So when I first made my first thing, it was something that made me feel good, and that gave me the fuel to want to keep going.So now it's me saying the kids do that, so it came full circle for me, so that's the most remarkable part.Lisa Ryan: And what conversations have you had with the parents of the kids attending this? How do you connect with school guidance counselors to let them know that this is a viable career path and a great alternative to a traditional college path?Miranda Martz: Schools now are so much I'm going to say in that respect better. When I went to school, as I said, I only saw my counselor like twice, but now they have what is called CTE teachers. They help get kids involved in after-school activities or even during school, like pre-apprenticeship things, to get them immersed in something they would like. In a career, and I think one of the biggest hurdles for me, as you were saying about parents, the parents can be a little difficult at times. Trying to get them to change their mind because manufacturing was the way it was when they were younger.Manufacturing was not a dirty word, but it wasn't ideal. They want their kids to have a better life than them and go to college. They don't understand how lucrative it can be. They don't know what manufacturing is. The modern manufacturing that we have now and logistics, and you can go and drive for Walmart and make $100,000 a year, which blows my mind. But it's evolved much, and I think it's a common misconception that manufacturing machining welding as, as you can say, CNC machining all those different areas are so antiquated, and it's not.It's so different. I would love to take the parents with me with the kids and open their eyes to like the way things are now.Lisa Ryan: That's not a bad idea, right. You were maybe having a family day instead of a kid's day where mom or dad could come because they would be more open to supporting that. I think about that too. You can either go to a four-year college and pay off your student debt for the next 30 years, basically making a house payment, or go to a tech school to become an apprentice, have minimal debt, and make a great living more than that.When you leave work, you leave work you're not thinking about it and answering emails all hours of the day and night, and all of that additional stress that comes with it, but opening up the eyes of the parents will let them know that their kids can have every bit as good of a life. Absolutely, because of the money that they can make.Miranda Martz: An apprenticeship is like a traditional school, like college. The beauty about an apprenticeship is that your company sponsors you, so you don't have to put up the money for an apprenticeship so that it can help underserved people. I know I didn't have the money even to do one year of college, let alone four years.I was working, and I was making money. My company was sponsoring me, and they were paying for my classes and my books at the time, so I didn't have to pay for that. Every six months, in our model with the state, we get a race you're supposed to get 6% ratings are there. So as a percentage of your pay every six months, it's a big bonus to be an apprentice, and it's as good for you and your career.If you want to further your career and make good money, you can do that without going to college.Lisa Ryan: You talk about the fact that when you as a business owner get involved with a local JVS or community college, tech school, apprentice program, manufacturers, of Manufacturers Association. In your area, number one, you can get to know the kids if they're going to work for somebody. They will work with somebody they know, so you have pre-access before they graduate. You can help design the program, so create the exact students with the same skills you want. So what are you, seeing as far as companies getting involved, how are they getting involved? What are they doing? Also, what are some of the success stories you've seen from companies that take advantage of that?Miranda Martz: We encourage the companies to come and talk to the kids during our lunch hour. We have them come in, and they can bring swag if they want to. But the kids, if you ask them what manufacturing, they have no idea.It's sad. When I went to Hershey and talked to their fifth graders to eighth graders about manufacturing, it was trying to get them. We want to start young and get them even to know what manufacturing is to see if they'd be interested.I have the companies come in and talk to the kids. We take tours through the companies every year at our kickoff of ours. We do a kickoff celebration at one of our companies, so we have a big party for the pre-apprentices before starting. We take tours, but then we also do job shadowing. They can take a kid and do job shadowing if they want to. We do placements and mock interviews. We do internships at the companies as well. That's also part of my job as a pre-apprenticeship coordinator to see where these kids shine.We place them with the companies that would best fit them. For example, plenty of

Connect with Rue:Email: Rue@RueWorks.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rue-patel/CLASSIC EPISODE! (Originally Aired January 23, 2021)Show Transcript:Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce you to our guest today Rue Patel. For 15 years, Rue Patel led General Mills' largest manufacturing site. He was accountable for delivering expected quantifiable results with a focus on employee consumer and environmental responsibility.Rue is the founder of Rue Works. He works with smaller businesses to define and implement their growth strategy, provide executive coaching to their leaders, and speak at industry conferences. Welcome to the show.Rue Patel: They said, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.Lisa Ryan: Well, I know that you spent most of your career at General Mills, but you share with us a little bit about your journey.Rue Patel: Yeah, so my manufacturing journey started at PepsiCo, followed by 29 years at General Mills in various roles, mostly manufacturing, but some Research and Development roles. We had an incubator, a little business where we had a skunkworks factory and did some cool experimental things. I found that my love and passion was in building our brands through excellent manufacturing to driving people leadership, people growth, and development of great talent, driving great processes that deliver great results for General Mills. And our $2 billion plant was an example of one that doubled in size in the last seven or eight years. And we were able to do a lot of that without capital and without adding additional headcount, so purely through improvement and some great technology. It was the use of that technology with great planning, so it's been a lot of fun. I then kicked into Rue Works when I retired a few months ago. It's a passion to help smaller businesses - under 100 million dollars thereabouts - and help them improve themselves through the same things: strategy development, people development, and talent acquisition. In some cases, finding ways to improve their processes, streamline their systems, and drive to the bottom line. And that's been just a lot of fun.Lisa Ryan: Yeah, and it sounds like you're able to easily translate a lot of the work that you did for such a massive company like General Mills into working with smaller organizations. Part of what we're trying to do with this podcast is to show how easily transferable some of these ideas are. You and I have had many conversations about some of the cool things you did a General Mills. But I was hoping you could share with our listeners some of the different philosophies that you had. And some of the other things you did at General Mills that now you're translating that key the clients you're working with today.Rue Patel: Yeah, so I'm a believer that General Mills, just a great company, is a company of people. It's a people company that happens to make food. For me, the center of this thing is people and the ability to develop people to see things differently, see themselves differently, and expand different roles. I have done a lot of work with our minority and diversity groups, as I'm of Asian descent and a first-generation immigrant; and with women in our organization. Mentoring, supporting, leading, guiding, and sometimes pushing and kicking people to do things they didn't think they'd achieve. A third of our General Mills factory leaders who reported to me are now directors. I have worked on my teams at some point in their career. And I'm super proud of that. So beyond the quantifiable stuff. It's the leadership of people, and then their ability to develop a strategy, make a plan and then execute that plan to drive results and do it the right way is stuff I've worked on. So that's the part that I get excited about is seeing that thing mushroom. So I approached things without a template or canned approach. It's like observe, see, go to the data analysis, understand what's happening, talk to the folks, develop strategies that you can get your arms around and implement. We didn't want to throw around big words, nor throw about big concepts, nor throw earth-changing things that companies that are doing well but want to get better at. But just like, let's find a niche.So you can take this thing a couple of levels higher, develop some people some talent and move that organization in a very structured and organized way that didn't seem like a template that got dropped on them. I want to do things that fit their culture and their mold instead of force-fit an organization, so it's a very different approach than a lot of the ordinary consultants. These consultants have a program, and they're trying to force you into their program. So I stay completely away from that part of it. Now I use elements of things that have grown up with the Toyota manufacturing principles, such as work, and they work great. So transforming those into workable components that a small manufacturer or small business can leverage takes a little bit of work and takes some finesse, but there are ways to do that. We work within the culture, technology, and maturity of an organization instead of just dumping them onto a company.Lisa Ryan: One of the key things that stuck out in my mind is when you talked about the number of leaders who ended up working for you at General Mills. Paying attention to people within an organization who have leadership skills and then bringing them up through the ranks sounds like a great way for people to find replacements for themselves as they move up. How did you accomplish that? Like, what were you looking for, or how did you bring those leaders up.Rue Patel: Almost 27-28 years ago, General Mills didn't have great orientation programs and weren't great development programs. So through my experiences at PepsiCo and in school, I put together a basic Excel spreadsheet with the things I would have liked to have in my development portfolio. I wanted to know what I would have needed right off the bat to be a better leader for the folks I served. We built that, and we took that template and built a boot camp. We brought our young leaders in, and through the course of 20 plus years of General Mills, I'm super happy to facilitate every one of those sessions that thousands, thousands of General Mills leaders through these sessions. We incorporated other folks and brought in other leaders and specialists who could help them with skills. But the core of this thing was building a foundation of leadership.And so that thing has been a passion of mine because it's something I missed when I came to work. And when I was young, in my career. And I want to make sure that people had that now. Often, people follow a template in their mind in terms of by 26 I want to do this, by 36, and one of this by 40, I want to beat this - they often fail to look at their potential, and frequently when you give them some positive reinforcement, you provide them with a kick in the right direction. I'd meet with our young leaders monthly. And so part of it is committing the time to go and do that. And then, they'd come up with a homework assignment every time, so they'd say, every time I come in here and get some work. And we do some follow-up work, and we get introspective. We look at what they want to do. We look at things that challenge them. Work on different skills and techniques that help them become better leaders. Hey, what's the problem you're having on the floor. Well, I had this person that had an issue, and we had a little bit of a conflict or conflict resolution. Let's talk about some of that. Let's work on it. Instead of doing it through a big seminar with hundreds of people, we focused one on one, and saying, based on your skills and your style and work that you're doing, how would you go about addressing that conflict? Let's work on those things.So those folks would have homework, and they come back and say, hey, I tried it, and it worked or tried it, and it didn't work. And let's analyze that and let's figure out why it doesn't work. So paying attention to focus is essential; paying attention to individuals matters.Lisa Ryan: So going back to that original spreadsheet. What were some of the key things that were on it that you were looking for? Rue Patel: So for any leader, an organization, some basic financial skills. How does the cost structure at my company work? From that, more importantly, what do I control, and how do I impact? It wasn't just "here's a p&l." It was like, "Okay, here's a p&l; let's bring it down to what you do at your level." And here's three or four things you can do to impact that was one of developing your value base, and your brand is of either was critical. Early in someone's career. So how do you do that? How does it show up? What things challenge you in those environments? And how do you make sure that you stay steadfast on your values? Always stay steadfast on your leadership ability was important - things like your commitment to safety and food quality. We made a million Cheerios a minute. They had to be right, every one. No exception. How do you commit to that, how do you bring your team and commit to those things? How do you work on nurturing the culture on your team - because that's super important. How does that communication strategy work for your team? Well, Whether there's a small team of operators, mechanics, or it's a team of 200 people in a department that you run or a small factory that you're on a General Mills. How do you go about creating effective communication strategies? That's real. And it touches your folks to want to do something, want to be something, and drive something different. So we focused on some fundamental elements and worked with many leaders around the country to understand more about leadership. So you can read books and watch TED talks and videos like so many resources. I buried myself in coach John Wooden's learnings from UCLA basketball and then four years plus or minus with Coach Developing Leadership Institute. I use some of those foundational things that we put together for corporations, he already had that for basketball, but this is for corporations. Guess what; it's the same. And then we worked with coaches, generals in the Air Force, leaders in our communities and asked, "What are the three or four basic elements of leadership that we can teach our folks that take away the complications?To be a good leader takes a bit of secret sauce. But there's a lot of simplicity to it. Through my work with Rue Works, I found that it's the same set of skills, tools that work with the CEO of this manufacturer that also works with his floor leaders. The same stuff, different game, different scale but the foundational elements of the same, so it's breaking this thing down and making it simple. Hard to do, but the concepts are simple.Lisa Ryan: Well, and the simplicity about it is that it not only looks at the leader for his or her performance at work. It gives them personal skills that they can use in the rest of their life as well. If you are sharing your numbers with your employees and teaching them about balance sheets and all of that financial stuff appropriate for the workplace, it also helps them in their personal finances. You're working at their values. Now you're creating this family feeling of people who have values and making sure you're getting the right people on the bus. It sounds like you're taking a holistic approach where we're not only looking at, hey, this guy's a Rock Star, and he has this resume pedigree. That's going to be great but as a human being. He's just a horrible human being that's not working, where we're looking at that holistic approach.Rue Patel: Right. So we started with values and understood the characteristics of a leader. As you might expect, it's the same thing I expect from my leaders. That my folks would expect for me. And if you generate those lists along with levels in the organization. They're not that different. They're not that different people expecting from the leaders. So we work on those things around a specific set of core values. And we go from there. Let me skill-build around that. As opposed to dropping a template on people and saying, well, you fit in this box. Let's fit you in this box. It's like every company is a different box. And we got to find out what their box looks like and then figure out how to fill it and then overflow it, but it starts with values, and you're right to the point where great leaders are great at work. But they're great people. They do great things outside of work. They do great things with their family. They're great in their communities. And it's the same leadership traits characteristics that show up along the board, so simplicity is is an excellent place to start.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. Well, what are you finding with the clients you're working with as far as what is keeping manufacturers up at night?Rue Patel: I think the lack of talent that's available is keeping people up. So the small manufacturers of work with many, many of them are family-owned businesses. They've grown. They've got a great product. They've grown, and they're kind of stuck. They're looking at who's going to take over that company in three to five years. What's their succession plan look like? And there's a skill set that's missing. And sometimes it's generational, but it's hard for a parent owner of a CEO, for example, to address a family member about skills about work ethic, about values, right. And so we're finding that those things in the scale of companies that I want to work with. Simple things that keep people up are true or real obstacles for family businesses and keeping things from progressing further their inhibiting growth.For example, I'm working with a $25 million company that wants to be a $50 million organization, and they've got some great tools to do that. I talked to their CEO, and I said, hey, if you've got eight people on your team, six of them need to be 100 million dollars thinkers for you to be a successful $50 million company. But if you've got a bunch of $12 million thinkers that are just struggling and by following suit, you're never going to get there. You're just not going to get there. So how do we address that gap? How do we manage that thinking and sometimes be quite frankly have to fire them? And sometimes you have to develop it, and there's a combination. So again, to my point. You work with the individuals and see where they can go and how they can grow, and their aspirations versus dropping in a predefined kit for that company. Each one's been different. And each one's been fun to work with an exciting. I'm not saying easy, but they're challenging, but they're great to work with once they realize that. Here's how I needed to think for us to grow as an organization. So that discovery process is real for the CEOs and the owners of these companies. Sometimes it's pretty scary for them when it says all your family members don't have the skills or they don't have the desire. They're happier sitting in the office; they're happy to drive the fancy car. Why we have the desire to do it the same way you did it.Lisa Ryan: And so what is one way you can get somebody who is a $12 million thinker to 100 million dollar thinker? What's your approach to mindset? I realize that it varies from person to person, but is there a good rule of thumb to start that process?Rue Patel: If there is, and I think it does vary from person to person. So, listening to them, seeing how they operate and then getting some good data on them from their team. Here's how they come across. Here's how they operate. They may not even show up to work on time and maybe really some simple foundational things where, hey, I'm the boss, this kid. I don't need to show up till ten, and I'm going to take a two-hour lunch, right. So sometimes it's just a work ethic - show you care. But when it comes to some foundational skills, say financial skills.There are tools available to help that understanding and to build a document. But the broader part of it as well. How do you get that across, how do you build trust? How do you communicate with the team? How do you show you care? How do you show that you're capable of providing that leadership five years from now to run this company? That people can't see you now. And if there's damage done, it's even harder to undo some of that damage. How do you build trust and take it down a few levels - just having some good conversations with some people. So each case is going to be different. But we look at the leadership elements first, and then we focus on the functional skills that time with those leadership elements that go later with that. So you want a $12 million thinker, to be a better leader, a better thinker, and then be a better financial person. Right. So there's also this thing he says you know about the attitude. Sometimes you have to, to just not there. And so that's a more difficult question to deal with. And so, well, what can they do well and this figure out what that isn't this company as opposed to the role that I'm in right now. And sometimes it's ego busting, and it's hard. It's easier for me to do it than for dad to do it for mom to do it because those conversations rarely happen, and they're not effective. So, each one's different. And sometimes it's just gotta be delicate with the stuff, I mean, especially with small businesses.Lisa Ryan: Right. So from a networking standpoint, if you were to look from both sides, What information, resources, or help would you like to gain from other manufacturing colleagues? What are some of the knowledge, skills, and expertise you can share with other manufacturers and related industries?Rue Patel: I always have had this principle, where I want to hang out with people that are better than me. And I don't want anybody in my group that's not as good as me. I don't want to sound egotistical, but it forces your A-game when you surround yourself with people better. It forces you to learn; it forces you to pay attention, simply because I don't want to get left behind, so I have to work harder. It's easy for a retiree to be like in coast mode, yet I got this. And when I say that I'm not learning and be around people that I can learn from - whether it's around great leaders, around great tacticians, or folks who can execute a plan. Great negotiators are good as I'm looking for those skills, and I'm looking for people that I even my personal life.I want these people to be better than me in every aspect, not maybe one person's got everything but in different things. I can look for a better communicator. Better bike rider more put more effort into, well, I could put more effort into that, but I can also put more effort into other things, right. So it's all translatable to me. And then I'm so I like to surround myself with that, and I measure that I'm always thinking to myself, I need to be around that person because I can learn from them. So learning is a great avenue. To kind of open myself up and,

Connect with Joan EnochEmail: HR@lift-all.comLisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Joan Enoch. Joan has been working with Lift-All company as the HR manager since January of 2004. Lift-All company manufacturers load-secure products in five plants in the United States. Joan has a degree from Penn state in industrial psychology. Throughout her career has worked in banking and consulting for various nonprofits and for-profit companies.She enjoys the no-nonsense and practicality of working in manufacturing and has a heart for people who work hard for their money to support their loved ones. Joan, welcome to the show.JOAN ENOCH: Thank you. I'm so excited to talk about something I'm very passionate about - manufacturing and who our employees are. They're hard-working, and excellent benefits they deserve to take care of themselves and their family members.Lisa Ryan: Well, awesome. Please share your background with us because it sounds like you've done many things before you got into manufacturing. What got you here?JOAN ENOCH: Well, I started in human resources and, like most folks, ended up initially on the recruitment edge of things. Not too long after doing recruitment and banking. I ended up in the compensation arena. Unlike most HR people in my niche, I love compensation and salary administration. With that came some benefits and just a broad breadth of many different things that I've been fortunate and unable to do over my career.I started in banking, and after banking went through lots of mergers and acquisitions, of which I was on a team doing some of that. Next, I found myself doing control consulting work for an employee assistance program and working with many companies. Then, finally, I landed in manufacturing, and, as you mentioned at the onset, I like the no-nonsense nature of manufacturing.We can tell it like it is. We can have good conversations. There's not tons of politics and playing around with how we want to say thanks.Lisa Ryan: When I think too when you and you mentioned employee assistance programs, which I think is so important, especially considering the last couple of years, with everything that we've gone through. What have you seen as far as how benefits have changed?JOAN ENOCH: Well, you know, federal legislation has changed things. When the affordable care Act came out in 2010, that changed many things. A lot of good came out of that in ensuring employers provide all kinds of preventive services for their employees. Those benefits are covered on dollar one. Also, obviously during Covid the last two years, there's just been a change in how people orient to benefits. There was a complete stoppage when Covid first hit, and the medical world had to figure out how we safely deliver services. So there's been a lot of creativity around telemedicine visits.Paired with more focus on mental health, most folks sit back and revisit how they got through Covid. There were some mental health and spiritual changes or emotional changes. That happened for folks over the last couple of years. What is life really about? We're all faced with Covid. It changed things, so it's been good to have that focus.Not just on our physical health but recognizing that there are so many layers to us as human beings, and how do we take our physical health, mental health, and emotional health and make sure that all of those are getting addressed. Our health care system can do that.Lisa Ryan: Well, it's not only important from a legal standpoint that we pay attention to mental health but there's always that if somebody has a physical disability, it's easy for us to see that. It's easy for us to notice it and empathize with it because we can see it.But when it comes to mental health, and we have somebody who is now suffering from depression, or you can't necessarily look at them and see what's wrong, you want to say snap out of it. Put a smile on your face and get back to work, but that full awareness of mental health in the importance of taking care of our employees has come to light in the last couple of years with Covid.JOAN ENOCH: Absolutely, and when you think about different physical ailments that happened to individuals, whether it's an incident of an accident or a diagnosis of cancer when that happens, there's also an emotional and mental component. When we think about general life cycles, if we're dealing with marriages and divorces and adolescent children and or aging parents, there's a physical component. Still, there's also that mental health and emotional health. And, in some cases, medication can help us through certain situations, and in others, we might need to talk with our best to work through my triggers and how do I, you know, manage those a little bit better.Lisa Ryan: Well, and it's been interesting to see the changing of the health care that no there is more accessible access to. Number one to mental health, to therapists but also who would have thought we'd be doing what we were doing with our phones with Telehealth know what do you think this is Doc year ago nobody would even thought of it, and I think that that's a huge change right now.JOAN ENOCH: Absolutely, and I love that, from a federal standpoint or not just federal perspective, but some legislation that has gone through. We recognized, hey, let's try, let's have a no copay for some of those services so that people can get that treatment. Get that connection. Try out what Telehealth looks like telemedicine for physical health, for you know, behavioral and mental health, and it costs less because we're not saying we're not sending someone in their car to drive somewhere to sit in a waiting room. For those services, so there's been some great strides, and I'm hopeful that that continues.Lisa Ryan: Well, and we're also looking at the fact that many people on the planet don't think anything about a $30 or $50 copay because they got to go to the doctor, and that's just part of it. But a percentage of the population doesn't go to the doctor because of that copayment issue, so giving them the flexibility with Telehealth gives them even more access than they may have taken advantage of before.JOAN ENOCH: Exactly, and when I think about what we have done from a benefits standpoint in the last 15 years that I've been with the company. We recognize that we have a broad range of employees in our company. We've got entry-level unskilled labor. 30% of our population uses English as a second language. We work 24 hours a day now. We're not a seven-day operation; we're five days with some overtime on Saturday. But all those challenges make it harder for people to go to the doctor, and that component of what's the sweet spot, so we put things together, where we have a $10 copay to see your family doctor.Lisa Ryan: Well, so speaking of the changes over the years that you've seen, but with the all the different kinds of employees, you have their help you decide what changes you're going to make to your benefits every year.JOAN ENOCH: While I look at data now. I'm not allowed to see individual health care claims, so I don't know what prescriptions people are on or what medical diagnoses they have. But I get collective data, and I can look at the information that tells me how many people are getting preventive visits and who are not. Who is going to urgent care? Are they going to the emergency room? So we look at all of those touchpoints and try to develop the best way to encourage people to get treatment at the right time, with the right providers. We have a $10 copay for your family doctor, primary care physician, or pediatrician and a $40 copay for urgent care. There are times that that's warranted. We've also structured things where we go above and beyond what's required for 100% pay for some of those preventive services.We've got employees at all different levels of the organization. They get medical screenings from their doctor, and they order blood tests. And next thing you know, it's coded diagnostic instead of preventive, and you know they're subject to like a $400 bill well, that's ridiculous. It happens across all organizations due to coding and how hard it is to understand it. So first, we've done some things and said there's no copay for your first mammogram of the year because people are not trying to get multiple mammograms. There's no copay for your first colonoscopy because people are not trying to get multiple colonoscopies.Lisa Ryan: And just the education process because I can't tell you how many of my customers, as well as podcast guests, mentioned that employees would just go that instead of going to a regular doctor making an appointment, they go to urgent care, that is their go-to versus having the choices like Telehealth like wellness. At Lift-All, you are huge into wellness and that education. Please tell us a bit about your wellness program and what that entails for your employees.JOAN ENOCH: Well, thanks, Lisa. It is something again we're passionate about. It's part of our culture. Our journey started back in 2007, a little bit before the time that wellness programs were the thing to do. I was fortunate at the time that the President of our company, when I went in and said hey, I'd like to spend about $20,000 on doing onsite wellness screenings, and explained that we have all these people not going to the doctor. We have people going to the emergency room. If we do this onsite wellness screening, this will work so our first year. I needed to know what was going to get people to participate in screenings, so at the time, this probably sounds a bit odd, but flat-screen TVs were in. We bought 37-inch flat-screen TVs. We bought so many for each plant location, our corporate office, and our sales team. So if you participated in the onsite screening, you're in a drawing for a flat-screen TV.We had over 80% of our employees participate. I'd almost say wellness and flat-screen TVs watching TV health. It's not a great connection there. However, that was the motivation to get people in. The second year, we did T-shirts. In the third year, we did water bottles, so we wanted people to trust the system and trust the process.We learned that people weren't going to the doctor, so suddenly, once they got hooked, they said, " Wait, this is my blood pressure. This is normal. I have high cholesterol. Maybe I should talk to a doctor, and, over time, people started wanting to know their numbers because they wanted to compare year over year. So if you ask most of our employees now do you know your cholesterol level, most of them probably do because that's been part of our culture. Then over time, in addition to you trying to give trinkets, we incentivize using more of a stick approach. We charge a little more for insurance, but you get a credit if you participate in wellness, so the cost is reduced significantly. I went back, and before our conversation today, I went back and looked and said, Well, how have we done on our costs? Overall in the United States, if you look at the per capita spending on healthcare, for the last 12 years, it's gone up about 40%.In our case, our costs have gone up 18% over the previous 12 years.Well, I went back and looked and said, " Okay, over the last 12 years, when have we increased the cost that our employees are paying, and when have we decreased the price. So in those 12 years, we had only four years where we increased the cost of insurance, and when you think about how expensive insurance has been and how expensive medications have been, we had a couple of years of a 2% increase, 4% the highest was around 9.8%. But we also had five years where we were pleased to go to the employees at their annual open enrollment and say, guess what, you have no increase in your costs. No increase and the same co-pays loaded up to them, which we have a low deductible plan and even had two years where we decreased the cost.And said you're going to pay less next year, and you've had the prior year, and I know a lot of it is because we've got this wellness program in place, and we have people getting connected to a doctor.Lisa Ryan: When I think that you're doing the best, though, is your level of communication. In many organizations, the employees hear about benefits on day one. When they hear about them during the open enrollment, maybe it's time for open enrollment to fill out the paperwork. But that constant communication with your employees and even starting you know when you talked about flat-screen televisions. Because employees, when you're talking about medical, they probably didn't trust you at the beginning, so you have to come up with something creative that you spent some money on because back in the day, 37-inch flat-screen televisions were not the $287 that they are now at BestBuy.JOAN ENOCH: Now they were over $1,000 exactly. It was on. Wow, I can win a flat-screen TV.Lisa Ryan: But, after they started to see the benefits, but it's communicate, communicate, communicate. And then the little incentive, so it's not like you had to begin with flat-screen TVs and go bigger. You started big, and then you could keep the conversation going from the financial standpoint and from that knowledge. Think about the amount of pain and anguish you're saving your employees because they know their cholesterol and blood pressure, and know if they're at a problem level. And because of your wellness programs, you're avoiding many things that otherwise they may be subjected to.JOAN ENOCH: Exactly, and again, not just with the wellness program but the medical benefits aside, we've had employees who we cover PSA testing for a man with no copays. And invariably, every year, I have one or two people say, hey, I've got my PSA test, and Sure enough, I have prostate cancer, and they catch it early. And same with colon cancer. We've had a lot that was caught early.I continually say to our employees hey, I cannot prevent every accident. I cannot even prevent every illness. For some of us genetically, it will happen to us based on what we got from our parents or maybe lifestyle issues. But, if we can get there as soon as possible. Then, we can reduce the pain associated with those treatments and that recovery piece.Lisa Ryan: Well, even believe that you also provide financial incentives like non-tobacco use and talking with a health coach, so talk about some of those additional steps that are, you know, lifestyle choices.JOAN ENOCH: Sure, so with our wellness program and, again, I have a wellness committee, this is not me doing all of this. I've got champions out there that. In open enrollments and wellness meetings, they'll look around the room and say you know you're crazy if you don't participate in this. This is a good thing, not just financially, but you'll benefit from it. So our first level, you have to do a screening and complete a rapid survey. And if you do that, you get $400.Our biometric screening includes normal blood pressure, cholesterol, height, and weight, but we also cover much other bloodwork. Once you do your screening and your survey, you get a score, and if your score is 70 or below, you need to have one phone call with a health coach. That health coach they're available all different times of the day, we've got in there English speaking non, and it was speaking translators available for all of that. They'll go through your results and explain what they are, and then there's a button on the phone or your phone APP or if you're in the portal that you can click, and you can send that right to your doctor because we want the doctors to have that information.We do screen for tobacco and blood work, so if you test negative, you get $600. If you test positive, you can take a cessation class that we have people taking cessation classes to earn that money. If you need to talk with a health coach in our final tier, you get the point for that, depending on your coaching score. The last thing we do is ask people to upload one document showing that they had a preventive visit so that it can be for a mammogram. It could be your annual checkup with your doctor. Any preventive services you take a picture of that you upload, you get points, another $400. So all in all, it's 1400 dollars a year.Lisa Ryan: Well, it's so interesting with the smoking cessation because I was speaking at a conference over the weekend, and one of the people there was talking about how they were paying when you had a smoker, and they stopped smoking, then they would test them and everything they got 1500 dollars and then if they continued for a year, or something they got $3,000. But then all the nonsmokers were like, hey, why don't I get any cash, so I think that rewarding the excellent behavior like you're doing.It's so many of these things. First, you think it through, and it's a great opportunity. Then you look at its ramifications where you're rewarding the nonsmoker, to begin with, and then giving the smoker the opportunity, through the cessation program, to one day be a nonsmoker and help them for the rest of their lives.JOAN ENOCH: For those that use it, tobacco is hard to quit. Whether it's smoking or chewing, I'm perfectly fine if someone does that cessation program for three years in a row because I never know that that may be at the right moment in time. That may be just exactly what they need to quit that year.Lisa Ryan: yep, exactly. So what are some of the other needs that you see? What are some of the other things you've been doing that we haven't talked about yet?JOAN ENOCH: Well, one of the things that I've come to understand, not just for our company, but hey, the United States has an aging population. We've got all these hard-working individuals that are steady Eddie as they come to work. They're of that generation where they'll keep coming, but they're close to social security and retire. Medicare is so complicated most people don't understand there's Medicare Part A, there's a see there's a Done to sign up. If you delay your social security, what does that look like in your income? What does it look like if you have a spouse?We have an outside company that we've partnered with, and we provide that service at no cost to our employees. It's free. The name of the company is fed logic. They provide that guidance for people, so it's one phone call away you call you to schedule an appointment for you or anyone in your household, and they'll walk through all of that. It blows my mind that we have this complicated system, and people don't know what's available to them.For instance, someone can retire at 62 and draw on their spouse's social security. Then, when they're 67 or 68, they can change to their social security.Lisa Ryan: Well, well, I know, to even with Medicare as much of a pain as it is to go through, and you know, good for you for providing that information, but that is something that I've had some people that they want my employees to look at that, as a government handout just like unemployment and they don't want any part of it, because they don't understand that Medicare is

Connect with Dan Burgos:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danburgos1/Dan's free resource link: https://alphanovaconsulting.com/business-self-assessment-forms/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Dan Burgos. Dan is the founder, President, and CEO of AlphaNova Consulting. This management consulting firm helps manufacturers in various industries, including aerospace, injection molding, construction products, chemicals, fiberglass, furniture, electronics, consumer goods, etc. Dan, welcome to the show.Dan Burgos: Hi Lisa. Thank you for having me.Lisa Ryan: Dan, please share with us your journey and how you got into consulting, especially with manufacturing.Dan Burgos: It all started with my father putting those entrepreneurial seeds in my mind as I was growing up. As I was finishing high school, I aspired to become a prosecutor - a lawyer. Of course, I knew I was coming to the US being an immigrant. My aspirations for that path. Then I learned that you had to get any license for every state you moved to, which killed my aspiration. So I had to develop the next best thing, which led me to industrial engineering. It was all about solving problems and being inquisitive. That's how it all started. I went to college, and throughout my journey, I knew I wanted to help people in an entrepreneurial capacity.I didn't know-how. When I finished college, one of my first employers had consultants there. When I interacted with them, I saw the impact that they were having, and I said why I thought this might be it. My career continued, and through the years, I met other consultants. I tried to understand what they did and how they were able to impact. It wasn't until 2009 that I met someone, and I finally said yes. I'm committing to this as my career path. By that time, I already had some experience in manufacturing and remained committed, knowing that I wanted to see different industries within the manufacturing sector. I moved around in other companies from oil and gas and furniture.I worked for a medical device company, an aerospace company, and then, finally, I worked for a boutique consulting company. I wanted to learn the ropes of the business, and it was quite helpful. Eventually, in 2016, I felt that I was ready to take the leap and jump headfirst to the consulting journey. We've been in business since 2016.Lisa Ryan: What are some of the things that you focus on? When you walk in there for the first time, what's something they want to focus on? What are the initial projects that you get started with?Dan Burgos: It depends on the company and the business. Some places have different needs, so there are several areas where we help clients. We help with execution, operations, and operations management. That's what gets us in the door. It's much more tangible for manufacturers, but we look at behaviors also from leaders once we're in. Because you may have a well-oiled machine, but if the leaders, don't have the right behaviors, you may still be having challenges to succeed.We look at that and we also look at the culture that these leaders create. We help in four areas. We help with the efficiency of the operation, we help with the management of the operation, and we also help with leadership. The process for deploying or cascading the strategy and, finally, how do we turn around that culture, how do we create an identity that people can get behind and also deter the people that are poor fits. Not necessarily because it's good or bad, but when someone is a poor fit for a company, it might not be the best place for them to be effective.Lisa Ryan: We've heard it so often that people don't leave the job they leave their managers, so when you're coming in from a consulting view, what are some things you notice. I want to put this in the perspective of somebody listening to this show today - what are some of the signs that they may look for that would tell them that wow, there's a problem with my management team that we need to start addressing?Dan Burgos: Some of the indicators could be employee turnover. Many manufacturers do not have certain leadership processes that are so beneficial. I'll mention a handful. For instance, many manufacturers do not complete culture surveys or engagement surveys to know how employees feel about their management. Are they being included? Do they feel connected? Do they feel engaged and included in decisions or are the decisions made only by leaders and employees only there to provide physical labor?Also, very few manufacturers have a talent management process. They don't take a look at what high potential individuals want. We want to maintain engagement and consider the labor market's challenges today. You're best served by keeping those people engaged because those are your future leaders by the same token. How about the people that are in the middle? They need some support to rise to a higher level of performance. Lastly, what are the people in the third-string categories that are not performing but are also not a good fit, character-wise? Is there a way we can turn that around? Are those people having a negative effect on our culture that we probably are best served?When I say ours, I mean both parties, the business, and the individual by moving to a different company, which would be a better fit for them. But, unfortunately, very few manufacturers do that. So they end up with many people in that third category-creating damages within the business.Lisa Ryan: On there are so many times that you're thinking of your hourly employees, as the ones doing the grunt work that you don't even necessarily see their potential. If you bring in some kind of talent management talent, education, training, and empowering employees to learn things that maybe they weren't hired for but that's how you get that spark. You may open something in one of those employees you had no idea that they would rock in that area. It's kind of taking a chance, taking a risk, and believing in those hourly employees that sometimes managers don't give the time of day to.Dan Burgos: Let me share a recent story. One of our clients recently had departure for an employee. When I asked around how much of a contributor, were they? They said, he has potential, but we don't have an opening for him. Many manufacturing leaders feel that it has to be a promotion, and because you were smaller, there's no place for them. I counter that with that's not the only way, you can engage someone. You can give them a special project. You can put them in charge of onboarding your people. You can find what's what makes them tick and keep them engaged. Maybe they can be an assistant, they can cover for other people, and they can be cross-trained. There are so many opportunities - the list goes on - so many opportunities to engage someone to keep them interested and find something that fulfills their potential until that next opportunity comes along. We miss out on a lot of that. People move to the next company like individuals did because he was looking for a bigger challenge and their employer could not provide it.Lisa Ryan: Well, that's such a good point. it does not have to be especially if you have a relatively flat organization. It's taking a look at what you can do. Back in the day when I was an executive recruiter, if somebody was in a job for fewer than five years, you'd be like a job hopper. Now, you go on Indeed or Monster, and they are telling young people that if you want to progress in your career, you got to move to a different company about every 18 months or so, is where they're showing. Especially younger millennials and Gen Z - that's when they want to change. It's not like it has to be the next promotion. Still, maybe it's a different department, maybe it's getting involved in onboarding, training, and giving them something to let them know that you're paying attention so when other opportunities open up, they know they would be first in line. They don't have to grow their career by going somewhere else.Dan Burgos: That's exactly right. We miss out on a lot of talent within the business already. The environment is very industrialized, so they have some challenges finding people who can get accustomed to that when you have already. They're loyal. They're not going anywhere. So you want to exploit and tap into that talent, as much as possible. That's why one observation I have.Lisa Ryan: Right. It's interesting too because you talk about making things more efficient, and the labor shortage. One of the things and I've had a couple of people on my podcast talking about automation. But automation not only from being more efficient where there's a labor shortage but also the fact that a lot of that automation is going to woo people to your company - like wow that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I want to work for you versus going into manufacturing plants and seeing equipment that's twice as old as they are. They're not going to have the interest. So there are little things that you can also do that will increase efficiency and attract new candidates to join you. Have you seen that with your customers?Dan Burgos: Absolutely. I think the culture that it's such seems to become a or has become a buzzword these days, but it's having an environment where you don't feel that you don't have that social impact. I don't know if you've experienced this, I know I have. You get to a point where Monday comes along or the next day, you have to go to your employer, and you feel I don't want you don't feel joy or pride or the desire to even walk in the door and do your job. So I think that is something that is accessible to everyone. it's not expensive it takes effort, and it takes commitment and persistence, I will say to create that environment for employees, because they spend most of their time at work won't you want to have a pleasant experience of doing that. Doing that goes so far for people, yet we feel that we miss out on creating that for employees.Lisa Ryan: Oh yeah, and it's, not to say, that it's going to be happy, happy, joy, joy all the time - we're not going to be dancing down the street, woohoo, it's time to go to work. But if we know that our boss cares about us, knows our name, knows something about us, maybe knows our kids' names, knows our interests, what lights us up in our interest within the company, and how we can grow. So you are right that all that is a conversation, a little bit of time, hardly any money hardly any effort, but some effort.Dan Burgos: That goes into them yeah hundred percent with you.Lisa Ryan: So what are some of the things you have seen, to help manufacturers become more efficient.Dan Burgos: Well, I mean there's a lot. We look for specific activities that are non-value-added so think about it. If you have to do something twice, it's important to make sure you do things right the first time. If there's something that you're repairing reworking any of those things you want to eliminate as much as you can, meaning that your processes are reliable enough that you can produce a quality product and generate complaints from your clientele. The other one is movement throughout a factory product flow it's one thing that you want to be watching for if your product flow requires the operation to have the product move back and forth throughout a factory, you're going to incur a lot of extra cost and transportation property damage possibly obsolescence and not, not to mention safety and quality right.Lisa Ryan: Right. If somebody is because we can't even see what's right in front of us many times, I mean this is the way the shop has been operating for 40 years, this is the way that the process has always been. So in addition to bringing in that neutral third party that can point out some of these things, what could a manufacturing professional do to at least start to become aware Is there something. Is there some kind of process that they can get started to see where some of that redundancy is?Dan Burgos: yeah I think everything starts with education right understand. What is value-added and wants non-value-added and all you have to do is go watch your operation once you're clear on what those things are and it's everywhere about I always say I've never walked into manufacturing business that doesn't have any of this waste. We call it a waste because it's a waste of time for employees to be searching to be walking to be repairing things throughout a factory. So the first step is to get educated go understand what is value and what is getting in the way of that value. Once you get started, identifying then, then it gets easy in terms of how do we solve for this it's probably the easiest part it's more finding it and being able to come up with solutions, but that that's where it starts That would be my first tip for listeners yeah.Lisa Ryan: When you've been doing this for a while, what are some examples that you've had with some of your customers who have looked at some of these things and improved their efficiency.Dan Burgos: yeah so One example that comes to mind is years ago I worked with this manufacturer and they were as a mattress manufacturer and their lead times, meaning their order to delivery time was about two weeks. China what's starting to get into their market Chinese manufacturers and their lead times we're about a month. However, considering the lower Labor costs that Chinese manufacturers, had they were getting more competitive because they were lower price and lead time was somewhat similar. So there's was affecting his manufacturer, so we got in there and we were able to help them catch that lead time from two weeks to three days.Dan Burgos: So imagine what that would do for the market right, you can say, well, you can go with a cheaper version that it's going to you're going to have to wait for a month, so you're gonna have to tie up a lot of working capital carry all this inventory. We can deliver it to you in three days, and then you can upsell and, of course, that was dramatic. We were able to do that without having to reduce personnel, we found ways to improve and reduce the time it took for the product to flow through the factory, without affecting quality and without reducing personnel being more efficient. That did wonders for their business they that the threat of the Chinese manufacturers went away because their value proposition was so valuable to the clients, that it was a no brainer decision at that point.Lisa Ryan: Well, I mean, that's significant, so two weeks to three days. So what do you think was the biggest time saver and when they went through their process.Dan Burgos: So there's a concept we use we call batching in which you're processing, a group of I'm going to call it parts. All you're completing each step for other tasks for all of them, one after the other. As opposed to following them with what we call a one-piece flow where you're completing all the steps for one and then you move it along. And then all the steps for the second one and move it along this is still this practice is still very commonplace in manufacturers and it creates such a difference in delivery times that it's so impactful to give you an example. I'm working with a client, and they have parts that they put in a furnace to cook the product, and they've been doing batching, so they're furnaces.One of the employees pointed out, while we didn't realize it, our furnaces or ovens have been cooking air from eight in the morning to two in the afternoon until we're done with a whole batch. We're in the process of switching to that. So they'll have a product starting to be loaded into the ovens probably around 9-10 in the morning. Subsequently, the next operation is either waiting for work because they're until they complete a batch, and then it's either that or they're completely overwhelmed with the whole batch showing up at once. So now they have to work with all of these simultaneously.Lisa Ryan: Oh, interesting, so you're saying that batching is inefficient and doing it all at once is efficient, so that goes totally against the norm of what most people think right.Dan Burgos: Absolutely, it's very counterintuitive, and I won't say that there are exceptions, there are, but in most cases, as a rule of thumb you want to default to one be slowly supposed to batching. I always tell clients this: if you were the company owner, what would you rather your employees tell you at the end of the week, "Boss, we completed the parts up to 50% in terms of processing" or would you rather say, "We shipped let's say 50% of the parts and we're working on the other, 50%." The answer is the latter because you have revenue coming when you ship 50%. Helping you process all of them to 80% does not generate any revenue. Often, that helps them click and understand that you don't want to have to process all these parts all this product as one, meaning the first one you finish has to wait until the rest of the batch is completed before it can move on to the next operation.Lisa Ryan: Well, and the other thing is that it seems that you'd be able to catch any mistakes faster. Because if one mattress comes off the line and there's a problem with it, it's better than when all the parts to make that mattress in that batch come off. They're all bad now you have more waiting time, so yeah, that is a super interesting way of looking at your business completely different from what we're used to.Dan Burgos: And that's Another point I share with clients, and I've had that happen with the mattress manufacturer, it was with a label they prefer in it, and they put them on and when the worker looked at me said, guys, these are all wrong, so they had to go back and redo all the world because they were batching at that point so there's a lot of benefits to making that transition, but, as you said right when people have been accustomed to doing it once or a certain way for a long time. It's that transition, and that's why I emphasized earlier their behaviors changing and accepting and being open to doing things a different way it's the key to being successful besides or, above and beyond the concepts themselves.Lisa Ryan: Yeah, I'd say that you have to be willing to look at every aspect of your business differently in my programs. Even when it comes to the batching versus the full product going through, is there a small place where you can start? find one area you're not going to completely transform the plant overnight, but if there's one area, you can at least put it to the test. Then you can start showing the success and then be willing to take it a little further, and a little bit further, so yeah, I think that that's a knowledge bomb kind of a drop the MIC moment so.How do you work with your clients, and if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, what's the best way for them to reach you?Dan...

Connect with Jordan Erskine:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanerskine/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to this episode of the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Jordan Erskine. Jordan is an innovative founder with 20 years of experience in the cosmetic contract manufacturing industry. Jordan co-founded Dynamic Blending. Since then, Dynamic Blending has seen over a 12,500% growth in less than five years. Jordan talks about breathing new life into a stale industry and how you can innovate within your industries. Jordan, welcome to the show.Jordan Erskine: Thank you, Lisa. It's a pleasure to be here.Lisa Ryan: Please share a bit about your background and what got you started in manufacturing and the cosmetic contract manufacturing industry.Jordan Erskine: It's a crazy story. I graduated from high school when I was 18 years old. I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself. In my neighborhood, there was a guy who started a contract manufacturing company. I didn't know what that was. When I graduated high school, he said, hey do you want to work with me? At the time, there were ten employees or fewer. It was small. I said sure because at 18 years old, I didn't have any prospects for college. I enjoyed it. I was learning how to develop cosmetics and skincare products from scratch. I learned a lot of that is chemistry and that knowledge, but it's an art form too. It was fantastic to see how some of these higher-end skincare products come to be. So I stuck with it and got my undergrad in finance. I left that company and went to another company, where we are contract manufacturing toothpaste for a large Fortune 50 global consumer goods company. We manufactured four to 5 million tubes a month of toothpaste, so it was a very fast-paced operation.I worked there for about nine years and had a lot of student loan debt. I got my MBA in international business while working there at the time. I had about $140,000 in student loan debt between my wife and me. The panic started to set in that we would never pay this off. I got this weird bug, and a light bulb went off that I just needed to start my own company. I knew how to do everything on the contract manufacturing side - from development to production to package sourcing, just everything, so that's what I did. I started putting the pieces together and met up with an old colleague who worked with the first contract manufacturer.His name is Gavin, and he went on to be an attorney. After not talking about it for about 9-10 years, we met back up. One thing led to another, and his law firm invested a little bit into Dynamic Blending, and the rest is history. We only took on about $170,000 angel investment at the beginning. To this day, we are still privately owned by Gavin and me. It's wild.Lisa Ryan: So, when you're talking about a 12,500% growth in less than five years, I'm sure that people are listening to this podcast with their ears perking up, saying, I would like to have a small percentage of that. What were some things that you did that set you apart in such a short time?Jordan Erskine: I learned from the other contract manufacturers I worked for and knowing that this is my company, I want to build it my way. One thing that was important to me was the team. I started recruiting people. I got a couple of key people who couldn't afford higher salaries because we couldn't afford them. They were subject matter experts, so we gave them equity. We gave them a percentage of equity in Dynamic Blending. That sparked an interest. Some of them worked for us for a while for free until we could start affording that. The first thing is that I knew I needed the team in place in every single area to help us grow to where we needed to be. Our chemist, our R&D director, developed the ancestry DNA solution, so he has pharmaceutical drug development and chemical development. He's our director of R&D and then our director of quality. He worked for he helped Johnson & Johnson get out of FDA issues with Tylenol.We've got people in place that are subject matter experts, so I can focus on what I need to focus on. Gavin can focus on what he needs to focus on. Many of your listeners or other manufacturers will be like, " Yeah, that's exactly right. We've learned the hard way not to put the right people in the right seats on the bus.Lisa Ryan: A couple of things come to mind. Number one, you're starting a brand-new company, and to grow it, you're giving parts of it away. That had to be a little scary but finding those right people and ensuring that you got the right people on the bus right away. So what was that process? What did you think I would have to give them a piece of my company to get these people on board?Jordan Erskine: It's common with startups. Many of these tech companies go public or get bought out. You hear 50 employees became overnight millionaires. That's also the motivation. It depends on the industry, but we didn't have the technical expertise in our specific situation. We knew we couldn't pay $150,000 a year, plus salaries for some people. We had to get creative and take a step back.I'd rather have a small piece of the biggest possible pie than own 100% of a company barely doing a million dollars. You have to realize that it's not always this situation where you do have to give up equity, but in many instances, you can also have it vested overtime right, so you're not worried about how you will perform for me.You can give them a tiny, small point of 2.25% year over year to ensure they stay with you and work toward the business. In doing so, you give them more of an ownership mentality. It is hard. I'm a serial entrepreneur mindset, so I'd rather have a lot of little pieces and help, and knowing that there are other teams within those groups helping build that company, it all falls on my shoulder, right. So that's another risk on the other end.Lisa Ryan: Well, those two words to that you said that that ownership mentality is a key. When you have people who are owners of the company, they will look at it differently because everything they do, they can potentially have a piece of it. So, for people listening to the show, maybe that looks like some profit-sharing, perhaps that looks like opening up the books. But, it is a different level of mentality because otherwise, employees think you are just shoveling dollar bills into the back of pickup trucks. So, having that ownership mentality, they can see the company's numbers and play a significant role in that.Jordan Erskine: On top of that, it looks good for the company when things get tough for the owners. We've had to do this a little bit where we might drop back our salaries by 20% for a little while to help with cash flow or onboarding some of these large clients. Like I told you, they want a net 90 net 120, so that's after delivery. When you're talking about those terms with some of our clients, and maybe similar industries, and things like that, you're fronting their whole production project for six months plus. By the time you order bottles and materials, it's 12 weeks. It comes to your facility. Then you got a manufacturer, and then it's another net 80 or net 120 payments on top of that delivery. So you're stretching out like six-eight months on some of this stuff. We can't do that with every client for small and medium-sized manufacturers. So we have to get creative. Having an ownership mentality helps.Lisa Ryan: When you're getting creative with things like bankrolling your customers and working with them to create that, what are some examples or other ideas you have brought into working with your customers?Jordan Erskine: I think I think one thing is forecasting. For the most part, it doesn't exist. A lot of these big brands we talked to have zero forecasts. But the ones that do have good predictions, it's easy for us. We've gone to the suppliers, which was never done in the past because we've never been put in these situations. Now we're trying to create longer-term like 12 to 24 months supply agreements, working through the brands, and then working with the suppliers. Often, they don't require us to put any deposit down. That helps solidify those products for that brand, and it sounds crazy. Still, again in this industry, only the big dogs have that figured out, like the Unilever's, the Johnson & Johnsons - because their teams are so big and multinational. But many of the big brands don't have good forecasting; they're flying by the seat of their pants. It sounds crazy, but if you can get them reined in then, then the supplier wants to know. They don't know. We don't know, so we're placing orders with the suppliers.They placed an order with us. We got a panic versus, hey, here are six months, here's what we can commit to. Here's what the supplier committed to that we have agreements with the client, if, maybe it's a personal guarantee or company guarantee or something like that, but there are ways that you can. It might take a little bit of risk, but you have to step outside the bounds to keep your customers happy in this day and age. To keep that supply ship flowing - you have to look at everything.Lisa Ryan: Right, well, and even taking that step back and planning what that looks like, you're almost setting a goal that when you have that in your mind, your subconscious starts to figure out how you're going to make it happen. So it's excellent from the standpoint of being able to finance it, and get it out there, that you have the numbers that are at least close, not just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks.How do you change that mentality when working with somebody who may not have ever thought about forecasting before? What are the steps to start that process?Jordan Erskine: yeah, I mean we send them like some templates, and some guides, and things like that, like what to look for. It depends on where they're selling. Some of our clients sell on Amazon, which will have a completely different product sale cycle than something sold in like Ulta, Sephora, or even Target. They're all different cycles where they are ordered. We help them. We determine where they're selling based on our knowledge and trends, and we've got a good team of project managers, supply chain professionals, and planners. That's what makes Dynamic so unique too. We didn't get into it, but we indeed are like a turnkey and beyond. We can consult all of our subject matter experts on projects that we don't even manufacture, or our quality team has consulted with some of the biggest brands that were manufactured for that you would think they've got their stuff figured out. However, they still need us to consult with them. That shows you the level of expertise we have that we're helping some of these larger pharmaceutical companies get through some of these drug processes.Lisa Ryan: Well, it sounds like you're adding a lot of value to your customers. So what do you think are some of the ways that manufacturers listening to this podcast can start to reconsider the value they're adding and add additional value to what they're doing.Jordan Erskine: A couple of things that come to mind if you dive into your customer experience, for the most part, manufacturing is pretty stale. Most manufacturing industries are contract manufacturing for cosmetics. It's pretty stiff, always done the same way. Most of our competitors want large orders. They want million unit orders. They don't care about anything else. We care; we want to build the brand. We want to help the brand succeed and be a part of it - be a partner. Diving into what your customer experience looks like will go a long way. Because when people are shopping around and researching, there are so many companies that still don't have good websites or good web presences for information. When companies are shopping around, they're doing their due diligence per se. They see a website that looks like it hasn't been updated since 1990, and then they look at this other website that may cost $20,000 to build like that difference. In many industries, many brands and companies would be like, Oh well, these people look bigger, just that whole consumer perception somehow. We've established a good web presence so that everybody can find us were a resource. We're just continually building out like education materials.Lisa Ryan: People are shopping around a lot of times. It's going to come down to price, and it's like where can I get the best price, and that's all they care about. But if they find somebody adding value who's taking the time to send them templates to create forecasts, they're working with them. They're making an actual customer experience because he had the market. It's not like the massive margins and manufacturing, so the price is undoubtedly a big part.But by the same token, if you can have reliability and trust, you can build those relationships and stop all the turnover. So from a vendor and customer standpoint, that's undoubtedly going to have a substantial bottom-line impact.Jordan Erskine: Yeah, and where's everybody up? Where's everybody at now that had the soul mentality of I has to find the cheapest I'll bet you 90% of those companies are more are scrambling right now. We even see price increases of 20 to 25% on raw materials daily. We're getting notices. We can't just take that, and add 20% on our clients' projects without them, knowing hey, my unit costs went up 75 cents. What the hell's going on. We have to explain, " Oh well, your chemical from Bulgaria that you process once a year. That mentality is starting to change with the current supply chain state. Companies like Dynamic can show that value. We can be more of an extension, so when your team is scrambling with marketing or artwork, our marketing agency can help you. That's the mentality you need to have. It's just where your customer pain points are. Maybe you have a big client that runs another product and another manufacturer with problems. You don't have that machinery, but perhaps that machine is a $250,000 investment. Well, is that worth that risk? Maybe, if you can get multi-year manufacturing agreements out of this client to switch over. You've got to get creative. You got to get innovative, and sometimes that takes a bit of risk. If you build it, you have to have the "they will come" mentality.Lisa Ryan: Exactly. If you have that type of trust, and relationship, the price increases. But we realized that right now with the craziness of the supply chain. Something happened last night that we saw this like in action. We went to a restaurant for my birthday. They gave us the menu, and we were starting to look at it, and then they came back, and they're like, oh wait, we just got a new menu, and they switched the menu, and my husband said the prices just all went up.Jordan Erskine: wow. While you're sitting there?Lisa Ryan: We were sitting there. It's a restaurant that we both love. We've been going there for years. We have a trusted relationship, and we also know that restaurants have to raise their prices to survive. So it's a good enough experience we know we're going to the food's excellent. We knew we would have a fabulous time, so it didn't matter. Going right back to what you said, when you are upfront with your vendors, when you have that trust built with them, you can, hopefully, watch the prices go up as you're sitting there. But yeah, it's a lot more understandable when it does that.Jordan Erskine: I think one other thing too is just transparency. I mean, people love transparency. It sounds crazy, but I mean not to keep beating a dead horse. Still, we just talked to probably one of the biggest brands worldwide. In terms of like consumer goods, and the comment from them to us as we like you guys call us back we're like what they've been talking to other manufacturers don't even call them back, and this is a multibillion-dollar company. We're like, and this is crazy. Just call them back. So the look of that level of transparency, I think, is lost on a lot of manufacturers. That's why the contract manufacturing game has such that bad reputation for always keeping people in the dark or not being truthful. We're trying to change just by being we have nothing to lose. You're either going to want to work with us or not.We feel like we can prove to you that we are the best, and most people don't come through our facility, they would agree, so that's that mentality that you have to build towards, and have it, 24 seven year facility company.Lisa Ryan: For goodness sake, call people back. We're often making judgments about what that person wants, what that company wants. We have this massive company calling us right now, and we don't even have enough inventory, so we don't want to turn them down. Whatever those thoughts are, it's like stop thinking those thoughts and make the darn call. You've built those relationships with these large companies because you're calling them back. It's an unfortunate sentence.Jordan Erskine: It's humbling, but hopefully, we can be an example. Nobody wants to do business with anyone who feels like that. That was like the dark, or someone's something shady going on behind the back door, or something like that, and just unnecessary.Lisa Ryan: So what do you think are some of the other ways that manufacturers today can innovate in what they're doing even if they've been doing things the same way for years and years. There are some ideas that they can get started with.Jordan Erskine: One thing that people think is very expensive is robotics. There are quite a few good robotics companies that have lease options. We're going to be adding some robotics to our manufacturing lines too. Training them on different things will increase our efficiencies, obviously decrease Labor a little bit. Given the markets you're in, obviously, like California has issues with labor markets and manufacturing York-New Jersey, that will help you tell we haven't seen much. In terms of that, we're more adding it for efficiency, and some of these larger clients want to see automation. There are many ways to automate and not spend a million dollars. You can do a lease on some of these robotics. Companies will charge you per hour, like an employee. They're not even charging you if it's off during the weekend if it's running. That helps you when you're working out your piece, your colleagues, and your cost accounting would be like, Oh well, this is easy because the robot only ran for three and a half hours with this shampoo. Going back to the customer experience side, weirdly, is what many people don't have that we're building out is a custom backend. Everything doesn't have to be through text, phone, email, and things get lost in email. We have a central dashboard location where clients can log in. They can see all their invoices. They might we're going to link it to their inventory, so they can see their real-time list whenever they want. They can pay invoices and like approvals for artwork within the system. So it'll be like a full circle of quality management for the client. Things like that will simplify

Connect with Mike MurdockEmail: MDOCK50@gmail.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/golfer53/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today Mike Murdock. Mike is the President of M2 Collaborative Solutions. He has 38 plus years of manufacturing operations and vendor supplier optimization experience. In addition, he works with cross-functional teams internally and externally. Mike works directly with key strategic vendors that support their daily manufacturing needs and requirements. Mike, welcome to the show.Mike Murdock: Hey, Lisa. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of your show and share my experiences. Just briefly, for 38 plus years, I worked for General Mills. My first 27 years focused on the day-to-day manufacturing of multiple products. General Mills owns plants in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In July, the plant I retired from generated $2.4 billion worth of revenue a year.General Mills is roughly a 17 and a half to $18 billion company, so that's a good chunk of revenue coming out of Cedar Rapids. For the last 12 years, I have had a unique role where I focused on working with our key strategic vendors that provided materials, ingredients, and services to the Cedar Rapids facility and our supply chain. I worked in North America, and I did some global initiatives that helped our supply chain with our key vendors.Lisa Ryan: I know that that vendor or supplier relationship is where you put your focus, and it also got you through some tough times and these last couple of years with the pandemic. Please share with us some examples of where you saw that partnering with the people giving you the ingredients and supplies makes a difference and creates a win-win for everybody.Mike Murdock: So, as we are all aware, our world is turned upside down. In March of 2020, the norm was no longer how the business would operate. Nobody knew how long because the pandemic was new to all of us. We didn't know what to expect. But the thing that was refreshing and encouraging for not just me but our General Mills supply chain was those key strategic vendors. I had spent years working with them to lay the foundation and build that trust in our working relationship. I wanted to have uncomfortable conversations, be very fluid, and be nonjudgmental.It allowed us to get opportunities and issues in front of us in a non-threatening way. So what took place as the pandemic started to hit in the March/April timeframe. We had these strategic vendors that I had been working with for years. They reached out to me via phone calls and emails. They let me know that General Mills is a top-three priority for them. They said we would do all we could to ensure your supply chain was not disrupted. That was very reassuring.Knowing that there were many unknowns in front of all of us now. Having that confidence and reassurance from these key vendors that we're dead in the water without their work. We can't make finished products that go out to the consumers. It allowed us to move forward with confidence, believing that we would have the materials and ingredients to make our finished product. Keep in mind that I'm talking about Cheerios, Wheaties, Lucky Charms, Betty Crocker Frosting, Betty Crocker fruit snacks, Nature Valley granola bars - I could go on and on and talk about all the different products in the General Mills portfolio.Think about how many empty shelves there were when you first went to the grocery stores early on in that pandemic. It was hard to understand, but it wasn't very long into the pandemic that some of those things you purchased regularly weren't on the shelves. They were not available.Lisa Ryan: Well, let's think about the vendors you were dealing with. It's General Mills, for goodness sake. You know they are a billion-dollar company, and they don't want to lose that business. There's still something to the relationships that you built. To get that type of loyalty, besides the fact that you are probably a big chunk of their business, what did that look like?Mike Murdock: Great question. It's just not about the annual spending; it's the relationships. I was involved with from eight to $400 million a year spent for General Mills. So that is carrying a bit of influence in weight with these folks, but, more importantly, it was how we treated each other and respected one another. We took the time to understand each other's needs and the complexities of the challenges of making that finished product.When they were providing materials, we investigated what it took for them to deliver that material or that ingredient that was so unique. We needed to be specific to our General Mills requirements. We took the time to understand what that was about and those challenges. Then we helped each other eliminate some of those frustrations, some of those things that prevented us from success. We worked on removing those things to make them more efficient in the past. More importantly, this created more capacity and made it safer for the employees. We eliminated some of those inefficient things that created stops and required people to do something that was not necessarily safe for what we wanted them to be doing. We laid that groundwork.Lisa Ryan: In a previous conversation, we talked about things like labeling. You have a company as big as General Mills saying this is how we want it. Vendors have to do it this way, no ifs and or buts about it. You took the time to see where some of those problems were with the machinery. You reviewed some of the things and took the time to understand where your vendors are coming from. I believe it also led to that loyalty, so please share that story.Mike Murdock: That was a great story. The result turned out well for General Mills and our vendors. It led into the General Mills organization, where we would track performance. It was all based on available uptime capacity for those particular lines. It was based on a hundred percent optimal capabilities of a line or system. As we looked at the labels that we're talking about has to do with Betty Crocker one pound tubs which I'm sure many people have purchased these one-pound tubs to either frost a cake or cupcakes or cookies or something. That label that goes on the outside, whether it's buttercream, vanilla chocolate, or wherever it is, has to be put on. It's a tub that comes in blank with no information on it, so you would think that's not a big deal. But keep in mind, that there are hundreds of these tubs traveling through the system in a minute. Hopefully, these labels are being picked up one at a time. It comes out of a magazine; it's wrapped around this spinning tub and glued on the bottom side. It spins, and there was a lot of frustration and many downtimes associated with that label being applied. We were losing roughly 26 hours a month in this process. Imagine one day out of your mouth. You're not making the product because you're fighting this label being put on to this tub of frosting.Fast forward. We reached out to the vendor company that provides these labels for us, started sharing some information, and talked about its concerns. We invited them to come in. Along with the equipment vendor that handled this label that was being applied, we had all kinds of resources within General Mills engineers, operators, and maintenance people involved.What it was about in the first message to everybody as we're not in this conversation to try to find somebody to blame for the poor performance. We know we've got a problem. We know we have opportunities to get better, but please understand that we are not here to point the blame. We're not here to accuse anybody of anything. We are here to gather facts and data based on information that we can track and validate.So, with that in mind, I asked everybody to leave their opinions and emotions outside the door before entering the meeting. Because we wanted it to be a very friendly data-driven conversation, we spent a day and a half talking about all the information on the equipment within the plant in Cedar Rapids and the process at this label company in Fort Worth, Texas. We invited the equipment vendor that handles the label being placed to share some of their data and information.Then we looked at the top five areas that we should focus on trying to improve, and we identified those. There was a responsibility on both sides of the table that needed to be addressed. For General Mills, we needed to invest roughly $30,000 in capital to improve the equipment that had been in place for about 15 years to update to some of the changes in technology that have taken place. We committed to that.We took a group of roughly five employees from the Cedar Rapids General Mills plants down to the label plant in Fort Worth, Texas. We looked at their process. We sat down and talked about what are the things that we were asking them to do. That makes it challenging. One of the things we learned quickly was printing on the backside of the label that had recipes and ideas of how to use frosting that had been in place for ten years. Quite honestly, nobody knew why it was there, and it didn't add any value. It did add six hours of incremental handling and processing to the label company. Imagine if you can eliminate those six hours of adding ink to the backside, waiting for that ink to dry, cure before you go back, and handle it again. That's a significant efficiency gain and a new elimination of non-value-added steps and processes that create challenges on their side of making that label. It was a considerable improvement. We also looked at the layout of the sheet of the labels made. We improved that by 7%. Out of every sheet printed and cut, we added 7% more coverage to that sheet. You're getting a better yield from that initial paper or the material you're using. You're doing it in less time, and you're gaining capacity. All of this stuff starts to be win/win scenarios, which we focused on.Lisa Ryan: When you think about something, you know when you're looking at a product, mainly a food product. I buy wine based on the pretty label, but I felt I didn't even think about it. If I'm buying frosting or if I'm buying Cheerios, you're okay buying food. That's probably the least of my attention. When it comes to that attention to detail, knowing every process area is critical. You know you're onto something when you pay attention to the minor parts of a product that have nothing to do with the taste and show those types of cost savings. There are too many times that we look at the massive parts, and where we can make a huge difference where you were making a significant difference with really a tiny part.Mike Murdock: As I mentioned initially, we were experiencing 26 plus hours a month of downtime after we completed the work. Keep in mind that this has been going on for the better part of 10 years. There was a lot of frustration from the operators, mechanics, and everything on the plant floor. We spent roughly six months working on making these changes, improving, and adding the new technology from the capital purchase. When we got done, the average monthly downtime was under one hour. So we gained a full day of production back in. As a result of that, the employees, the operators, and mechanics on the floor started believing that there was a new way to address issues going on for years. They started becoming more engaged, more involved in coming up with thoughts and ideas about what else can we do to improve our day-to-day manufacturing process.These were things when those guys woke up and put their feet on the floor in the morning. Their first thought is I have to fight eight hours of this label. Well, guess what - that was eliminated. It's no longer in front of them, and so as a result of that, the vendor we work with we were doing roughly $8 million a year worth of business with them. As I mentioned earlier, some companies do 400 to $500 million a year's worth of business at General Mills.We took that same application that we improved and learned on the Betty Crocker frosting, and we applied it to the Progressive soup label. They provided those labels and saw the same benefits.Our annual supply chain vendor award ceremony, held in our corporate office in Minneapolis, this small vendor that we're spending eight to $9 million a year with General Mills won our supply chain vendor of the year. So it was a massive win for those guys.It was 12 to 15 months later because of their willingness to collaborate with General Mills to make the process better and drive nontraditional cost savings, which saved money for both of us. Not just for General Mills, they saved money substantially on their side of it as well. They ended up tripling their business with General Mills, and within that 12 to 15-month timeframe afterward, they were doing 25 to $30 million a year in business with General Mills.So there's another payback for them being willing to collaborate with us and look for ways to optimize and improve the process.Lisa Ryan: When I think one of the things that, and not that you breezed over it, but kind of went over it quickly is the attitude of the employees. They knew they would go to work and have this frustration messing around with this machine. You took the steps you needed to work with the vendors, working with everybody to fix that. Please talk a bit about how that improved employee morale, employee engagement levels, productivity, and the things you saw from the people there.It immediately impacted the morale on the floor, and I'm going to move out of our frosting division and move up into our cereal department in Cedar Rapids. In one of the other projects that I had worked on, we saw double-digit gains in the performance of that one cereal line that we were focusing on. As a result, these were some of our most senior tenured employees in the plant. Most of them had 20 years plus experience working in that plant. When one line was chosen to be the guinea pig for this new philosophy of let's work, collaborate, and share information, thoughts, and ideas with our key suppliers and see where it will get us. That one went quick, and within a two-month timeframe, they saw about a 14% improvement on their land performance, day in and day out.Suddenly, I had people knocking on my door office door saying, are we next? How come you're not helping us? I'll help whatever you want. It became more of a pull instead of a push. When you've got the morale, and when you've got the people on the floor that have been frustrated for years, and keep in mind these employees, for the most part, they get 15-20 plus years of experience. They know quite a bit. They understand why they're successful and see why they're not successful. When something looks like help to them, they get excited and want to be a part of it. Once they believed in and trusted that there was a process for them to leverage and use to help make their day better, more efficient, and, most importantly, for all of us safer. Sign me up. Please help us. Here are some ideas and thoughts that we've been talking about for years, and nobody has listened to us. We haven't been able to get after this. Please help us figure out how to do this. So the unique thing about that was that I'm not the problem solver; I'm the person that brings all of the significant and necessary resources together, and what I do is kind of leave that conversation. It's staying focused on factual data-driven information. It doesn't become an emotional conversation because emotional emotions take you off the path and don't allow you to get to the actual root cause of what's stopping you from being successful.Lisa Ryan: Well, I know some of these, and manufacturing inherently we have an older workforce, and more tenure workforce it's been with us. Sometimes, we're afraid to bring changes to them because you know that they're going to fight, kick, and scratch, and we've been doing it this way for 40 years. But they're also the people, and I think you've demonstrated this nicely: when number one, they're involved in the process. But you can get that buy-in because you're listening to them, and you're doing it over time, and you're showing them how it's making them safer and making their lives easier. Then they become your biggest proponents of those new systems and get all the less tenured people to buy-in.Mike Murdock: They became informal leaders on the floor, and they didn't even know what they were doing. That was the beauty of it. Those people became leaders amongst their peers without even realizing what was doing it.I'll never forget one thing, and I chuckle about it often when I talk about it is out on the cereal packaging floor. Keep in mind that this person had been there 30 years, and his nickname was grumpy. That's where there may call, and I was one of the few unfortunate ones that had a pretty good relationship with him. He'd open up and talk to me, and he was on that team. He was the first to have that 14% increase in performance up in the cereal department. He became the number one advocate of the new process in that department. He made it so much easier for me to work with other people. He would sit around in the break room and talk about, hey, my day is so much better because of this, and it wasn't about what I did for them. It's what they were freed up to do to help themself so enabling them to get in front of you know key suppliers when their key resources, and talk about in great detail, and detail. I wouldn't have the experience and knowledge to talk about with those people. Because I didn't live it eight to 12 hours every day as these people have for years, and so, when you get those people together, you almost sit back. You'll allow those conversations to take place, and then you guide them on what the process will look like to make those improvements and free them up to do the things differently than they've been doing to get those positive results.The one thing that you know is important is it needs to be a win/win scenario. It has to be good for both sides. I always shared with our vendors that if it's good for one of us and not the other one, it's not good for either one of us. So it's got to be something beneficial for both sides.Lisa Ryan: So, as we get to the end of our time together, boy, time flies when you're having fun.Mike Murdock: It does.Lisa Ryan: What would be your best tip, your best idea for somebody listening to start building better relationships with their suppliers and vendors? How do you get that process started?Mike Murdock: The first thing that I'd say is you've got to take the time to get to know your vendors' capabilities on a very personal and in-depth level. I quickly found that the mentality of all the vendors is just trying to make my life miserable though they're sending us junk and everything else. Most of the time, what they're sending you is what you're asking them to provide. So instead of leveraging vendors' experience, knowledge, and expertise in the field they exist in, we want to tell them as a customer how to provide that material or that ingredient when, quite honestly, they know better than we do. So don't be afraid to expose yourself, and say listen. Here are some of...

Connect with Darrin Mitchell:Website: www.manufacturing-masters.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrin-mitchell-20ab80158/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm here today with Darrin Mitchell. Darrin has been a global manufacturer of highway equipment for the past 24 years. Last year, he developed an online training platform for manufacturing businesses to find best practices from experts worldwide. So, Darrin, welcome to the show.Darrin Mitchell: Awesome, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.Lisa Ryan: Please share with us your background and what led you to do what you're doing in manufacturing.Darrin Mitchell: We're a global manufacturer of big highway equipment. If anybody out there listening right now has ever been stuck in traffic, and you've complained that the equipment up ahead is blocking your way or making you late, I'm officially the guy to blame. We build the equipment that was building roads or in the mines or hauling agricultural products. We make big highway trailers for transporting big bulky things. We do that across North America, Australia, New Zealand Middle East, South Korea, and Europe.Lisa Ryan: And so, and why did you choose that industry? What led you into highway equipment, to begin with?Darrin Mitchell: So, 25 years ago, I met my business partner, an engineer. He said he was going to start making these highway trailers. I said, "For the love of Mary, please do not ever do that." He said no, no, I think it's a good idea. I said, "Listen, our biggest competitors are out of Ohio. They are vertically and horizontally integrated. They own their suppliers; they are next to the customers; they come and pick up the product from the factory, and they're happy with a five to 9% margin.Literally, day one - if we tried to compete from a rural and remote community, we've already lost just on the cost of getting materials to our factory. There is no hope in hell of us ever succeeding in competing against someone who has hundreds of millions of cap expending. They're fully automated. They're competing on volume and integrated into the supply chain. We'd never be able to win.Lisa Ryan: Obviously, something changed.Darrin Mitchell: I know. He went ahead and started it anyway and then told me. A few months later, he said I'm in deep, help. Oh okay. We started getting innovative immediately, understanding what we were up against—and not doing what our competitors were doing.One of the things that we did was built a lot of innovation into the product. We were able to ask for a premium. Being from a place where you're removed from your supply chain or customer base, you have to ask for a premium. We built a lot of things moving parts. The products could do things that our competitors couldn't do because they didn't have the capacity.When I meet with my competitors, they say I hate you and say, well, I, like you. Why do you hate us? They would say I hate you because it's hard to copy you. We have a massive assembly line set up in our factory, but how you've innovated with your products makes it hard to replicate that. They had an enormous assembly line, where you would put 10,000 20,000 products a year. So the first thing that we did was we innovated to make the product more valuable to the customer so that we could charge a premium.That's how we started growing the business and understanding that we didn't want to compete against the masses. So we tried to skim the cream off the top and ensure that we could show that value to the customer to charge that premium for the product. So that was the first step in what we did for the business's growth.Lisa Ryan: How did you decide what to add to your products to make them premium? Was that in researching the industry, talking to customers, etc.? How did you choose, and what would be an example of an innovation that you put in a product that your competitors couldn't duplicate.Darrin Mitchell: The quickest thing we did was we spent a lot of time sleeping on airport floors. We spent a lot of time in a very senior leadership position. We spent a lot of time with customers, so we would say what features do you like? What features don't you like? What can it do? What can I do? What could it do to make you more money? How can we become more valuable in it? We wouldn't get that feedback if we lived in a rural location. So we had to spend that time with the customer to do that. What we ended up doing is our competitors would make these big dump trailers that go up in the air, and the materials followed at the back. We put a conveyor belt in the bottom of the trailer that you could have a driver that's relatively inexperienced run it. They turn on the trailer, and it loads without going up in the air and having that threat of falling over.The addition of the moving parts was something nobody could copy because it interfered with the manufacturing process. So we got good at it, and it was a level of complexity that our competitors found it difficult to copy.Lisa Ryan: Was it also because your competitors had been doing it the same way for so long that they didn't have the flexibility you had as a newer company? Did that play anything into it?Darrin Mitchell: Most manufacturers are set up for efficiency and effectiveness. We've seen this lately with disruptions in supply chains. Everything goes well when it goes, really, really well. But, as a manufacturer, sometimes you've got things so efficient it's hard to be flexible. You always have to remember that you have to build that flexibility into your innovation, your factory, supply chain, and staff. You have to develop that flexibility. Otherwise, you can get caught flat-footed.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. One of the things that we talked about extensively is your focus on culture. That's pretty much what you're known for in everything you do. You gave me a little teaser about what you're going to share - some ways to increase culture by 33%. Tell us more.Darrin Mitchell: I'm glad I caught your attention. I think 33% is a fascinating number because it does something to the human brain. One of the things you need to think about as a manufacturer is before you that little BS detector goes off in your head is, you need to think about 33% compared to what. I would suggest that companies out there are serious and interested in a genuine and tactical way to improve their company culture today. They should reach out to someone like Lisa Ryan.Let's get a base level of where to start because many companies don't even know where they're at today versus how they improved from where they're at. I have three tips today because we are limited on time, and we can ramble about things for hours. Divide them by ten; you've got 11.1% for each tip that you can improve your culture. Number one is in a leadership position. When you're a leader, you give up many of your rights and responsibilities. As an employee within the business and as a leader, you have to admit that you never let your team fill in the blanks. Everybody who shows up every day who's worth their salt that comes to the business believes in something beyond a paycheck. They think they're wearing a team jersey, and they're part of something. They gain additional value in their lives beyond a paycheck. Your responsibility as a leader within the business is don't let them fill in the blanks. As a leader, I mean that you always need to be front and center explaining what the future looks like and what our place is as a team. Where do we fit into that future; what is it. You never lie to people because if you do that, they'll never come back once again.You need to be honest. It would be best to give people that clear indication of the business's future and where they fit into it. I'll give you a good example. This is the bad news during covid because we always like these heroic stories of good things. But during covid, I am sick and tired of talking about it. I had 130 employees. Even the team leads were so panicked and frustrated. They were getting it from work; they were getting it from CNN, and they were getting it from their spouses. They were beyond their capacity to handle the situation. So guess who else wants me.But I gave up that right to fall into that mode when I accepted the mantle of the leadership position. So what I did was two times a week for the first eight months of the pandemic. I would break everybody into small groups, stand in front of everyone, and say, 'This is what I know. This is what's happening with the business. I understand everybody has concerns, but I guarantee that I will keep standing in front of you until we get to a better day. I will not candy coat anything in front of you, but I do know this one thing you are a world-class team acting like a world-class team today. I have the utmost respect for my coworkers who come to work every day and continue to conduct themselves.I said that twice a week for eight months. I would always give them an update. What it did, was that it reassured them that someone had the fingers on the pulse of their future. When your home life was unstable, and many of us went through that, you knew you had some stability when you came to work. Someone was thinking actively about your future and where you fit into it.The first rule would be as as a leader, you can't advocate conversation. Your job in that leadership position is to talk about the future. So how do we, as the business employees, fit into that to give people that sense of accomplishment. We tend to announce the big things and the good things all too often. You have to announce all things because, when people when you're absent, nobody fills in the space. But positive news does, so take that opportunity to be the leader they're looking for in that space.Lisa Ryan: The funny thing is that we've heard that it's almost cliche so often that people don't leave their job; they leave their boss. Companies will say, oh yeah, Joe left to go somewhere else to make more money. But, no, if Joe were happy, he would have never left. There was something about the leadership. The boss was not transparent because, like you just said, when the grapevine is going, and people don't know what's going on, they're going to make stuff up.When they're not happy thoughts, they're making up; they're justifying. They're looking at the way that leader is looking. They're looking at their expressions on their face so just that getting in front of people, knowing that your employees aren't always going to like what you have to say, but the fact that you're being straight with them twice a week for eight months. It's probably interesting as your employees were at the bar on Fridays with their buddies talking about work. Their friends are probably saying our boss. I don't even know where our boss is. He disappeared, and I don't know what's going on. You show that level of vulnerability that you're willing to be transparent with them. That communication builds those relationships. That's key.Darrin Mitchell: And I screwed up a lot of stuff too. You segued very nicely into the second point is who is the boss. We found a lot of times in our cultural development. The senior leadership of the business has a certain level of influence on the culture. Those senior leaders need to realize that managers and team leaders have a more significant impact on your culture.One of the things we did was to empower our team. An excellent example of this that I was proud of is that we would set out monthly production objectives as a team every month, and we would pick a number and say we're going to get 30 units out the door this month. If all of the employees succeeded in getting those 30 units out the door every month, high quality, with all the needs, features, and benefits that the customers were looking for, we give them a $100 bill. Now, someone could say, hey Darrin, tax issues, and I'm going to shut up. I don't care.We were very specific in what we would do. I would go to the bank and pick up a stack of hundred-dollar bills, and I would hand those to the team leads before the meeting. I never handed out a $100 bill. If we hit our objectives, the team leads would meet with their teams to say, hey, we hit our goals, and only the team lead was allowed to pass the bill and shake the hand. I was never allowed to touch that. I said, here we are, this is where we're going, and the team leads took that personally. That is a good incentive because it was more powerful than giving them a $1,000 bonus.Doing this, shaking hands, making eye contact, and saying Thank you to one of your coworkers made a difference. So this month, we turn that into a ritual. It was a very positive effect on the business.If you want to improve your culture, the second thing is to find ways to empower your team leads because they have more influence over the masses than you do in a senior leadership position. After all, they're the direct reports coming out of the business.Lisa Ryan: We talked about the difference between $1,000 and $100. When you start, people think that it's all about the money. You illustrated that so beautifully because many times say you had a great month and gave everybody $1,000. If they would be like and then next month, it goes down to 100 now you have people complaining welcome, we only got 100 this month, and it takes away the magic. It's like a $25 gas card given to somebody catching them in the act of doing something right. It will not upset anybody else because you're being recognized, so it's the smaller gifts. What even makes that you could probably have done the same thing with a $50 bill. Because it's the eye contact and the handshake and that personal connection that your leaders are your managers are showing their employees, I see you. I appreciate you. It also sounds like you're getting them to all buy into the system because you often see it all the time. Some managers are great with their people, and some just aren't. Those with the departments with the high turnover, but you're saying, well I can't get rid of them they're our highest producing department, even though they have 100% turnover. You have to get rid of those toxic managers, train them, or do something. You bring everybody into the team, have that meeting, ritualize the experience, keep it consistent, and come together in celebration. You have so many great ideas.Darrin Mitchell: And number three is the most uncomfortable thing a manufacturer will ever do. I will ask every manufacturer out there today to make a video. Last year alone, we had 6 million views on YouTube. This is how people find out who we are, why they should trust us, and why they should work with us. We use those videos - not needs, features, benefits, products. We created those videos to show who we are, and it's effortless to do business with us. And guess who the star of the videos was.Lisa Ryan: The employees.Darrin Mitchell: You got it. I would go and pluck out employees randomly from the floor. I would say you're a star, and they would go on a dare to you. You're going to be awesome. We did many fun, silly, serious, different things with the employees. In one, we filled up a trailer with water in the middle of winter. We just opened the tailgate and dumped it on one of our employees sitting in a little Mr turtle pool. We were trying to show how watertight it was. We took four of our most husky employees, and they were their wives' dresses and wigs, and we said, the new models are coming. All silly tongue-in-cheek stuff, but here's what happened. The rest of the world started saying you look like fun people to do business with. You look like you're a sincere human being.Secondly, those employees started becoming transmitters for the business, but they also took those videos home to show their children and their spouses. This is what I do every day. So now the business has become part of the family household, so mom doesn't get up at 6 am every morning to go and do something. She actually does something pretty cool because I have just seen her on this little device in my back pocket.Lisa Ryan: That's great! I talk about the power of video all the time. We're looking at such a tough labor market to attract employees. They're checking you out online, and they want to see. Do you have people who look like me? Does it look like it's a fun place to work? If you have nothing online and all you have is a bunch of negative reviews on glassdoor.com, and you've never even answered to, the chance of that employee ever even filling out an application goes down.It sounds like you're increasing your business because it looks like you're fun to do business with but just as far as a recruitment standpoint, making it easier. You think about one of your employees going home and telling their spouse, hey, you know I'm going to leave this job. I'm tired of it. They'll say, you can't leave that you're a YouTube video star.Darrin Mitchell: And when that little transmitter they were able to send that to their family and friends, and there was a particular recipe on the people I would pick for the videos. I wanted them to share that with family and friends. So I was starting to get applications from those family and friends that the video said, hey, I want to be happy like he seems to be happy. We will also give you a paycheck, train you, and do all those good things to treat you like a human.Lisa Ryan: The thing is, and it sounds like you just brought in your phone, it's not like you brought in a huge production team and did a big fancy thing. You could have. But just that when people think about the technology that we have. I just got the iPhone 13 pro, so I have more power in my hand right now than most movie theaters did ten years ago. So it's easy to do. It's just the point of doing it.Darrin Mitchell: You hit the nail on the head. Lisa, the recipe is to forget the flashy stuff. It doesn't work - it sets off the BS detector. So grab your phone and be authentic and sincere. People will share that with you.Lisa Ryan: Out of everything you've seen and done with your culture over the years, what's your favorite thing? If you were to give some advice or an idea that somebody listening today could start to implement immediately, what would that be?Darrin Mitchell: If you want the most sincere answer. The most heartfelt answer you could get from me is after 23 years, especially for the last five years. Financially, we were in pretty good shape. When you're not under duress as a manufacturer, you tend to take it out on your people. We found ourselves in an okay spot. We were in a safe place, and we set up a high school education program.I watched many of my coworkers graduate, and they would say privately to me thanks, I don't feel like a piece of shit anymore, and I would go, ah, okay. That's deep. I take so much pleasure out of thinking about those memories. I was fortunate enough. I graduated high school.To see one of my coworkers associate that with me, I feel like