The Manufacturers' Network

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce you to our guest today, Gerry Angeli. Gerry has been a manufacturing and supply chain executive for over 35 years, including CEO-level experience. He's had the opportunity to work all over the planet on products, ranging from high volume consumers to very custom high value-added durable goods. Gerry, welcome to the show.Gerry Angeli: Lisa, it's great to be here. I appreciate you extending the invitation to be on the podcast.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. Please share with us your background and what led you to do what you're doing.Gerry Angeli: Well, it all started way back when I left college, and I remember the line in the interview that got me into my first job. Coming out of engineering school, the interviewer asked me what I would like. I said, look, if you're looking for a world-class designer, that's not me. But if you're looking for somebody who knows how to troubleshoot things analytically and fix stuff, and work on items associated with quality and reliability. So he stopped me when he said I get 1000 of the first kind.I get one a year of you when can you come to visit the shop and that's how it started so from then until and in the early days, people called me a factory rat. I was always in the factory, so that's how I got started in manufacturing and the supply chain. It's a virtuous profession to make things and get them out there. So throughout my career, I've been up and down the supply chain. From customer service, on the one end to procurement, on the other, it's treated me well.Lisa Ryan: Being in the supply chain these days is just a little tricky. So, what are some of the things you're seeing that your experience or seeing happening in the industry? What are some of the ideas that you have to reestablish business continuity?Gerry Angeli: Well, that's the greatest place to start. I get very vocal about what I see going on at times, and much of it has its roots back in the 1980s when just-in-time and zero inventory production started. I'll hold that thought for a second because those were all good things to do. When I came to Florida, I was recruited by a company down here in Hollywood. Shortly after that, I got an operations executive. They had manufacturing locations in various parts of the planet. They had just moved the company from another State to South Florida when I got here. As I entered, the boss said to me, "I need you to stick your nose in something for me. Everybody warned me that there are hurricanes here, and you got to have a plan if you're in manufacturing, whether it's here or anyplace else, to recover from a weather event."We didn't call it business continuity. Back then, it was disaster recovery. I stuck my nose into the topics. As I got involved with it, naturally, the first thing is power, the second thing is water. All learning associated with recovering from a hurricane or a flood or a tsunami doesn't matter. It is episodic. You learn what to do. Next time because of what's happened to you this time. So, there's no manual written. There's no checklist. There's no place you can go to say what is it the way I have to do. Can I run down this list and be safe? No. You've got to build your knowledge. And so we began doing that, and the more I got involved with it, we went through a couple of storms, where you're down for a week or two.You begin you build an encyclopedia dictionary of what to do. You'll resonate with this. One of the things that I learned early on is they always talk about power and water. Stay away from the down electrical lines. You gotta take care of the folks.They were getting ready for it, preparing for the coming storm, what happened during the storm, and what happened after the storm. The first thing you do is take care of the people. You ensure that they have enough time to get their affairs in order. That sounds a little dark, but it's true. They want to take care of their house; they want to ensure that their assets are safe, just like you do with manufacturing. The second thing is communication, consistently over-driving what's going on. Why is it happening? What's happening to you? When are we close? When are we opening all of that stuff? You have to take care of yourself first because that fosters a sense of belonging and the people. If they know or appreciate that you're taking care of them, they'll take care of you. You need your workforce with you.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. What did this company do before you? Did they just fly by the seat of their pants then one day decide that they needed a process? Because Florida has always had storms.Gerry Angeli: Well, they remember they had just moved here to they came from apart, so we had snow days. That's no process for a day, and that was about it. You dig out from under your go back to work. But here, there's a great deal of uncertainty, but the point is this is the learnings that accrued from the topic of disaster recovery. Align themselves very well with the modern version called business continuity, and in the business, continuity lives the supply chain.Take the analysis of what you need to ensure that your supply of materials, the critical ones, to the nuts, bolts, screws, and plastic bags are tended. The biggest mistake that I see happening now is the supply chain. First, we suffered from just in time. We want everything to get here. Just in time, though, that's fine, but not all the time. There are certain things that you need a three- or four-week supply of. During hurricane season, you might not be able to get them. You must make provision for you can call it stockless production. But what are you doing to keep yourself running? If something happens to you or somebody else in Jacksonville, for example, have a storm up there, and not here, but you still can't get stuff.The second thing is, like for like. You're A-class items in your inventory. That's the uniquely your stuff - the materials that make your products your products. The things the expensive stuff come from maybe one or two places on the planet. The relationship you have with those suppliers should be different from your relationship with people who sell you the C and D items. One of the things that we learned to do is that for the objects 20 years, items make up the critical pieces you need in your processes.As the company president, I thought I made sure that I had a line with the company's president, where they came from pyramid level to pyramid level. President, the President, Vice President, the Vice Presidents, and because, because if you relegate the entire supply chain. I have nothing against the purchasing department, don't get me wrong. You have no firepower.The regular folks talking to the common folk can't get you to need something when you need it. You can't get you to deliver something when you need it, and here's the critical learning. If you do that process all the time, whether or not there's a storm or a disruption of any kind, it becomes a matter of routine.To call the president of the other company and say how things are going, you must have quarterly meetings about your A-items. The costs go up. The prices go down. Materials come in short supply. You have those dialogues routinely. When a storm happens, you can't get diesel fuel for the generator. If you call the president of that company that day when the other thousand people call that guy that day, you're just another pain.You must nurture those relationships in the supply chain all along. Let me give you an excellent example of that. I had a friend who had a business that made sub-assemblies for us down here in Fort Lauderdale. His company was up in Tallahassee, and he had the same problem. They get hit with storms. One day we talked, and he asked me about business continuity because he knew that that was a big question. He says, "what happens if there's a storm in Tallahassee. I can't get you the product you need. I said what the truth of the matter is, I can make yourself, make this assembly that you're driving to.I'll put the parts on a truck before the storm hits. You send them down here, and I could do the same thing. If the storm hits here, I can send my stuff up there, and you could make the products. A handshake came of a discussion about keeping the supply chain continuous for those critical parts during a disruption caused by weather. You have to think through that stuff you have to work on or not all the time. You have to think about those disruptions, and the same thing applies. We had another example where a truck full of assembly was in an accident. It caught on fire, and we lost two months of production and didn't know it.You know, it was the, wow, where's the truck. So you go on a magical mystery tour trying to figure out what happened to your parts. But the same things that you learn in business continuity for a storm apply there. Then the last thing I'll talk about is the competence of managing for continuity, whether it was when the pandemic hit and things started to shut down. Because the factory shut down, supplies were short because nobody was working. But then we began to run out of materials because the places where the raw materials were scarce, the disturbance, this time, no money planned for this disruption to last this long. Even in all the planning that we did, the most prolonged time that we planned for was a month. Because you figure anything that would happen short of, you know, getting a fire that burns you to the ground, you'll come back to life within a month. Several things have changed that now. One is cyber security. That's a disaster that's man-made. Somebody attacks you dropped your operation to its knees because of ransomware or just because they do nasty things.Provisions for cyber-attacks in the supply chain all businesses have to plan for.Lisa Ryan: A look at some of the things in Florida. There will be storms, and there are parts from August to November or whenever hurricane season is that you can plan to have that. Three or four extra weeks a truck is a one catching on fire is a one-time event. But how would you prepare for things like the pandemic? We have this backup at the LA ports, where people wait months and months to get their supplies. Is there anything that we could have done or that we could have? We could be doing better when the unexpected happens like it's been for the last two years.Gerry Angeli: That's a fascinating question, Lisa. It's one that I wish I had five bucks every time somebody asked me a question in the last three months. When there's a disruption, three things happen all the time. The first thing is prices go up. They never go down. If there's a drought in Brazil, prices go up tomorrow. They go up. They don't go down. Prices go up when there's a disruption. Supply uncertainty increases. Whether the tsunami in Japan took up the ice back in, I don't think it was 2010 supply uncertainty increases. Everybody who uses those supplies starts to grab at whatever that thing is, and shortages and allocations happen. It never goes the other way. I worked in the Far East and lived there as part of my career. I can tell you that the ports of LA and Long Beach are always the ones that get congested. They're the ones that always have the lineup of freighters and bankers lined up waiting to unload. Not Seattle, not Miami, Long Beach, and Los Angeles. Now, someone somewhere should be thinking about that saying in the event of his disruption, why don't we send the boats someplace else to load and unload. As simple as that, that one infuriated me. People get on TV and say, oh me, oh my, what are we going to do. Do you mean nobody thought of that?One of the things that we used to do when I was over there is call up my customers and say where you want me to send this stuff because LA and Long Beach will get back up. The other alternative is to put it on an airplane costs you a little more. You have to decide and risk analysis that says what's worse, spending a little more money or not having it. That's indecision and risk analysis, analysis but it's always the same porch. Make provision for that when there's a disruption. Those ports get disrupted. They get the lines. Then there's a Eureka someplace in the news. Why don't we send it through the Panama Canal and bring it to get it to Miami or someplace on the east coast? It costs more good example of that was the freighter that got stuck in the Suez Canal.Well yeah, after it happened, everybody said, oh me again, oh me oh my, what are we going to do? The boat was stuck for a week, so the worst that could happen is we'll be down for a week now that's not the way it works, folks. It's a chain. When that boat gets stuck, all the other ships passing through that canal have this all the other vessels have to sit and wait.At one point in time, I kept watching over that one again for the same reason, because I was learning. It's unreal for us when it comes to learning. There were 400 ships on either side of that canal waiting for the one stuck to get unstuck so that they could move on. Now each of the boats in the channel stuck. I think it had something like 20,000 containers on it. Not only were the ships not loading and unloading, but they were also sitting there idling. The containers were all in the wrong place. They weren't being loaded or unloaded on the way back around the way to a customer. They were in the wrong place, and the cascade started to happen next.Even though the boat was only stuck for a week and a half, technically, I guarantee you there'll be stuff that happens next month that someone will cite. The reason that happened is that both were stuck in the canal lesson. Well, it's the cascade. One thing starts to set up the next, and you run out of stuff. That's the work that's anathema to any manufacturing. So how did you run out, and what happened during the pandemic? We ran out of everything.Lisa Ryan: Yeah, toilet paper.Gerry Angeli: And that doesn't know the changes. That doesn't count the changes and demands that happened. So when people begin to, I don't want to say that's the wrong thing but make a run on a particular commodity. When and whether it is for paint.Think of the things, make a list of the things that come to mind the pigments for paint, chlorine, for your pool. You cited toilet paper. Products all went short all went on allocation. You can't get it, and then, when I'm the prices went up, the price goes up. Delivery uncertainty goes up allocations result. You get a disruption. Those three things are going to happen guaranteed might only last the day. In our case, we're lucky to have yours.Lisa Ryan: Right. Let's go back to the very beginning. It was interesting when you said out of all this disruption that's going on, including the pandemic and hurricanes, it comes down to people first and taking care of them. What have you seen as good examples of that or just some of your philosophies about creating that positive workplace and focusing on the employees? Employees are in short supply right now.Gerry Angeli: If you view the human resource as part of the chain, the same things are happening. You're over in short on the same day. There's a whole host of reasons beyond this podcast's scope to talk about why people are doing that. In one of the CEO roundtables that I sit on, we discussed this topic all the time because it's changing the fabric of manufacturing quite dramatically. Working from home is terrific and virtual work is excellent, but you know, unless we turn manufacturing operations in the cottage industries, you gotta go to work in the building where everybody else's get done what you need to get done.One of the most incredible things that I'd seen I saw in the forest, and I visited here when it happened there were people in the immediate amount in the primary mode when into a safety protocol. Make sure everything was super clean, the place smelled like Clorox and bleach, but there was no hesitancy on the part of the people who manage the operations to make sure they didn't do anything to worsen the situation. The place was clean and neat and tidy, and sanitary every day. What were those things they do from business continuity? When a storm happens, everybody has a job and a task. There are assignments made. Your job is this your job. One of the best practices I saw is that several of my colleagues who run operations immediately split their shifts apart. So there was a time window when the first shift would stop and then spend an hour cleaning the place before the next shift got there, so that created a two-hour window where nothing was happening. So that one could tidy up, straighten up, sanitize, leave and the next one comes in. What does that do that instills a sense that again back to the folks they care enough to make sure that I have a sanitary place to work and it's visible the value is recognizable. They got to work, and the whole place smelled like Clorox. Whatever product you use to do the cleaning but it's a tangible example for the folks that somebody cares about them.Lisa Ryan: Okay, probably if you put the numbers to it, they may have lost a little bit of production, but if they could save those people from leaving the company because they didn't feel safe, they didn't feel protected. With the great resignation going on, they could have been a big part of that and just left, so I'm it sounds like there was probably an evening out of the numbers. Where they didn't make as big of a loss as they could have by stopping production like that, what did they find?Gerry Angeli ran it at 80% capacity, but it throttled back. It does. But at the same time, their demand throttled back as well. But the most significant benefit was the operation kept running, and one of the things that I used to say is that the rest of the world knows how to do this. Still, America doesn't because we never stop, never sit that, we never take a vacation we're always working.Starting and stopping kills a manufacturing operation, unless you know how to start and stop unless you know how to wind down the operation and start the operation backup. This is what killed a plant is when you shut down a lead time. Four to eight weeks, unless you stop it.Lisa Ryan: what's an IC.Gerry Angeli: Integrated circuit.Lisa Ryan: The other thing that.Gerry Angeli: The thing that that that is also void at the moment because they can't get the raw materials and machines have been shut down for so long and then when you lose the human resource. That does it; you also lose a colleague of mine calls it the tribal knowledge. You could have all the processes procedures in the world written down and documented, and codified. But if you lose the person that knows how the whole thing goes together, you have just been disrupted in a big way.So what it does, is it establishes a continuity through that time yeah, you're not doing the tech amateur is not running at 7000 pm. It's down at 4000 pm. You're still running. You do not forget how to do anything.Lisa Ryan: So what do you so go back to what you just said with the starting and stopping kills a manufacturing plant. Unless you know how to do that, so in your

Connect with Maziar Adl: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maziaradl/.'Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Maziar Adl, Co-Founder and CTO of Gocious. This product decision analytics platform empowers better product innovation for auto, mobility, industrial equipment, and high-tech industries. He oversees the end-to-end design, implementation, and development of products. Maziar, welcome to the show.Maziar Adl: Thank you for having me.Lisa Ryan: Please share with us your background and what led you to form Gocious.Maziar Adl: My background is primarily in information management and industrial engineering. I started working as a supervisor to create a new plant after graduating from college. After that, I switched my career to information management. At that time, information management wasn't necessarily just for manufacturing, but in general. We looked at different ways of bringing platforms to diverse audiences. Eventually, I realized that the product manager's role is rising because competition is growing. Understanding what products have to offer to customers and then bringing the voice of the customer into the company.As a result, I was always interested in how we can help product managers in different industries. When this opportunity came, it was perfect because it was a chance for me to go into this new venture of explicitly providing the product management role with modernized platforms. It's specific to this role, and, in our case in Gocious, we focus mainly at the moment on manufacturing. In manufacturing and, in general, there are complex systems. This is the company that we started in 2018 in southern California. So far, we think that we're on the right track, and we're very excited about the platform we're offering. The next generation is about to come to the market. We call it the CRM, or the product roadmap management system.Lisa Ryan: So what changed with product management over the years? Why have you seen the shift to it being an integral part of manufacturing now?Maziar Adl: It's the fact that product managers now are going through changes more rapidly. The competition is fierce because of the availability of technology and software techniques to bring hardware and physical group goods to market more rapidly. To change them in the market or rapidly and keep track. We're keeping the product innovation going. Keeping up with this pace of change requires modern tools and requires specific roles. That's the challenge for product managers from our understanding.Lisa Ryan: When it comes to designing the systems, are the product managers doing their job differently? What are some of the things that you're seeing that they're adapting or adopting in their plants?Maziar Adl: If you think about it, companies now produce software as a service in software. Product managers have adopted agile technologies, and it's pretty much sinking in. They're looking at optimization, but most of these companies have adopted the process of adopting agile techniques in manufacturing. However, the software is being integrated into hardware. You can see that manufacturers are starting to think about how we capture these agile techniques to speed up and keep up the cadence of the operation? The challenge for the product manager is to keep up the communication and keep up the feedback from the different parts of the organization in a quick way and speed that up. Before manufacturing, cycles were long, but now that's also shrinking. Manufacturers have to give the product managers the tools to keep up with this communication flow.Lisa Ryan: When you're dealing with so many types of equipment and some of it is years or even decades old and trying to modernize the equipment, as well as adapting some of these new technologies, like you're talking about, how does a product manager do that? Communication is one thing but is it easy for them to get everything talking to each other. Walk us through the process of what that looks like.Maziar Adl: Product managers on their own are almost helpless, they need a lot of support from different parts of the organization, so if you think about it, a product manager can only bring products to life that the customers need if engineering can deliver them, for example, they can always move as fast as the organization can change. Giving them tools to product managers or bringing them to the new age is one thing, but this must relate to the rest of the organization. That means that the approach to product design and development should change.I'll give you an example, so in the case of automotive, if you think about cars, today more and more software is being installed on vehicles, I guess, for example, you see, you wake up, and Tesla now has downloaded a new version of their software. Your car might even start bark sounding like the bark of a dog. If you think about it, the software gives the ability for the hardware to be looked at as a platform that can change more rapidly. Using software being installed or new versions of the software being installed on it. But to design that kind of hardware, it's a different mindset historically; manufacturers didn't think of their products that way. They thought of the products as, let's say, a car, not as a platform that then later, you can rapidly change it like your laptop right.The laptop you have hardware-wise is the same laptop you had maybe a year ago, and you haven't changed it. But since then, you've installed so much software, and your laptop's going to change every day. That's how most of the manufacturers are looking at things. That means a change in design. Changing the way you approach solutions in the market and, of course, the product manager wants your organization to be in the proper mode. A product manager needs tools to communicate at that pace, so engineers know what needs to change and bring those changes on the platform more rapidly.Lisa Ryan: So it sounds like when you use the examples of the car of Tesla, in particular, but in the car industry, consumers today are looking for a lot more personalization and a lot more customization. It sounds like this is allowing product managers to bring some unique things that are more personalized to their consumers to the market.Maziar Adl: Only we give one source of truth, a platform that product managers can leverage to track changes and define the product and customize it for different markets. We call it personas or other customer needs and have a platform that can be reconfigured for these markets or personas.Lisa Ryan: So besides the auto industry, give us some other examples of your technology or how this technology is changing the industry.Maziar Adl: So, think of everything complex. By complex, I mean you have to bring different modules on parts on a platform, and you can reconfigure it for other markets and personalize them it all fits. For example, you can look at industrial machinery and consumer electronics like laptops, TV, or hi-fi systems. These are good examples, but it doesn't end there. You can also look at the equipment that requires software. For instance, IOT equipment, if you look at your home, you have smart devices that monitor or manage parts of your home like air conditioning. These all are examples of things that you can configure and repurpose for different markets. You have to bring in other parts and modules, and features together to make this physical hardware and then improve it over time.Lisa Ryan: And when you talk about a roadmap for product managers, what do you mean by that?Maziar Adl: One of the interesting things about agile, in general, is that you know agile. Most of the focus has been tactical. In other words, hey, we do two weeks, and then we move to the next increment, and we build things incrementally when manufacturing cycles are simply longer, and you have to think of your product a little bit more strategically. So, what gushes enable is strategic product planning, so what you can do is you can map the changes and these configurations or changes to your product definition over time. And map when those releases happen in the next three to say 5-10 years and make a business case of every release or the overall strategy of your product.For example, if you want to move all your manufacturing equipment, let's say in the case of cars, you want to move entirely to EV well, maybe you start by moving your vehicles or a subset of your product line to hybrid. From there, you move to EV, and little by little, you sunset your old cars to make, and your objective is to become fully sustainable or usefully sustainable energy. In those cases, you can map that strategy with Gocious' platform and continuously evolve it or improve on it as time goes by and communicate that with the rest of the organization.Lisa Ryan: And is there a way to test this out before you implement the program so you can see how it works and the different changes?Maziar Adl: Absolutely, so one of the things we do is there are two things one is using the platform itself cautious platform we allow for people to have a trial, and if the operation is a little bit bigger, we carve a test space for them to kind of experiment, but the second one is testing the ideas or the ideas that are coming in before you mark every release on the roadmap. That's in our platform, so you have an idea for a new release if you're on our platform. If you have a roadmap, you can put it in a draft mode, and then we'll discuss it with your peers or other parts of the organization. Then, when it's ready, you can publish that new roadmap or changes for the wider audience to know what's now approved or published for production in the next three to five years.Lisa Ryan: Okay, now with the way technology is going, these days, I mean three to five years is a long time. A lot of other things can change in that time too. How do you account for the potential changes in technology that may be happening?Maziar Adl: And that's precisely the crux of the issue. I think you just put your finger on it. Imagine if manufacturers need to do this, they need to look at three 5-10 year horizons because that's the cycle time to meet their objectives, or that's how long it takes for specific R&D to materialize now. As time goes by, market conditions change precisely, as you mentioned. That's a long horizon, so to keep the roadmap on track, they must continuously revisit that roadmap and make adjustments as they get more information or enrich the future roadmap. Today, you might not know what's happening five years from now, but you have a high-level idea. Two years from now, five years, four years away, or three years away, you have to evolve that with PowerPoints and spreadsheets, and then people churn, and then you don't know where that spreadsheet is anymore or trying to keep it up with many related documents. You can do this now with the technology of the day. With web two point O, you can or web 3.0 that's coming you can put it in a central place where everybody can have access remotely from anywhere in the world.Whether you're working hybrid or in different parts of the world, bring them all together, always give them the latest, and make rapid changes when necessary.Lisa Ryan: What would be an example of a before and after? What was a manufacturer doing before they put this roadmap into place? What was their process was, and what happened as a result.Maziar Adl: So let me paraphrase some of the comments from our prospects and customers. To give you an example, if you have a strategic roadmap for your product portfolio, multiple product lines come together. And you are going into a meeting with every product line product manager presenting their case. You have an executive board or a product board reviewing the products on the road maps and making sure that everything's on track. Suppose you don't have standard reporting methods if you don't have one place to put everything together and have the information at your fingertips. Then that meeting either gets concluded with not no proper decisions or some decisions will be postponed to other meetings. The other one is aligning everybody together becomes very difficult because you have to bring a lot of people together from different parts of the organization to make decisions. This is expensive, but delays in these decisions can hurt the company quite a bit.Many times we've heard that if you have, let's say quarterly meeting to review your strategic roadmap, make sure everything's on track, a lot of times, people come. But the executives asked questions, and the information was not readily available, or the information was not consistent, so team A presented it differently than team B. They're submitting different information, so the standardization of the data is not there, and then they go back and then come back again for another round after a journey. Also, because this information is not accessible from a central place or on the web remotely, then what happens is it's not like you can before the meeting. Invite everybody on the platform and say, hey, let's check everything so when we're going into this meeting, everything's ready and everything's good to go and the decisions are made, and we can bring things back on track.You can save a lot of time collectively manpower of executives or product managers, or you know executive management if you do this, which is quite expensive and quiet and delay in decisions can disrupt the production as a result. So we can start using these kinds of platforms.Lisa Ryan: And what's the best way for somebody to get started? Is there something that they're looking for, as far as an outdated process, or maybe there's something in the system that's holding up everything? What would be a sign that this would be time to develop some process like this?Maziar Adl: There are different angles. One is to imagine your portfolio manager or your product manager responsible for defining the product, making sure that you get buy-in from executives or senior leadership to execute the product, and making sure that the definition of the product is the same across the board. It would help if you had some analytics. You also need a space to define the product and then combine them to take you to executives or senior leadership to get the buy-in and communicate it across the board. It might not be an issue if you're doing this with a very small group and you're doing it on spreadsheets and PowerPoints.But if the team is a little bit larger and you have gates, you continuously have to make changes. It would help if you informed others of those changes, and these documents are all intertwined, so it's not one spreadsheet. For example, you have multiple spreadsheets that tie things together and try to keep up with the change, and you want to reduce the mistake. The platforms like this definitely will reduce the time it takes to keep up with the changes in your product roadmap. Your product definition gives you much better visualizations that help you communicate more effectively with your peers or with your Executive the products coming out. Or you believe it's right for the market to come out. Those are the main reasons you would look to leverage a platform like this in your organization.Lisa Ryan: And so, when you think about this, from a general standpoint if somebody whether or not they were using your platform or not, but they want, but a manufacturer listening today wanted to look for ways to improve the processes that they're doing in the plant, what would be your best piece of advice for them?Maziar Adl: Well, the first piece of advice is to stay competitive. Look at how you can speed up the product management planning and product strategy to ensure that the strategies are continuously aligned with the market needs, so you don't lock in something. The organization creates so much affinity around it that everybody's afraid of raising their hand, saying, hey, this is wrong. The product is not aligned with the market any longer. So you have to find ways to bring processes or tools together to bring the people together to make sure that you can continuously look at their product roadmap and make adjustments as necessary. I think the world is going in that direction. How do you with software becoming more and more relevant in hardware manufacturing? How do you bring hardware and software teams together to work in tandem? Have a nice cadence working together. How would you leverage new processes or tools to help you with bringing these groups as one team together?Lisa Ryan: If somebody would want to continue the conversation with you and learn more about the roadmap or Gocious, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you.Maziar Adl: So you can always reach me are from different channels. I'm always available on my email, of course, mazadl@gocious.com. The other one is my LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/in/maziaradl/. You can always go to our website if you generally want to reach us. We have a contact place to reach out to if you need to see our platform. We're always available. We're going to meet you in person, where you know we're going to show you a demonstration of the platform, and we'd be more than happy to answer any questions anybody might have, okay.Lisa Ryan: It has been a pleasure having you on the show, so thanks so much for joining me today.Maziar Adl: Thank you so much for having me. This was an immense pleasure.Lisa Ryan: But I'm Lisa Ryan, and this is the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. We'll see you next time.

Connect with Dawn Sipley:Email: dawn@sipleythebest.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnsipley/Website: https://www.sipleythebest.com/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Dawn Sipley. With nearly 20 years in HR, nine of those in business ownership, Dawn understands the pressures of entrepreneurship. She began her professional career after graduating from UCF with her business degree in 2004. Since then, she has supported hundreds of companies in central Florida with their hiring needs, either as a corporate recruiter staffing company or consultant. During those years and staffing, the concept of Sipley the Best was born. Dawn, welcome to the show.Dawn Sipley: Thank you so much for having me today.Lisa Ryan: Please tell us about your background and the behind-the-scenes of why you focused your career in recruiting and staffing and doing what you're doing.Dawn Sipley: God had a funny way of bringing me to this market. I thought HR was all about onboarding and new hire paperwork, benefits, and payroll when I was younger. I had no idea. There was this whole human resources human side. I started off in the retail world slowly got into technology recruitment, which led me to the staffing world. I figured out that many people were terrible at hiring in the staffing world, which I found curious because I had a natural talent for it. That's what led me to get into consulting rather than doing it for people. I teach them how to do it and do it well.Lisa Ryan: So, what are some tips you like to share with people? As discussed before the show, job boards are dead, so people have to be more creative when recruiting. What are some of the things that you're seeing and you're helping others to do?Dawn Sipley: One big thing is pivoting their marketing messaging to attract new talent. For 70 years, marketing has been used to acquire new customers. Now it needs to be used to obtain new employees. One of the main reasons people leave a position is because they don't feel appreciated or heard. So they are highlighting employee of the month on your social media, talking about your organization's culture, and highlighting the different activities you do to connect and engage with your employees.Your younger generation of employees are looking at social media and that's how they're identifying potential employers. Using your marketing vehicle to attract new talent is an amazingly thoughtful and productive way to bring in qualified applications and resumes.Lisa Ryan: So that sounds like that may work in the corporate workplace because, of course, those people are on social media all the time. But if you're talking about manufacturing and the trades, is that working for them too?Dawn Sipley: It is. HR teams are more and more moving into a marketing role, and less of a let's just posting on the job board and wait for resumes to come in. The job boards are dead in this market. You can post, and you can boost, and you can do those things, but unfortunately, with the technology that we have, they control those algorithms. They won't put your job ad in front of eyeballs unless you're paying money. You don't have control over that, but you do have control over your Facebook, tick-tock, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram - all of those things. Your HR department needs to have a marketing line to it.Lisa Ryan: So does this entire bringing in like a full-time social media person, or how would you do that in a way that makes the most of your time and your effort when it comes to social media? We could go down that rabbit hole and watch cat videos for the next six hours if we're so inclined.Dawn Sipley: No, you don't have to hire a full-time person. It just needs to be a fraction of what your HR department is doing one or two posts a day to engage on multiple platforms. All that's required is a place. I found the best on social media is posting inside of groups. I am in a lot of groups.I'm in an electricians group. I'm in a plumbers group. I'm in an industrial controls technicians group, and even though I don't work per se in any of those fields, one of those fields I'm able to see what my target audience is talking about, what they're complaining about, and what they're happy about.It gets me engaged with a targeted audience. Then, when I get a job opening in one of those fields, I can post it there. Since I've had an engagement with that audience already, I'm a trusted resource and not just a headhunter or a recruiter. Unfortunately, those recruiters and headhunters that are cold calling are viewed as sleazy salespeople at this point. People are tired of LinkedIn messages. They're tired of the phone calls. They want to do business with someone they've already had a previous engagement with.Lisa Ryan: So it sounds like narrowing down the groups that would be most applicable to people listening to this show because you don't want to be in 20 different groups if you're going to participate and get a flair for what's in that group. But to become a part of it, that's when you are opening the window. You're not coming across as sleazy, but you're connecting with friends.Dawn Sipley: You can also focus on geographically reached groups and not necessarily guilt that region or skill set focus, so some of those groups are national groups. Those are the things that I'm going to pull people to the state of Florida to hire for because I'm based here in Florida, even though I do national recruitment. But I'm also a part of many of my pro-community groups where I post things in there that are helpful, like good tools, interviewing tips, resume rewrite services, and different things like that.When a job opening comes up, they already know me as a trusted resource that gave them many tips and tricks. In addition, those micro-community groups are an excellent resource because you typically want the higher within 30 miles on a given location.Lisa Ryan: When it comes to the things that you are posting on social media, because if every day, you were posting, hey we're hiring, we're hiring, then people are going to take you with a grain of salt. What are you seeing successful manufacturers and other types of organizations posting that attract new candidates to them?Dawn Sipley: Stories always have a high click rate. Horror stories on you won't believe what this candidate just did, or I'm so frustrated by this; or wow, what a fantastic day, the perfect candidate came in, they did this, and this we hired them, or we offered them more money than he was asking for.Talking about negotiation on more than just salary negotiation – benefits and things like that. Some of the trends that we're seeing are advice on being an elite job seeker, not just an average job seeker. I share when I'm willing to pay more money, what am I looking for that will get that extra dollar $5 out of the corporate pocket. There are tips to where they feel like they are learning something from engagement, engaging with us, and promoting questions and things like to be asked and answered professionally.Lisa Ryan: Well, that sounds like many tactics that are good for people actively on the job search. What about those that aren't necessary but may be curious about new opportunities? What are companies doing to maybe catch their attention?Dawn Sipley: Again, it's just that organic engagement you don't have to be looking to be curious, right, and you don't have to be job seeking to want to learn how to be a suitable job seeker. The days of working for a company for 30 years, getting a pension, and retiring are gone 90% of the time, have a separation of employment from your current employer. You will leave whether it's your decision.The employers' decision or the good Lord above you're exiting at some point. So always keep that in mind and stay in tune with the job market. A happy employee to know when is a good job time to be looking when is a good time, not to be looking right now is an excellent time for job seekers in Florida, unemployment is 4.4%, which is very low.Other states are slightly higher, but it is a job seeker job market. So if you're not earning what you want to earn, now's a good time to start sniffing around and investigating and seeing who has the filter in their environment and where you could transition over to.Lisa Ryan: What resources are people not necessarily in that marketing mode or aren't used to doing this marketing? What would be a good way for them to get started?Dawn Sipley: Podcasts are a great way to start YouTube tutorials marketing 101. Companies and corporations should be looking at social media engagement. Webinars are not only for their HR team or their it team or their marketing team, but all of their employees should be soldiers to increase your sales and increase your hiring ability. They were engaged in the community that way. Otherwise, they're going to do it anyway. They might do it poorly, so investing in building your brand is essential.Lisa Ryan: So what would be some things when you talk about a personal brand? What is that? What does it look like in the marketplace?Dawn Sipley: Man, that's a huge question. So, the cliff notes version. Personal branding is knowing what and knowing what you don't know. First off, you know, everybody always tries to be bigger, better, faster than anyone else. That's not necessarily the key to being valued. Knowing a lot and good communication skills, appropriate communication, professional interactions on social media. Those are all things that build your personal brand. You're building your personal brand already, whether you know it or not. So empowering yourself in your team to create a personal brand positively is good. Employers always love someone who is quote-unquote drinking the Kool-aid right. They love their brand ambassadors that are uniquely in passionately open about loving what they do every day.If they do it for their current employer, they'll probably do it for me when I hire them and make them a happy employee.Lisa Ryan: Right, so going on the opposite of recruiting because now people who may be listening to this podcast is yeah, but I don't want my employees to keep their eyes open and be working on their personal brand because then they're going to leave me. What are companies doing when you have tried. Please share an example of when you try to define, you had the ideal candidate, but they just loved their employer so much they were unwilling to move, no matter what that employer did. Have you seen that, and what does it take to build that type of loyalty to your company?Dawn Sipley: Engagement buys loyalty. Money doesn't buy loyalty. I'm not talking about social media engagement; I'm talking about truly knowing and having a real relationship with your employees. Let's start by knowing their name and knowing their kids' names and their wives' names and when hard things happen, cover for them not, not to say that you're not going to have a private conversation on how they could have been proved that situation. Not throwing your team members under the bus just because they're out there and they're engaging, and they're looking, you made the statement.We don't want them out there, looking fantastic to be doubled up by the competition. But you also don't want them out there, looking terrible not being gobbled up by the competition. What's worse, they stay, and they have their personal brand. Look for legal, looking for your company, and that's why more and more companies have social media guidelines around what they can post and cannot post about the company and about their involvement and things like that, so acknowledging IT training on it. Doing it well will make them go away and get stolen by the competition. It'll increase your brand as long as you have that engagement out there.Lisa Ryan: What are some do's and don'ts when it comes to having those social media policies? What are companies doing to protect themselves and be open and transparent to the community?Dawn Sipley: One is to do the training, not just to let the employees know how they engage in what they do. Give them rules to play in a wide net as well. You can post this, or you can't post that having general rules of integrity and respect and professionalism. Usually, guide them because we can't monitor everything and control everything, but we can empower our folks to do the right thing. If you want them to agree with your vision or comply with it, you want them on board with your idea. You want them to share your exact image. You can't beat them into compliance. That's not going to produce the same amount of high-quality content. It will empower them and have them in alignment with your vision. It shouldn't be just a list of do's and don'ts but more "This is our culture, this is our vision, and this is how we share."Creating great original content for them to share that they would be proud to share. So, for example, if you're an employee of the month and you're highlighted on the employee website, well, then they are likely to share those amazing things with their personal network.Lisa Ryan: Okay, so that, so what so Besides that, because the employee of the month is a great way to promote and it's not necessarily the employee tooting their own Horn. They're just sharing that somebody else's tooting their Horn. What are some of the other things people like to share or are good to share from social media? Whether it be the company, giving them some guidance, or just the employee sharing on their own?Dawn Sipley: What first came to mind, for me, was a LinkedIn message that I saw the other day. A gentleman had just returned from paternity leave. He was paid this week. He had time to bond with his newborn child, and he gave a massive shout-out to his organization. He thanked them for the opportunity to be able to go home and have that that once in a lifetime experience with their newborn. Things like that, where they're so in love with the company that they want to share what it is. Doing the right thing, going above and beyond, when you don't have to. At least paternity leave is amazing. For so long, our culture is only given maternity leave. Still, fathers must bond with their children, as it is for mothers, so having healthy social policies promote a healthy society. Our employees aren't just our employees; they're moms and dads, siblings, or caretakers - so having policies that allow them to be all of those things will promote your workplace and being unique and special and engaging in a place where people want to work.Lisa Ryan: That's such a great idea for sharing the paternity leave. Again, if some other guys are looking at that going wow, I would love to have that opportunity turn into an excellent opportunity to look at that organization if they are in the same neighborhood. Are there ways that you encourage people, or maybe you're finding some people to get the process started to start the people posting so that they know what's Okay? They think about it because, in some cases, people wouldn't even think about posting that, and yet it's such a critical part of letting the world know what a fantastic benefit and what a tremendous job companies are doing.Dawn Sipley: I have a girlfriend with a selfie wall. It's a green grass wall with a neon sign that says hashtag be inspired. Every day, her employers or employees are going up to the wall taking selfies, taking pictures, doing hashtags. Once it's developed into the culture, the employees are recognized for excellent content.I'm a part of the Central Florida Christian Chamber of Commerce, and one of the things that they do in their weekly newsletter gives a shout-out to people who have shouted out to them during the week so that they will reshare. Small business owners post where they said amazing things about the Chamber, so that's just one example. If I was an employee saying, man, I love the place I work. The boss man came in today, sat down with me, and just chatted with me for 45 minutes. I got to know him better and where he's coming from and stuff like that, well then, the company would share that. It's such an honor to have Sally on our team. I appreciated spending the time with her to learn more about her family and the challenges that she's having. We're going to change the policies. She shared with me that it had been an obstacle for her to be her best, which just created this whole circle. Enthusiasm becomes contagious. You want the attention and the words of affirmation or a huge love language for many people—one of the top love languages in a free love language.Lisa Ryan: It just reminds me when employees are getting awards, and of course, there's an employee of the month, but there's also just being recognized for service, maybe for milestones for anything that you can do and to have a fight would seem to me that an easy way. This is what I do too. You have a file of just copy and paste. On Monday, I'm going to talk about Bill on Tuesday; I'm going to talk about Jane on Wednesday; I'm going to talk about Jose, whatever it is. You can start to do a media planning calendar. It's also the consistency of getting it out versus promoting 20 employees and one day and then none for the rest of the month.Dawn Sipley: You have to have a drip campaign you can't go and do a blast and expect that collapse all year, and the same goes with leadership, these companies, they have these summits and these giveaways, and they talk about leadership and rah-rah you leave all hyped up and on fire, for the company. Then you get in on Monday, and it's back to the same grind. Everything that we're told to you has been lost in the sauce, and they're not demonstrating leadership every week, every day in the ways that they treat their employees and the things they do. So it is a drip campaign of being authentic and being honest. You can't have any of that if you don't have good leadership and a healthy environment. The same goes for glassdoor and places like that. They judge employers on whether they're a good place of employment. As an HR consultant, I always look at the timelines. Because you'll notice, you'll get a few bad reviews, and then suddenly, five employees hop on there and go, oh no, this is a great place. Well, I guarantee five employees posted all on the same day were told by their boss, hey, we've got some bad reviews on glassdoor and need you to go on there.Well, the morning they're going to go on there, and they need to keep the job they just saw job last week. That all authentic drip campaign and not laugh because laughter for doing anybody can produce content. In a week and a month and have a campaign, but is it a part of the authentic culture of the organization, and can you see it across different platforms, not only on their social media but on their website on their internal communication.It is the standard held at the same place across the board.Lisa Ryan: When the other interesting

Contact Mark WhittenLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-whitten-61790119/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. Our guest today is Mark Whitten. Mark is the President and CEO of Spartanburg Steel Products. Spartanburg specializes in designing, developing, and manufacturing high-quality complex metal stamping and welded assemblies, serving the automotive, heavy truck, power, lawn and garden, construction, utility, and off-road vehicle manufacturing industries.A passionate leader with 25 years of manufacturing experience leadership and strategic direction, Mark has achieved business success and transformation through engagement and collaboration. Mark, welcome to the show.Mark Whitten: Thank you for having me, Lisa. I'm glad to be here.Lisa Ryan: Mark, please share with us your background and what led you to do what you're doing right now with Spartanburg.Mark Whitten: Sure. I'm Canadian. I worked in Canada for many years before I came to Atlanta. I went to Mexico first. I started my career with General Motors Academy, a Suzuki joint venture GM plant. I did several different roles there. This was after Freightliner. Then I ended up Magna or National, a tier-one automotive supplier. I worked for Magna was seven years, and then I had the opportunity to go to Mexico as an assistant plant manager. So I moved my wife and children, and we went to Mexico. We were there for six years before returning to Canada again as a general manager for Magna. Then we came to the US in 2015. I did a short stint as a plant manager in the Cleveland area. Then I was recruited to Martin read, another Canadian automotive supplier for their Kentucky plant in Shelbyville.A few years later, I had a director of OPS role. I had the four plants under me at the time. I then had an opportunity to come to Spartanburg Steel Products as President CEO in March of 2020. It was while Covid landed - literally within weeks as I got here. We started the protocols for Covid.Lisa Ryan: Wow, isn't it funny that from now until the end of time, those of us in the know will know that anytime somebody says March of 2020, we will all go ooooh.Mark Whitten: yeah.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. When you joined Spartanburg, what was the culture like? What were some of the things that you noticed and started to change?Mark Whitten: Well, Spartanburg is a privately held company family-owned business. They've owned the business for 40 plus years. It's a good company with good people. I think that, over time, the performance had eroded. The culture is affected when you have those situations where the company's not making money. You've got customer issues and quality issues. The culture also takes an impact there that people feel at leadership levels.My task coming in here was to grow the business back to what it once was, as a prominent BMW supplier. We're 12 miles from plant 10 Spartanburg, which is building all the X-model BMWs. We had a couple of things we needed to do to build a relationship back with customers. First, we needed to focus on the company's culture and make sure we were doing the right things to engage people. I always talk about how hearts and minds ultimately drive performance. Business results, good quality, profitability, and these things are crucial. The last two years have been a journey of doing exactly what we've coined at SSP 2.0 -Spartanburg Steel Products 2.0. And the 2.0 is, I wanted to honor 1.0. We're a company that's been around 40 years and a BMW supplier. We've had success. I didn't want to take anything away from the people that have been here for 25 plus years; I wanted to honor 1.0 as the foundation. But we ultimately focused on 2.0, which has to be the future. The world's changing, and you and I both know, Lisa, it's changing exponentially since March of 2020. Things continuously change, focusing on engaging people, giving cause and purpose, and clarity around goals. We need to provide the tools and training to the people that need it. These kinds of things have been our focus. 2.0 is all about performance. It's about engagements, about culture. It's about quality. We're building the business back. That's been the journey of the last two years.Lisa Ryan: And a lot of it is paying attention to those little things. We think that we're going to start this engagement initiative and that it's going to take all kinds of time and tons of money to do all these different surveys. But it comes down to some of the little things of just noticing trash and bathrooms, for example. What are some of the things you noticed along those lines and some of the other little things?Mark Whitten: Well, let me share a story. In my previous assignment before Spartanburg, I went to another underperforming business. It was a large million square foot plan with UAW and a thousand employees. It was in a tough spot I went there. I set up a task to focus on improving the performance and results. In my first week, I think day two, I met the leadership team. They came into the boardroom and welcomed me. The team went around the table got to know the team.I said, Let's go for a walk on the floor. Let's walk through the plant, but I intended to observe their behavior. I wanted to see how this leadership ran the bus. They are the ones I wanted to watch. I wanted to see how they behave as they walk through the facility.What I observed was that they broke every safety rule. You're supposed to have your plugs, eyeglasses, follow the walkways, cross at proper walkways, and these kinds of things. They broke all that. They were talking on our phones, cutting across aisles your plugs, their earplugs were hanging out.But the worst thing for me was that they were walking by the garbage on the floor. As we walked down the aisle, there was a pop can on the floor. They all proceeded to walk by that garbage can as I watched in horror. As I followed them, I always wanted the back. My point was to observe behavior. So, I picked up the pop can, and I continued to pick up the garbage as we walked through the plant.I didn't see them engage any employees as they walked by. There was no engagement, no high fives, and how are you? No, Hello, how's your day. Nothing. We got back to the boardroom, and we came in, and I said, you know I understand the problem in this company. They looked at me with a surprised look, like I had some ultimate wisdom. I said it's you. It's every single one of you. You are the problem. You are the reason that this business is the way it is. You allow it. You model the incorrect behavior, but you expect employees to follow the rules. You punish them for not following the Rules, yet you don't.You don't lead by example in any way, shape, or form. Even the little things - if I knew they weren't doing the little things, I was guaranteed they weren't focused on the right things and the big things. Of those 10, eight of them left the organization in short order. Two of them were passionate people who cared. They were overshadowed by the other eight. They stayed with me, and we built a new leadership team. We got great results after that. But it's the little things, as you point out, Lisa.I think a lot of your listeners and leaders have not missed this, but maybe don't give this behavior as much credit, as let's do simple things like picking up garbage and leading by example in your behavior. Every single day, how you engage people are talking to people. Listening to people, respect and dignity, walking through your shop floor - those people are out there doing the complex jobs. They're doing the tough jobs and listening to them, respecting them, hearing them out, and making sure that we're doing the things to help them be successful is critical.Things like coffee chats, one-on-ones, employee meetings, ask the President box. We used all kinds of different methods in which our employees can reach out and bring forth issues, ask questions and make sure that they've got clarity. These little things matter.And if I could just go one more point, that's the bathrooms you mentioned. As I walked through the plant in my last assignment, I went to the furthest bathroom I could find, which was an employee bathroom. I was horrified with what I saw - the door stalls were ripped off, there were no stall doors in the room where the toilets were. And there's graffiti written all over there about how much of this company sucks and things like that. So I just knew right now that the culture is what it is, but it's that because of management's behavior, bottom line.So, bathrooms matter. It's a sign of respect. You have 400 people working in your facility. You want them to come to work and be safe. You want them to be engaged. You want them to perform well. So, you have to create an environment that allows that to happen. And that's an organization focused on cleanliness with bright lights, clean bathrooms, proper facilities for lunch and eating, and things like that. That matters tremendously if you want to engage people truly.Lisa Ryan: And culture does start at the top. So, when you're walking through the plant and engaging, do you know your employees by name? Do they look at you and smile and wave? Do you give everybody a high five or at least an air high five? Or, when they're walking by, are your employees avoiding your glance because they don't know what you're going to say to them, or they don't feel seen anyway. So that level of respect of looking at your forward-facing areas in the plant - where your customers come in, or vendors come in. Do those areas have the same level of cleanliness and brightness as the employee lounge, lunchroom, and bathroom. So, a coat of paint can make a huge difference and again, you know, a couple of hundred bucks for a couple of gallons of paint, and you've just made the place brighter and shown your employees that you appreciate them.Mark Whitten: I agree. It's the broken windows theory. The broken windows theory is an interesting philosophy. For example, when you have the disorder, pick any city where you go into an area where they've got broken windows. Maybe some poverty and other things that the environment creates or allows that disorder is acceptable. The opposite is also true. When you go to a very organized, clean, safe place, people fall in line. People's behavior is dictated by the environment in which they work or live. For example, we put a tremendous amount of effort into cleaning the facility - polishing floors, putting all new LED lights in, proper walkways. We gave the operators tools because we wanted to create an environment of expectation.Here's a funny story. When we started this journey two years ago, the management team and I would go on the floor twice a week for an hour and clean. We cleaned. We got filthy, sweaty – we'd pick up garbage because I wanted the employees to see how important this truly was. I would lead that. The management team created it because we allowed it. So we're going to fix it. We would go out every week, and I tell you, you wouldn't believe the stuff we threw out. It was incredible. There was garbage that had been there for years. There was filth everywhere. We lead that transformation.One of the things that bothered me was the chairs on the floor. This is a manufacturing operation where you've got welding, stamping, and assembly. There's no place for having a chair, like a cafeteria chair out in a weld cell or those kinds of things. So I threw out 30 of them. I threw them into dumpsters, and my point was that we want our people to rest in, but we have areas that are conditioned where employees go and sit down for lunch and rest areas and breaks and the thing.But out on the shop floor, we didn't want to have chairs. What that told me is the culture of the company. For example, people were sitting around all the time. Sitting in chairs and I didn't, that's not the message you want to have for your employees or your customers. We corrected that we cleaned up where I'm driving at is. If you walk through our plan at any point in time, you won't find garbage on the floor, and you won't find chairs and floor. That's not because I'm asking for it. It's because our employees know that's the environment in which we work. They pick up the garbage. Because they know it's an expectation now and so by us leading that transformation, we still do it we go out there, we clean we do these things it's our people have changed their behavior in line with the expectations and what are the leaders have done in this business.Lisa Ryan: Now, let's back up just a little bit because you said you had when you were doing that initial walk-through, and ten leaders were walking with you and eight of them left almost immediately, and that is part of the culture, obviously part of a very toxic culture that they were not able to reduce themselves or stoop to that level to clean up garbage or whatever it was but that experience because know in an in a Market where Labor is hard enough to find the thought of losing ten managers can be terrifying but then on the tail end it also helped you to achieve your goal of what you need you need to remove those toxic people so walk us through the thought processes that they were unwilling to move ahead with and how that all transpired.Mark Whitten: Yes, so if we back up to my previous assignment, this happened in 2016. With the eight managers that left the business. I genuinely believe that you know I'm a people person and a servant leader. I put my leaders on a pedestal. I truly work to serve them to help them, but I never allow one thing. I'll never support what you use the word toxic, which is precisely that. Managers who treat people poorly and then have the foundation of dignity and respect. When you're not respectful to employees, when you talk down to employees, when you can't, when you can't model proper behavior as a leader following safety rules or engaging people.From a functional or tactical perspective, I don't care how good you are at your job. You can be great at your tactical job, but you treat people horribly. I don't care you won't work with me because those people will never gain the people's trust, and you have to have people's hearts and minds. If you want to have a culture of engagement and performance, you can browbeat people down. You can beat people down for a short time, but it never last and never works for a long time, so to your point, yes, it isn't easy. It was not something I wanted to do, but I had to do it because those leaders were toxic in the organization. And they were doing improper and incorrect things, and I couldn't allow that to go on, and that's why they had belief, and yes, you're right, especially today. It's terrifying to lead to losing leaders. Here's the difference between that toxic environment and those eight liters left. Yes, it was difficult for quite some time. You know we struggled. We had to find people, bring people up to speed, but in the end, after that hardship that we went through.The results that we got were fantastic, and we changed things with the Union. The relationship with the UAW was improved dramatically with the employees and significantly enhanced. We did employee surveys that improved. Leaders lead by example and respect people. That was the difference coming to Spartanburg. I didn't change any leaders here, so what when the difference in Spartanburg when it came in, as the senior leaders here were engaged. They cared; they just worked, maybe, didn't weren't working in the right things, per se, but they had the right DNA. They had the DNA of leadership and respect and dignity; we added we added one, moved one around, and made some minor changes, but nobody left the company, and no senior leader left the company.Lisa Ryan: If an owner or leader is considering and thinking about their management teams, and I know part of it is a gut feeling, but what are some of the ways that you determine that that manager has that DNA that if they if they're not perfect, now that at least you see the opportunity to work with them to bring out those skills to an increase their level of connection with their employees.Mark Whitten: it's a couple of things you know for me it's it's more gut, more observation, more questions, and getting to know them. You know, get there, get to know who they truly are as a person. We've used tools like disk and other assessments and things that can give us a predictor of someone's behavior as a leader, so we have some indication of their typical way or styles. But I depend far more on the person and getting to know them.Spending time with them getting even you know I go as far as getting to know their spouse in them, you know we will set up some off-sites and different things to meet the families. We can get to know each other as people and truly understand who they are, but observing how they interact with their people is one big one. Listening to how they engage with their peers listening to how they work with their employees, and observing them in their work environment so when they're in their element, and they're working and observing and seeing how they do, they listen.Do they actively participate? Do they ask questions? Do they follow up? That's a simple thing like it's going back to the simple things like following up on unemployment questions or concerns. One of the things I think it's missed so often here's my perspective: I wasn't an hourly shop floor employee as a young man. As an hourly employee, I started my first job at sterling or Freightliner trucks on the shop floor. So my perspective of leadership was to observe poor and great leaders, but I got a wide variety of leaders in my life, and both were truly valuable. I got to see all the things that you should never do and all the things that you should do. As a leader, so as an hourly employee, one of the simple things I would always ask a lot of questions just that I just that was my personality.My supervisor recombined and said, hey, you know what about this, or can you follow up and find out this for me? Oh yeah, no problem. I never got a response. He'd see me the next day. I'd wait, and when I questioned him two or three days. Oh yeah, I'll get back with you, nothing, and this went on and on and on. It drove me crazy because I thought I was here, I am an employee, and I just asked a simple question I can't get an answer to. As I progressed through my career, I realized that it's important to them when employees have a question. It's important to them that they're trying to understand as a leader, you own that when you accept a question from your employees, whatever it is. You have to follow up. As I tell my leaders, you don't have to say yes. We can say no, but you have to explain. You still owe them an explanation. We don't have to agree. We can agree to disagree. But at the end of the day, the dignity and respect foundation is following up and going back to your employees. That's another one. It gets missed often, but anyway, back to your question, observation, listening. Observing the DNA is evident if they've got the right intentions and are doing the right thing. Maybe they're struggling in some areas. They need some help. But you know, they've got the right DNA to be a leader deep down.Lisa...

Contact David GoodmanEmail: DGoodman@edenark.com,Website: https://edenark.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidegoodman1/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. Our guest today is David Goodman. David is the CEO of Edenark, the world's top environmental sustainability certification program for SME businesses, small and medium businesses, which are classified under a billion dollars. David, welcome to the show.David Goodman: Thank you very much for having me.Lisa Ryan: So, as we get started, please share with us a bit about your background. Why did you choose to focus on sustainability for your company?David Goodman: My career started in advertising and marketing. I spent many years in Real Estate, and I worked with a partner in the largest real estate company in the world. I ran 40 million square feet, and during that time, I spent a lot of time building energy reduction certifications like LEED or brain. A LEED-certified building is not a sustainability program, but they're building an energy reduction program, so I had that background.For the last 25 years, I've been a corporate enhancement CEO. Private equity groups will parachute me in to fix trouble companies. Having seen many companies that needed help and having this background in energy efficiency caused me to think about a way to help businesses use green or sustainability or energy efficiency in a positive way on the marketing side, not just on a positive way on the expense reduction side. That is what brought me to what we have today.Lisa Ryan: When you're thinking about the manufacturing, which is the bulk of this audience, what is it about green initiatives that can help them in their processes products and attracting people?David Goodman: First, we'll look at it from the standpoint of in effect market demand. I'm quoting organizations like Forbes Nielsen, Harvard Business Review, MIT Boston consulting group; these are not my studies; these are studies from large international organizations that are in the business of doing research and studies.We know that seven out of 10 consumers that's both B2B and B2C are looking for. We'll move their business to a certified sustainable business because they're looking for a way to do good, to find suitable corporate citizens. We know that 70% of the market out there is up for grabs. They are open to the potential of moving their business from where they are to where you are as a company. It might be something that you want to think about. We also know that the number one thing that all businesses have since the beginning of time, the number one issue that all companies have is finding a way to stand out, differentiate, and convince the consumer to buy from you versus the organization down the street. If that's the number one issue that all businesses face, we know that sustainability is the number one thing consumers are looking for and that seven out of 10 will switch business. That makes a pretty compelling point, and organizations should consider this.Lisa Ryan: What percentage would you say of sustainable businesses right now? You're looking at something that you want to stand out from the crowd, but is this being one of 100? Is it one of 1000? What are the numbers?David Goodman: That's an excellent question. We know that the big organizations, those big publicly traded organizations, the over billion-dollar organizations, have already figured this out. They already have sustainability programs; they have sustainability departments that are deeply ingrained in both sustainability and SG environmental and social governance. But SMEs, which are, as you touched on before, organizations from basically one employee to 500 employees- $1 to a billion dollars that group is today not pursuing sustainability with any significant percentage. An SME can be significantly different from its peer group by becoming certified. That leads us to the real numbers. The numbers show us that an SME that becomes certified sustainable waves that flag and says, look at me, I'm a good corporate citizen. Depending on the study, they are growing between 75% and 20 times faster than their peer group.If you at New York University, the Stern School of business does an annual study, and pre covid certified sustainable business grew about 5.6 times faster than their non-certified peers. During covid, it got up to 7.1. We're waiting for the newest data, which will probably continue that upward trend. That upward separation between the non-certified sustainable companies and the certified sustainable company they're lapping the field.Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, is the largest asset manager in the world - $9 trillion in holdings - Larry doesn't want to work with CEOs of companies that are not certified sustainable. It's not because Larry is a tree hugger but because he knows they're leaving money on the table.So you've got these companies that if they become certified sustainable and wave a flag and say look at us, we're a good corporate citizen, good things happen on the revenue side. Good things also occur on the costs; either cost will go down, the cost of money is going to go down, being able to hire quality and hire and retain quality employees goes up. So the ability to stand out is significant.Lisa Ryan: So what are some of the things included in sustainability? I think about all right, we put up recycle bins, and we're recycling paper and cans, but starting from there to genuinely take on the certification and say we are sustainable. What are some of the most impacted by going that route?David Goodman: Let's stop for a second and talk about the word I've used a few times - certified sustainable. And let's define Certified sustainable versus just sustainable. This gets to your question. Tomorrow, an organization could bring you to know senior management or all the employees together, and it could say we're going to become a sustainable organization. Somebody could go Google a bunch of books, and they could read up on it, and they could do everything right. They would be doing good for the environment, and costs would go down. But on the revenue side of their P&L, they will not see the needle move much because over 80% of consumers, both B2B and B2C, will not believe their claims. There's been too much puffery and advertising - any toothpaste will give you the widest white. And we, as consumers, especially in the green\sustainability environment where there's so much greenwashing, which is lying or exaggerating when a company goes out and says I'm a sustainable business. If it doesn't have a third party that's a globally accepted entity that certifies or are verifies their claim, it's just not going to be recognized by the marketplace.Back to your question - your question was what about a whole bunch of things that a company can do, but the first part of the question is if a company is going to commit the time and do it for the environmental benefits\cost saving benefit. Or is the company going to do it for the market benefit, brand benefit, and, frankly, from the standpoint of government compliance and selling to other organizations. Back to what the manufacturers were talking about, they often sell their stuff to other organizations that put their product in a bigger finished well. And that end client if it is a larger company if it's a publicly-traded company and already has a sustainability program its procurement department is going to require its vendors to become sustainable food, so holding on to that business is going to be more complex and more complicated if you're not certified sustainable, i.e., proving that you're sustainable now. So back to your question, what can you do so there's all kinds of easy IE - non costly things that a company can do like a meatless Monday. A meatless Monday is where all the staff decides they're not going to go to McDonald's and have a big MAC at lunch. They're not going to eat meat.The trickledown effect on that company's carbon footprint is 10% by having a meatless Monday, so here's something that a company could do that costs the company absolutely nothing. It's also a team-building event that lowers its carbon by 10%, and it didn't cost them a shiny nickel. Then there's all the other end of the spectrum. You've got things like solar or led capital improvements. Still, we don't recommend that a company does any of that until we cover many very inexpensive, very easy, very fun things that get the team smiling. It receives the QA team saying, hey, this is fun, this is good to do.Lisa Ryan: Okay, I thought about it in 2019. I became a certified speaking professional, which differentiates me because only 17% of professional speakers have it. I also know that it was a five-year process to get it, with money and shows, and everything, but it differentiates my business from everybody else. I also know the amount of paperwork and time it took. People who are listening might be thinking that this sounds like it's going to take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and be a lot of paperwork.So, where does that look like? When is a company committed that we will go that route and become certified? I do like the fact that you started with it being fun.David Goodman: It has to be fun anytime you ask people to make a small change significant change. We're in January, so we're at that time when everybody goes into their gym and health club because it was just the holidays and they put on a little weight. Are they going to stay at the health Club in February? Um, maybe, maybe not. Using that analogy, if we want an organization to keep up the course, we've got to make it fun. We've got to make it affordable. We've got to make it where everybody smiles and says, hey, let's keep doing this.So back to your question, what we did was we took the world's top sustainability standard. The ISO 14,001 is bigger than all the other global programs added up and multiplied by five, it is the world's preeminent international sustainability standard, but it's a monster. It's big; it's cumbersome; it's expensive. We turned it into an SME program. It is priced and designed so that a small business can afford it. I have an automotive garage in Malaysia that is a client. If that automotive garage in Malaysia can afford it, the odds are that just about any organization can afford it. The entire program is set up to be very affordable, both in money and time.The biggest concern we get from prospects is not the cost upfront before they even know the cost. Their concern is more about oh my gosh, we're pretty busy around. Is this going to take us away from the day job? And it won't.The program's design is fast. The cost is rough - I know this will sound too good to be accurate, but roughly 5% of the historical cost is a very affordable program. We're very fast, the companies like it.Lisa Ryan: What are some of the things that you look at when they're going through the certification process.David Goodman: The listeners aren't going to see this, but I'm going to show it to you what I do. I send every new client a sheet with roughly 50 no-cost/low-cost ideas. I asked them to take two markers like the yellow and green color, and with one of the markers, I asked him to mark the things they had already done. Oh, my gosh yeah, we've already got recycle bins. Yeah, we already started putting LEDs in when our regular lights burned out. Then, with the other marker, markdown some things they like to do. So that becomes, In effect, the starting point for our discussion.I give them these ideas of meatless Monday - things that aren't going to cost them anything. Often things that when they look at the list, it'll prompt them to remember, oh my gosh, yes, we've already started a bunch of this stuff.We call it our foundation. We can start laying out what we're going to do this year and what we will do next year. We work on two or three projects this year that are easy again fun getting everybody smiling and saying, oh, you know what, that wasn't so bad after all, and so they come back next year, and we do more.Lisa Ryan: And one of the things when it comes to workplace culture is that we want to find, to keep the good people that we have in many cases, they want to be part of something bigger than them, and this sounds like a sustainability issue. This project sounds like a great way to do that. What do your customers do to get their employees involved in this process and get their ideas?David Goodman: Let's touch on what you were saying. At the beginning of this, at this point, in terms of hiring and retaining employees. Again, a study that we didn't do. Hewlett Packard did this study, and other organizations have done similar studies. Roughly 50% of employees do not want to work for a company that is not certified sustainable or does not have sustainability as part of its core DNA.Now, does that mean that they won't take the job? No, they may take the job, but there'll be looking to move on. Also, they will accept less money to work for a sustainable company. If I'm an organization looking to find employees and I am not certified sustainable, I'm fishing in a pond with about 50% of the fish. If I am certified sustainable, I'm fishing it with all the fish. So I'm going to be able to catch more. Keep more. And work less hard to get them and keep them.Now back to your other point about what organizations have done. First, there is the point of getting them involved. So we form a green team. A green team usually has a representative from different departments - somebody that raises their hand says, yeah, I'd like to be part of this. That green team leads the effort and goes through that report that I was talking about, and comes up with recommendations to take the management and get buy-in. But then, in terms of action items, we have many companies doing the meatless Monday that I talked about. We have many companies expanding their led retrofit that they had already started. We have many companies doing Community programs because sustainability is not just about building-related things like energy reduction; sustainability is about people. It's also about all the stakeholders, which would include the Community.There are Community-related things. There are outreach things. There are procurement things reaching out to vendors. So you can have a company that would take all its plastic cups in and plates and transition that into regular plates or things like Bamboo, which grow fast.There are so many different ideas and programs that are not costly. For example, some companies put in electric chargers for electric cars. That's great, but you don't have to go that far. You can do little things and have everybody pitch in.Lisa Ryan: And what are, as far as getting the word out because this also sounds like an excellent opportunity for PR and just letting the Community know what you're doing? How important and how proud you are to have certification? Is that something that you also help people with, or are they hiring a firm on their own? What are they doing as they're going through the process? Then, once they get the certification.David Goodman: So we have published a guide, and the guide lists eight things that we recommend. Companies, think about consider and, in effect, ask for when they are pursuing a sustainability Program. One of those eight things is that your sustainability vendor provider consultant has its program. The marketing of your pursuit and attainment of your certification is critical to your question to get the word out.Let's talk about scheduling. Let's say that you and I signed an agreement today. Today, we signed a contract for you to be my client to start the sustainability Program. Tomorrow, before we start on that list, I will show you all those ideas before talking about the green team or anything to do with the actual work. Tomorrow, the first thing we will work on is a press release. That press release will talk about your company ABC corporation has decided to pursue becoming a certified sustainable business. That will go out on all of your media. That will go out on all my media. My media touches about 2.5 million. Then it is repeated every month, so we start getting the market excitement the buzz.People would get in the company. Get phone calls from their vendors, from their clients, from their friends - hey, what's going on over there? It looks like you guys are doing something sounds neat. So we start that promotion of the pursuit of the certification before we even start working on the certification. Then every time there is an action event, we apply. They got certified. They started, formed the green team, and started working on the projects - that becomes a talking point in the furtherance of that messaging. So that goes out again to wave the flag and say, look at us, we're a good corporate citizen, we're doing good.Lisa Ryan: And if somebody is thinking about this, what would be your best tip for them to get started?David Goodman: Well, my best tip would be to look at that published document that talks about those eight points because let's say to your point, somebody says, you know yeah I've heard about this, maybe we should check into it. But where do we start? What should we look for in a program? There are all kinds of different organizations out there saying they got good programs like in everything in life.What should we seek, in terms of those critical things that will make this work for us and be and end up with you know the best we can, we can achieve.If you read that article and people could send it, I'll give you my email and all that people could send. So I could provide them with that information, and they just read that article. So that article is a good guide in terms of what they should look for and how they can make their own decisions if they agree with those eight points or not, awesome.Lisa Ryan: Well, as we get to the end of our time together, if somebody did want to connect with you and learn more, tell us first, how's the best way for them to do that? Also, please share how your process works when you work with a client.David Goodman: So the company website is Edenark.com. If they go to that and they'll see, just like in all websites, there's a contact us section, where you can just put in your name and send us a note. If they wanted to contact me directly, DGoodman@eadenark.com, I would then send them that article. It's a PowerPoint presentation that they can review, and they can then come out of that and decide if this is something they want more information on.So, to your question about okay, well watch the process, we would talk. We would discuss what their goals are. We would then put together an agreement, and then, once that agreement was signed, we would start that promotion and get that going. So, we get the effect and market excitement, i.e., revenue potential, before...

Connect with Kelly:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-springer-b847996/Email: Kelly.Springer@metalflow.comLisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Kelly Springer. Kelly Springer serves as Metal Flow Corporation's President and Chief Executive Officer. Metal Flow Corporation manufactures technically sophisticated custom metal components primarily to the global automotive industry.Kelly has made significant contributions to the community through her involvement in various organizations, including her current roles as a member of the Michigan West Coast Chamber board of directors, the Michigan Women Forward Advisory Council, and as Executive Champion for Inference Manufacturers next group. In addition, she was recognized in 2017 as the recipient of the Lakeshore Athena leadership award. Kelly, welcome to the show.Kelly Springer: Thank you for having me excited to share some time with you today.Lisa Ryan: Great. As we get started, please share a bit of your background, including why you chose to go into manufacturing. What led you to Metal Flow?Kelly Springer: Well, I started in manufacturing way before college. I worked in a family-owned business that had a manufacturing bent to it. It was a printing company and a family business. After graduating college, I went into accounting because my degree was in accounting. I was a public accountant for 23 years. During that time, the main focus of my practice was tied to manufacturing. Metal Flow was one of my clients. I joined the organization in 2013 as the chief financial officer was intrigued about leaving the consulting side of public accounting and being part of a team that was running a successful business. I spent a fair amount of time on the manufacturing floor and learned more about our processes in a family-owned business setting. I'm not a family member; I'm responsible for executing along with my executive team on all the things that make this business successful. We're going to talk a bit about people, and people are certainly the number one cornerstone of what we do here at Metal Flow.Lisa Ryan: When you look at how the labor market is right now, people are incredibly hard to find. The focus is on retaining the people you already have, those good people who are making everything work, and, of course, getting rid of the toxic people bringing everybody else down. Your tagline is people, process, products, pride, and where people come first. Please share your philosophy and how you've changed the culture over there.Kelly Springer: When you think about people, you don't have to go too far to hear lots of articles, podcasts, and media coverage about the uptick in automation in American manufacturing. That's an aspect. But the core foundation of what we do requires people to do it. We want folks to take great pride in the fact that they're part of the Metal Flow. We refer to our employees as team members. It starts by valuing them and the technical talents that so many of our roles have and recognizing that retention becomes a vital part of understanding what all those roles involve. So for us, it's just as crucial that the person who packs our parts in a box that ultimately puts the shipping label on them and sends them out the door feels equally as valued as the individual who ultimately manufacturers that part, with an extreme level of technical expertise that we relied on. When we think about that, and that philosophy, and or culture, we really were in a position where that became critical, even before the pandemic. Labor was tasked, and indeed, retention of those technical string paint trained individuals became essential to us, well in advance of that. We have focused on retention as a strategy for people for many years now, and it built that into our culture.Lisa Ryan: What are some of the things you do to make sure that that person like you said that was shipping the boxes out the door feels just as valued, listened to, and heard as the technical people making the products? What are some of the things, some of the ways you're creating that?Kelly Springer: Now, certainly there's the given right, I think you have to be market competitive - whether that's with your wages, whether that's with your health package your benefits, and to me, that's just a given in this day, and age it's so easy for that information to be readily available to folks. We view our team members as part of one larger team, so no role is more important than another. We have stepped back to say there's no magic bullet when we think about it. It's all the smaller individual things that we're able to do. So we recognize that health insurance, check Giving a given 401k, check. Those things are presented. We're focused on how people feel when they walk into our building every day. We want to make sure they are engaged in the vital work that we think we do, making safety-critical parts. And do they feel like their contribution, whether it's any role in the organization, is valued by those around them? So building that team environment, recognizing those efforts, and celebrating success collectively can be almost something that becomes part of your culture but doesn't necessarily come with a big price tag. We have intentionally done what we refer to as Metal Flow high fives things that are simple that don't cost dollars. But again, a way that you can recognize someone with hey, you're getting a card that says we're giving you a metal flow high five, and their peers recognize their efforts and trying to celebrate in that way. Some of the small things. We've done fun activities around food, fun activities around games, and interaction in ways that break the norm. We also have outdoor picnics, food trucks, and things like that. While that aspect is essential, it's the camaraderie and the gathering together. Even with the pandemic and being outside with a safe distance, we develop further a team's relationship. When you talk about retention and why individuals leave often, it could be tied to who they work for in that management role. So we've been intentional about providing additional training to our teams' managers and supervisors to let them understand how their position and engagement can make a difference. Lisa Ryan: So let's break it down with a couple of the things you shared. Let's start with the high fives. Is everybody given a stack of these cards? Is there a common place where you keep them? Are they printed out? What is the procedure that you use for them?Kelly Springer: Our procedure is our HR team coordinates that activity. It can be someone recognizing one of our core values or principles, and they are following our mission. Or they helped me out when I was having a tough day. So there are wide open criteria. The process is straightforward. You can recognize them. We take occasions where we use that same approach and do it 100% across the board to the whole team.Manufacturing day is a great example. It is celebrating that we get to work in manufacturing here, and our work is essential. But, in terms of Michigan and the US economy, when we think about those simple things.Lisa Ryan: and I love the fact that you're doing things with manufacturing day. I can't tell you how many audiences when I mention manufacturing day, very few hands get raised. It's a meaningful way to introduce people to manufacturing, bring it into the schools, and bring that pride back for American manufacturing. What are some of the things you do for manufacturing day?Kelly Springer: Well, we make it a day of celebration. We highlight some of the wins that we've had collectively as a team over the last year. We use it to talk about the great things about manufacturing and the parts we manufacture. Our parts go all over the world. Our team meetings talk a lot about leveraging this broad reach that we all have to make safety-critical components, specifically in the automotive space. We're doing that with an American flag hanging in our production facility. Our uniforms have the American flag on them—our production uniforms, put that pride celebration that comes with that. We also host students on that day. This year, we released a testimonial Video about why we work, and that will flow. The great thing about what we do here is that it included lots of different team members that we then featured in the video, and we released it for the first time on manufacturing day.Lisa Ryan: So did you bring in a whole production team, or did you use your cell phones, and walk around the plant, and talk to people.Kelly Springer: Well, we did a little bit of both. We brought in a production team that helped us with items that will be used to sell our product moving forward. The fact that we wanted team members to be part of that. Then we separated all that footage and used some drone video. The video of our facility was shot by one of our team members who happened to have great skill with drones. It showcases who we are, what we do, and, most importantly, the people that we have.Lisa Ryan: It's also in finding little personal details about that one employee. Who would have known that they were an expert drone operator unless you have those conversations, and you allow that employee to shine by being involved in this incredible project? Number one, that's super cool, but when you think about attracting people to metal flow, if I'm a candidate. I'm checking you out. I'm going to go and see what kind of videos you have out there. I'm willing to see those interviews to see if people look like me. Does it look like a great place to work? That's why I asked about the cell phone. In addition to the production crew, of course, the production looks great. Still, having honest conversations with people will make candidates more likely to come to interview. Because they can see what's going on there, and that pride, and that you know the joy you have of working together, I'm sure coming through on those videos.Kelly Springer: It certainly does. When you talk about recruiting, you also think you have many different tools in your toolbox. We try things to see if they work. One of the critical things for recruiting talent has been our existing workforce - by using them to tell their story. Sometimes that's been done through bonus programs and referral bonus programs, but we don't have that in place right now. But when we walk through the facility, we're giving a potential candidate, who we feel we're selling. The opportunity to see what we do and who we are. We walk them up to a Work Center and ask why you don't tell this candidate and why you work at metal flow. Why are you here? What gets you excited about coming here every single day? We can then use those answers directly from our team members to build and recruit others. Again no cost to asking those questions.Lisa Ryan: On the other thing too is it's giving that potential new employee people they've already met before they even walk in the door, instead of being the total new kid on the block. You're allowing your current employees to reinforce What they like about working there, and as you said, while capturing what they're saying, you can use additional fodder to put out there to bring in more people. It all comes back to culture. If you don't have that culture where people enjoy working there, it's going to come across on the videos too. If you don't have that culture, you probably won't do videos to begin with. These are the little things that you're doing. What are some of the other things you're doing that surround your culture?Kelly Springer: Creating this career path for our team members becomes very important. You can look at the statistics and know whether you group it by age or that folks can move a fair amount. In a country that has a lot of manufacturing opportunities for individuals, one of the critical things that we've focused on is how we create a career path that requires, in many cases, a variety of training opportunities. We're certainly very proud of our apprenticeship program designed explicitly for our journeyman toolmakers, and that program is approved through the Department of Labor. We've taken great pride. We had great success, But we onboarded a training coordinator. We started to focus on the skills and competencies needed in our roles. How can we help our team members? Do we understand where they want their career to go? Are we asking the right questions through our performance management system to understand their long-term desired role? What skills do they need? Do they know the skills and competencies required? How are we helping them through in-house training? We also have a very successful continuing education program that allows us to support those future career paths for our team members. So being able to show that, yes, I started in this type of role, but I can talk to others who've made lateral moves. Who's made vertical moves; who've grown their career in a variety of different roles? That testimonial helps us on the retention front and the recruiting front. We don't expect you to stay in this entry-level role in perpetuity, but we can help you create a career path that will work for you long term. That's an attractive opportunity for someone considering employment.Lisa Ryan: It also sounds like you're taking quite an individualized approach with employees. How do you find out from them? How do you work with them to set the career path they want?Kelly Springer: Our performance management system identifies what contributions they feel they've made to the organization, so we can celebrate those and recognize those. But a vital part of that with their direct supervisor is understanding what you want. So I believe the question we asked is where you want your career to be one year from now it's less about the title, wage and more about what position you are interested in learning more about how we can showcase you. That way, in some cases, we've done internal internships. You have a chance to see what another role might be like; some are very much in line. You can start as an operator. You can become a technical operator. Those are very well understood. Still, it creates other opportunities, even outside of some of those roles. We also task our team members with learning something new every year. What new skills or training would you like to have And those that their supervisor has identified for them. So through that process, we've been able to highlight some nontraditional career paths that have worked out exceptionally well for some of our team members.Lisa Ryan: So is there one or two particular stories that come to mind as far as an employee that may be surprised, you with the career path they chose or a unique way that you helped a particular individual.Kelly Springer: We have had an individual who went through our apprenticeship program. They then decided to take additional coursework, supplemented through a program that we have. Now, this person is leaning more towards a technical design engineering position. They could do an internship in our design engineering group and then make that transition. We've had individuals who have worked in our sales estimating roles, who now, in one case, the director of procurement.Based on coursework and additional training done, we have other individuals who have started individual roles for all of the purchasing that we do. We've been very intentional about moving them to other areas of the organization. For example, we have a college student who started with us as an intern, joined us full time in our sales development role, spent time on the floor doing tool assembly, and then moved into a project management role. We'll do a rotation through quality to enhance his long-term sales engineer goals. So these are lots of different examples.But ultimately, each can be individualized as long as you have the building blocks within our system to help them achieve those desired outcomes.Lisa Ryan: Well, and you're showing people that there are lots of opportunities for them because what we see too many times is that When people feel that they want to move ahead in their career, they think they have to go to another company to do so. When you're figuring out how to put all of these programs into place, it's helping you keep those people. They not only see it for their peers, but they can see themselves in those same roles as well.Kelly Springer: Absolutely. They are the best person to tell what that journey through their career path has meant to them. You have to capture what that experience has been.Lisa Ryan: Right. When looking at your employees who are learning something new every year, is there anything you're using to train other employees? They're highlighting that knowledge or how you are disseminating it through the peer-to-peer type of training.Kelly Springer: To some extent, we are. It's informal - it's happening informally today. We also have examples of learning a role or some aspect of a role that may complement what you do. An example of that I would give is building a forecast to forecast what our sales volume would be our materials scheduling team does that. Our financial analyst potentially reports at the end of the month on performance. An example might be a learning opportunity for that team member. They might need to sit with the person who builds the forecast for one month to understand the data that goes into it and how that completes that picture of all of those different functions within the organization.Another example is someone in the production environment who doesn't understand all the different types of quality checks required in another production area. They could spend time learning that technology, whether that's a key on a piece of equipment or just a new measuring technique, and ultimately they're enhancing their skills. Still, they're also doing a level of cross-training independent of the skill they're developing.Lisa Ryan: Well, in steadily cross-training, but that communication allows people in different departments to understand the actual process instead of just assuming that it should be done a lot faster because until they get in the midst, and see everything that's that is going on in there. They also get to see what goes wrong along the way. So that adds time to it, then it just keeps people communicating instead of just those silos that we run into so often.Kelly Springer: It builds on our concept that we're one team - one Metal Flow working together. Each role is critical. Someone will say, well, I have no idea what people in accounting do sitting in an office all day. I said, well, you don't ever not get paid when it's time to be paid. They play a critical role. Their role is vital; it's just different than your role. I think building that through and creating the concept of understanding what others do and why their role is

Connect with Prateek Joshi: prateek@plutoshift.com Website: www.PrateekJ.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. Our guest today is Prateek Joshi. Prateek is the founder of Pluto shift and a published author of 13 books. He's been featured in publications such as Forbes, CNBC, TechCrunch, and Bloomberg. You can also visit his website at Prateekj.com to learn more about him. Prateek, welcome to the show.Prateek Joshi: Thanks Lisa for having me. It's great to be here.Lisa Ryan: Alright, please tell us about your background and what got you both interested and involved in Ai.Prateek Joshi: I grew up in a small town in the southern part of India. When I was growing up, water was a beautiful luxury. In college, it stuck with me as I began my professional career. I studied machine learning Ai across law, a natural inclination. But there's a big gap in Ai in the physical world. It's not nearly as ubiquitous as it could be. We all know how to use it every day, as in search engines, but it was about machine learning.But there's a big gap when it comes to the physical world. That was the core motivation behind doing this, to bring Ai to the physical world. It started with water, meaning any physical infrastructure that touches the water and gathers data. So, we use Ai to solve a fundamental problem like water. How can we use it efficiently? How can we distribute it? How can we make sure it's not wasted? So, that's how it all started.Lisa Ryan: What are some of the applications of water that Ai would be used for? It's something that I would have never even thought of.Prateek Joshi: I ended up with a simple example. As the average consumers here in America, we get our water to a network of pipes. An essential part within that setup is called the cleaning process, meaning you'll get raw water from somewhere, and there are these very large treatment facilities that convert raw water into the water that we can consume.This is a very energy-intensive process, meaning you need to use a lot of electricity and chemicals to make sure the water is clean. If you're not careful, the water can leak and waste electricity, which is again a huge problem. A simple application collects data for pressure-temperature flow rates and then uses a tool like Ai to make sure you're not wasting water. You're not letting it leak, and you're not wasting electricity to clean water. This is one application of how you can use Ai efficiently. There are 100 other use cases as well.Lisa Ryan: When it comes to manufacturing, of course, water plays a significant role with many factories and plants. But as far as taking this into the manufacturing sector, how do you make Ai practical for manufacturers?Prateek Joshi: Let's look at a manufacturer. A simple example would be a company that produces food or beverage, and part of the process is to get raw material. Let's say you're making ketchup. You've got to get your raw material in, and then you need at least sources such as electricity, chemicals, and water. That goes into it, so raw material sources go into the facility when the ketchup comes.A manufacturing operation can be broken down into several steps if you look at a manufacturing operation. Each step has a certain efficiency level, meaning how much are you consuming to produce a unit of output now if we don't use any new technology? A human would have to do it. Imagine a facility where you have 300 membranes, like a filter. What stops this from going through, and you got to make sure that it's all functioning. You can't keep an eye on such extensive infrastructure by planning around as a human. The goal is how do we make sure that if let's say, Monday number 49 is acting up. How will we know if the pressure is going way up or it's going way down? You need to know.In the corporate world, you'll be sitting inside your office, and you want to know what's happening. That's where technology like remote monitoring can be beneficial. For example, a tool can automatically detect memory numbers 40 minutes. Of course, it would help if you did something about it, so what this does is it makes sure that they get produced regularly, and you don't need to run around to make sure the system is working perfectly. That's just one example.The production supply chain is another vast area of many use cases. Operations-specific use cases can be deployed inefficiency here.Lisa Ryan: Let's go back to artificial intelligence. Since you've written 13 books on it, you're the expert. So what exactly is artificial intelligence? What does it do, and how does it work?Prateek Joshi: Artificial intelligence is a State. It's the goal, meaning you can build a system. To build an Ai system that is intelligent enough to take actions independently. Ai is a state of being. Now machine learning is a vehicle to achieve that goal. Data is the field for the vehicle. That's how we relate these terms like Ai, machine learning, and data.That's how they put it together. Until then, we use the umbrella term artificial intelligence to describe any system hardware, software, or combo that can do things on its own. We use it every day. The simplest form of intelligence is like a calculator. That is simple, but we don't think of it as Ai, but technically it is doing the little thing. I have two massive numbers, and it shows you the result.More complex Ai systems can drive cars. They can detect danger when flying in the air, which ranges how much intelligence they have. We can put in a system, but that's how we look at Ai. Today, as you've seen, there is a very successful implementation of Ai in the form of automation, meaning if you're in a factory, sometimes it's hazardous for a human to approach a hot furnace. So, a machine does the specific task of taking this and putting it there. It sounds like a simple example of how Ai manifests itself in the video.Lisa Ryan: So, Ai then would be a part of machine learning? Because if I hear you correctly, machine learning is the machine is doing something, and, over time, it learns from itself and gets better.Prateek Joshi: Yes, machine learning is as more data comes in, the machine learns how to behave in various scenarios. It learns more and more it approaches. As of today, we are not fully there yet. We don't have an Ai system that's indistinguishable from humans. We're not there yet, but plans are becoming more intelligent, and machine learning is all the algorithms. The umbrella term is machine learning. All the algorithms, tools, and frameworks you use to make a system intelligent.Lisa Ryan: What are some of how you would deploy some of these Ai technologies in the world of physical infrastructure?Prateek Joshi: An excellent way to look at it is we work backward from the use case. Let's say the goal is to reduce energy consumption. Let's say you're a food processing company and want to reduce the energy. You can do per unit of output produced. That's a problem, and once you've identified that goal, you work backward to figure out what tool or system I should use to attack this problem. Because Ai is pretty vast, no single model can solve everything. Working backward on the issue, and when you do that.Once you define that, you also assess what data we have available. We want to reduce energy consumption, but do we even know how much we can do today? Do we know the initial primary lowers that make the energy consumption go up and down? I'm collecting temperature data, so these are basic questions. Then, we have some pressure-temperature data. We know what you want to do; then, you build a tool. It could be software. It could be hardware. It may be both. The whole time it is achieved, it starts driving that. Today, you can do X. Maybe three months from now. You will consume point eight of that. Meaning 80% of that and then eventually 50. The goal is to drive towards that goal in fashion, and that's how they appear. We're continually improving with more data.Lisa Ryan: If somebody's thinking about incorporating Ai or machine learning into their plant, what would be some ways to drive the behavior change needed for that implementation? Because people are going to be afraid they're going to lose their jobs, or they may not like the robots, or they may be afraid of them, or they have all these misconceptions as far as what I can do. They start with that conversation and change the employees' behavior to get the buy-in you need.Prateek Joshi: We commissioned a study to understand that. In March of 2020 and then a few months later, we wanted to understand people in manufacturing. It could be operations managers, operators directors, and people running facilities. So we surveyed those professionals to know how you use it. Because you can go into the facility every single day, and yet you need to know everything that's happening at all times.So what are you doing so? We conducted a survey and found very interesting results. It's not that people or companies do digital transformation. If you're doing pen and paper, how do you digitize that work if you don't lose it in a fire? The goal is, how do you digitize the operations? And 94 of the participants said that the company's primary way of doing it is boiling the ocean. Meaning somebody comes up with a big initiative, their entire company of 40,000 people. They try to do everything all at once, and in many instances, it's not feasible to do because it's a massive company. So they are introducing a drastic change in our stakes. That's why. But boiling the ocean shouldn't be the plan, yet people do this. Within that, 78% of the participants said that they were supported by the Department heads when they took an op-specific approach. I mean that you choose a piece of work that could be monitoring a membrane or detecting pump failure. A small piece of work, and then you transform that; you digitize that in an already focused manner and a bite-sized way. What that does is it creates a success template meaning oh this facility in Los Angeles, or this was somebody in in in Miami did it. That template can now be implemented in Chicago, Boston, and Seattle.A groundswell builds up, and that's how you transform a particular piece of work in and digitize that. So what we call out specific digital transformation. I would say start with the bite-sized approach and a clear success template that can be used to transform work. That's what we have seen as a third party did quite a bit here.Lisa Ryan: Is there a best practice for deciding where to start? Are you looking for the most mundane tasks that human effort is wasted on, or are you looking at the most dangerous tasks? Are you looking for those detailed tasks that maybe humans miss the mistakes? Is there some best practice you recommend?Prateek Joshi: That's a good question. What happens is the initial choice determines the entire approach, meaning people are either completely turned off by it, or they become very enthusiastic about it. So, the initial choice matters a lot. What we have seen is pick a workflow that is low-hanging fruit with high impact, meaning something could be easy. But if the company doesn't care, the initiative will be killed. So, the goal is to figure out what is low-hanging fruit. I can have the highest impact on the business, which is a great first try, so let's automate it. Because, when it comes to bringing a new piece of technology, it has to make sense for both the user, meaning, it has to be easy to use. Because the company has to invest capital, Roi needs to see the return. The sooner you can make that happen, the better it is.Because of that, I think this combo that using a simple example would be monitoring as a simple example or other examples could be if you are scanning the seats by hand, digitize that. Nobody wants to sit and do that. People have other work to do, so the goal is to identify those tasks that nobody will mess with. So it's going to have a significant impact.Lisa Ryan: So, with the clients you've worked with within the study you've done in this field, do you have some examples of success stories that you can share of where the company was before and what happened after they started using Ai.Prateek Joshi: Yeah, we have a perfect example for company, where before we started working with them they know they produce the beverage company that makes a product and what was happening was water as you can imagine, is a crucial part of the business; meaning how this how they treated it and how they use it. How they discard all of that matters because every incremental benefit, every incremental ISM efficiency, will translate to the old dollars because it's a pretty big company. Because of that, within the operation, water treatment with a huge part of it. We started working with them on that and what happened was over a year, we ended up saving more than 15 million gallons of water. That was one side, and you can imagine 15 million gallons can feed a family for years. It's a lot of water on an industrial scale, it's large, so the goal is to identify these high-impact areas were before doing this. After using a product, they started out doing that, saving this water. What this also does is, in addition to the Auto I benefit, that is, a positive impact on the ESC metrics carbon footprint. So that is another very key benefit that you can achieve by solving problems and energy, water, and chemicals that can significantly impact your PSG footprint.Lisa Ryan: Are there particular types of industries that you've mentioned beverage a couple of times, and you said your connection with water. What are some of the other big industries that you've seen that have successfully taken off taken off with us?Prateek Joshi: The trend we have seen as any industry, where the energy consumption is high, is that those industries are active. They actively pursue new technologies because it's costly. So the source has a significant impact on carbon footprint. So are the water, beverage, food processing, chemical, manufacturing, and data centers.We've seen a lot of activity in these industries. Food and beverage have been very active, so say that's one of the most active verticals. All of these industries have been actively pursuing new technologies here.Lisa Ryan: Do you have any other ideas or tips if somebody is starting to think about this? What are some resources they could turn to? What would be the best way for somebody to begin exploring the topic?Prateek Joshi: I think many of the resources are available online and on our website. We have several White Papers and case studies that were just published, mostly talking about how to think about it. In addition to that, many of the publications, depending on the industry or smart water magazine publishers, water-related technologies, food, and beverage, have something similar. The chemical industry has something similar, but the goal is to try things out and create a framework to quickly try things without disrupting the business and see exactly what works for you. It would be best to look at simple things like automating. But an easy starting point because this is only something we can automate, something as simple as scheduling. We automate that. It makes our life easier. With the manufacturing, you can look at it. You automate the work of monitoring. You can automate the work of ticketing.What happens after taking what happens when you do save energy? How does that work? Determining what can be automated is step one—after that, working with a partner who can do a small, well-defined pilot. I'm going to go from there, so I think that's an excellent way to get started here.Lisa Ryan: And is there a way to test that it's working, or is this something that once you commit Ai, you're all in or not. Is there a way to try it, see if it works, and then decide yes, I'm going to stay with this or no, I'm going back to the old way?Prateek Joshi: 100%. That matters a lot, and that's precisely how we should think about it, so as a new technology, the goal is within them. Let's see what our director of operations says. The goal is, can you create a framework where, if you want to test out. Let's say you saw a new Ai cloud tool that can reduce chemical consumption, so the goal is, how can we quickly pass it out. It usually takes about 90 days. No matter what piece of tech it is, within 90 days, you should be able to see the impact.I know. I think it should take like two years, that's too long. But I've seen 90 days has a good time at the break where you deploy it. You use it honestly for 90 days. Then you measure before it was a surprise, meaning you have to be diligent about the status quo before you start doing it to measure the impact, and then you can do it. So it's not a one-and-done thing. It's like Ai is almost becoming a ubiquitous cloud or Internet. It's already here. The goal is to make it work for you, and it's all it's ubiquitous. Almost all of us use it every day in some shape or form. It's just going to figure out how to make it work for you.Lisa Ryan: And what about tying it in with your existing system systems? You think that some manufacturers have equipment that is decades old. So they're trying to incorporate some new equipment, or is it better if you're starting fresh I mean, how difficult is it to tie in all the different systems that you're going to find in a manufacturing plant.Prateek Joshi: That's a legitimate concern, but potential customers are when we talk to noncustomers. We do see that quite a bit. These companies have been around for decades; some companies have been around for more than 100 years, so they have a long history of decisions and associated hardware. The goal is to ensure that they stay up to date on simple things like data collection, so if you're not collecting data, step one is to get the sensors in place.Start collecting the data, but yeah, I think if you're not on the journey, some people are on all parts of the spectrum. If you have nothing going on the step, one would be talking to a hardware company, which can deploy sensors and send the data to a database. Once you have that, you go to the following type of data analysis, if you don't do data analysis without any data in place, I think. I think assessing where you are on that spectrum and then choosing the right initiatives matters a lot, and I think many, many companies have successfully moved along the spectrum. They're moving fast, and many vendors and companies are showing up with amazing technologies.Lisa Ryan: And then the last thing that comes to mind is just from a security standpoint from a cyber security standpoint, how are you making sure that all of this is being kept safe that nobody can. Access that or hack into your system. What are some of the things you would recommend as far as that goes, or is that not an issue?Prateek Joshi: No, it's an issue. Any data company has to have access to your customers' data. Make sure that data and your system are secure. A...

Connect with Ann WyattLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awyattrecruits/Website: https://www.annwyattrecruiting.com/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Ann Wyatt. Ann is President of Ann Wyatt recruiting. She's very passionate about workforce development and building a solid quality team, focusing on manufacturing. Her goal is to connect the right people to the right jobs. Ann, welcome to the show.Ann Wyatt: Lisa, thank you so much for having me.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. Please share a bit about your background, how you got started in recruiting, and why the focus is on manufacturing.Ann Wyatt: Sure. I started my recruiting agency. I got into recruiting because I'm very passionate about workforce development. My first job after graduating college was working for the career Center. I worked my way up through the career Center. I enjoyed the jobs portion, matching the candidates with the companies and working with local area employers on job fairs. After that, I worked with the greenfield sites and hired new or existing candidates from the labor market, creating and developing labor market information profiles for economic development.In 2015, I decided that it was starting to get tight. We're already starting to see a tight candidate pool at that time. I decided that I could do a better service to the community by leaving the state and starting my own recruiting company, focusing strictly on manufacturing. Firstly, I picked manufacturing because it made up most of the workforce in the local area Bowling green, Kentucky, where I'm from. The wages were higher in manufacturing than in other industry sectors, so we had to work all positions when I was looking. When I was looking at the different industry sectors like health care, customer service, retail, and manufacturing, the wages were substantially higher in manufacturing than in other industries. I thought that somebody didn't have to have a college degree to go into manufacturing, and they could make perfect money.So, that was quite inspiring to me. I wanted to stick with the manufacturing and develop those relationships with the local area employers even further. One of the things we're seeing is the numbers all over the board.Lisa Ryan: With 2.8 million manufacturing jobs going unfilled by 2028 and all these other statistics that are out there, many manufacturers are all fighting over the same people. One of your areas of expertise is working with your clients on the candidate experience. A lot of times, they post a job. They don't think about it, or, as you say, they post and pray, and then whoever walks in the door doesn't think about it.It starts from the starting point of their candidates' experience. So what are some of how you've seen companies successfully elevate their candidate experience?Ann Wyatt: That's a great question, Lisa. I think that companies are still getting acclimated to the fact that this is a candidate-driven market. They have to put a lot more effort into recruiting quality talent than they were previously. They're used to the idea of posting job descriptions on a job board and just hoping and praying for the best.Companies with the most success and recruiting top talent are going through those extra steps to build a relationship with a candidate. From the moment they apply for the position, whether things like getting back to them or leaving them with an automated or canned response or no response. Whether that's having a great marketing and branding strategy where they do video job descriptions or creating interactive job descriptions that tell the candidate a little bit more about the company, their story, their brand, and their history. Whether that's being just more flexible with the candidates long term desires. For example, I just had a company come up with 5000 on their salary from their salary cap for a position. They were in love with the candidate.But they just really thought that she was the perfect person for them. So they went that extra mile, and when the candidate came back and said, I guess I would take a pay cut. So they didn't make her; they gave her what she was currently making.Those types of ideas and the ability to put yourself beyond just the traditional corporate stuffy box and show your human side as a company. Show that you care about your workforce and invest in your workforce. Those will be driving factors when you're looking at recruiting and retaining top talent.Lisa Ryan: You brought up a couple of things that I want to focus on. The one with this candidate that you just placed was looking to leave her last employer, and she was thinking about taking a pay cut to do it. That sends a message loud and clear to people. You are listening to your employees and having their ears open. Taking care of the people you already have on your team and making sure you're having those conversations that keep you here would cause you to leave. Having those in advance can have prevented that woman from ever thinking about leaving.Was there anything, and I don't know how much she shared with you, but why was she thinking about leaving her last employer? What was it about this company that she was thinking about taking a pay cut, even though she ended up not having to. That's an excellent question. I love that.Ann Wyatt: The candidates had been with the previous employer for five years. The previous employer was a greenfield startup company that came to the area. I will tell you; I wouldn't say I liked taking this person from this company. I have a little bit of history with the company. I don't work for them. It broke my heart that she wanted to leave because I worked with them at the state. It was like I wanted good things for this company. What was frustrating for her was that she didn't feel like the organization and support she needed with the company.In the greenfield sites, especially if it's like a foreign company coming in, it takes a long time to get their structure in place and to get up and to run. So to get their product out the door, she was getting to the point that she was losing faith. It was ever going to stable out for her, and I think that was the driving factor for why she left. When I called her up and asked her about this position, she was very interested in the company's very well-established. They had most of all their processes and procedures in a row. Everything was in a good routine. She liked the fact that the company was smaller. It was more family-oriented, and some people like that. She liked that.When she went in for her interview, the client went out of their way to give her a quality candidate experience. What I mean by that is she was introduced to everybody on the floor, everybody in the office. She was allowed to talk to everybody to ask questions of other employees that were not necessarily interviewing her. I remember talking to her after the interview, and I said, how did it go? What did you think? She was still at that point; for her that, she was like, okay, I'll do it, I'll take the pay cut. She was saying I'm still making this amount. So when I called her up, I talked to her. She said they were so sweet, so friendly, and welcoming to me. She said I would be very interested if I had to take a pay cut.Lisa Ryan: I said that's great. That sounds so much for these companies saying I can't afford to pay these people. I can afford all the money that they're looking for. It's not about the money. Here is a woman ready to take a pay cut to go somewhere else. They took her around; they introduced her to everybody, making her feel at home. They created that experience. She was at that level of frustration that may have been alleviated if her other company had asked her - what tools do you need? What resources can we provide for you? To minimize the frustration that she was still having five years later. The other thing is, can you explain what you mean when you say greenfield?Ann Wyatt: A greenfield is the manufacturing equivalent to a startup. Essentially, they worked with the local area, economic development—all the way up through the state of Kentucky, which starts at the state level. The company will contact the United States Chamber of Commerce about economic development. We'll try to begin the process of saying, hey, I'd like to put a plant in.For example, somewhere close to a customer, this company had GM as one of their biggest customers. They wanted to be close to Bowling green, Kentucky, for that reason. Then the state will work with that company to find the right development for them to meet their needs. If they need a railway, for example, or they need shipping like by boat, or they need to be by an airfield like at an airport.They'll work with that. They'll work with utilities if they need wastewater and things like that.Lisa Ryan: They're starting with a greenfield, starting from the ground up. Then they build the building and all that. That's what I thought. Just in case somebody else had the same question in their mind about that. Going back to that woman, and her taking the job anything. Is there anything else about that experience that the company did well? What solidified her commitment to joining them, besides the extra five grand, showed how much they valued her. They didn't make her take a pay cut, so it just sounds like such a win, win.Ann Wyatt: Exactly. I was this recruiter. These moments are infrequent. When this happens, you could cry. It's so good for everybody. They did a great job being flexible in the pay, and they have excellent benefits. I want to say, like, for their health care coverage, their deductible is low. They have like a $700 deductible on a family plan. I thought that was her. I was like, I want that.But they go out of their way to constantly improve their benefits and do everything they can do to help their employees out.Lisa Ryan: I think it was magical how they walked her through the plant and introduced her to people. That goes on both sides of the equation. Number one: she got to see who she was working with, but it also gave the people on the floor some comfort that this person was going to be a good fit. Because maybe if she was did something where she brushed off somebody, or she was rude to somebody, that team member can come up, and say I don't think she's going to be a good fit here. So it really can help a company on both sides of the equation of supporting your current employees to feel connected to the process and as a very welcoming gesture to your new employees coming in.Ann Wyatt: I think that was a mini high-performing teams interview. Getting her to walk the floor, talking to everybody, and introducing her to everybody, was a great way to get feedback. Whenever I see companies hiring with high-performing teams made up of different people from that department, those companies have the highest success with retention and talent acquisition.Lisa Ryan: How vital is training? It is the whole process of training your managers to do it and doing it the right way. Training and professional development in the company itself, and let's start with the managers - the people were doing the job interviews and posting the jobs. What are some best practices when you are training your people?Ann Wyatt: Sure, no, that's a great question. I do think that it takes a certain level of training. Many companies, when they're hiring, recruiting frequently falls under the human resources function. I don't feel like it's an excellent fit for human resources just because of compliance issues. Human resources always have to be so compliant. And they have to understand employment law. I like to think of recruiting as if human resources had a happy spot. That's the happy spot for human resources. A lot of companies hire entry-level people to come in. That's their first job. You can do the recruiting because it's a lot of fun. It's happy. I'm not going to say it's easy, but it's not like negotiating employee or mediation. It's not like that. It's not benefits or payroll either. Companies should do a more proactive job of providing interview training, whether situational or behavioral interview training. I think that's important when you're doing interviews. There's a lot of nonverbal cues that people give.It helps that you're not subconsciously reading what you see. Instead, you see it, acknowledge it, and then what does this mean. So, for example, if somebody is over talking or they're not talking enough, you're going to immediately have that little red flag say, Oh well, what's wrong. But then, being able to go further, and saying okay, well this person is easy, they're over talking, they don't have enough experience. They're saying a lot, but nothing in that situation. Or they're under-talking, so maybe they're not very interested.Being able to read those numbers is essential. I think it's an excellent practice for companies for performance and analytics measures to have a matrix of their core values. What soft skills they're looking for when they're doing the behavioral interviews and then assessing them and ranking them based on that set.Lisa Ryan: Make sure that you're getting the right fit right off the bat. Besides that one client that we spend some time with their employee experience, what are some of the other things that you've seen people do or ideas that work when it comes to connecting with that employee right off the bat before they agree to come on board?Ann Wyatt: Recruiting is a lot of relationship building, and I would like to see it as a recruiter. I would love to see some more of that, too, in recruiting. It's a lot of relationship building. If somebody applies for the position, and they're not the right fit, it doesn't take much to send them a DM on LinkedIn and say, hey, I saw that you applied for that, thanks for that. But I think that this is what the company is looking for, or just being that person not making time for them so if they have questions to be there to answer their questions if they want to learn more about the company. And what their story is to provide them a look at the company and their story. What's their product, where are they in a global market? What's unique about this company? Why do the employees of this company want to work there? Those are all things that, as a recruiter, I feel like you should be able to not only understand but also convey effectively to candidates that you're contacting. Building relationships may not work out for this, but I love to stay in touch and check in every so often to say Merry Christmas, hey Happy New year. I've spent a lot of this over the past couple of weeks to be friendly.Lisa Ryan: You mentioned something about video interviews or video job descriptions earlier. Please tell me more about that. What do you mean by that?Ann Wyatt: Video job descriptions are a great way to showcase your company, your product, your machinery, and what you do. It is a great way to show prospective candidates. When I have a company interested in doing a video job description, for example, I try to pick out some of the things required from the job - what they're looking for. When you read a job description, there's what they need. So you pick out the things that matter most that will be the driving decision-making factors. You showcase those in the job description videos, so whether that's a technical role - say somebody is looking for an automation engineer or something, that person needs to have a strong PLC background. I want to know what your plc hardware is. What are you running? Rockwell, Siemens - what do you have. I want to showcase that in the video for candidates. Because somebody may be very interested, they may not have the experience. Maybe they have seen it. So being able to give them a quick, effective visual synopsis of what you're looking for what you need, and then also what you do at the same time, is a lot more effective than just the old text.Lisa Ryan: That sounds like something you could do right on your phone. You're not looking at hiring a production team; you're looking at showing a day in the life of what that job is on a short video that you can shoot right on your phone.Ann Wyatt: Definitely. You could also do employee testimonies. If you want to pull somebody from the floor that works in that same role and have them talk about what they like about it, why they took the job, and what their day-to-day is like. You could do that. If there's a camera app, you could use that. I have software, but I think it's not expensive. It's like $250 a year. It's very cost-effective to do things differently.Lisa Ryan: Those are the things that set you apart. Even though we all have a smartphone of some kind with us at all times pretty much anymore, there are probably very few people doing that. So, suppose you want something to differentiate yourself from everybody else out there immediately. In that case, it's showing that day in the life on video and doing things that are different from what everybody else is doing in their recruiting practices.Ann Wyatt: Exactly. It makes you appear transparent. It makes you appear approachable, and you're stepping out of that rigid corporate box and showing your humanity to your candidate pool. That's something that they want to consider before they take a new job. At the end of the day, the candidate pool is so tiny if somebody takes a new job because they genuinely want to.Lisa Ryan: Exactly. So, as we get to the end of our time together, what would be your biggest tip for companies to recruit successfully or onboard new employees?Ann Wyatt: I think going the extra mile to be willing to meet people where they are is something that I say, often in a lot of advice in a lot of the advice that I give it but what I mean by that is to be flexible and meet people where they are. Find out if you're interested in hiring a person. You're saying, Okay, this is the one for us. Find out what that motivating factor is for that person. Sometimes it's many. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes they want flexibility. Being able to meet them where they are and going that extra mile for them is the best advice as to what you can do to win in the candidate race right now and increase your culture and retention.Lisa Ryan: If somebody wanted to get a hold of you and continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to connect?Ann Wyatt: Probably LinkedIn is where I spend most of my time. I love connecting with people on LinkedIn. So please send me a DM and let me know that you found me through the podcast. I would be happy to connect with you.Lisa Ryan: All right, well, and thank you so much for being with me today. It's been a great conversation.Ann Wyatt: Thank you, Lisa. It's a pleasure.Lisa Ryan: I'm Lisa Ryan, and this is the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. We'll see you next time.

Connect with Steve Burke:Website: https://www.hitech-industrial.com/Phone: 219-707-5956. Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan, and welcome to the Manufacturer's Network Podcast. Our guest today is Steve Burke. Steve is President of HiTech Industrial, a multiline distributorship representing over 30 manufacturers. They support many sectors from steel, chemical, healthcare, transportation, automotive, and manufacturing. And after being in business for just over two years because of their focus on customer service, they have both made a profit and exceeded their goal. So, Steve, welcome to the show.Steve Burke: Good morning, Lisa. Thank you for having me.Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. So, Steve, share a bit of your journey and what led you to found HiTech Industrial.Steve Burke: My background is as a pipe fitter. For about 23years, I had the privilege of working in many different industries. I then moved into a service technician, multi-state, working in all the industries weusually cover: steel, chemical, heavy manufacturing, automotive, and more. And this allowed me to see exactly what's going on in their maintenance teams and some of the issues they're having.Lisa Ryan: Okay, so share a bit of that background, like where you were and then why you decided to start, what were you looking to create that was different from what you are seeing out there. Steve Burke: As a hands-on technician, I saw a distinct repetition of maintenance issues lubrication, hydraulics piping things that were not being done in their optimum way. Frequently, I would make suggestions, which would positively influence the customers' maintenance. So they would ask me to do other things like, Can you show some of my guys this? Could you work with me on that? What's this stuff about a Lubrication audit. So I broadened the spectrum of just being a parts replacer or providing a part to someone who provided a consultant service to increase reliability and help their maintenance teams.Lisa Ryan: And so then, how have you translated that into what you're doing with HiTech? Because, again, starting a business and meeting goals and making a profit right off the bat, you have to be doing something right. What do you attribute that to? Steve Burke: Well, I worked as a distributor for a pipe fitting for about ten years. So again, this took me deep into the engineering and the maintenance teams, working with them on significant problems that they were having and finding out other issues in hydraulics and lubrication things of this nature. Once I saw that I started asking questions and saying, Well, is this the first time this has happened? And often I heard, no, this happens all the time. I've got to make this repair. I've got to do this process over and over again.And when you started to ask why the answer was Gee, I don't know. It's the way we always did it. Henry Ford had a saying where he said, if you've always done what you always do, you always get what you always got. And I think that's true. And HiTech industrial is trying to bridge that gap and help them move into an area where they can find solutions to reliability and their maintenance problems. Lisa Ryan: So when some of the things that we talked about, some of the things that you focus on, things like being transparent, taking a sincere interest and actively listening to your customers and doing service, that goes one step beyond what are some of the philosophies that led you to do that, like transparency. I'm sure that you sometimes have to tell your customers things that they don't necessarily want to hear, but that transparency also does well for you. So talk a bit of that. We'll start with transparency.Steve Burke: Sure, it's been a key for us to work personally with our customers, whether it be a maintenance manager, whether it be the President of a manufacturing company, or whether it just be a technician. And we have to make some hard statements like you mentioned, you can't do it that way. It doesn't work. You're not fixing it. You're just putting a new part on a problem, and it's going to fail. We got into discussing that more in-depth with them. What do you mean, it's going to fail?And what I found out is that people have assumed roles where they don't know the history of the maintenance issues. So they find out that we're replacing parts repeatedly and not looking at a root cause, not looking at a process that has been changed, not looking at additional equipment that's been added that is affecting or contributing to the downtime failures.Lisa Ryan: Really, what you're doing is instead of just selling parts, you're going above and beyond and giving them the service, and probably over time, maybe you're not going to sell as much because you're not replacing the same parts because you've fixed the problem, which then would lead your customers to trust you more. So is that what you're finding?Steve Burke: That's precisely correct. Yes, we do shoot ourselves in the foot, so to speak, for not replacing every part or making an extra couple of dollars replacing a part. But we prefer building a relationship with our customers, understanding their personal needs because that's going to bond our customers or join our customers to partner together to create more reliability and profitability. And in some cases, we even make a safer alternative for them to operate. Lisa Ryan: I know that training is a significant component for you. So is that looking at both the people you employ to ensure that they are trained personally and professionally and your customers or talk about your focus on training?Steve Burke: Training is just one of the most overlooked things in the industry today. We don't have time to train. We don't have the budget to train as things we hear. We don't have the people to teach who could train on this system. Joe and Bob and all the old-timers are evolving. They're retiring. They're leaving the industry and taking with them 30, 40 years of a wealth of knowledge, the young people coming in, qualified, great guys willing to work. They don't have the knowledge or experience we're trying to get to that process. Find out how and where we can help them solve their problems.Some of them have more knowledge than myself because they've been highly trained in an area, but they don't have the broad understanding that 30 plus years of experience working in the industry has provided. So we're joining with the maintenance managers and finding out your biggest problems. And this is a fundamental question that's not being asked when you call up a mega house or a large supply house. And you say, I need part XYZ. That's what they do. They give you part XYZ, but they don't connect with why you need part XYZ, and who knows how to replace it? And how many times have you replaced that in the last year? Because they should last in multi-years. So we're kind of explorers. We're kind of investigators asking these questions.Lisa Ryan: And when you talk about the fact that, yes, we do have the silver tsunami of baby boomers that are retiring and taking their 30 and 40 years of experience with them, is there anything that you're doing to capture some of that knowledge before the people walk out your door.Steve Burke: We are looking to maintain a relationship with our customers. We're a small company, Lisa. So we're not big, but we take people and train them to have a comprehensive knowledge of the products that we carry. And then we work with them. Often I go out with them to look at a job, meet with a team, and ask the questions that they haven't learned how to ask yet, because you can't just ask Gee, why is it broke or what have you done to fix it?Steve Burke: You have to go to the second level and third level questions to funnel down, create an understanding of what is your real problem, reliability. And how can I help you?Lisa Ryan: Yeah. So really taking it into the real world instead of textbook what's supposed to happen because we know in maintenance, there's no way you're ever going to see anything that can go wrong in maintenance.Steve Burke: It's true. We're finding that maintenance teams, managers, and leadership are being asked to do more right now with fewer people. Manpower is plaguing the nation right now, let alone manpower that wishes to work in a hands-on, hands, dirty environment. And we're working with them to optimize the steps they are taking to create the maintenance programs that keep things running.Lisa Ryan: And one of the things I know that you do to our customer audits to help with that, to investigate those problems and provide solutions. So, could you share with us a bit of your process? What does that look like? Maybe some steps that if somebody is listening to the podcast today and would like to incorporate that thing for their customers, how would they get started?Steve Burke: You had a tricky question to answer. We're covering multiple product lines. Let me just take one example. That is easy to share, and that will be in lubrication. Lubrication touches anywhere. There's moving parts in manufacturing, steel, chemical. It's a universal issue. And yet it is also one of the most specialized knowledge banks there is. It's not a glorious or a sexy industry to be in. Everybody wants to stay away from it. It's constantly the last component of a piece of equipment that's looked at for liability.But lubrication is the lifeblood of the industry. So we'll come in, and we talk with people, and they start asking some fundamental questions about lubrication from single-point lubrication to multi-hundred-point lubrication systems. Do you have them? What are you doing with them? Who's your lubrication guru, and the answers often are. We don't have one. We haven't had one for years. I just had a customer who told me that 24 of their automated systems are no longer operational. Five of them are limping along because they have nobody to provide the technical expertise and the time to come in and fix it.Sometimes we have to do this on a fee basis where we work with our customers and find out how we can help or work with your team to get a start point to get this quired knowledge of your issues, and we'll work with them. We'll find out where the problems are. We'll find out where their high maintenance issues are, and we'll start from there and roll it out. Often that means talking to maintenance managers, supervisors, and technicians to understand their level of lubrication and how to maintain it.And right now, there's a vacuum in that area. People are trying, and they're looking online to find stuff, but there's no real active resource. So we'll take it and work with them. From the basics, Lisa, from what lubrication is and how to maintain your system to that complete process.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. And as we're going more and more into automation, that lubrication part will be, like you said, the lifeblood of keeping that equipment going. And when we think about maintenance, the best thing about maintenance does not have to use it. If you maintain your equipment correctly and even start with the basics that you talk about of Lubrication 101. Too often, people assume, vendors assume, that people know what to do, where to put the parts, and how to work anything. But the fact that you're starting from that ground zero and not assuming anything seems like that will be invaluable to extending the life of your customers' equipment. Steve Burke: And that's what we found over and over time. And if you take and make these repairs and create a process for successful maintenance of these systems, they're very durable. They last a long time. Without that maintenance, without that understanding, they can become a daily maintenance issue that impacts profitability and downtime and, again, sometimes even safety. For example, some statistics show that 65% plus bearing failure is directly related to improper lubrication. So that's a huge number. And when people start to hear that and see that, and you can show more, you can extend the life of a bearing, extend the runtime of a piece of equipment, protect their assets. You become a valuable resource to them. Lisa Ryan: Yeah. And one of the ways that I think you also stay a resource is in your follow-up. So you're not just going in there doing an audit, giving them the right pieces, and then okay, see you later. Let's go on to the next one. You are also staying in touch with them. So what are some of the ways that you continue to be a resource for the long term with your customers?Steve Burke: Yes, staying in touch is a law start. Customer service is a law that starts right now. They want a large house. A large company often wants to get that call taken care of and off their list, and they won't ask or follow up a need with them. Situations like, hey, I sent them a text. Hey, I send them a voicemail. Hey, I left them an email, and they didn't get back to me. Maintenance teams are overworked right now. You have to be the source that gets back to them repeatedly until you talk to them. And we sometimes apologize for being overly enthusiastic, if you will, and trying to reach out to our customers. And, hey, I know this is the third email. I know this is the third call. Please excuse me. If you'd like me to stop, let me know. But if you're just too busy, I'll wait for you, and I'll make my efforts to get a hold of you. And I didn't trust that way by being a Bulldog. I've been called you're a Bulldog. Well, sometimes you have to be a Bulldog to help people. And I always apologize and say, if that's ever an inconvenience, let me know, and I'll change.Lisa Ryan: And the fact that you're giving them the choice of, hey, if you don't want to hear from me, fine. But the fact that you keep going after probably most of your competitors give up when they sent that one text or they sent that second voicemail and they didn't hear back. So they move on to the next one where you are, letting those customers know that this is important. They are essential to you, and you're there for them.Steve Burke: That's correct. And we hear that routinely. Thanks. I got to get to that. But I had this. I had that we had a tornado here. We had this. There are many different reasons why they can't get back to you and what you would like to be prompt information, but often they'll say, yeah, thanks. I got to get that done. Let's get this and move forward. And that's where we earned reliability, trust. Or that's where we've gained a hey. This guy cares because we do. We care about our customers, and we care about finding the solutions.Lisa Ryan: I think that's such an essential lesson for everybody, not only in manufacturing and distribution but in every industry. When we're reaching out to potential customers, and they're not getting back to us, we think it's all about us. Oh, they must not like me. They must not want to do business with me. I must be getting on their nerves. But, in most cases, it's got nothing to do with you. We don't know that they just had a tornado, that they just had a flood, that they just had a major breakdown, that their maintenance guy quit, or all of these other things that are taking their attention.And we are such this tiny dot on their radar. We don't think about it. So if we can take ourselves out of the equation and just let them know, okay, I'm here from you. I'm here for you when you need me. I'm here for you when you need me, but just keep on keeping on that. You're adding value and keeping your ego out of it. It sounds like it's true.Steve Burke: And I often ask questions like, when would you like me to reach back to you? I understand how busy you are. Is there someone you can delegate this to? I can take this off your plate and perhaps work directly with a technician. And we do that routinely because technicians are the keys to maintaining reliability. It's not in a CEO's hands. It's not in a maintenance manager's hands. He directs these solutions to go out there and fix things. If they're going to do it, they can if they have the knowledge and ability to do it.But they can't do anything if just because somebody wants them to. If they don't have the tools, the knowledge, and the experience to get it done or the resource, we can help them out with that resource, right? So I still get dirty, Lisa. I still go down into the dirty pits, and I still get my hands all greasy if that means helping out a customer well.Lisa Ryan: You're also setting an excellent example for the people who work for you, which I want to get into a little bit, too, because I know that you have a small company and that labor is hard to find. But it sounds like you are building a heck of a team by doing what you're doing and letting your employees know that you are just as willing as they are to get your hands dirty. So what would you say are some of the things you are doing to create that workplace culture that keeps people working for you and not going down the street to a competitor.Steve Burke: What a challenge. When I started this company, I asked the people I was bringing to the team. Is this what you want to do? Is there anything else you want to do? Because if there is, now is the time to go and do it. But if you elect to stay here, if you like to move forward, success will follow because we will be working harder than the next guy. We will be providing services that the next person isn't providing. We will be sincerely focused on delivering what our company is designed around.That is to provide solutions to the industry. Once I gave some time, and I said, don't answer now. You cannot answer me right now. Don't just nod your head. Don't just say yes. I want you to go home, talk with your wife. I want you to think about it. I want you to look at it. And I want you to see if there's anything else that could make you happier. And once they did, once they came on board. How are we going to make this the best company? How are we going to strive for excellence daily? One of our slogans is always better, never best, because we want to improve daily for our customers. And for us. It may be adding a paper void packing machine. It may be buying a piece of equipment in one of the cases of hose crimper, the state of the art where you could buy one that was less money. But we're going to buy the best one to make sure we can do it quickly, efficiently and provide the best product for our customers.So those kinds of things and listening to their input. Well, think we should do this. One of the cases is we take parts and get them in from a customer, and they're Rod. They're just a piece of metal. Okay, we bag them and vacuum seal them, and then we put a label on the outside of them because some of our customers don't have the luxury of having a climate-controlled area to store their parts. And when they store metal steel, they'll find that they'll get corroded, rust, covered, damaged, and it's hard to see them.Sometimes it's hard to read numbers that are stamped on or laser etched down. So we put them in a half-inch yellow and black label, and it's easy for them to read. So we try to simplify everywhere we do bin management for our customers because of that.Lisa Ryan: So I think a vital lesson, too, is making sure that your employees have that commitment to you by not making them. When we think about bringing people on board, we're like, oh, no, you have to give me an answer right now where sometimes when you take the time you let them process, and then when they're ready to commit to you, the employees know where you're coming from, and they're willing to make that commitment. And it

Connect with Martin DeBono:Website: www.GAF.energyLinkedIn:Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. Our guest today is Martin DeBono. Martin is President of GAF energy. GAF energy has built a combined manufacturing and R&D facility in California, where they are currently building the next generation of solar roofing systems. Martin, welcome to the show.Martin DeBono: Thank you for having me.Lisa Ryan: So share with us a bit about your background and what led you into solar.Martin DeBono: Out of college, I joined the navy. I was a submarine officer for five years after serving in the military. I pursued a career in technology, working for various software and hardware companies during that journey. A recruiter reached out to me and said, hey, are you interested in working for the solar power company? This conversation took place back in 2012. At the time, I thought solar power, that's just a niche industry. It turns out that even at the time, it wasn't an easy industry, and it's been growing very quickly.Last year, more than half of all the new electricity generation in the United States came from solar. For the last eight or nine years, I've been in solar. I recently became the President of GAF energy, an operating company in the standard industry family of companies. Standard Industries is best known for owning the largest roofing manufacturing company in Europe. So we joined a company with a strong heritage in roofing and manufacturing.The reason for this is that there is a convergence between solar roofing and being part of the world's largest manufacturer, and we felt it would be a great platform in which to push both industries forward.Lisa Ryan: So why solar? What are some of the opportunities that you see for solar long term? I live in Cleveland, Ohio, so that's not usually where we think of the sun a lot.Martin DeBono: I'm here in California, one of the nation's leading solar markets. What's remarkable is the cost of solar generators has come down, and the cost of electricity has gone up. In solar, you're getting electricity from technology. We've seen the pricing of technology go down. The price of your iPhone has come down. The cost of computers has come down. You get way more performance at a similar price point.Solar energy is following the price of other technology. We get more for the same price, whereas traditional energy – coal, natural gas, etc. - is going up because those commodity prices are rising with inflation. The opportunity with solar energy is enormous, including in places like Ohio, especially when you incorporate the solar generating material into the building itself. By manufacturing a solar roof, we can kill two birds with one stone, integrating the solar and roofing systems. It reduces costs and will allow more people to get the benefits of solar electricity, which is a more reliable source of electricity. It's also a less expensive source of electricity than what you get from utilities.Lisa Ryan: It's also obviously a lot cleaner and something that we don't have to worry about running out of any time soon. As far as the contribution of making a difference on the planet, it also sounds like solar has a leg up on a lot of the other places that we get our energy from.Martin DeBono: Many people aren't sure about the impacts of climate change and global warming, but I try to tell many people that the effects of getting fossil fuels include shipping. You're transporting it, and that takes money.As a veteran myself, we have the Sixth Fleet, which protects the Persian Gulf to ensure oil supplies. So, first, there's a benefit for the self-generation of electricity. Second, the answer is staring us in the face during the day, or at least for half the day. The amount of energy that the sun transmits to the earth in one minute Is the equivalent of all the world's power plants' output any year. If we can harness a small fraction of that, we can wean ourselves off fossil fuels. You're right, it is clean, but I think that the most common reason people choose to get a solar roof is selfish, and that is it's less expensive. You can use a significant investment investing in solar - it pays off.Lisa Ryan: So, your emphasis has been that you are doing the R&D and the manufacturing in the United States. Why is that such a big deal?Martin DeBono: Yes, so it's been shocking now that I'm old. I just had a major milestone of a birthday. But you see just the loss of manufacturing expertise in the United States, especially in solar. As recently as five or six years ago, almost a third of the solar panels in the world were manufactured by US companies. Now that number is less than 5%, and I've seen facilities move across borders or in different States to save a few hundred thousand dollars or a few million dollars a year.Perhaps, the most concerning is that I've seen an exodus of talent from the clean energy industry accompanying the decline of American manufacturing excellence in clean energy. By this, I mean, eight or nine years ago, when I got into the solar industry, it was pretty easy to recruit people because they're like, hey yeah, I'm going to work for an American company, I want to make a difference, as you mentioned. Solar energy is clean energy, and it does indeed help with some of the challenges that our energy supply chain has today. But they become disillusioned when they have to spend 2, 3, 4 months a year away from their home by flying to Asia, where the predominant manufacturers of solar products in the world are located. They are trying to implement their inventions on the manufacturing line. So today, those same people are not getting into the industry but instead taking jobs at Google or Microsoft. They are highly educated, and those companies need highly educated people. So for us, combining manufacturing and R&D was a necessity. We want to attract talent and meet our customers' demands very quickly.Lisa Ryan: Solar has been around for a while. What is it that you're doing on your end? In bringing solar to the United States, what differentiates what they get from Asia, and the rest of the world.Martin DeBono: Yes, so, as I mentioned, by combining R&D and manufacturing in the same facility, we've been able to make advances very, very rapidly. We just announced the first world's first nail-able solar single, and it's the first advancement in the way solar is installed in about 30 years. The traditional way solar is installed to take a flat-screen TV and bolt it to the roof through the water protection barrier. Many of your listeners have seen a solar panel it's about two feet by three feet or two feet by four feet and lug it up to the roof. We've created a nail-able solar shingle.There's nothing else like it in the world. It will reduce the installation time remarkably. It also makes sure that the waterproof integrity of the home is maintained, and it looks a lot better than those early solar panels. In addition, you're able to do it quickly again by not having our R&D team having to spend half their lives on planes. Instead, they walk 10 feet to see the manufacturing line where these new products are created.Lisa Ryan: Please tell us what those panels look like compared to other solar panels.Martin DeBono: Yes, certainly. What we produce looks nothing like the traditional solar panels at all. It looks like a shingle. Traditional shingles are 40 inches wide by about 16 inches tall, and the two singles overlap half of it. You shingle half of the single above it, and it covers the single below it to make sure water flows. We created a solar shingle about five feet wide and again 16 inches deep. They nail it down, and it looks just like a shingle.If you are standing on the sidewalk and you're looking up at your house, they are perfectly in line with the rest of the roof. There is nothing that the single soul itself is the shingle. It's remarkable. No one has invented it before because I don't think people thought it could be invented. But, more importantly, there are several factors at play that allow this to be the right time for such an invention.First, what's happened in the solar industry is the solar cell itself is no longer the most expensive part of the value chain. The actual installation of the solar module is the most costly part. When someone looks at what makes up the cost of a solar system, getting installed is the most significant part. Sales and marketing is the second biggest part. The solar cell itself has come down much in the same way. If you think that an iPhone memory has come down to low prices, processing power has also come down. That spawned a new form of computer, the handheld computer or the iPhone.Similarly, the cell's very, very low cost has enabled us to focus elsewhere. The first reason is the reduction in the price of the solar cell. The second reason is that we come from it from a roofing perspective. Finally, GAF Energy, through its relationship with Standard Industries, knows a lot about manufacturing, and we're able to put that manufacturing expertise to bear to create an entirely new form factor.Based on the single form factor, the company has been perfecting for 50 or 60 years. When you combine the advances in materials technology and solar, along with the manufacturing expertise in roofing, those are two of the three concentric components. The last was a willingness to invest. Standard Industries is one of the largest private companies in the United States, if not the world. They have the capital to invest. They've invested in leading technology such as recycling asphalt shingles. As I mentioned, their willingness and desire to make a long-term investment, even though it seems very quickly, it's taken us two, three years to do this. They've invested two to three years in making this happen. As a result, the combination of some of the constituent components of solar pricing is coming down.Roofing manufacturing expertise, willingness to it, and willingness to invest has allowed GAF energy to move state of the art, and it's something that nobody expected can be done.Lisa Ryan: Well, I think, from a Labor standpoint, it also sounds like there can be tremendous savings in labor if you're not lugging those big titles up to the roof and doing all that. Talk a bit about that aspect of your product.Martin DeBono: Yes, absolutely. The labor savings is twofold: one, the actual physical act of getting the material on the roof is much simpler. The shingles go up just using traditional shingle transportation methodologies. In many parts of the country, shingles are delivered right onto the roof, as opposed to a solar module having to be lugged up the roof - it's about 47 pounds, I think the only limit is 50 pounds, so it's just under that. Once on the roof, they use a nail gun, and it goes down at least twice as fast as the next fastest technology for solar. So the savings are significant. The other savings that we get are directly related to our manufacturing in the United States because we're closer to the customer. Because our factories are in California, we can take advantage of streamlined logistics and supply chains.As I mentioned, 95% of the solar panels United States come from outside the United States, and if the weather is holding up the ports on either coast or the amount of time it takes shipping across the ocean, that's a lot of time - six to 12 weeks on the water. With inflation, that eats into your profits. We have labor savings. The savings one gets from the supply chain nearby are fantastic.Lisa Ryan: Right. We've heard for years about how manufacturers were leaving the United States. So it sounds like this is an excellent excuse to start bringing some of that manufacturing back. But what do you think are some of the reasons we've lost so much manufacturing here in the states, including solar.Martin DeBono: I think that we've lost it because many companies just became concerned about cost and not innovation. They became worried about prices and not customer satisfaction. Then, of course, there's no doubt that other governments, China specifically, said, hey, we need to build a manufacturing base here. So they made low-cost government loans available to incentivize people to move their facilities overseas. The reason I say it's short-term is that I've seen decisions made where one moves a factory from the United States outside the United States for a few million dollars. You lose that in terms of meeting changing market requirements rapidly. You lose that in terms of productivity losses because you have people who designed the equipment which isn't located near the people operating the equipment.When there are challenges in production, those are costs that don't show up in any spreadsheet initially. But they show up overall. So I think that what you see in the solar industry is that as more of the solar manufacturing has moved overseas, the industry's overall profitability has declined.I tell many people who are not familiar with the solar industry, like the airline industry. If you added up all the profits in the airline industry from 1932 to the year 2000, it was zero. They couldn't make any money. We saw that in the solar industry, solar manufacturing was outsourced to Asia. The overall profits in the solar industry have gone away. That's because they lost sight of innovation, and they lost sight of customer service.Lisa Ryan: Is your product both for home use and commercial use, or is it primarily geared one or the other?Martin DeBono: Our product is primarily geared towards residential space. GAF is the largest residential roofing manufacturing company in the United States. They're one of the largest commercial manufacturers as well. But we designed our product to blend perfectly with a typical residential roof, so in the United States, the predominant roof type is our singles. Our solar shingle matches very well with the traditional shingle, and so you have a seamless transition from one to the other. There's so much opportunity in residential roofing right now that that's our focus. We put this in perspective that over 5 million people get a new roof a year. GAF has over 25% market share, so they're able to give them a million people a year. The opportunity around roofing is so prominent on the residential side that that's where we'll focus initially.Lisa Ryan: On this show, we talk a lot about workplace culture in manufacturing and the skilled trades, which is an excellent correlation between both. What are the things that you are doing well with your employee? How are you not only attracting people to your industry but what are some of the things that you're doing to keep to keep them there?Martin DeBono I don't want to call our employees skilled and unskilled because our assembly line operators have become very skilled in what they do. So let's say the folks, the PhDs, and the masters who invent the products for them can see the fruits of their labor. Every day is gratifying; even now, the factory has been up and running for four or five months. People go out, and walk the line, and look at what's going on, and it gives them a tremendous sense of satisfaction.They also appreciate that they don't have to get on a plane to make any changes. Suppose you're a creative type, an engineer, an inventor, physicist, or chemist trying to make a significant impact in the world. In that case, the ability to see the fruits of your labor is remarkably rewarding. It exceeded my greatest expectation. We did this because we wanted to attract talent and retain it. The looks and the smiles on people's faces when they see that line running and the ability for us to change very quickly has paid huge dividends on the Ph.D. master side of the house as well as our operators.The cultural challenge is typically when you have a manufacturing company. All the people that designed the actual widget or whatever you're making are physically separated from those that manufacture it. You can end up a multicast cultural system, where Hey, I'm skilled, your unskilled labor. We're trying hard to avoid that. It does cost us a bit more, but we share the same cafeteria benefits to both skilled and unskilled labor. While that costs a bit, what we believe that enables us to do is if you can instill empathy for the operators and the people that develop it. You will come up with a much more efficient manufacturing process more quickly.The time it might cost in downtime has increased the time to implement the new features that enable you to get more margin by having just one workforce, as opposed to thinking about it, if skilled and unskilled, there are benefits there.Operating in California is a very high-cost environment, and automation is also super important to us. We expect that, over time, we will be able to automate more and more of the process to improve our output. Our operators will move from doing manual steps to being the ones who oversee the robots that, through it, this is only possible by having the R&D team co-located with the factory.Lisa Ryan: One, and the other benefit too is if somebody on that factory floor, who is using the product, sees something that maybe the engineers miss because they're not involved in the day-to-day manufacturing or the day-to-day installation, that conversation happens having to fly over to Asia to make a tweak that may or may not work. You're having that conversation, and when those hourly, the unskilled employees feel heard feel that they're making a difference. That level of commitment and loyalty to the company goes up several times because they're not just some grunt work around the line. They're being listened to and having lunch with the skilled labor.Martin DeBono: It happens all the time. A young woman has a Ph.D. who is talking with the operators. They are the ones in manufacturing and impacted her part of the value chain. They develop the type on that instantiate itself. She came and redesigned some of the ergonomics of that. This is all the best practice in manufacturing, but here you have it happening at a much quicker pace. Similarly, our attrition now is remarkably low for what we pay. We have had such low attrition on the operator side, and I attribute that they are just as invested in making these things, making this company work because their recommendations are, if not immediately implemented there, directly discussed. It's not like they put them in some box, and they make your back in six to nine months, but they can go and talk with the folks that are responsible for that particular job. It has been remarkable.I think that, overall, this will enable our success. We have a good market product and market fit. We can manufacture this product locally so we'll stay in front of the competition concerning implementing these new capabilities. Therefore, the challenge becomes, how do we manage our costs? We manage our costs by getting costs out of the system faster. Simply...