The Manufacturers' Network

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturer's Network Podcast. I'm here today with mark Lilly. Mark is president and CEO of Lilly Works, and he helps manufacturers to solve the late problem. I'm going to let Mark explain a little bit more about that. In the meantime, Mark, welcome to the show.Mark Lilly: Thanks very much, Lisa. Appreciate you inviting me on. Lisa Ryan: Please share a little about your background and what led you to work with manufacturers and create Lilly Works. Mark Lilly: Sure. We've been doing this for a long time and referred to the team behind Lilly Works. It's a family endeavor.My dad started several manufacturing E R P systems, including one in the 1980s called Profit Key. Another called Visual Manufacturing in the nineties is currently owned by Inform. They're both designed for make-to-order high mix-manufacturing types of companies used by thousands of manufacturers.And they both also had very strong, traditional finite scheduling embedded in them. However, despite this great functionality in either of these products and what we've since learned, any E R P system has this traditional approach to scheduling and managing production that most manufacturers struggle with for several reasons.So a few years ago, the team got together in the 2014-15 timeframe, and we started a third manufacturing ERP system up in the cloud. And as we were designing it, recognizing that while that scheduling functionality was good and the previous folks struggled with it, we said, what can we do differently?We came up with an entirely different approach to managing production. So, from a material and a scheduling standpoint, we called this approach, or the software part protected flow manufacturing. The process is the dynamic production method.And we would go out into the marketplace and show folks the E R P liked this approach to managing production, but they didn't necessarily want to replace their E R P right now. So that's because that's so much work. So we extracted that part of the software. We made it its own product offering called protected flow manufacturing that ties into any E R P system, whatever you're using today.So what's nice about that is we can go into a company and help them in very short order. We're talking six to eight weeks and solving the late problem, right? Give them visibility and production of their true priorities of when and if the material is here or not to execute the prior.And so everybody can see and know what they should be working on for future visibility. So that is when my customer will be able to get their order based on my capacity and material availability. Lisa Ryan: So what exactly is the late problem, and what is the extent of the problem you're seeing?Mark Lilly: Sure. Many companies are struggling with this today, and very simply, it's not being able to get their orders out on time when they want to. I did a presentation at IMTS in Chicago last week, and I pulled together some macro data. In reality, there are over a trillion dollars in unfill fulfilled orders across American manufacturing in July. That was the latest statistics that came out of basically the fed. And that's about half of the entire manufacturing GDP. To put that into context, the manufacturing GDP is approximately just over 10% of the national GDP.So there's a tremendous amount of opportunity. And I think anyone who works in a manufacturing company realizes an experience is this, whether it's for material or the supply chain issues we're having. Internationally, whether it's the workforce or not being able to find people, most companies are struggling because they would be able to ship if they had the capacity. If they had better management of what's happening in their production environment and better visibility of what's happening.Lisa Ryan: Sure. I think about this, the late problem, and the first thing that came to mind was, okay, supply chain, everybody's struggling with the supply chain. We can't get parts. They're sitting in ports in LA or whatever is go that whatever we've been seeing the last couple of years.How can people turn that around when many think that's just part of the process? It seems that if somebody could turn around, that would make them stand out from everybody else too. Mark Lilly: Yeah. I think it's making folks look because even before all that happened, folks still struggled with getting their orders out on time.People realize this. So I think it's just bringing the shining a light even more. A lot of it can be helped internally. If they genuinely had visibility of when materials are coming in or even if they had the materials right now and also what their priorities should be based on the dependencies of what they're manufacturing and what jobs or work orders are through.Most are in danger of being late rather than trying to schedule things based on a due date. However, this is one of the things we find in a high-mix environment, and most scheduling programs or tools will attempt to prioritize your work on the due date, especially in a high-mix environment.You will have jobs that are due earlier. But that is less in danger of being late, just by how much work needs to happen on a job and whether it needs to go outside or back. So you could have a job that's due two months from now. That's much more in danger of being late today than if you don't get started on it than a job due even a week from now. Lisa Ryan: So how would you even figure that out?Mark Lilly: That's a great question. And that's what we do. We work with whatever data they have, whether in an E R P system or not.And we bring that into an approach where we create an execution plan for every work order. So you can see how much work needs to be done or for the quantity you're making when the due date is. And then there's actually, and whether folks realize it or not, they're using a lot of buffer time.So when you ask somebody, Hey, what's, what lead time are you quoting your customers? They may say six weeks. And then you ask this, the follow-up question to that. Okay. Of that six weeks. How much time is actual production time, right? Touch time. That will be on a machine, or somebody will be explicitly adding value to it.And that's typically their estimates of the routing from this operation steps that need to get done. So you often find that on a six-week lead time job, the actual touch time is a fraction of that. Sometimes only a week, sometimes days. Sometimes even hours. So companies are using a fair amount of buffer time between the actual time that's going to be needed and the due date.So we consciously look at that. We work with the clients that say, is that, say, five weeks of buffer time? Is that working for you? Is that, is it too much? In which case, maybe we have an opportunity to reduce that, or perhaps it's even too little, and maybe you need to expand that a little bit, be conscious about how much buffer time you're putting in there.The dynamic is then that the execution plan will flex based on quantity. Which lead times, don't lead times a static type of information but should be flexing based upon the quantity. And then that also designates when you need materials upfront. And when that job should start.Okay. Now when the job should start is important because what the other thing we often find. Manufacturers have this idea in production that, you know, gee, as soon as we have material, let's get it out into production. Because then it'll come out the other side as quickly. And no, you don't want a flood WIP with too much work.There's a principle called Littles Law, which says that there are more things or items in a system. So the longer the time, any of those items will be in the system. A good example is simply a highway. I live in the DFW area. And as you can imagine, we've got certain five-lane highways during rush hour, and you come over the, over the on-ramp, right?All are brake lights. And, you're going to be on that strip of highway, say it's, for five miles for 20, 25 minutes because there are so many cars on that highway. The flip side is you come up in the middle of the day or at night. And everybody's flying by you these fewer cars; you're going to be on that strip of the highway for five minutes or less.The same way in a production environment. The more work orders, the more jobs, and material you send into production. There's so much traffic. The longer the wait times are going to be on each of the work centers. A more extended period each it's just going to take to get through. That's why there's a lot of expediting at the end of the month.So you don't want to starve production, but you want to control how much you send out. And when you do that, whatever is in production has the best chance to flow through its work centers as quickly as possible to shorten your lead time and get out faster. Lisa Ryan: So that certainly sounds like some of the struggles manufacturers have with that traditional method of managing their production. But what are some of the other struggles that you're seeing that they're having when they're doing it the old way? Mark Lilly: Sure. So one of the things with the traditional scheduling model is that you are running a computer program. So you have to run a computer algorithm to get your plan.So you try to set up your parameters as best you can. You run this computer program that you, some folks, may understand precisely what it's doing. Others may not. And then you get this list then of priorities from the program. And even if it's, there's no such thing as a perfect plan, but let's suppose you have a good plan. That gets to the reality of production, especially in a high-mix environment where things constantly change. Then something does change. Whether a customer calls and changes a due date, a tool breaks your best setup person doesn't show up.The beautiful plan you had now doesn't make sense anymore. So it's probably not worth very much, so we realized there needs to be a dynamic production method. It recognizes, acknowledges, and anticipates that change will constantly happen in a production environment.So instead of devising a plan and executing it based on that, we do what we do and use those. So an individual execution plan for every work order and job also calculates a real-time priority. And it's very simple using where we are today.And how much is remaining on the execution plan, whether it's all the work or just a portion? And then, how much time protection or buffer do we have left to our due date? We call that a threat level. So based on that ratio, How much in danger of being late is each one of your jobs?And we publish that in real time, out in production, so that everybody in every department and every work center on every machine can see and know precisely which job they need to work on. So what is the top priority regardless of the due date, right? Like because, as we described, there may be jobs that need your attention now that are due later rather than other jobs.Lisa Ryan: So how much do you think this is costing the average manufacturer to have this late problem happening? Mark Lilly: That's a great question. As I mentioned, it's in the trillions on a macro level. When you ask most individual manufacturing companies, and if they're being honest, most will recognize that.Maybe in the eighties percentile in terms of on-time delivery. And many struggles with being in the sixties or seventies, even lower. So it's not easy, but you can imagine. And actually, we can pull their data in and show them what it would mean.To be able to ship, on the extreme, if they were, and they could do this math as well, certainly by looking at their backlog, if they were able to ship everything on time, what that would mean from a revenue standpoint. But knowing that they're not going to be, that 30% or even 20% of their orders will not make that deadline mark, they're going to fall into a later period.What is the financial impact of doing that? So you can imagine there's a tremendous opportunity if you can shift the bar even a little bit, so if you can go from 70 to 80 90 percentile, that change. So you're now shifting when you're going to be able to recognize that revenue, and it's a tremendous financial impact. Lisa Ryan: So when manufacturers are shifting and going to that dynamic production method, what are some of the results they're seeing? Mark Lilly: That's a great question. So there are three components, and I've touched on all of those in different ways. One is anticipating the variability. So have to make sure there's, you're acknowledging you're using a buffer today and talking about that. Where should that be? In terms of when we start jobs and when we need materials. So anticipating that variability using the proper priority.So instead of using the due date to schedule, use a risk level of how much in danger of being late. Or of having a stockout, if you're a make-to-stock tech company, are you that's the second one? And then the third is controlling WIP. So how much WIP do you see is once the method is in place and you're doing all three of those things, there's almost an immediate reduction in work and process.So if you are in a situation where, you know, and many manufacturers do just by walking out on the floor, they realize we've just got too much whip out here. Just so much an immediate reduction happens in just a few weeks. And that's a tremendous cost saving, right?So you can go to the cost accountant or the CFO of the company and ask them how much WIP are you carrying right now. And with this approach, we can reduce that in very short order. So do the math 30%, even 40% of your whip gone within a few weeks.That's a tremendous cost saving. But the bigger part is getting work out faster with the resources, the machines, and the people you're already using or paying for today. And now that becomes a contribution margin in the equation or some call that a throughput dollars equation. With our toolset, you can see this as well. Financially. You can see if I was, if I'm doing things the way I'm doing, now I can see how many dollars I will be able to ship. But if I could make these improvements or get things out faster, how much more in a given period would I be able to ship boats from a revenue standpoint, but even more powerful contribution? The neat thing about contribution margin is that any additive contribution margin you can bring in a given period goes right to the bottom line. So it's a direct profit increase for the company. So it's a very powerful lever to help a company grow and improve its finances.Lisa Ryan: When you have a high mix manufacturer and face it, nobody has enough time to do anything today. Everybody's plates are overflowing. So how would you even start prioritizing as far as figuring out your most significant risks and knowing where to start? Mark Lilly: That's a great question. And companies are in different stages of being able to implement something like this, right? So we go into some companies that already have an E R P in all their routings and data or are pretty, pretty accurate. So they reflect how production is happening, and we can tie in, but they may still struggle with its scheduling components or material visibility.We can tie in very quickly. And within a few short weeks, they can get those priorities. We talked about other companies in the future, and I've been in several of them even recently where they don't. They may have a system, but whatever data is in there, they don't believe it either. So here's how production happens.Maybe those routings were set up from a costing standpoint, accounting used, but when you get out to the shop floor, that's not how material flows. So they need to rework those. And then there are dependencies, often manufacturers who make the complex product where sub-assemblies are involved.So are those sub-assemblies specifically for a parent? So they need to be aligned very tightly, or are they common parts, common sub-assemblies that maybe even need to be stocked, in which case they also need to be aligned, but a little bit differently to make sure they're going to match whatever the first parent is, that's going to need them.So, that does need to be looked at. The good news is. Now we can't create data out of magic, but most folks have it in their heads or often have it on spreadsheets. That's what we usually see where folks have struggled with the traditional scheduling model. They have scheduled in their E R P.They may have even purchased a bolt-on. But, unfortunately, they've just struggled with it, and they revert to spreadsheets. So the good news is we can use those spreadsheets as a data source to help them move forward in this direction. Is there some trigger or sign or something to pay attention to that? Lisa Ryan: Wow. This is an issue that we need. Take care of it right away. Is there a timeframe or anything again that would be like that siren that, Hey, this is something you should be paying attention to right now? What does that look like? Mark Lilly: Yeah. If companies aren't already monitoring or measuring, they're on time delivery percentage. So they're not formally doing that. There are likely a few folks in the company who know how good or not that is undoubtedly sales customer service. And that's where the issue arises with customer relationship management, whether it's an existing customer complaining about not meeting the due dates they had established. Or not being able to win new business because of the lead time. If you're being honest and quoting a lead time, it may be longer than some of your competitors.Lisa Ryan: And face it, nobody on the planet likes change. So if you're bringing this kind of change into a manufacturing plant, how do you get buy-in from the employees to let them know that this isn't one more program, that it will fail in the next couple of weeks, or that this is going to help them? How do you incorporate the system so everybody sees the value and benefit? Mark Lilly: That is a great question. And a critical question. So typically, we don't get to the point where there's a financial commitment from the client to move forward without at least introducing this to production and getting some in that regard.But to your point, We have encountered situations. For example, we've got a modern machine shop article about keeping schedules on track. About that, that very point. We implemented this. We got management's buy-in. We had the big screen TVs and the workstations in production, showing the real-time priorities.Everything was wonderful. And eight weeks went by, and management said nothing had changed. We're still on time. Delivery is the same. Our WIP seems to be the same. So we did a deeper dive and realized we hadn't gotten buy-in from the production folks.They were still using their old message on a piece of paper,...

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturer's Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Jim Ver Woert. Jim is an enterprise solutions executive with tooling-U SME, a Society of Manufacturing Engineers division. Jim travels the country and collaborates with world-class manufacturers to develop workforce performance and training solutions. Jim, welcome to the show. Jim Ver Woert: Thanks so much, Lisa. It's a pleasure to be here. So share a little bit about your background and what ultimately led you to Tooling-U SME. Jim Ver Woert: Sure. I began my career in manufacturing, working for a very small industrial distributor out of Moline, Illinois. Unfortunately, they're no longer in business.They've been acquired like many industrial distributors have in the past. The company was called Deion Thompson, and my territory was central and Western Iowa. So the John Deeres, the Vermeer, and the Scour Dan Fosse, Dan FSEs of the world in my territory, and we supplied metal cutting tools and metalworking fluids to our customers.And it was interesting because this is, coming up 15 years ago, I would get the questions like, "Hey, Jim, do you know any good lathe operators? Do you know any good mill operators? Do you know any good welders?" And my answer was always the same back then, "I do know some of those people, but they already have a job."So even back then, I saw a significant need for a skilled workforce because help was hard to find. So along comes at the time Tooling University. As a workforce training and development tool, our company's management connected us with Tooling University. And that was one of them. I called bullets in my holster.It was one of the lines we represented, and it was a great marriage because of that tremendous need I kept seeing. Fast forward to about six and a half years ago. ToolingU SME had since been acquired by SME, this Society of Manufacturing Engineers. About six and a half years ago, they gave me a phone call, and here I am today and happy to do it because that need is as prevalent as it was 10, 15 years ago out in the middle of the cornfield of Iowa. I see it everywhere. I go coast to coast and border to border.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. And that's, it's such a huge aspect right now because you look at not only have we had the pandemic for the last, two and a half - 10 years is what it feels like. We had lots of baby boomers retiring beforehand. But now, there's even more of a mass exodus as we reassess our priorities. People are thinking, do I really want to end my career, or keep doing what I'm doing, or do I want to go and play with my grandkids and enjoy the rest of my life?So I'm sure you see that from both a training and an employee attraction standpoint, but let's talk first about how you see manufacturers retain that brilliance - the industry knowledge, the expertise, the skills that are walking out the door so that the next generation of workers can get a jumpstart.Jim Ver Woert: Great question. They are doing everything they can to retain them. But like you said to the worker, that's been, on the floor or in the office, 25, 30, 35 years. They're ready to play with their grandson and go fishing off into the sunset of retirement. Some of those employers don't retain them completely, but they will have them come back on a part-time basis as consultants.So they will retire yet have a gentleman's agreement, if you will, that, Hey, if we get in a pickle on the floor, and Bill was the only one that knew how to finish this part or to run this machine or to fix this machine when it went down, please be on call, and you'll agree to come in and help us out.Lisa Ryan: When we look at the flexibility, that is an expectation of employees too. We look at flexibility from younger workers coming in. That sounds like such a great way to take advantage of our more tenured employees, our skilled employees still keeping them relevant while giving them some money. But then again, addressing their need for spending time outside of work. So do you have examples or specific stories where you've seen that work? Jim Ver Woert: Yeah, I have one, I won't mention the name, but they're down the road from me here. They, I call it the Monday morning factor. They offered a bunch of early retirements because COVID really put into warp speed. A lot of these practices gave employees early retirement. Let's cut the budget. Back then, no one knew what was happening and then what the long-term effects were going to be.But they found out one of the immediate effects. They had let the wrong person go on Friday. And literally, on Monday morning, they were standing there trying to figure something out. Nobody knew how to do it because the person that knew how to do it was already retired. So that's, that's just the reality that we went through.Now, one thing that we have started helping customers with is, first of all, raising that awareness. And look at your pipeline of your employees. And look at that retirement pipeline - who's coming up in the next six months, year, two years? What is their skill set? What do they do? Are they in that a department of ten people that all do the same one person with that specific tribal knowledge that's getting ready to retire?But I've literally gotten those phone calls three or four years later. Hey, Jim, we got so and so retiring at the end of October. Can you folks get in here and help us capture as much as possible from this person before they walk out the door? Lisa Ryan: And it makes them feel relevant regarding the knowledge they're bringing, but then they're, you're really cutting down the learning. From the people coming up who don't necessarily know the history of why that job is being done that way, they're getting to hear it from an expert. Jim Ver Woert: Absolutely. You just hit on a very critical point - the whys behind something. We do so many things in our daily lives that become second nature. But, not knowing the whys behind things, why are we approaching this part at this certain entry angle? Why are we changing the tool at this point and not going another ten parts, all these things? And that's something that can get lost in a black-and-white world. There's AI. Robots and all these things are fantastic, but there's still that human element.Some parts are just irreplaceable until you do that mentoring or that one-on-one O J T or that training of the whys and the tribal knowledge to fully comprehend and understand and be able to produce a good part and continue. Lisa Ryan: So mentoring is another big area to do that where you're putting together your tenured employees and maybe your new kids on the block coming in and have them build those relationships and learn from each other. There could also be some reverse mentoring going on, with the younger folks being able to share their thoughts about technology and apps and the things that they're seeing. So again, let's look at and talk about mentoring for a couple of minutes. What are some of the best practices that you are seeing manufacturers do?Jim Ver Woert: Yeah, that's a great question. And you hit on a great point, too, that multi-generational mentoring, there's sometimes the more seasoned workforce, if you will, is not as familiar with technology as the younger workforce is. And if they could learn just a few little tricks or implement just a few things and apply them to their job, it would make their job much easier, faster, and quicker.But they've never had anybody they've been able to talk to and develop a relationship with. And the same goes the other way where, the whys, why do I have to manually do this when I can just punch a couple of numbers on my phone or punch a couple of numbers here?Certain things must be done a certain way to explain that and develop those mentoring relationships. And not only that, it's a passing of the guard, if you will. It's cultural, on a more personal level, to develop that sense of pride and that sense of workmanship and craftsmanship that so many of our seasoned workforce have developed. I call it the good old American know-how.Let's try to try to define that in one sentence. There are examples all across the country. I'll never forget one time, in my former job, there was a foundry that I called on. They made castings for the aerospace industry and the US military, and the guy kept telling me these are handcrafted castings. And I was like, what do you mean? What do you mean they're handcrafted? So he said they poured the castings and cut off the risers and the gate. So they do all this stuff but then take it to their shop. And by hand, they sand it here, and they sand it there, and they do this, and they do that.And then, there are different kinds of wood and various places in the castings and all these processes that took years, if not decades, to perfect. And that has to be a mentoring environment to pass that kind of craftsmanship onto the next generation. Lisa Ryan: And it works when that person shares the passion for it. You could hear that passion coming through just in you relating that story. It's castings, for goodness sake, but there was so much pride in what went into that process that a newer worker is coming when somebody is mentoring. And conveying some of that, listen, I've done this.You can do it too, and it will not happen overnight. So we will work together, and I will try to shortcut the process but let you experience some of that success. I think that too many times in manufacturing, we don't give people enough. Enough credit for their pride and what they do because they're pieces, parts, and components.We think they're doing the same thing every day, but it's magic when you find the right people, and they love what they do. Jim Ver Woert: It really is. And it becomes a family. I'll never forget a shop on the west side of Des Moines that I used to visit. This was a group of guys and gals whose number one goal was to be able to do things that all the other shops in the area could not. That was the work they wanted so that they could carry that banner higher than anybody else.And pat themselves on the back and fist pump and high-five each other at the end of the day. And it was a magical place to be in sometimes because when they got the secret sauce and cracked the code, I tell you what it was. So it was quite a special moment.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. And that's the thing, and you can feel culture. You can walk into any plant just by walking there and feeling the energy. Do people like working here? Do they not like working there? So not only from a customer standpoint but if you're interviewing applicants with a culture that doesn't feel good, there's no way they're accepting your job offer.Jim Ver Woert: Exactly. Exactly. And people pick up on that. People pick up on that. Lisa Ryan: So we've talked a lot about the more tenured workforce and the fact that we're losing them. But we also have to look at the opposite end of the scale of attracting more people into manufacturing, changing the conversations so that parents, guidance counselors, and the public generally realize what a great career path is.So when it comes to the training solutions, what do you see that world-class manufacturers are doing? What are some of the things that they're implementing? Jim Ver Woert: Yeah. Great question and great point. You mentioned parents and guidance counselors. That's precisely where it was at another large aviation company. The vice president said, if we don't get them at the junior high level or before, we've already lost them, and that's just critical, and it's literally retraining our culture.Here in the United States, and with all due respect to college graduates, that's great. We need them, but I think everybody could agree that not every single person that's drawn a breath of air is queued up and ready and a good fit to go to a four-year college. So just being able to give them options and letting them see different career pathways at an early age is critical. I sit on a board at a local high school with a great shop. They have about eight welding booths. They have a lay of the mill and a plasma cutting table. And when I go to those meetings a couple of times a year to listen to those instructors, talk about their students and the things that excite those students where they got their first small 3d printer.And they let them pick whatever they wanted to print, like a small airplane or a small guitar pick or whatever their passion was, go ahead and do that. And boy, those kids were walking up and down the hallways of the school, showing them off to all their friends, saying, Hey look, what I made I had, of course, had to program it, had to get the machine set and do all these things. It really energized him. I think it's that energy, that spirit we were talking about before. Capturing that and generating that in the younger generation is essential. Because again, and excuse me if I'm going on and on. I remember going to Southern Wisconsin for training in my former job and hearing about all the shop classes, high schools, and community colleges closing left and right. And that's such a heavy German, industrial part of the country. So many German tool companies are headquartered there in the Milwaukee area. And to hear that it's just really a cultural blow to our country.So I think the good news is you're doing things like this. Those conversations are happening. There are people like Mike Rowe talking out there on a higher, even bigger stage, maybe just raising this awareness and engaging anybody and everybody that'll listen. We need manufacturing for security, safety, and services that our people are accustomed to.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. In high school, I took both wood shop and metal shop. Primarily because I didn't want to take home EC, it was just fun, and you're right. And then, for years, all those programs disappeared, and it is so nice to see them returning. Our community college here in Cleveland, Cuyahoga Community College, has a whole manufacturing technology Center.We're starting to see the schools that are opening up. But, still, you made a significant point that if you don't get them by junior high, you've lost them because that's the generation that's coming into the workforce now that by the time they graduate high school, they already have an idea of what they're going to do.So using things like manufacturing day, the first Friday in October, and trying to get into the schools talking to people, talking to parents, doing plant tours. I was just at a facility a couple of weeks ago. And when I was pulling into the parking lot, they had all of their signs, join our team, great hours, great work culture. And the thing that, of all the signs, the one that gets the most action is, "work with your hands." So they have a billboard that says if you want to work with your hands, join us. Because there's something that immediate gratification of being able to create something of being able to see, this is what I made. And you're right. Why go to a four-year college if you're not cut out for it and come out with all that student loan debt and flip burgers? Jim Ver Woert: Can I share some stories from the road? Lisa Ryan: Absolutely. Jim Ver Woert: To highlight this. And again, it's to, to no fault of their own. I always joked about myself when I started in this industry. I didn't know the difference between an end mill and a windmill. Cause you don't know what you don't know. And it's not your fault. But I'll never forget. I drove through South Carolina four years ago and listened to one of the local radio stations. The University of South Carolina studied high school students in the state and concluded that around 80% of high school students did not know how to change a light bulb. Why? Because they've never had to do it before. I'm sure their parents love them dearly. I'm sure they would do anything for them, but I think sometimes parents might do a little too much for children.Go ahead. How do you think we should change that light bulb? What do you think? Maybe turn it off. Let it cool down for a little bit. So when you touch it, it's not hot going back to some of that tribal knowledge to some of that mentoring, you know why you have to do this. So there's one story.The other story is that I got this in many places. One of the first things they would do when they were looking to hire an applicant is to give them a tape measure and ask them, "Show me five and three quarters." They didn't. They had no idea what they were saying because they'd never held to take measure in their entire life.And the last one was the screwdrivers. They had some new maintenance, younger people, and they were talking amongst themselves, and they said, oh, that's not the minus. That's the plus screwdriver. Wow. That's a description for Flathead and Phillips. Lisa Ryan: Wow. That just highlights what we were talking about earlier - the need and opportunity ahead of us. The good news is that the only place we can go is up now.It's just so funny you say that because my dad had his wood shop in the basement while I was growing up. I can't tell you how many hours down there. I'd be down there watching him look at the tool, work with the tools, and stuff like that. And just things that you take for granted.I had one of the guests on my show a while ago, Miranda Martz, who I actually met at ToolingU. Her dad fixed cars, and she would go and watch her dad, and fix cars along with him. And just that little thing is what decided her whole career. So that's a thing. Maybe parents aren't necessarily changing their oil and stuff, but getting your kids involved in your hobbies, what you're passionate about, looking for ways to introduce them, changing a tire. Now, mind you, I know how to change a tire. I just have AAA. So I choose not to.I think about light bulbs. It's like these things blow out once every ten years. So none of us are really changing light bulbs that often. But it's the point of just knowing the necessities and exposing kids at as young of an age as possible because there's going to be a small percentage of them that are going to say, that's what I want to do.Jim Ver Woert: I will say the good news is the, I think, what is it, the gen Z this latest generation is taking the bull by the horn. There's some really good interest being generated. So maybe we're already generating some interest and lighten that spark and thank the good Lord that's happening because manufacturing is so important and critical to our country. Especially in this day and age, you don't want to depend on other countries.I won't name any names for things that are just important, medicine, food, shelter, energy. There's so much that goes into us. Just being able to live a good life comes from the manufacturing industry. I'll never forget one of the best t-shirts I saw "And on the eighth day, God created tool and die makers."There you go, just let that set and sizzle for

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturer's Network Podcast. Our guest today is Mark Gilham. Mark is a rebate expert, director, and evangelist at Enable, a SAS solution for B2B rebate management used by manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers across 50 states. Mark started his career at a major financial institution and progressed to senior finance roles in the construction industry, where he witnessed firsthand the strategic value of rebates. Mark, welcome to the show.Mark Gilham: Hi, Lisa. Thank you for having me on.Lisa Ryan: Please share a little about your background and what led you to be an evangelist for rebates.Mark Gilham: Sure. It's quite a job title. I started nearly a decade ago after moving out to the financial industry. And I went into the construction industry, where I went to an organization with hundreds of millions of pounds of rebates.And what they realized was they needed financial controls. So, for example, a bank would have to manage all this money because this rebate was multiple their profit. So I was brought in and worked with them for many years optimizing the administration side. And as we optimized that, we moved into how to enhance the management and laterally into how we add strategic value with our rebates and look at how they're used commercially. And yeah, it's been, as I said, a big journey, and then more recently, I transitioned over to Enable. as you mentioned, they provide software that manages rebates. We were inclined to use Enable throughout this whole time. And what's been great is that they're coming over to help the industry rather than just the company I was working for. So for me, it's not about the software. This is more about how we strategically use rebates to add commercial value.Lisa Ryan: And when you're talking about rebates, I know in the past they have had a bad reputation where people have used them to either mask pricing or come up with these complicated schemes that made it almost impossible for you to get your money back. What's changed? And how is it benefiting manufacturers?Mark Gilham: One of the biggest challenges I see now is this reputation in the past about rebates. When I started at Grafton, you could see that they were not used for mutual growth. There were a lot of schemes there that were benefiting one side more than the other.And there were almost seen as a necessary evil in business relationships. And what's changed is that companies have become more digitally aware and mature. So I think that the whole business relationship has changed. In the old days, I believe businesses were not as collaborative as they are today and didn't recognize back then the importance of working together for mutual benefits because of that shift. That's how trading deals are structured to benefit everybody. And rebates are part of that shift. By making them more transparent and bringing them out into the open, everybody can see their influence on a business starting to take them into place. I want them to be a strategic tool, but for mutual benefit.Lisa Ryan: Can you give examples of what a manufacturer would use a rebate for? How do they work?Mark Gilham: There are many use-case scenarios, but if we go to a simplistic scenario, let's say you manufacture two product ranges. You've got one product range, which is your staple product which you sell high volumes of. But that's not where your margin is. That's not your highest margin range. Then you have a second range in which the lower volume, the higher margin you could offer your customer.A rebate that says, if you buy in this particular ratio of the two ranges from us, 25% of your sales are in that, in the higher margin range, I will provide you with a rebate across whether it be just that range or all your buying. So you're trying to subtly have the customer buy both ranges from you and not just press on the low margin where you, as a manufacturer, are working hard but without the return you want. And that's one scenario, another where say, the margin isn't as important. It could just be a simplistic growth incentive.For example, our customers spend for last year, add a certain percent to it or do it on, on, on a volume basis and incentivize them for growth. And you can tier that as well, that as their growth keeps going, they keep getting more rebates. And the beauty of both schemes is that it is also building loyalty.There's a secondary benefit. These are typically annual terms, meaning the customer will spend with you all year. And then, at the end of the year, you will give them cash, but my advice would always be to pay credit notes. So you put a credit on their account for this rebate, which they then got to spend with you again through the credit.There are quite a few benefits. First, your customer is getting what they want, which is always crucial. You're already giving them excellent service, but this is now giving them control over their pricing. And you are getting what you want. You are either influencing your mix or your volumes and incentivizing loyalty.Lisa Ryan: Yeah, that certainly sounds like you're developing relationships because everybody likes to get a nice check or a nice rebate at the end of a year. I know we have Costco in the United States here, and we look forward to that rebate check we get every year. But I liked what you said too, about the opportunity to sell a wider variety of products to get more of your product line. Because often, customers may not even know that you carry that one product because they've been buying the other thing for you for a long time. That gives you additional opportunity to penetrate that customer with more and more products and, as you say, builds some nice loyalty there.Mark Gilham: I think people don't realize how rebates are part of our everyday life, whether it's I see point schemes as a form of a rebate, anything where you are incentivized to do something, and then you receive something retrospectively as a reward for me is a form of a rebate type arrangement.And all the big retailers have been using them for decades. And clearly, they're doing. They're achieving something for themselves. And yeah, there is something, as you say, about seeing how you are performing and stretching yourself to that net next tier. And if I put the boots on the other foot here as a distributor as the.We would sit through multiple meetings in the latter part of the year and look at all our trading relationships with our manufacturers and say, where have we got an opportunity to spend a load of money and earn more rebate? And the manufacturers aren't even their salespeople aren't even having to come into our office.We're proactively discussing how we can spend more money without a manufacturer. And to add to that, we're then bringing in our sales teams and saying we're about to spend twice as much with this manufacturer as we usually would because it will make us this tremendous sum.We're going to take half about six big of sum, and we're going to throw that into a sales promotion. So how do we all work together? And then we knock on the manufacturer's door and say, Hey, good news. We're about to spend a load of money with you. And that, for me, is what these things are about. And like you say, we are just looking forward to that reward.Lisa Ryan: Now, how would you start the conversation? Because, as I said, we're from a consumer standpoint, I understand rebates because for Discover Card, that's how they built their whole reputation with 2% cash back. But how do you structure the conversation when you're in a business relationship with people so you're promoting the benefit and it doesn't sound icky, or it doesn't sound like a bribe? Ooh, if you buy this, I'm going to give you this. How would you get into that conversation? that you're going, that win, win that you've been talking about?Mark Gilham: Sure. I think what's important is understanding what your client wants. Then, in going into that conversation, what you want. And I believe in most business or negotiations; there is a negotiation. And for me, that's where rebates play well. I'd be surprised if they don't always knock on your door and ask for a lower price. You can offer them that lower price using a rebate.You can say we can't just give something out, nothing, but if you do X, Y, and Z, we can get you to that price. So for me, they're an alternative to saying no, they the other thing as well is I think in the modern world of transparency, it's essential to be open and genuine with your customer.More recently, it was packaging material. This company was developing an Ecoline that's good for the environment. And they came and knocked on it and said, we'd like you to buy or this Ecoline, but surprise price is higher. And we're sat there going; you know what, we want to be green. We want these, our eco credentials. But we don't want to damage our profitability in the process. How can we do this? And that's where that ratio element came in. They said okay, let's start slowly. But they didn't want to discount the range because what if they'd have discounted their eco range to make it credible or competitive?Should I say it's challenging to recover from that you've created a pricing point or a price perception in your product's market? Whereas the net price is subtly arranged behind the scenes. It is about understanding what each side wants and working toward that narrative.Lisa Ryan: And it also sounds like it brings in the element of fairness because you can justify why I heard this person got this pricing. It's no. We're getting the same. You're getting the same price, but because of the quantity they're buying and the rebate they're receiving, they're doing it.It gives you that justification instead. Somebody thought they got a higher price because they didn't negotiate as well as the other company. Would that play a part in it? Am I reading that right?Mark Gilham: Yeah. And I think this is where you can empower your clients to be in charge of their own pricing.We've encountered scenarios before where one of the most where you get the most friction in a negotiation is right at the start. When you talk about the price because as much as the client can promise volume, you never know if it's genuinely going to be achieved, and the seller does not want to give the discount because they haven't got the volume yet.And the buyer doesn't want to buy anything because they haven't got the price they want yet. Whereas you, with a rebate, can take it away. You can tell them that you promise me if you deliver the volume. You will get this price, which is the price. Hopefully, you are asking for it. If you do even more volume, it gets cheaper.If you do less volume, it gets more expensive. What it does is it allows related pricing in volume. Driven relationships to be dynamic without having to have awkward and challenging conversations. Lisa Ryan: And especially at the beginning of a relationship when the two have not built trust yet. Both are trying to think that the other is trying to take advantage of them, where you had mentioned earlier about that level of transparency and putting it out there and making it easy for them to understand that they can see how this is more of a win.Mark Gilham: Yeah. And it comes back to that word again, that transparency.It is critical in modern supply chains that both sides work together and collaborate for mutual benefits.Lisa Ryan: have you seen other ways these B2B rebates improve margins and drive revenue from manufacturers? Yes.Mark Gilham: If we look to another real-world scenario at Enable, we had a case where a business didn't have any rebates.And yet they came to a rebate management software provider and said, Hey guys, we don't have rebates, but we're thinking about having some, but we're not quite sure how they can benefit our business, but somebody has told us rebates will help. So I was brought in, and they explained the scenario.The scenario for them as they had two different types of customers, and those customers were competing with each other and driving the value of their product down because one customer bought in bulk and had a lower price. And the other customer bought in single units at a higher price. They had different prices.The one who bought in bought did have a lower net price. And the suggestion there was you, what you could do is you could increase the invoice price of the one who buys in bulk and give them that back as a rebate. So on the face of it, both sides are paying the same amount. Because in many B2B worlds, many people in charge of pricing tend to be cost-plus.If you affect that cost without restricting it to trading, you can stop that kind of that competition. Hopefully, any manufacturer agrees that the more money your customer can make from their product, the better it is to be you because the less likely they will come knocking on the door, wanting it cheaper.Your customers getting into pricing competitions is the last thing you do. So that was a real example of rebates used in a scenario where it was just leveling the playing field at the front end but rewarding at the back end. And I suppose; secondly, another good one is new product ranges.If you've got a new product range, again, you can go with the discounting option and push it out at a lower price. But the danger is that the market never then recovers from that initial price point, or what you can do is incentivize using rebates to try. What you can do with the rebate is it doesn't just have to reward what you bought in that range.It could reward all the customers spend. Again, looking at that 25% ratio, you can tell your customer that if you buy X of this, I'll give you an extra 2% back on everything. You can make it quite appealing. I think the key always is to do the math and make sure you're happy with it, but the good thing amount of rebate is that you know what you're going to pay out because if you've done all the maths, they should always be rewarding.And yeah, self-funding scheme. And they can be undone. Whereas a discount is harder to undo once somebody's paid the price, rebates the following year, you can renegotiate the rebate structure and say it was 25%. For example, we now want it to be 30% in this ratio.Lisa Ryan: And again, it goes back to that loyalty because if somebody knows that they have a significant rebate coming from you from the business they've done with you. They continue to be happy with the product, service, and everything else they're getting; the chance of them going elsewhere seems to decrease.Yeah. It makes you very sticky as and I think, being completely honest, there were manufacturers in my last role at Grafton that we probably would've moved away from. But, still, we couldn't because we were in this kind of rebate circle where rebates were that rewarding tool, so when we had paid them out, we had to keep spending to spend them through.At that point, we'd already earned another round of rebates that we didn't want to forfeit. So it creates a stickiness, but it's a positive stickiness. It is rather than a threat. It's a reward, if that makes sense.Lisa Ryan: if somebody was intrigued by the idea of rebates but has no idea how to get started or what types of products would be suitable, to begin with? How does somebody even consider, with a wide range of products that they manufacture, how they could start offering rebates or getting involved in a rebate program?Mark Gilham: I think that there are two sides to that. I think the first is I would always recommend keeping it simple to start with and do not offer if you've never worked with VH before, don't offer them to every customer, like a couple of customers, some simple agreements.And monitor, understand what you're expecting, and you can monitor if the customer's mix is currently at 23% and you've incentivized them to go to 25, you can monitor that. You can see if it's working. Is the reward big enough for what you're trying to incentivize? So that, that's my kind of, one of my biggest caveats. Because I accept as much as the company I work for offers rebate software doesn't mean everybody will go out and buy rebate software. Don't. Start small. And you probably won't get it right the first time. So, start small and keep learning from it. Understand what incentive, how much incentive is required to drive behavior and what type of incentive.And then secondly is the important transparency piece. Suppose you are trying to reward somebody's behavior over a while. In that case, they need to see how they're tracking because otherwise, if you are, I think if you look at any high-performing activity in the world, it's essential to know where you're at to push your performance further.They're the kind of the basic tips, but then secondly, I think, Enable as an example for us, we're not just about the software. We're trying to build a community where people can use rebates correctly. My role was the evangelist. This is what I'm evangelizing.I'm trying to move beyond. The concept of these rebates is creating friction and using rebates the right way. I'm happy to help people and learn how to use rebates correctly. I'll, for example, be doing a few webinars on that type of thing, but I'm always happy to speak to people one-to-one. And you explain to them how we may benefit them.Lisa Ryan: would you maybe take a look at a pilot program? You said there'd be a couple of customers, perhaps they pick a couple of great customers that have a relationship with, and they say, listen, we're putting together a, we're experimenting with a rebate program, and we'd like you to be part of the pilot.Would that be something else they could do, or does that not?Mark Gilham: Yeah. I think that's a good piece of advice. A couple of customers you trust and ask them, get, and gain their feedback throughout the process. And because again, it comes back to that, to me, transparency and collaborative or not selective, you're either collaborating, or you're not, you're either transparent, or you're not, you can't pick and choose when you're going to be those things.And for me picking a client you can work with and working to those fundamental principles throughout is good advice. And yeah, you will learn much because, coming back to the first point, this incentivizes a behavior. So, you've got to make sure you can measure two things there: the incentive's size and the behavior you're trying to dry. So, the behavior is what you are getting back, and the incentive is what your customer is getting back. So, you need to ensure that the behavior reward is greater than the incentive you're paying.And hopefully, the two are very easily trackable. And both from your side and your client's side.Lisa Ryan: Okay. Awesome. As we get to the end of our time together, if somebody did want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way for them to do...

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturer's Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today. Scott Hanton. Scott is a Ph.D. chemist with over 30 years of experience in the lab who has recently changed careers to media. He is now the group editorial director at lab manager, responsible for the editorial team for four science-based brands. So Scott, welcome to the show.Scott Hanton: Thank you, Lisa. I'm happy to be here.Lisa Ryan: Scott, please share a little about your background and what led you to do what you're doing.Scott Hanton: It's an interesting story. I was a good student. I liked math and science. So I got a Ph.D. in science, and I thought my path was clear until one day, my boss came to me and said he wanted me to be a supervisor. And then he wanted me to be a group manager - and that's not what science is. But he saw things that I didn't see in myself. So it's been a great journey being a lab manager for a long time. And then, more recently, taking this knowledge into the media, working for some magazines where my goal is to share my experience as a longtime scientist and lab manager with people who are in those careers or who wish to be in those careers.My goal is to help them prevent the scrapes, bumps, and scars I have from learning it on the job, and maybe I can facilitate a little learning and make their journey a little more pleasant.Lisa Ryan: One of the things that you just said about your manager seeing more in you than you saw in yourself. That's a mark of what makes up a good manager because they are not always the easiest people we report to, but for some reason, they see bigger things than we see in ourselves.See, what happens is that people get it. I was one of them. I was so focused on the tactical work that needed to be done that I didn't realize I had broader strengths and skills that could benefit the organization. So I needed someone to point it out. And that lesson wasn't lost on me. I've done it as a manager as well.Lisa Ryan: You and I connected at an event I was speaking at, and I was intrigued by a couple of things you're doing. Number one, the focus on the workplace culture that you have. But also the fact that you have a remote team right now. It has been a real struggle for some people in these last two and a half years. How do you connect with people when you're not sitting in the room, drinking coffee with them? With culture, what are some of the things that you've seen, that you've done, that you've incorporated, that have helped you in your career?Scott Hanton: When it was time for me to leave the lab environment and start something new, one of the things I specifically looked for was a company with a positive organizational culture. One of the things that I liked about the LabX media group is right on their webpage. When talking to potential recruits, they state that we have a positive culture. I was looking for that as part of my next career, I'd had enough grind in the laboratories, and I needed to do something surrounded by people enjoying themselves. I can see it in this culture. Some of the things that I like about this culture is they know how to celebrate.We stop and cheer each other on. We thank each other for the work that we've done, and it doesn't always happen at year-end. It occurs along the way when the projects get done. Another thing that I like about the culture is that it's candid. We can speak our minds. We say what's important, and that's everybody in the room. It could be the newest employee in the most junior position. The room will stop and listen, no matter how many gray-haired people like me are around the table. We value everyone's opinion, and we can candidly discuss what we want to accomplish or what's going wrong without anybody feeling like that was a dumb idea. I don't have the authority to speak, or my experience isn't noteworthy. Those things make for a fun place to work. And besides the fact that the people are awesome, it's just an absolute joy to work with them.Lisa Ryan: I think it's about creating that safe environment. I was listing to an audiobook by Gary Vaynerchuk, and he was talking about radical candor and being okay with being respectful, but that open, honest what's going on, no matter what position they are in the organization. So everybody feels safe sharing their opinions.Scott Hanton: Yeah. Our leaders are responsible for providing emotional and psychological safety for everyone in the organization. You can't.Lisa Ryan: How do you think that happened? Was it always like that, or did it take somebody to come in and start the process? Because in the beginning, it seems that employees would test you as far as how much they can get away with before they realize that this is real, and we really can.Scott Hanton: The company started small with people who trusted each other. They needed every idea they could get their hands on in an entrepreneurial spirit. And so they were successful by trusting people, taking their ideas, and pushing them out into products and the marketplace. And that then became part of the culture. I think our owner, Bob Kado is just a wise man; he attracts talent and listens to them. That's a hallmark to me of a successful business.Lisa Ryan: Being open to people who may not know the industry but see the world differently. They have different access to technology. They have additional knowledge levels. Even though they don't know your industry doesn't mean that they can't come up with some really good ideas if they just listened.Scott Hanton: For example, we hired a new person maybe a month ago. The project that we hired her for was a little late to start. She had a little time on her hands at the beginning, and now she's come up with a software application that none of us had ever heard of. But it will now be a critical new product for all the four brands I'm responsible for.And it was just a blank sheet of paper; on it was a new idea. But she had skills, knowledge, and understanding none of us had. So even though she was in her first month, this idea was recognized. It's been celebrated, and we are pushing it forward right now.Lisa Ryan: Wow. So what are some of the things that you do to celebrate?Scott Hanton: One of the things that I do specifically remember is that every meeting I host is a remote team. We're all squares on a screen. The very first agenda item for every meeting is celebrations. Every team member is encouraged to participate. No one's forced to share, but we encourage people to share and want to get well beyond the work celebrations.We want the family, the children, the grandparents. We want all the celebrations. And that starts a lot of nice discussion at the beginning of our meetings and allows us to get to know the people better and what's important to them. So I budget 10% of every meeting I run as this informal sharing time starts with celebrations.Lisa Ryan: Wow. And that's so important because let's talk about that from the remote team standpoint. You're starting with celebrations. What are some of the other ways? Because not only are you running a remote team but you were hired remotely. So it's not like you ever worked together in person. All of a sudden, poof, overnight, you started that way.So take us back to the beginning regarding initial contact, building the relationships, and how that has blossomed into what you've made it today.Scott Hanton: I was hired during the pandemic, and we were still figuring out how to do remote onboarding. It was a struggle, but one of the things that benefited me was I was given a mentor or an onboarding coach, somebody I could go to any time with any kind of dumb question.And I did. I asked lots of dumb questions. And that process benefited me so much that now we use it for all our new hires. They get an onboarding coach. Who's not their supervisor, right? People are reluctant to ask their supervisor what they think might be dumb questions or to ask the same question five times.But the whole role of this onboarding mentor is to do that. And to make them feel comfortable and show them access to information, but also model for them. What behaviors are a success? And so we choose the people we want, their behaviors modeled, and copy them.Lisa Ryan: So, are they peers? Are they colleagues? What level in the organization do your onboarding coaches come from?Scott Hanton: They can come from anywhere. Most of the time, it's peers, simply because we have most of those employees. But if the right onboarding mentor is above them, hierarchically in the organization, or below them in the organization, that doesn't matter. It's about how they can help the new employee.Lisa Ryan: In many of the programs I do, onboarding is a vital part of the retention process because you have that vulnerable time between when the offer is made and when the person starts.And if they don't feel connected with you, whether it be phone calls, a welcome email, a welcome package, or a swag bag in the mail sent to them, you want to make that first day magical. In your case, it sounds like they have the onboarding coach. But whoever that connection is, just make it as memorable as possible.It sounds like you've done some great things with onboarding. Anything else besides that coach that has also helped in that process?Scott Hanton: We actively plan a new employee's first day, the first week, and the first month. The hiring manager is responsible for long checklists of activities that need to be accomplished but that all of us on the team contribute to. We won't make that just what you said. We want to make that experience memorable and magical to make them feel included quickly. Belonging is a really powerful force for most of us as humans. We want most people want to belong, and we want people to feel like it's easy to belong with us.We sand down the rough edges, fill in the potholes, and make that path to complete belonging as easy as possible. We also craft 30, 60, and 90-day objectives so they know immediately what's expected of them, and they'll get feedback right away to help correct issues or to help them find the people or the information they need.Most people want to feel like they're contributing. They're getting paid and want to be attached to the organization's purpose and mission. And they don't want just to be reading all the time. So we want to get them to the point where they're actively contributing to the organization as quickly as possible.Lisa Ryan: Taking that extra step, being remote, and letting them know the goals, so they're not flailing, like where swim with the sharks and see if you sink or swim.Scott Hanton: As a remote organization, it's hard for someone unsure to wander down the hall and ask questions. The hallway is virtual. They may not know who they need to wander into. And so a lot of what we're doing in the first month is introducing them to a wide range of people, not just the name and the face and the role, but what are they doing? How can they help? What sort of knowledge do they have and then set up meetings?So they get comfortable talking to these people and feel like they can set up a little zoom call, a 10-minute one, and get a question answered, just like they might wander down a hallway in a brick and concrete environment. Is that something that you set the one-on-one meetings with different people, the various introductions for those 10-minute meetings? How do those happen?Scott Hanton: As soon as their email is active in our system. Before day one, we schedule meetings for them. The hiring manager will prepare a wide range of meetings with people. It shows up on their calendar right away when they show up and shows them the people that they need to know.We'll review that list of people with them, so they have context, and they're not just going into a meeting blind.Lisa Ryan: Wow. It makes so much sense to do that. Let's go back to day one. What does day one look like for that person?Scott Hanton: So there's a formal company onboarding run by our HR department, and they're going to go through the whole company and the procedures, the employee handbook. One thing I like about this company is it has an employee handbook that makes sense. It's not legalese. We document. They go through that in detail. We'll go through it. Where is information stored? How do the different systems work? And it's not a 15-minute. She usually schedules two hours.There is lots of time for questions and interaction to ensure that the person has a good foundation. The next step is to talk to the hiring manager directly; they should have had multiple conversations. That person who led the interview probably communicated the offer, right?There's been a lot of interaction between the new person and the hiring manager before day one. But now it's to reinforce. We are so excited to have you here. Here are the reasons we are so excited, and let's start talking about how you can help. First, we'll go through our objectives. Then, we'll begin with the roadmap.We'll give the background information about the people we're going to meet, but we also want to leave time for questions. And in every meeting along this onboarding journey, we'll probe the new employee for what questions they have because none of us are mind readers, and I might think the onboarding process was designed very well.We make it tailored to the individual. And the only way to do that is to make it safe enough for them to speak their mind. And that starts on day one. Then the group manager will interact with the person to discuss the broader role, the bigger organization, and the purpose. And in many times day, one's done.But now we're going to get into meeting the teammates and figuring out how they fit into this team so they can learn from them. They can bring their skills and talents, and we can do something new and exciting.Lisa Ryan: Let's back it up a little bit, even more. How do you determine the right people even to hire? How do you figure out who will be successful in this remote environment?Scott Hanton: I saw this line from Southwest airlines years ago, and it was a higher attitude and trained skill. We are looking for people with the right attitude who will join and contribute to our group and company culture and not detract from that culture. We have certainly looked at resumes that are fantastic, right? You would expect all the big gold stars from a resume, but after a phone screen, it's like, No, it doesn't mesh with where we want to go. Isn't showing any kindness, compassion, or empathy, and those are things you've got to have to be successful in this virtual environment? As far as the skills, we can train them.We have people who can train them. Suppose we find somebody with the passion and perseverance we're interested in. If they don't have a particular skill, we'll teach them, and we're not going to let you know some perceived gap in a resume stop us from hiring the proper human being.Lisa Ryan: Wow. And this is all the remote, but before you started, before you had this remote career, you also saw a culture from the in-person. One of my favorite things that we've talked about is, of course, the red bandana. So tell us some of what you did with your culture and what I'm talking about.Scott Hanton: What Lisa is referring to is a long career in analytical research labs and contract labs, and the lab life can be a grind. People are executing these tactical bench experiments, and their hard life in a research lab is complex and challenging. We have to support each other. One of the ways that I wanted to support the lab staff was to be directly available to them in times of crisis. Every new employee received a red bandana on day one from me, and the concept was here is your red flag. I'm the general manager of the organization. And I'm a very busy human being.And I attend meetings all the time, and I'm on calls all the time. I can't walk down the hallway without somebody stopping me. But if there's a problem and you think I can be part of the solution, seek me out and throw that red banner at me. If I'm in the middle of a meeting, maybe I'm in on a call with a customer, and if that red flag comes flying, you are now my top priority. If it comes washing with tears, blood, or some other indicator of urgency, then I'm going to excuse myself from that meeting. And I'm going to give my full attention to that employee. It worked. I would get about one red bandana monthly with something truly important to the individual.And sometimes, they were things that I could readily fix a decision that I needed to make. Other times they were complex, big picture, strategic issues that took time and energy to address. But if they don't throw the red bandana at me, I don't know. It's a crisis for them. And it may be a lower priority for me.One of my best days in the lab was walking past a conference room and hearing two employees talking, one saying you should throw that red bandana and the other saying, " Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure it's that important. And the other one's saying, do you believe it's that important?Yes. Then you should. And I kept walking down the hallway, but within minutes, somebody chased me back to my office and threw a red bandana at me. And that told me that this process worked, that the staff reinforced it. And they trusted that things might not be solved if they threw the red bandana, but they would be better. The person was going to be supported through whatever their crisis.Lisa Ryan: I think the fear that people listening to that idea would have is that you would just have people throwing willy-nilly, throwing red bandanas at you all day long. But when you take the opportunity to trust your employees that these are red bandana moments, they trust you that you will act.Scott Hanton: That's right. It was never a problem from the first day that I instituted it. I bought 30 or more red bandanas because I had to start one day with all the employees in the lab. It was never a problem. Did I get two in a day? Sure. But did I get one from one individual every day or every week? No, it was not a problem.Lisa Ryan: You have a good point. It is valuable to leadership to trust the staff. If you correctly do your recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, and developing, they've earned our trust.Scott Hanton: Exactly. It's creating that culture where it's safe for people.Lisa Ryan: There are way too many times too, that, and in, in your case, it doesn't sound like you had a lot of those people, but there's always going to be employees that are going to take advantage of you. There's a tiny percentage. You try these things, and they try to jack the system. But unfortunately, many managers make their...

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm here today with Claude Goguen. Claude is a civil engineer from Canada and works for the national precast concrete association, a trade association representing precast concrete manufacturers throughout North America.He's been with NPCA for 14 years and mainly works on training and outreach. So Claude, welcome to the show.Claude Goguen: Thank you very much for having me.Lisa Ryan: So share a little about your background and what led you to do what you're doing with NPCA.Claude Goguen: I graduated with a civil engineering degree in Moncton, New Brunswick, this little town on the east end of Canada. And it was poor timing for me for graduation because the local economy was in a bit of a rough shape. So I expanded my job search and got hired by a precast manufacturing company in Columbus, Indiana. So I packed my Chevy cavalier at the time and drove 30 hours Southwest to a new land of new opportunities.And I ended up working there for ten years or so and then worked for general contractors and developers in Indianapolis, staying in Indiana. And finally, I ended up back in precast, where NPCA hired me in 2008.Lisa Ryan: wow. So what is it that you like best about precast? What's kept you in the industry for so long?Claude Goguen: Good question. I love concrete. I've always since I've been in construction. I've loved working with concrete, and precast concrete is a great industry because we get to make these amazing things out of concrete and then let them cure, and you can ship them out. It's almost like making art pieces, even for a manhole, sewer, or things. But just the idea and working with members and manufacturers have been a great industry from both sides. I've been on the precaster side and also on the association side. And it is a growing industry. It's something that even though concrete's been around for such a long time and seems such an ancient construction material, the technology behind concrete and the increasing new technologies that are coming out are so exciting. So it's still an evolving material in a sense. So I gravitate toward that.Lisa Ryan: And especially since you're talking about concrete being the number two most used material resource on the planet with water being number one. And you said it'd been around forever. So what are you seeing in these new technologies that are super cool?Claude Goguen: In a world of admixtures, these chemicals that they put in the concrete. Concrete is cement, water, and aggregates. From time to time, some of us will make our own concrete to put a fence post in or something like that in the backyard.And that's still what's used today, except for the cement. The cementitious material varies more and more. You've got your regular Portland cement, and then you've got other types of cementitious materials. Some of them that are from another industry. They're waste from a different industry, coal or steel manufacturing. The chemicals they're making that make the concrete do one thing or another, either in its fresh state or hardened state, are just amazing.And now, they are looking at concrete on a nanoscale. They study how to alter its properties and make it even better and more durable on a nanoscale. If I were to tell you that a nanometer is about my hair growing, my hair grows about a nanometer a second. So that gives you an idea of how small a nanometer is, and they are studying concrete on that smaller scale. And then 3d printing of concrete they're working on, and new things are always coming up.Lisa Ryan: Wow. So what are they printing? I saw one of those home shows where they printed houses out of concrete. So what other things are they printing out of concrete?Claude Goguen: They're printing bridge components for small pedestrian bridges. I know there was a bridge overseas in Europe that they 3d printed. But mostly, it's above-ground structures. For example, you said, a house or building panels or things that because the technology's still relatively new. The challenge is putting reinforcing in that printed concrete so it can withstand the intended loads. But it's an exciting industry, not just printing the concrete itself but printing other things that can be used to form and make precast concrete. So there are other uses for it.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. That's what I love about my speaking career. And it's what I love about my podcast is being able to connect with people who are passionate about things that people don't think about. They put that spin on them—encouraging younger people to see the vitality of an industry that has been around for so long and perhaps consider that an option for them as they're looking at what to do with their lives.Claude Goguen: Absolutely. In my role, I do outreach and speak to many students in universities and colleges, sometimes in high schools or even once in an elementary school. My passion for concrete comes out no matter who I'm talking to. I love talking about concrete and making it sound as exciting.And I will get that feedback where the student will come and say, that's not even a career path I had considered, but that does sound exciting. And it is. Yeah. And so what are some of the things that we've talked a little bit about this, but that you see the concrete, precast, concrete industry heading well, what's happening is a lot of construction sites.They are getting leaner, the term leaner, even you've heard of lean manufacturing, right? Finding ways to find efficiencies, reducing waste, finding efficiencies in production, and the same thing applies. To a construction site. How can we reduce the waste that occurs on a construction site? The waiting for materials, stuff like that.And that has led very much to precast products because if you think about it, it's a pre-manufactured structure made elsewhere. It's ready by the time you need it. So when it arrives, it can be put into place right away, and it can be used right away. If you're using conventional concrete that you're pouring, you see the trucks going down the road with the big rolling drums, and you pour it on a construction site, then you have to wait for it to cure and wait as one of the wastes of lean manufacturing.So in that sense, we've seen precast starting to be used in more and more traditionally cast in applications. So that's where the industry is continuing to grow. It was growing before the pandemic, and it continued to be busy. And then now it's gotten busy, but we see more and more applications.And along with the technologies I mentioned earlier, it's giving the industry the versatility to meet the architect, to meet the engineer where they are, and produce whatever their imagination would come up with.Lisa Ryan: So we talk about the industry from a technical standpoint, but I know that one thing that not only your members but manufacturers, in general, are struggling with is, finding people to come on board. So what are some things you've seen your members do to attract and retain people to join them?Claude Goguen: Yeah, that is, in fact, a struggle, as it is with a lot of other manufacturing businesses. The thing about precast concrete is we're not. It's not well known if somebody is looking for jobs and they see that Amazon is hiring for a warehouse and fulfillment, you have an idea of what you're going to be doing more or less. If you see something about precast concrete manufacturing, it's not we're out there, and people know right away what that is. So we have an image issue. Not that we have a negative image, but we just don't have one.We just, we're not out there. And so that's one thing that many of our members are doing now is just getting out there a lot more in many different ways. Visit local schools and universities, and they are opening up their plants for tours. They're going to job fairs, participating in your community, donating a structure for something in the town square, or sponsoring a little league team or Cub scout pack.But things that, just getting the name out there so that people go, what is that anyways? And you can explain a little more what's involved.So just opening the awareness of the industry is one thing we're doing. And then we're learning as everybody else is to think differently about how to attract and retain today's generation of young employees. So using social media, meet them where they're at and just offer them something that's going to be attractive to them. That will speak to their motivations and aspirations, and that's significant learning.Lisa Ryan: Compared to doing the same for, let's say, a baby boomer or a generation X. And when it comes to because I love the fact of plant tours.I know I've worked with several precast concrete companies and just going and seeing the size of the plant, the scope of what's being made, and the beauty of some of the pieces. And then also the pride that goes along with that immediate gratification of creating something that. But do you have specific stories or examples or a how-to if a person listening to this was thinking about opening up their plant for maybe using manufacturing day or just opening it up? How does that look? What do they do? Do they have activities during the day?Claude Goguen: Yeah, we have this thing, first of all, that we've done for about three years now. It's called precast Days, where it's a coordinated effort amongst many of our manufacturers across the country, across North America, to open their plants about the same time of the year, usually around October and November, but some plants will do it differently.We'll offer them some guidance on how they should advertise and what they need to think about in terms of safety and just Somehow make it as educational as possible to the people coming to see the plant. So some of them. We'll try to continue manufacturing, which can be a challenge regarding safety because we have buckets and things moving around.And if you have people walking around, it's a sensitive thing. So you have to cord off some areas, but ideally, if you're going to have people in your plant, they will want to see the mud flow. They will want to see you mixing concrete, placing it in a form, and then having somebody explain the process so everybody can hear and understand.So those are the challenges. We're helping our members with that. We're making the most of that experience so that people leave there. And with a good understanding of what precast is all about. And actually, precast days have turned out to be not only a good thing for increasing awareness, but it's resulted in some of our members hiring people from that plant door.They came back, submitted a resume, and a couple of our plants still have people working there that they first met on the plant.Lisa Ryan: Wow. Now, do they reach out to local schools? At what age do they start focusing and bringing people in for these plant tours?Claude Goguen: Some usually won't reach the high school level. I've not heard of anything beyond that. And then, of course, universal level college at level schools they'll reach out to just, I don't know, just groups. But, first, they will bring in a few of their customers. One thing is some of their customers who purchase precast products have never actually seen the product made.So they'll prioritize and invite all their customers; maybe some specify the product, some work for state authorities or private contractors, and then students, just community members. So it depends, but probably not any, not much younger than high school age that I've seen so far anyway.Lisa Ryan: I know you've talked a lot about onboarding, and you have a background in engineering, and yet you developed an onboarding program for your members. So what does that onboarding program look like? Where do you continue to get ideas for the content of it?Claude Goguen: So the onboarding program in, in, in a briefly its sort it's for our members, and it's set up into two pieces.One component is an onboarding guide, and it's meant for the employer. And it just takes you through what onboarding means and how it differs from orientation. It's what you can do from the hire date and before that, with preboarding starting from that phase beyond a year.Having a checklist that they can go through to make sure that they're getting the most out of that employee, the employees getting the most out of their experience so they can find out if they're a good fit for each other and that they're going to want to stay. And then, on the other hand, we have a suite of videos that we made that they can play for the candidate or the employee, and the videos range from there's some that talk about the industry in general.And just the fantastic things that we do. So, for example, there's one video called the day and the life of a precaster. So some of it is first-person based. And, you arrive at the plant, you go in, you go through your day, you have lunch, we cut out the bathroom breaks, but things that that they can, see what a typical day in a precast plant is.Then there are some safety videos, and Then there are videos that are role-based for further on, in, in the employment where they can learn to do specific things in a precast plant. So that's helpful to help the member educate the candidate, the employee who assists in retaining them.How it came about or how somebody else had the idea. I wish I could claim the idea, but somebody else here had the idea to do it and asked me if I wanted to do it. And I was I'm the engineer. I usually deal with varied designs and the technical side of things. So this is a bit outside of my comfort zone, but at the same time, I was excited about it. So, where I got my information, I did a lot of reading materials, looked at stuff from experts, including yourself, and listened to some seminars read a lot, but also drew a lot from my own experience.I just sat there and tried to remember how it felt during my first day. At NPCA or my first day at that precast plant in Columbus, Indiana. And how I felt in terms of little things, little stressors. I remember I didn't know what to put on or wear. I didn't know what to bring for my lunch.Are they going to take me to lunch? Should I bring a brown bag lunch? Should I, where am I going to park? Little things add stress to an already stressful day. And they are then getting into that new environment, not knowing anybody. Things like that. And taking that and molding this onboarding program to try to address that, to make the employee as comfortable as possible when they arrive, they have a set parking spot they're taken out to lunch.On the first day, clear instructions are sent on what, where, and what to expect. They get a schedule in the morning when they get there. Things that I remember and even. While you're interviewing them, and you remember something about, let's say, they love root beer than having a root beer sitting on their desk on their first day of work, there's nothing better than little things that make this different than other experiences, oh, they listen to me.I don't even remember saying I like root beer. And making it very much as if you've just joined a new family. Whenever I listen to a new podcast or read something, I get a new idea to add to version 2.0 over our onboarding program. It's worked right so far. Plus, I'm getting feedback from those who have used it to try to make it better.Lisa Ryan: When you look at these little things you can do, they don't take a lot of time. They don't cost any money. And yet when you think about that employee, they probably sent out a whole bunch of applications, and that you happen to be, they happen to accept the job from you, but that doesn't mean that everybody else will stop calling.So if they don't have that great day and don't know where to park, what to wear, what to do for lunch, and all these things. It's just a matter of communication. Who knows what will happen when one of those other companies calls? And so say you, you're still looking, yeah. What you got, which brings us to another interesting point.And that's the preboarding of connecting with those people, right after the interview and in that vulnerable place of time, between the time they accepted the offer and their start date, because I'm sure that you have heard many horror stories that people ghost you.They're not calling. They're not doing anything. They are just not showing up. So the more preboarding you can use to build that relationship and build that commitment beforehand is probably assuring that you're not going to be ghosted as often. So what are some of the things you're seeing that they're doing before the start date?Claude Goguen: And we're trying to get our members to do more of this, but the thing is to make it personal right off the bat. It's either sending a video from the president or the company's owner saying, Hey, I want to welcome you to this company. I understand we've got an offer, and you're coming to work for us.This is what we're all about—and telling the story. People love stories, telling the company story because of a lot of our members. Our smaller mom-and-pop companies are big, but they started small. And then we have larger corporate-type companies, but everybody's got a story, and they can share that story and make it a little more personal.And then give them and keep in communication with them throughout that period, because you're right. They, it's a prime time for them to get, it's almost a buyer's remorse after buying a house or a car, but it's hiring remorse, or I don't know what you would call it, you have friends saying, Hey, we're, where'd you get a job at precast?What's that? Have you heard this other place is hiring? And so, if you just go quiet during that time, expecting them to show up on day one, you may get surprised. So we encourage our members to spend that message send some material for them to look at, get some paperwork done up front, if you can and do it in a way that's going to be, send them electronic files.If they're younger folks, have it, meet them where they're, I said, and Yeah, just keep that line of communication going. Don't you think that's important?Lisa Ryan: Oh yeah. And even when putting together my programs and slide decks when I use them and using people's pictures, the actual client, for NPCA, I went to your Facebook page to find several people. And the funny thing is, as I walk through the event, I'm so that person's in my slide. Oh, that person's in my slide, and coming from a speaker standpoint, it made me feel more at home because I thought I knew some of these people or knew something about them. The same thing for that brand new person coming in. They get a video from the president or from somebody in leadership that is welcoming them. So it's, oh, they're putting a face to the name. They get, I've heard other organizations that they will put together. Then, what is it? The org chart, but it's all people's pictures on it. So again, you can start to see, oh, I know that person. And even if you don't remember their...

Connect with Gil Bar Lev:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilbar-lev/Website: www.homeroots.coLisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm here today with Gil Bar Lev. Gil is the CEO and founder of HomeRoots. He is a serial entrepreneur. Filled with creativity and a hunger to thrive in the current digital world, Gil founded HomeRoots, combining his passion for furniture e-commerce and technology to disrupt the way selling and buying furniture is done with a novel wholesale platform.So Gil, welcome to the show.Gil Bar Lev: Lisa, it's a pleasure being here.Lisa Ryan: So share a little bit about your background and what led you to do what you're doing.Gil Bar Lev: Sure. So, in a nutshell, I came from the software engineering world specializing in web development. So I started my career as such, and one thing led to another. One day I was leading a project that connected toys R-Us with Amazon when Toys R-Us wanted to explore the.com or the internet, the e-commerce capabilities but didn't want to go all in. So I led it from the toys R-Us side, exposed me to e-commerce and my passion for technology. I found the proper marriage for what I want to do moving forward with my career.After I departed from Toys R-Us, I spent my other time in e-commerce, combining it with technology building and helping different brands sell online. And through the following ten years or so, I spent a lot in the direct-to-consumer world, up to the point where I realized we're doing with Brent and also went back to the manufacturing side of things and we want to do whole.So I realized it's 2015, 2016, and the internet has evolved a lot. We've got a lot of marketplaces. I want to see a wholesale and where do I. I realized I got nowhere to go The traditional ones where you go to a trade show you need to exhibit. I was looking at different verticals and categories and noticed that furniture is very complicated. Very complicated because of the logistics side of things, but also, the trade shows themselves are super expensive because you can't just put in a booth in some show, you got to rent a whole showroom, and that's very expensive.And so, all those issues combined led me to want to tackle the furniture world or the furniture space. And that's what led me eventually to HomeRoots, which is a platform or B2B selling platform that enables manufacturers from all over the world to penetrate and expand their market share in the US.Lisa Ryan: So what are they doing? Is it like an Amazon, but only for furniture where people can go and get all the specs they want without having to go to a furniture showroom?Gil Bar Lev: Pretty much it, that's pretty much the basics of it. It works because manufacturers will upload their product specifications down to our platform and alongside their inventory levels and everything else. Then, we push those and promote those products to various retailers. And we ensure that those retailers will offer those products to the end consumer for purchase, whether online or offline, in their stores.  Lisa Rya: I'm sure the last couple years, or I shouldn't say I'm sure, but it would seem to me that the last couple years were a boom for you, with everybody looking for furniture and doing it online. So tell us about your experience over the last couple of years.Gil Bar-Lev: Yeah. It's been a rollercoaster over the past. I will say two to three years up and down with different things, different challenges. So at first, it was a challenge. If we're looking back in 2019 or pre-COVID, let's look at COVID. Let's put it this way.It was more about proving our capabilities to retailers and manufacturers and getting them to buy into the idea. Then, 2020 came along with COVID, and everybody wanted furniture. Everybody, stores got closed. There was only online, and manufacturers had difficulties promoting their products online.They're very good at manufacturing. They were producing items. How about marketing? That's a different topic, and they needed someone to help them. And that's where we came in. Then 2021 was, everybody wanted furniture. But nobody can get it. There are logistics issues. And then it's becoming, and then from the flip of, from 2020, manufacturers were trying to push inventory because many of their sales channels got blocked. After all, retail store physical brick mortar stores were ordered to shut down.In 2021, that slipped to the outside on the demand side, where there was insufficient inventory. Whether with their physical stores and now they wanted merchandise, everything got caused in the logistical supply chain backlog that took a long time. So they were hungry for merchandise.We came in as a good fit because we have a vast assortment of products we can offer retailers. So that expanded our ability in our market share in 2022. That's a different volume. Now you've got a recession. So now you've got retailers that are overstocked.You've got manufacturers who are still having some logistical issues, and they need some good partners on both sides that can help them navigate this landscape, which is very challenging. And it's not something that you see every. Lisa Ryan: That is quite the roller coaster. And it's interesting because it seems, on the one hand, the pandemic came at the right time from an education standpoint because they had no choice but to go online.Gil Bar Lev: Yeah. And then when everybody was going online, now we have the supply chain to deal with, followed by a recession. So it's yeah, it's a perfect storm. I was not kidding. It's very interesting to see the dynamics between how things are getting pulled between the supply and demand.And every year, it's just a different strength to either side of pulling an influence in the market one way or the other.Lisa Ryan: And I'm sure too. We have a lot of manufacturing in the United States as far as furniture, but I know you're also dealing with a lot of international manufacturers of these products. So what are you seeing regarding some of their concerns with the conditions? How are you working and advising them right now?Gil Bar Lev: Their primary concern is whether they should enter the market in this condition. A condition that maybe has not officially been called a recession but is slowing down the market in demand for potential goods.And my advice to them is that if there's a good time to get into a market, if it's the best time, it's a time where others are retreating. That's the time that you can gain a market share. So, my advice is not to be afraid to step in, yes, there is some slowdown, but if you're in right now, the customer still requires goods.They still require furniture and are looking to partner with manufacturers that can supply them with goods. And if you're not. Recession or not. If you're not here, they're not going to remember you. And now they're going to close in the tide. They're going to tighten up their relationship with their existing suppliers.Now at the time, you want to get rid of the loose ends in business. Relationships are the most crucial in this type of economy. And if you're not here, you'll miss that. So, I advise many manufacturers to step into the market, gain market share, work with us, advertise their products, and promote them.Lisa Ryan: There is an audience for that. People are looking for merchandise. It's not the market has been saturated. It's not. It's just people shopping differently than what we used to shop. A year ago, two years ago, that was it. And we're so used to buying things online. It's almost, I mean, with furniture, there's always this the point where I want to sit on my couch, sit on it, and see how it feels.But. It's almost reaching the point that we need to get over that and realize that even though manufacturers believe that's what the consumers want, the consumers want to be able to go on their phone, look at a couch, look at the dimensions of it and say, cool. Send it to me. Gil Bar Lev: Yeah, listen, the beauty of what we're doing in the HomeRoots is that from a manufacturer standpoint, supply standpoint, you don't know or care, sorry, you don't care from where the orders will come.Now, HomeRoots knows how to work with its retailers to collect the orders, whether they're getting submitted through a brick-and-mortar store or online or through other forms of marketing or sales channels that are out there that are not necessarily related to rebuilding.There might be other ways like designers, stagers, and builders. They still buy furniture, and all those orders get passed on to us faster. This is something that we're focusing on a lot. And this is what we're telling the many factors that listen. Yeah, it might be that e-commerce has slowed down.Not might be, but it has slowed down. We've seen that. However, customers now see a trend of buying more from brick and mortar than last year. So, on the one hand, compared to 2020, sales have gone up with brick-and-mortar stores, and sales have gone down with e-commerce, but it's still the same.Lisa Ryan: It's just a different buying experience. Now people are looking just to return to the way it was. Not that I'm giving up on e-commerce, I will not give up on that. But I'm saying this is just the trend we're seeing. So what are some of the issues that you've seen with manufacturers?Not only in the process itself but converting their way of thinking from strictly brick and mortar to looking at more eCommerce and online offerings. So many of them are looking for when we first reach out to manufacturers. So many are still looking for direct order, direct import business. And what we've been offering them is a way to eliminate the middleman, let them be the importer, let them play domestically, and build directly with the retailers in understanding the consumer better—than relying on someone else, like a middleman.So the challenges we've seen with those manufacturers have been that they don't know how to do it. They don't know how to export their goods overseas. Maybe they have done it for others, but they have not gone all the way with the actual import process. And then they're not sure where the merchandise will get to the store.They're not sure how it's going to get marketed. They have a lot of concerns because they have not done it before. But, on the other hand, they are eager to do it. They want to. Just lacking the experience, right? So we're guiding them through this and giving them our fulfillment centers where they can handle the fulfillment.We're guiding them through the import process. We're taking care of all the marketing. We're taking care of all the back-office operations for them. And by that, we're eliminating many of the risks and their concerns of entering into the. But that's what the major challenge is, moving between changing a little bit, the mindset between someone else on direct import and the direct importer to drive my business, to drive myself forward to a mode I want to play. I want to play directly in the market. So I don't want to rely on someone else that doesn't want to rely on the middleman.I'm taking a specific risk. Yes, but the reward is much bigger, right? Cause of its impact financially. The margins are higher; you get more control over the sales channel. You are just more in control of your own business. If you do it well with our advice and best market information, we can give you the sky is the limit.Lisa Ryan: But just the initial open-minded. Some require that of the leaders in those manufacturing companies. And we've been talking a lot about furniture, but it also seems. A shift in mindset to more eCommerce can help manufacturers in many different products. So talk about that in terms of, maybe other products, various industries as somebody who's not in furniture may be able to relate. So start to think about doing that, what you're doing with.Gil Bar Lev: The beauty of eCommerce is the ability to collect data faster than other forms. At least in my opinion. So when you're putting out there, when you're putting products out there online, and it doesn't have to, as you said, it doesn't have to be just furniture.It can be any category when you're putting products out there and trying to promote them. You're starting to get feedback from the audience. Whether they're visiting the page, whether they like who you're offering, and then whether they convert, if they convert, you know, a lot about your price points and your content and the way you package the product to the consumer.But if they're visiting it, then they're not buying it. Then you may have a problem with the pricing, or just the offering is just not attractive. And you learn a lot from it. So before even you go on a massive distributor manufacturing. You could test a few things online and see and gather feedback from the consumer.What are they going to, what you're going to have to do, what you're offering, whether the price point is the right price point, and also a little bit about the quality, the first couple of iterations, you get a lot of feedback, right? But, whether you have returns or a lot of customer inquiries, I'm not sure how to operate this product or this, and then you get improved.You get iterations. You go through iterations. You're improving the product. The quality of it until you go to a point until you get to the point where you have excellent quality, high-quality product that you feel confident that the consumer wants. And then you're ready to go all in, manufacturing it and promoting it.In the destination market that you're looking for. But that stuff you can relatively do fast with e-commerce with brick-and-mortar stores or other forms. But, on the other hand, it takes significantly longer, and you're limited with the selections of offerings that you can go to if you want to put 50 products out there online or 500.I'm not saying there's no effort, but the step is not huge. It's doable. But you cannot put a product in the store that easily. That's very challenging, and it doesn't mean just furniture. Forget about it. There's no way because there's a space, but now you got to go to other stores, 500 different skews in a store.Lisa Ryan: It is a challenge. It's fascinating from a knowledge standpoint because somebody walks into a furniture store and walks right out. You don't know why they walked out. You don't know if it was the pricing, the furniture quality, and everything. And again, we're so used to leaving our Amazon and our restaurant reviews on Yelp and all this stuff for people to leave reviews for brick and mortar.It is a lot more challenging. Getting that feedback as far as pricing quality reviews from others, all of these different things that speed up that whole marketing and decision process, as far as what you're going to be manufacturing, unless I raise a good point. So because what it is when if you go to for example Google business.You're not rating the furniture or that piece of item that you just explored or were interested in. But you're not, which might be an interesting new business. Can arrive from our conversations here on how to drive reviews for brick-and-mortar stores for their product.But online, you're not just reviewing the seller. You also review the process. That's something that's missing in the physical world. And that's what makes it more challenging to test, do your AB testing, and figure out what actually might sell better. So again, there are different techniques to go about samples, but it's a much longer process.And in our economy, especially in the past three years, I remember that you've got to move as fast as you can. Because anyway, the market will slow you down. So you can't, you, you can't waste your time on those things.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. And it's funny, too, because when you think about your, you just said you are reviewing the business. I can leave a horrible review for somebody because the sales rep or the manager treated me poorly, which takes away from anything I may have. I may have loved the furniture but hated the store. So again, Just different ways of looking at it, even to try it out and say, you know what?Gil Bar Lev: maybe we'll start testing this product and do some AB testing online or do something. Lisa Ryan: So if a manufacturer is thinking about bringing a portion of their business to e-commerce, what's a good way to get started?Gil Bar Lev: First, I advocate for HomeRoots that we're an excellent way to get started. Cause we have put many different eyeballs on a product because of our distribution in the market. So a good way is to work with us and upload the products. And if there are in the furniture for home decor, they will go on to our platform and start their journey there.But if they're not, I recommend going with a particular business-to-business marketplace per se, or any marketplace and even a direct consumer marketplace. And test it. That's trying to put something out there to see whether you can gain page views and get feedback.See, there is a lot of involvement, whether there's some traction or interest. There's time. There's I also want to say that this is I'm mentioning all those points. Still, those points require investment on time, of someone knowledgeable about the product and dedicated to ensuring that selling online will be successful or will do everything they want.To make sure that it's successful. Otherwise, it will not work. And that goes to another point. So I'm sorry that I'm jumping between different things here. You need to. If I weren't a manufacturer and going back to your question to start selling online, I would pick marketplaces.If they're in the furniture business, that's our specialty. So I will pick a specific marketplace but hire someone. That knows how to do it, and they have done it well in the past, but you can try to do it on your own, and that's. And sometimes, you do need to do things on your own, but if you decide to do it on your own, have a mentor or someone to guide you through it.So you're not wasting time on weeks or months and a lot of money on things that don't make. Just avoid all this. You can speed up the learning curve. So my advice is to find someone who can mentor you or mentor someone you delegate that task to, and then try to play with that.And one last thing is to be passionate to have patience. Clicks don't come in immediately. It takes time. You need to test different things. You need to try different keywords. You need to test different. Then, later on, once you do get clicks, you need to test different image areas.You got to know what's more attractive to the consumer. Every consumer likes things differently. So you got to figure it out. It's just a lot of baby testing. And you just got to be patient. Yeah. Yeah. I know. We want things to go viral, and most things, no, they don't. It's just most things don't. It's just getting lucky that something does get viral, but in most cases, it's not.So don't plan for it. Don't plan that you're going to upload some type of product and then the whole world. I...

Connect with Todd DrouillardWebsite: https://www.hed.design/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-drouillard-aia-b9a7a629/Lisa Ryan:  Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. Our guest today is Todd Drouillard. Todd is the section leader of the manufacturing and product development sector within the national architecture and engineering design firm, H E D. As a member of the state of Michigan construction code commission board of directors, Todd focuses on design innovation and improving speed to market in manufacturing, supply chain, and design for automotive and battery technology.Todd, welcome to the show.Todd Drouillard: Thank you. Thank you again for having me on. We're happy to be here.Lisa Ryan:  Todd, please share a little about your background and what led you to do what you're doing.Todd Drouillard: Sure. It all started when I was ten years old, which is crazy to think that you knew what you wanted to do when you were 10. I wanted to be an architect. I had a brief period just because I grew up in the Metro Detroit lake area and was highly influenced by the shows we would have. So a short time, I wanted to design vehicles. That kind of squashed a little bit when I discovered that my artistic talents weren't as great as they should have been.So I did go ahead and received a degree in architecture in the area that made sense to work in automotive. So that's where I've been spending most of my time, probably two-thirds of my 20, 21 years of doing this.And the work has been focused strictly on the manufacturing side. So my role at H E D is precise in that I look for ways that we can design buildings to build better products.Lisa Ryan:  Okay. So what was it about architecture? That's so fascinating that you were captivated at age 10.Todd Drouillard: Yeah. I just loved to look at blueprints and drawings, and when my folks had a cottage built a few years before I was born. They still had the old blueprints, and I'd love to roll them out, study them, look at them, and sometimes try to recreate them. I was just amazed that these drawings turned into something tangible. So from there on out, it was just like a passion of mine.Lisa Ryan:  Wow. Wow. That's just fascinating. I had no idea what I was going to do at age 10.Todd Drouillard: My children are just beyond those ages, and I asked them, and they don't know. So maybe it was just a strange thing that happened to me.Lisa Ryan:  So when it comes to design, I know we talk a lot on this show about the workforce we're going through now with the great resignation and all that stuff that's going on. How do you feel that good facility design can be used to create and retain workforce talent and reduce staff turnover?Todd Drouillard: Yeah. There are a couple of things that we do. My firm has a workplace side too. We often collaborate because what happens in offices and lab environments can quickly move into manufacturing. Many of our clients are coming to us and saying we must differentiate ourselves from our competitors.We need to make the space better than it used to be. So the dark, dreary manufacturing plants are not working. It's strange; we've gone back in time a little bit. If you think back to some of the greatest factories built, they were open-aired skylights and the use of natural ventilation.And then we went back into this box. And we took out the windows, and we just used enough lighting to save money or whatnot. And we found out that you get some fresh air when you bring in light. You make it a more workable space. The employees stay. They enjoy what they see. A lot of times, too, we try to open up areas that may not have been visible to even the offices to show the employees what they're building. So they have this idea that they're part of something greater than before.So we found out that, and the other spaces are making great more, I want to say a better area to have lunch a. A better opening to have a communal teaming room, and those bases have made it much better. The other part about it is just going through the exterior design.When you drive by these newer manufacturing spaces, they tend to have more of a brand. Then the old white box that we've seen in the past. So our clients have been asking that we want people to drive down the freeway and know that it's an Amazon warehouse.They want to know that it's just not a big white box, that it has a branding that something's going on there. And something's excellent.  Lisa Ryan:  Is it something that you're primarily starting? I'm sure it's easier to start with new construction, but do you have many of your clients? I'm in Cleveland, which I'm sure is a lot like Detroit when it comes to manufacturing. There are a lot of old plants around, so how would you go about retrofitting and doing some of these things to bring back those dark, dreary places and make them more user-friendly and workforce friendly?Todd Drouillard: Yeah, I think it's just going through and looking at what, what's available, and what's there. It's trying to bring like I've noted in, in some of the older, like manufacturing here, like in Detroit, But a lot of times what they would do is I guess to hide the old brick, the old look we've, torn those down, to expose it, to kind show how the building's built.So even in the simplicity of trying not to hide the way the building's built because sometimes, the architecture of the building can speak to how cool it can be. So try not to hide that, but a simple way to do it is to lighten it up.Does paint everything white I know it sounds right. But, like a simple thing, installing new lighting, efficient lighting to bring some light into the space helps. You can create a bright room with those two things. The other thing is to do your best to get some natural daylight, even though, at times, Detroit, Cleveland, and some of the Midwest can be dreary.Lisa Ryan:  We do have some beautiful days. And that does seem to help the morale quite, quite a bit. And like you said, even a fresh coat of paint. There are so many places where you go into the office or where the customer-facing parts of the things or the office facing, and everything's nice, clean, beautiful, and up to date.And then you go into the plant or the warehouse, and it's just dirty and everything. So even a coat of paint of a clean coat of paint can make a huge difference for sure.Todd Drouillard: And it's just that, it's just the going through it, what an looking at it has, what I want to work here, what I want, people that I know wanna work here and to embrace the space for what it is.Try not to make it something that's not it. And I think one of the biggest things is to expose and get down to why that building's there once you're trying to build. It's enjoyable.Lisa Ryan:  I think about, I was just in Savannah speaking last week, and there's so much history in that it seemed that every restaurant and hotel that I went into, they welcomed that exposed brick, and you can feel the history. And I think that's such an important point. With these older buildings, there's so much history, and employees want to feel that they are part of something bigger than they are.And if they're in this one of these historic buildings, they are, and then it's up to the company to clean it up. And like you said, they can do the natural light or other things. So what are some of the other things that you're seeing? We talked about natural light. We talked about a paint job. What else are companies doing to bring that up to date and make it where they want to work?Todd Drouillard: Yeah. The other thing that I've seen a lot of times, too, is when a what, like when they start to introduce them because most of these manufacturing plants have an office slick area exposing the office area into the manufacturing area. So there's not that hierarchy of having the office up above. And everybody's looking down on the like on the workers. So, it's becoming more of an impressionable thing to introduce those, and sometimes you know what, like even blend them.So there's no clear line between what's in an office and what's a workspace. Or like a manufacturer or manufacturing space. The same thing is happening in the warehouse, with the warehousing also trying to expose that. So it's not so hidden away and lost a lot of our clients want open spaces with as few barriers as possible, fewer columns, fewer walls. Let's open up the room, make it bright, and we want to be able to see what's going on. And if there's a problem, we can address it. The other part of that is trying to make a very efficient space. Both leading manufacturers, you have an office. You have the manufacturing bees like inbound processing, outbound, nice and linear streak. Sometimes that doesn't like always happening. So our clients look to us to create more efficiency within their floor plans.Lisa Ryan:  Then a lot of times that that's achieved by just good planning. Good overall planning of the building. And so, how involved do you get the employees in the process? Because it would seem that, nobody likes change. So you're going in, and all the workers know is that you will change their space.So what are some of the ways you get the buy-in from them? For example, are you meeting with different committees? Are you finding out from the workers there about workflow, or how does that process work?Todd Drouillard: Yeah, it's a little bit of both. We've seen it happen both ways, where some groups were created to be the voice of the people on the floor.And then other ones have been where we've gone through and done. The companies we've worked for have conducted surveys like their top parts. And it almost always comes across as for people to stay. They want to be treated well and all those things, but down to the buildings, it comes down to the amenities. We've seen many employers offer gyms, even smaller ones. They'll provide like a fitness clean light-locker rooms cleaner just. You know what it seems like when you make it simple and don't overdo it.And you create a space for people to be that's important. So it's like that third space between their vehicle, where they may park the car to their workspace. So it's that third space that's important: lunch rooms, fitness areas, break rooms, and team rooms.Lisa Ryan:  Those are probably the top things I've seen in the manufacturing-like environments. So what's been your favorite project to work with? You talked about gyms and breaks and break rooms and lunchrooms and stuff. So what was something you worked on that you thought was super cool that this client wanted?Todd Drouillard: In one of our projects, this particular light manufacturer makes safety components for like vehicles. So one of the cool things we were likable to do as they had these templates. So that they press out of metal, so in certain worker-areas, we put those up like a ceiling kind of design.So you can imagine all these wheels and cogs and things they use to make the parts. We painted them flashy and placed them up so people could see what they were building. I thought that, just down, and that's a straightforward thing.In the other areas we've done, we've created some green spaces, courtyards, and exterior spots. So if people wanted to do what they had to, they would break outside. So use of landscape taking it like outside a little bit, getting some fresh air.We found that the employees love that stuff. It's something that can be like a differentiator. I love the idea of using the pieces and parts they make in the design.Lisa Ryan:  I know a couple of years ago, when I spoke for the spring manufacturers, they would have a part of the week where the person would take one of the parts they were making, make a poster of it, and show where the particular piece went. So again, you're looking at employees who are doing the same thing on the line every day by just valuing what they do and even making art out of it.Todd Drouillard: Yeah. That seems that it would put a sense of pride into the workplace. It certainly does. And they've done these companies do follow-ups too.And one of the few employees even said, it's almost like we're making art. The manufacturing side can be an art because it's essential to have that piece. And that may go to a seatbelt assembly or something and, and, and it's the graphics of like you're saving lives, not only are you making parts, you're saving people's lives.Lisa Ryan:  So it has that holistic approach of, of, it has all the good feels for the company and the employees to create a message that comes across very well. The other thing you mentioned is incorporating the office and the plant environment to eliminate that "us versus them," but how would you do that from a noise control standpoint?Todd Drouillard: Yeah, that isn't easy. Products have gotten much better. And Glass has gained higher what's called STC ratings to develop that. So instead of being open, per se, it has a glass wall that you have to be careful with the design of what areas you integrate. You can often put a fraction of maybe the conferencing rooms, things that may not have to be so loud. And then you create the private phone booths you want to keep away. For many loud noisesLisa Ryan:  We talked about kind of optimization of the processes. What are some of the trends you're seeing that are being applied? Facility design. Yeah. Where the, where lately I've been seeing the most like optimization is in the warehousing side bits that whole concept to have that last mile shipment, the idea that you and I can go on our complex computer in a day or so we have a product at our porch or even like the same day. So what's been happening? Are there automatic retrieval parts? And so the warehouse-like of the future is not just a big warehouse with rack storage. It's a multi-floor, multi-piece that is all automated.Todd Drouillard: I've seen a lot of leg innovation there. It but the same with any product, especially one that creates any level of waste or scrap or recycling. That's been a big piece too. So in a, let's say, a parts stamping plant where they're stamping out parts, there's an underground system of tunnels that you don't see what's taking all that metal.To a specific space that can then be recycled to make more parts, so significantly less wasteful, it's cleaner. It keeps all the noise, dirt, dust, and oils below. So it keeps the plant floor clean and safe as well. So that's, and then the other major innovation.Lisa Ryan:  Mostly, come on the safe side. One of the top priorities of any company I have ever worked for is always safety. So they are keeping the workers safe. And that helps with the lighting and with all kinds of things. But you know what, again, there have been a lot of changes to how safe the buildings are.And employees are getting back to the workplace and helping people to feel valued. Suppose they think their employer cares enough about them to create a safe environment, not just to protect them from getting fined by OSHA, but because they care about the workers' safety. In that case, they can implement that into the design, making a massive difference in their retention.Todd Drouillard: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think everybody would probably agree that everybody wants to go home, be safe, and not have a problem. So if the employee was to step beyond the band, a boundary machine shuts down, with all these checks and balances in a blaze. Even though humans were intuitive, don't put your hand there. Don't touch that. There's the idea that sometimes you're doing something and you don't; you do something and don't have to think about it.So these are there to check and to make sure that the worker is safe throughout the process. Yeah.Lisa Ryan:  So somebody listening to this show today, if they were thinking about the fact that, what it would be nice to upgrade our space, what would be an excellent way to start, or how would they begin to figure out their priority list of what would make the most sense?Todd Drouillard: Yeah, I would appreciate the advice that we usually get his, for them to look at their project holistically though, the entire piece of it, not just one, like little like area if they came back, but by and said we want to upgrade our team rooms, but we're like, then what about the office space spaces?What about the cafeteria? Like again, you don't have to do it all haul at once, but you can think about it and plan. So when you do the next phase of your project, What it's planned out? So it's coming across as a master plan for the space and seeing where the priorities are.It hit their due for lighting, like a like upgrade. It's a great time to do it. You are trying to sell like leadership on the benefits of being able to save money in the long. So that's another piece of it too, is by doing these projects and making the building better, more efficient, new air, like HVAC to help cool the building or these can be made as more of a longer-term saving money. So talk rather than just a quick, immediate fix.Lisa Ryan:  Okay. And if you were to say your number one tip or the best idea for facility design, for everything we talked about, workforce and optimization and cost savings.Todd Drouillard: Sure. What would that be? Sure. Hire us earlier than you higher us, like earlier than you think you should bring us in as soon as possible. But, again, let's plan and start slow. Let's front-load the project with some time during construction or building. Or the renovation cost, you'll save money been the long run. So getting in there as early as possible and thinking about these things is probably the biggest.And then taking a survey of your employers would be another excellent opportunity to see what's on their minds. Absolutely. Okay. And Todd, if people did want to continue the conversation with you, what's the best way to get ahold of you? The best way is through my email address Attard HD.design, or to check out our website, which is hed. Design.Lisa Ryan:  Okay. Todd, thank you so much for everything you shared with us today. It was great having you on the show.Todd Drouillard: Excellent. Thank you again, Lisa.I'm Lisa Ryan, and this is the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. We'll see you next time.

Connect with Dave Evans:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evansda11/Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm here today with Dave Evans. Dave is the co-founder and CEO of the digital manufacturing ecosystem company, Fictiv. Since its founding in 2013, Fictiv has manufactured more than 19 million parts for early-stage companies and large enterprises, driving innovation with agility, from prototype to production and ensuring supply chain predictability and success for customers in industries from automotive and robotics to healthcare and aerospace. Dave, welcome to the show.Dave Evans: Hey, thanks much for having me. I'm excited to be here.Lisa Ryan: Please share your background and what made you start Fictive.Dave Evans: Yeah, for sure. I'm your classic engineer who likes to solve problems—I studied mechanical engineering, mechatronics, and mechanical electrical systems. And I'm an auto guy. I started my career at Ford, building infotainment systems or dashboards of cars. What we were trying to do there was put consumer electronics into vehicles. So you put your iPhone or iPad these things into the dashboard of a car. And the challenge we ran into at Ford, which is still a problem today, is around development cycles.A vehicle can take four to six years to build a new platform. Meanwhile, you'll get a new consumer device every six to nine months. And you'll get 12 iterations of a consumer device and the time it takes to launch one vehicle when you get in your plane, land, and rent that Mustang. As you're driving around the one in California, winds blow in your hair, and you go to use the touchscreen, and it's horrible, or it feels ten years old. It's because it is. And from my experience at Ford, how do you increase the speed of building new products?And what are the barriers to developing that and the thesis developed at Florida, which we've worked on for almost ten years? First, Fictiv was that if you could speed up the development cycle, you could reduce the risk of getting new products to market, and you unlock innovation for many companies to do that.And we built the company based on how you make hardware, physical goods, and products at the speed of software. We're based in Silicon Valley, don't let all the software folks like Facebook, Amazon, or Dropbox have all the fun. We wanted to build tools for mechanical engineers and physical product companies to build products faster.So if you fast forward to today, That's what we've built. We've built a system to simplify sourcing and build this operating system. This digital operating system probably makes custom mechanical parts. And we find factories with machines which are idle or have extra capacity all over the world.And we're allowing engineers and supply chain teams to order custom mechanical components from all these idle machines all over the place. We don't own a factory. I don't have an injection molding machine. I don't have a sheet metal press. I don't have a CNC machine, but we are allowing an engineer at Honeywell to order parts.From these, it machines through all this digital software we have done. And like you said, Lisa, it's 20 million parts now. So, since we've published that it's up, we built 20 million parts through this network. So, it's not our first rodeo, and I think we are changing how companies think about bringing products to market and driving agility into their supply chain. And I like to believe we are just on day one of that journey because it feels like the work we could do like we just started.Lisa Ryan: At the beginning, you were talking about driving that car and the wind flying in your hair. Sorry, I'm still there. And then going to that touch screen, that's ten years so. So, what would it look like working with Fictive in that kind of example? Who would you be working with, and how would you get that technology into that?Dave Evans: Let's talk about classic supply chain products. When I was at Ford, you had three options for how you would make this product. I'm an engineer working on this dashboard, and I designed something up in CAD, and now I want to get it physically made. I have a new way to mount an iPhone 11 into the car. And I want to design or prototype this.So your options are threefold. First, I could use my internal resource . we had an interior machine shop, a prototyping lab, and some equipment at Ford. The second option is to go to my tier one supply base-people that build components for production and do that, and there are trade-offs there.And the third option, which many people do, is you build a network yourself. So you have a leased machine shop in Detroit, Jennifer's machine shop in Wisconsin, or I have a shop in Vietnam or China. And I have all these relationships, and you build this network.And traditionally, I'd go out. I'd get RQs. I'd wait for those RQs to come back. Then, I'd award the work to a supplier. The supplier would make it, and they would ship it to me. And typically, that took eight, maybe ten weeks to go through that process—every time I wanted to build one of these new dashboards.And to me, that was way too slow because I knew it only took two hours to make my part on the machine. So what happened to the seven-week, six days, and 22 hours between the two hours of making it? And it's a whole bunch of latency that happens. So it's time to say, Hey Lisa, I need a quote. And you're busy, running this machine shop in Detroit, building parts on the factory floor, dealing with something.So that quote takes a week or two to get back to me. So I award you the work, and I get put in a queue because you have all these orders ahead of mine. After all, you want to keep your machine running all the time. So it's like this artificial cue to be on. And then the part comes off, waiting for a quality inspector to look at it.And then now it has to get shipped to me. All of this is kind of do time. If you fast forward and say, how do we do this eff active? That quote happens in a minute. You use our online software. You're uploading that CAD file and getting instant pricing and DFM designed for manufacturing feedback. You can then collaborate with your purchasing manager teams using our software on any needed changes within a minute. Finally, you can purchase that just like you would buy on Amazon, like an eCommerce experience for buying.Custom mechanical component. From there, the part gets scheduled to an idle machine. So that's going to make it like the same day. I know that Lisa's machines are entirely at capacity, but Jennifer's machines in Wisconsin are open and available today. And that park gets routed to Jennifer, and it goes on, the machine gets made, comes off the machine tomorrow, gets inspected by our digital QMS quality management system. So we have physical, effective people looking at those parts digitally and sometimes in the factory. And then it gets shipped back to you in a matter of, say, two, three days. So you take a process that was eight weeks at four, and we've compressed that down to 2, 3, 4 days.Think about how many cycles you can go through in that iteration, all to let your hair flow better using the dashboard, driving down the one.Lisa Ryan: And to put it in terms that I can understand, and the simpler term is that, if I have a project that I need some market research done or something, and I go to Upwork, and I put on a job of precisely what I'm looking for data mining for this list of people, and then within three to four minutes, usually within the first hour I have about 40 people that have subscribed to that. And then I can check them out. I can read their reviews, then narrow it down and pick the one I'm going to work with. So it sounds that from a product basis, that's pretty similar. You're putting it out there. And then people are saying, Hey, pick me. I have the capacity, and this is what I can do. And then you can check them out.Dave Evans: it's that's very close. Your other analogy people use it's like Uber. You get out of the airport. You could stand at the taxi line and are there taxis? Maybe there aren't taxis because they're busy.Maybe the queue is a hundred people long, and you're going to wait, and you just got to IMTS, or you just got the CES, and you're going to wait in that line forever. But in Uber, you get off the plane, connect your phone and say, give me a car. It shows up in five. And Uber is doing all the quality for you.Oh, do you want a black car? Okay. You can do that. Oh, do you want an Uber X? You can do that. It's a five-star rating. They kick people off and manage all those networks of drivers. All that's done for you. You have a better riding experience than getting in a taxi, and there's no accountability.You don't know how long you're going to wait. It's this Uberization or Upwork. If people have used that. For the manufacturing world, what we know is like Lisa's machine shop, Jennifer's, or whoever it's out there like there's enough capacity in the world. What's more, how do you find it?Vet it, manage it and digitally do that. And let's get away from email. Let's get away from PowerPoint. Let's get away from the Excel docs required to launch products. Instead, we want to build better digital tools to reimagine how manufacturing is done.Lisa Ryan: One and just looking at manufacturing utterly different because we're in this realm of that, of course, it's going to take eight to 12 weeks to get a part because of everything you explained before. But you're also giving people opportunities. As you said, it goes in a queue. Number one, you don't know if that purchasing agent is on vacation. And if they're ever going to get the quote and get back to you in a couple of weeks, it brings you that immediate Gratification that you have people jumping on that.So how do you build the relationships with those manufacturers to deliver these 18 million parts? What's the process that you go through for that?Dave Evans: I want you to think that we are your bolt-on supply chain team. Just as your supply chain team has global supply chain managers, quality engineers, and project managers, I have that same structure here. It's just my people aren't using PowerPoints and emails and spreadsheets. They're using Silicon valley software tools to manage all the relationships. So, for example, we inspect the factory, not once a year or once a quarter, as we did at Ford or most places. Still, every day, we have data from our 250 manufacturing partners on their quality, their acceptance rating of any defects that happen, and all that's happening through our digital QM.Then on top of that, we have supply quality engineers in China, India, and the US that are physically inspecting these factories or you. This is all to give you confidence when ordering something. So we have the highest quality, not just managed through a system like software, but managed through world-class experts.I call them our SWAT team. That's like diving in and inspecting it for you. And what that does is it gives you leverage. Because imagine if you're a small product company, you have an idea. You don't have supply quality engineers, TPMS, or project managers. You don't have any of that stuff. Or maybe you're a big company, and you do, but your network's too large.We act as that bolt-on supply chain for you. So you have peace of mind that you'll always get the highest quality product. And that's how we've produced these 20 million parts by building this combination of software plus humans to drive best-in-cost automation.Lisa Ryan: And the other thing that comes to mind, though, again, you're working with manufacturing that is slow to change. I'm thinking about people listening to the podcast who may be stuck in that and just having the conversation when you are approaching different people to get into the fictive supplier chain that can be included in those quotes.And in that field of people. So how do you explain it to them? And the benefits that open up again, completely changing that mindset of how they've worked before through the whole quote process and everything.Dave Evans: Yeah. Generally, this will probably resonate with everybody listening here if you run a factory, a service bureau, or a CNC machine shop. Most owners or operators didn't start the business because they love generating quotes, PDFs, and discussing design permits. Most of them did it because they love making physical parts. They love running the factory, working with machines, and doing all that creative work.But what happens is to run a successful service bureau or business. There's all this upfront administrative work that you have to do. Talk to any machine shop owner and say, how much do you like chasing down past due invoices? So how many hands raise? This many? Zero. How many times, what's your percentage of things that you quote versus you win most is about 20%. Meaning for every ten quotes you send out, only two of them will you going o get awarded? What about those other eight that are lost productivity for you? When you work effectively, what we're doing is all that front office work for you. And we're basically like money on a tree. That's just you can pull down as much as you want.So you have this guaranteed revenue stream for your factory. Theft is prevented. Standardized work orders, standardized payment terms, and improved cash flow. And you have consistent revenue. If you work with a customer, they'll make a product, and then they go away because they're shipping it and selling it. We will always be making products because we're consolidating all this demand from many industries.And what we see is that we are a strategic partner, not just a customer, but a partner for these manufacturing part plants, service bureaus, machine shops, and that it's a kind of those values of, it's predictable revenue, it's a strategic partner and software development. And then it's all around payment terms.Lisa Ryan: Are some industries better for this, or what areas do you specialize in and find that you're hitting these home runs with?Dave Evans: I think that complex mechanical components are where we win the most. If you're ordering a block with four holes, You probably don't need a lot of sourcing expertise to get a block with four holes.You don't need a lot of people. A lot of people can make a block with four holes. Some avenues do that. But suppose you have tight tolerance and complex mechanical parts. In that case, there's a lot of back, and forth in how you quote it, design for manufacturing feedback, the invoicing around it, how you do reorders, like all this complexity.And that's where our digital systems shine both for the customer. Someone at Ford or Honeywell, but also for the manufacturing partner, the guy or gal producing, and that's where, I think that in the ecosystem of custom mechanical manufacturing, the complex parts is where we shine.Lisa Ryan: I think about product prototypes and then the complex parts. Do you do anything, or do your suppliers do anything with like 3d printing and that type of development? Or is it more machining?Dave Evans: We do pretty much all custom mechanicals. Machining is a big portion of it. 3d printing and additive are another huge portion of it. Injection molding is probably the fastest growing highest utilization for us because of all the constraints in that market today.So I'd say those are probably the three big ones, but then there's a long tail of other services.Lisa Ryan: And again, when we're starting to change the conversation and look at how manufacturing is just different today, and evolving with all of this new technology, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you're still seeing manufacturers make, and what are, some ways that they can take a look at those mistakes and maybe improve their process.Dave Evans: Listen, we are in the most challenging period for the supply chain in the last 20 years, 50 years. How far do you want to go back? When you take global trade wars between us and China, with an ongoing pandemic, a war in Europe, and the Suez canal. And now we're talking about different diseases that are coming up even beyond Covid. So all these are causing disruptions in the supply chain, and everybody's hurting on the demand side and the supply.And we see the common pitfalls that I see when I talk about simplifying sourcing, it's this whole process of how do you plan what you need? How do you source it? How do you make it? How do you deliver it? And how do you ensure the quality of it? These kinds of five things. That's what sourcing is.And then we see two people get. We see folks get hung up on this idea of agility and resiliency. Get out your notepad now as you're listening. Agility is the ability o sense and respond. Like in your supply chain, if you have agility, you can see that something will mess up and react quickly.That is, I would ask you to rate your supply chain on how good your agility and ability to sense something are. And when that happens, respond to it. Resiliency then is the ability to adapt to change. So you can have a very agile supply chain, meaning you can sense things will happen, but if you don't have resiliency, meaning once you've sensed it, are you going to make a change?So Hey, I know a global trade war will happen with China. Okay. That would mean you got agility. But do you have a backup plan that would be your resiliency to move things out of China? If that's the case, I'll take another one. We know hurricane season is coming up in the Florida region, which is great. I have the agility that I can sense and respond, but you have a resiliency that you can move production out of the Southeast of the US when that happens. So what's your resiliency plan? And this is why we're talking with many companies today, both factories and the companies, the demand side, and OEMs. Say, how much agility and resiliency do you have in your factory?If you're a factory listening to this and run that, let's talk about a labor shortage. That's a big one. We always hear, what are your indicators of how much agility you have around your hiring plans around retention and how you find talent? But if that doesn't work out, what are your resiliency plans?How are you going to adopt and change to a new hiring strategy? s it around training? Is it culture? Is it wage increases? Is it labor practices? These are all plans that I would implore everybody to listen to. What's your agility? And what's your resiliency plan in your supply chain today?And I would bolster those if you're not already.Lisa Ryan: Awesome. If you had, we talked about that agility and resiliency. Any other tips that you find helpful, or have you worked with your clients within manufacturing?Dave Evans: Yeah. We'll probably get to this because whenever we connect with Lisa, we talk about culture a lot....

Lisa Ryan: Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm here today with Wendy Covey. Wendy is a CEO technical marketing leader, author of content marketing engineered one of the wall street journals, and ten most innovative entrepreneurs in America.And she holds a Texas fishing record over the past 24 years. Wendy and her team at Trew marketing have helped hundreds of highly technical companies build trust and fill their pipelines through inbound marketing. Wendy, welcome to the show.Wendy Covey: I am thrilled to be here. Thank you.Lisa Ryan: First, share a little about your background and what led you to do what you're doing at Trew marketing.Wendy Covey: I'll tell you, it's not an easy marketing gig working with engineers at technical buyers. Sometimes I think I'm crazy. But I started my career at National Instruments, now known as NI. And they manufacture hardware and software products for manufacturing. And during that time, I held many positions within the organization, from marketing communications to product marketing.And then, after a while, a colleague and I decided to leave, put up our shingle, and start our agency. And we did so because we saw a significant need amongst the smaller companies. So say small to mid-size companies that were working within the NI ecosystem. And at the time, they didn't have websites, or they had websites, but they were pitiful.They had very shallow and content. They weren't doing well in search and didn't have a differentiation—story about what they offered. And so, knowing what we did from our time in marketing, we knew we could help these companies. And so that was the beginning, and that was back in 2008, and we all know what happened around 2009, which wasn't a pretty economic time.And so for us as an agency going from, okay, we'll work with whoever we know engineers, but we'll work with whoever. So we need to get serious about who we are as an agency. And so it was around that time that we decided, you know what, we're going to only work with engineering companies or companies targeting highly technical buyers, something we know inside and out.And once we narrowed that focus, that's when our agency took off. And you mentioned that wall street journal award, which was based on the reality that the business strategy of saying no is to grow our business. Lisa Ryan: So when it comes to marketing, because marketing and manufacturing are marketing and engineering, they aren't generally two words that you find in the same sentence. Why do you find that critical for these types of companies to do?Wendy Covey: Yeah, and it's a funny thing. Because often these manufacturing companies are doing cutting edge things, right? They're solving problems in new and unique ways, yet when it comes to marketing, they can be woefully behind in their adoption of new technology and strategies.And so when it comes to marketing and manufacturing, Boy, if you think about these buyers, let's put ourselves in the shoes of the technical buyer. They have a severe problem they're trying to solve and need lots of education. They might be innovating, solving something that's never been done before.And so when they go to education, where do you think they go? They go to Google. They do searches. And they're trying to find information from trusted sources. And that's naturally what marketing should be doing - creating content on behalf of that company to help that engineer, that technical buyer.Find answers, build trust and start to build credibility so they can be on that shortlist. We believe strongly that this content-driven marketing approach methodology is perfect for the technical buyer.And from a customer standpoint, marketing is fantastic because you have to get your product knowledge and the cutting-edge technology you're using.Lisa Ryan: But marketing is also critical from a workforce basis because, with today's labor shortage, you and I discussed how critical marketing is to sell the products and bring in the right people. So talk a little bit about that.Wendy Covey: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. Often we'll work with companies on their brand messaging, which gets into how they position themselves.What do they use to define their culture and core values? That shouldn't just be focused on attracting new buyers. It should also be how we live and breathe as a company, how we want our staff to engage with each other, with our customers, and who we want to attract as new employees come in.And so, there are a lot of different stakeholders that should be considered when creating that message. And then it. Stop there. You can make wonderful words, but you fall flat if you're not living and breathing those words within your operations and how you act as a culture. So it takes it.It might be great for marketing to come in and do lead a messaging exercise and create this remarkable messaging and put it on the website. But, still, it takes the entire organization to adopt that messaging and live and breathe it over time.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. There are so many instances when a company will hire a consulting or marketing firm to come in with something that they think will look good, chiseled on the wall.But every time the employees walk by, they're like. Yeah. So how do you get that buy-in with employees, so they know down to the core of their being? So that the words on the wall are, is the company they are working for or represents the company they're working for.Wendy Covey: Yeah. Yeah. So, it may start at the executive level, where you have a team. Think of it as a branding committee, right?You have your executive sponsor. You have HR at the table. You have marketing at the table, maybe sales as well. And that message, those core values, all those things are crafted. But then, how does that translate into downstream operations? So a great example is if one of your core values is honesty or trustworthiness, then maybe that should be in a performance review, right?Maybe those core values should be reflected in those conversations that managers have every year, every six months, with an employee to check how things are going. So now it has become not just a sign on the wall or something nice on a website, but something that we expect our employees to live up to.Lisa Ryan: Wow. And also, when it comes to recruiting employees, what are some of the methods that some of your clients are using to use that marketing method and get the word out as far as their culture and what they've built? Why would these employees want to join their organization versus competitors down the street?Wendy Covey: I find a lot of manufacturing companies. I don't have a good definition of their culture. So one is, it is just looking inward and trying to put the words around what their culture is. So, for example, with Trew marketing, we call the way we work laid-back excellence. We want to be approachable.We want to have this Austin style of we're laid back. We're not very formal, but when it comes to details, those matter, and excellence matters. And so when we recruit someone, we explain laid-back excellence, which will appeal to someone or maybe repel someone else. And that's a good thing because we want someone that fits in our culture and in.Not uncomfortable there. And I think that's no different than manufacturing companies, whether at a job fair or on your website, just trying to put those words around what culture means for that company.Lisa Ryan: So what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes people make in marketing?Wendy Covey: Wow. There are lots out there. The first is having a very outdated website, and Google changes its algorithms every few years. They punish you. It's very punishing if you don't keep up with the latest technology trends on your website. So that's one end of it: ensuring your website's secure. For example, it loads quickly. Those are all sort of table stakes. Still, then the other side of it is having accurate information about what you offer, how your company operates, and speaking about things using a buyer's language. And or a recruiting person's language instead of your own internal language.So think, if I'm just promoting my products and using lots of acronyms, that's not very friendly language compared to speaking to a buyer in their terms and helping offer content along each stage of the buyer's journey. So it's that combination of fresh content that's thoughtful towards the buyer or the recruit, whoever that person you're writing for is combined with a website house that functions as it should.Lisa Ryan: Yeah. And so often, I know there's a difference between the written and spoken words. And doing some combination where you are speaking into some kind of dictation, so it comes out as you said, that relaxed, casual type of language where it's very conversational versus sounding like a fifth grade English teacher wrote it.Wendy Covey: That's great you bring that up. And usually, during a brand positioning and messaging project, we talk about the tone of voice. You'd be surprised that not every company would agree with the statement that you should be conversational and approachable.There are different styles, and it goes back to that culture. One might be that we want to be informative and commanding. And the next one might be. I'll give you an example—Vertech, a control integration company, calls themselves control freaks.And that's very casual language compared to some of their peers in the industry. So it all is a mashup of how your tone, voice, and culture fit together.That would also represent who you're attracting, especially in engineering. I think of that as more detail-oriented and more formal, and maybe in another type of a small manufacturer where you're looking for somebody who's that good cultural fit to consider, as you said, who the audience is and gearing the language towards that.So you could see where some companies jump into content development without first taking a step back to say, what tone do we have? What voice, key messages, what does our company stand for, and what key phrases and messages should be woven downstream to every case study, white paper, and every page on a website? Top-down is very important when putting together a content strategy.And what about from the recruiting standpoint? We talked to ensure you don't have an old website so that Google doesn't punish you. But what about photos of your current employees or videos of what a day in the life looks like or those types of things to attract people to your organization?Lisa Ryan: What are some things that manufacturers can get started with, or at least keep an eye out for when they go through their website and decide what to do?Wendy Covey: I love that you jump to a perfect assumption: we should tell those stories of those employees. And I think some companies are afraid to do that.They're afraid to give employees the autonomy or the independent voice that's not controlled, or they're afraid that they'll be poached if that employee is out there on too many things, but that's an outdated view. So these days, recruits and prospective customers expect to look at LinkedIn profiles, see stories about employees, and understand what they're doing.And again, it builds credibility for that recruit, thinking about working at the company and in some authenticity of what's happening firsthand from that employee. But it also helps think for a prospective customer, are they real? Are they the real deal? And you. Who are, do they have technical experts who have their voices, and are there sales people authentic, technical people that I can trust to help advise me through this purchase?So there are all kinds of reasons to get those employees involved. And then, as for the tools, I know Lisa, you, and I talked about going where that person is. And that can be a little challenging. On the marketing side, when we're trying to attract new customers, we publish an annual survey.It's called the state of marketing to engineers. And we do this alongside global spec. That's a partner. And every year, we study how engineers seek and consume information to make a purchase decision. And in the report, we ask, where do you go? Do you use social media? What do you rely on the most?Do you watch video? Do you watch podcasts? And so that's a great resource to get a pulse on the engineering side. And as far as the recruits. You're seeing more social media utilized by companies to tell their culture story. And so, while engineers, when looking to make a purchase, aren't necessarily going to places like Facebook or Instagram, they may be going there in their personal lives.And when they come across culture posts that might be more attractive or more engaging to them using that side of the brain, like recruiting. I want to work for them. It's personal side versus. I'm researching an RF product to put into this thing I'm designing.Lisa Ryan: And you also made an interesting point with the information for recruiters. It's easy for them to go to LinkedIn and see where that potential candidate's working and start wooing them. But if they're. Boss, if their company was posting them for Joe's, the employee of the month, or Maryanne just won this fantastic award, and they're giving their people kudos almost to the point of they are the face of that organization.It certainly makes it much more difficult for them to leave; versus that, here's the LinkedIn profile of this person. So we talked earlier about being. Poaching people, but by promoting them more and their role within your organization, it seems that would be cementing their relationship even stronger.Wendy Covey: Agree.Lisa Ryan: So what are some of the other things you see working in manufacturing? Again, what are some of the best things they can do if somebody is listening to the show today and just looking to pick up some marketing tips to get started?Wendy Covey: Yeah. Our research shows that 96% of engineers watch video for work every week, 96%, but manufacturing companies feel intimidated by video.And I, I get why, when. Sometimes when we think of video, we think of that very polished corporate overview that an expensive production company comes in and does, but that's not really what they're seeking. A lot of it is how-to information. It's videos that show a demo of a.Product and so those can be done cheap, as long as your lighting. Good lighting is good, and your sound is good. You can use a very basic setup. You can also use webinar technology to do on-demand software demos, things like that. That one big tip is if you've been putting off video, this needs to be your video year.And then we're on a podcast right now, and podcasts have jumped hugely in popularity this past year; 73% of engineers listen to podcasts for work every week. And that was up from 40-something a year ago. So I think the adoption is for a few reasons. I think.There are more shows out there than there used to be. And as you have more opportunities to find something that matches your need, that's a good thing. And then also, it might be that we were craving more of that spoken word material during COVID and coming out to sheltering in place.It was one of those where we can't go to an event, but I still want a personal connection. So videos, podcasts, maybe that speaks to some of the spikes.Lisa Ryan: And it's funny because I think about my podcast and how it was a COVID-inspired podcast to come out because I fought it for years because I was so intimidated by it.And I'm sure many people listening to the show think it will take a lot of time and money. So we're recording the on zoom, we're stripping out the audio, and I'm going to upload it to my podcast site after being edited. And it's simple, but those, and. I'm not concerned about the downloads because it's not the information it's meeting new people. It's having conversations.So what you just said about inviting companies to consider, maybe it's a once a month, once every couple weeks, or even once a week podcast where you're talking to different people in your organization or interviewing your customers or vendors. There can be so much that goes on.That we don't have to wear because it's one of those things you get struck by lightning where you get millions and millions of downloads because there are so many shows out there. But if you think about how you can have some fun with it, get the word out and, hopefully, attract some people that like what you have to say. That's what a podcast is all about.Wendy Covey: Yeah, it brings a voice and a personality to your brand. And as does video, that's harder to do on that flat page, right? I will say on the podcast front that what we recommend our clients do is start with being on the other. People's podcast to develop, who is that spokesperson?Who's going to be the face of that initiative? And then, when starting your podcast, if it's technical, some of our clients have been running into some challenges with bringing on guests whose companies allow them to come on and talk about their projects. So it's no different than asking permission for a case study in legal blocks. It's because of IP issues. Sometimes podcasts can run into the same issue.So there are some strategy things to consider depending on the subject matter. But like you said, there are a lot of benefits to doing it. So I'm with you. I have. I'll second that encouraging voice, and I also think that the podcast isn't necessarily the venue for talking a lot of straight technical because that's better in the written word where you can go through and take your marker and underline and everything but conveying the personality of the company and the passion.Lisa Ryan: That's why I like talking to manufacturers. I love being around passionate people who make things and conveying that excitement. As we start to change the conversation into the younger generations and more so into their parents and guidance counselors and stuff to welcome and introduce more people into manufacturing and podcasting would be a great way to do so because it's so accessible these days.Wendy Covey: All about having that strategy and goal and then making sure your editorial calendar supports it. That's great.Lisa Ryan: So if you think of all the things, all the ways that you help manufacturers with their marketing, again, if somebody was listening today, what would be your number one tip for them to get started?Wendy Covey: If they're starting from, if they're starting from ground zero, and if they already have some marketing, that's like just. Okay. All right. So starting from ground zero, really understanding who you are as a company and putting that into words, right? So we call that brand positioning and messaging.Suppose you're just starting. The most important thing to do is understand who you are as a company and how to articulate that. And that is through brand positioning and messaging. And it's that...

Connect with Rish Gupta: rish@spotai.coLInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/profilerish/overlay/contact-info/Hey, it's Lisa Ryan. Welcome to the Manufacturers' Network Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today, Rish Gupta. Rish is co-founder and head of product at Spot AI, a groundbreaking video intelligent company built to answer a simple question, "Why is it so difficult for people at work to access video off their cameras?"Rish, welcome to the show. Rish Gupta: Thanks, Lisa. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Lisa Ryan: So share a little about your background and what led you to focus on video. Rish Gupta: Yeah, it's been a circuitous route to videos that always want to build technologies. So when I graduated college at about 22, 23. I started a company that was a pure software company. I knew nothing about running a business. I ran it for five years, grew to a few million users, and sold it. Again, though, I didn't know anything about running a business. The thing that helped the timing was it was just a couple of years after the event of smartphones.So the new behaviors and the influx of new people coming onto the internet because of smartphones led to that growth as a business for us. So as I was looking through new ideas and things to think about, one of the things that became constant was the number of mobile phones in the world.91% of the people already have mobile phones, and the number of PCs has stayed constant at 2 billion for the last decade and sells approximately 300 million units a year. So it's okay. These computing devices are not growing. They're everywhere, but they're already there.But everywhere around us, if you see, look at your home, small internet chips are being inserted into your fridges, cars, and these Alexa, the baby cams, and the pet cams. And that seemed like a computing paradigm is changing where everything around us will get digitized.And the same thing was happening in, in the business arena. And then, when you double click on the business arena, you see that 80% if you're trying to get visibility into your physical operations. So basically, through the internet of things or any of these new technologies, 80% of how we consume the world is through our eyes.And 85% of the data on the internet is videos. So we thought, wow, would it be any different in the business arena? And that's why video seems like a really exciting place to focus on concerning enterprises. And then, as we dove into it, we realized that the existing state of videos is people had sold them IP cameras over the last 15 years. So every business, from a gas station to a manufacturing house to any part of an industrial chain, has a security camera.But then they're not able to access it. So they still use a USB thumb drive. It's an old-school VHS-like recorder somewhere in the back room. One person may be in the organization who knows where the video is and knows how to access it. And so, all these pain points in getting this data into the hands of users.And so that, that's what kind of drives us towards solving this problem. Lisa Ryan: That's interesting because I think about what you just said about computers, that that, that hasn't grown and that, but the mobile technology has, and it's that's probably because five-year-olds don't have laptops yet, but they do have iPhones. So, why are they so far behind with so much mobile technology in the security camera industry? Rish Gupta: Yeah, that's a good question. When we started building this technology, what baffled us the most was how far behind these cameras were.And the reason for that is if you think about what most people would remember is as children, we used Panasonic, Sony, neon, Canon one of these cameras to capture our memories, our holidays with our family. And today, these brands don't exist, right? Like they exist, or they exist in a much-diminished capacity than they did 15 years ago. And today, if I ask you on your iPhone, what camera do you have? You don't know it's so the software has completely disrupted the hardware experience. So what we saw in the consumer world is the hardware companies, which are building the actual camera, lenses, and technologies.They were not software companies, and they didn't build Instagram. They didn't make a way to share these photos. They didn't build a way to create beautiful videos out of these photos to share with your friends or software companies. And something similar is happening in the enterprise space. The traditional camera vendors who built the cameras sell tens of billions of dollars yearly to these two American companies.They are hardware companies with little to no software experience. So they have focused on making the cameras have more resolution. Have a beautiful-looking chassis. So it looks good on a brochure, but they haven't looked at what happens once the videos are recorded. They don't have the expertise for that.So you end up with this old-school software. If you went online and searched just some of this software on this, it's like windows 95 and in today's world. Wow. You still, if you need to share a video. Like a cube clip. You can just send it to me right now with a link. You'll just paste it on this in the email, and I'll have it in a second.But with videos in businesses, they have to use a USB thumb drive, do a specific V video recorder somewhere in the back room, transfer it to their desktop, put it on a Dropbox folder, secure that link, and then send it on email. So there are six steps to get to that video. Wow. So that's the state of the industry, and it's purely because you have competence in hardware without competence in software.And one thing that we are all learning about technologies is software is eating the world, and we have to think about how consumers consume the end product. And now, as you know, the data is being built. Lisa Ryan: You just brought me back to this vision. When I first started dating my husband. He was one with a television-sized video camera. My dad had one that he never left home without.And what a pain that was between the full-size VHS tapes and then the micro tapes and all of that kind of stuff, which are now just sitting in boxes somewhere versus the, I don't know, 800 videos that I have on my phone that are higher quality than that. Rish Gupta: That's so funny. Yeah. One, one of my funniest memes on how the world has changed in the last 15 years from a hardware perspective is you, somebody showed a kid a floppy disc, and the person's oh, you treaty printed the save icon because they had never seen a floppy disc in their life.Lisa Ryan: Wow. That's yeah, it's we've come a long way. So what are some of the solutions? To begin with, we think of the video in business and manufacturing that we know that we are on camera most of our lives anyway. It seems a bit big brotherish, but if we were bringing that into technology, that would be in manufacturing and empowering employees. What does that look like? Rish Gupta: Yeah, the first thing, when you speak about a video being a big brother and a lot of this comes with the China surveillance kind of news we have fed, okay. If the cameras are there, somebody's watching us; somebody's recording us.Somebody has oversight on us. Then there's a piece of vast information, symmetry asymmetry in that kind of thing where. Yes, the camera's everywhere, but only a few select people control the access. And the difference is in traditional systems. It's tough to give access to multiple people.They have to individually set port forwarding and VPNs and complicate technology so that your computer sitting at home can access this remote VHS. Recorder sitting on a different computer network in a factory, somewhere in another state. And even though you might be the owner of this company, you have to be given special permissions.And if your vice president of operations needs this access, they need to be given special permission. So it's really difficult to set up these users. So what we have allowed doing is we integrate with your, Whatever email system that you use, whether it's Microsoft or Google or whatever else, and give access to every employee in the company.So video, it's not just the videos everywhere. The videos were available to everyone. So what is being recorded, you have access to it. You know how it is impacting. So your day-to-day operations. So if you want to know, did this shipping vehicle come yesterday or not? Was there a delay?You have access to that data yourself. You're not like somebody above me, or just the C-suite has access to it. And they're watching me. This is for people to improve. So one of the things we work closely with our customers is onboarding many of their different departments and users onto the platform.And then we hold training in the first couple of weeks with those people to ensure they know they have logins to this. So they have access to the cameras that need to do their work. And this video is more of a productivity enhancement tool than somebody trying to watch them do their job.So it's the question they're trying to answer in the day-to-day business. So if you are FA manager for a specific facility, rather than having to walk across to every part of the facility during the day to figure out what's happening in every different conveyor belt and different manufacturing area, are you able to sit at your desk and pull up videos and see, okay, quickly what's happening and then go to the area where you feel there's something, going amiss and you can help those.Lisa Ryan: Wow. Yeah, I think about the security cameras. People only needed access to them when something went wrong. And if you watch enough crime shows, when the people tried to get to the security camera, they were either broken, or there was no film in there.It sounds like a much more proactive approach. And like you said, just being able to keep an eye on things, not in a big brother way, but a more productive way because you know exactly what's going on in those particular areas in the plant and making it much more helpful daily instead of just when something got broke, broken into or stolen or anything else that we the traditional. Rish Gupta: Yeah. And think of it as, if you're browsing the internet and on Facebook or Instagram, you always have this sense of how much data these companies are taking from me.Versus if you had your own ACC and access to what exactly data was going through your laptop to these remote servers, you have more visibility. It'll not feel that big brother. You might then decide on certain activities you don't or specific activities you do because you know precisely the access, what is being seen, and what is not.You can push back on management. I believe giving access to the end users is the key. If you keep the access limited to a few people in the security team or the C-suite, that's not the solution to empower your people to make better decisions. Lisa Ryan: But what about when it comes to like privacy issues?Rish Gupta: Yeah, because when you're talking about physical and data security and all of that, getting into the wrong hands, what are you seeing that owners and operators are doing to ensure that they keep the video data secure? Yeah. There, there are a few. Things that we think about deeply over there.One is as a company. We take a stand. There is what we call it a personal identifiable information of PII. We don't store that. So, even though we have other artificial intelligence in our product, we don't do facial recognition, and that's by design. Okay. Which is saying that the idea is not to track specific people.The idea is to understand what's happening as trends in your factories and manufacturing facilities and your businesses and physical operations. So as a technology tool, don't surface a lot of PII. Don't. Individual data on people. So that means nobody should feel that tomorrow they can just search video footage of just me.No, they're looking at what's happening at a shipping bay or manufacturing floor. Nobody's tracking a specific person. The second thing we do interestingly is we don't take the video to the cloud, and there are a couple of other reasons. But that fundamentally allows the video to be on the premise behind the company's firewall. So the company's not taking these videos and storing them on some remote cloud server, somewhere outside their network. It's within their network on their premises. And we have just built a technology where we can securely punch in a hole in our appliance, stream that particular video, and authenticate user requests for it.The third aspect is that we go through third-party audits, like HIPAA for healthcare businesses and stuff, to ensure that our security standards are meeting the best in class. We have engineers from top companies like Microsoft SKU, Meraki, and others who have dealt with these problems at scale.And so we are making sure at all three levels, don't take private data about people. Don't store that at all. Don't build technologies that allow for that second. Let's keep the video with the people who own the video, which are our customers. And then third is from a technology perspective - since that's the part we understand the best is build an infrastructure, which is highly secure - is audited by third parties with top certifications, to make sure that our customers feel very secure, that this data is not leaking.And the last bit, we are returning to the non-big brother stuff. We provide an audit log in the dashboard to our customers. This means our customers can pull and see who was looking at what video at what time. So if there's any misuse happening, they can track it.Like they have a complete audit log of every click on their videos, which traditional systems don't provide. So that's another thing. It's about surfacing the data with the users and letting them see how these videos are consumed. Who's watching? What is somebody sharing a video externally to a third-party stakeholder you shouldn't want to? You can see all of that and then take control of that and build policies or restrict controls as you see fit for your business.Lisa Ryan: So take us to the very beginning. You're just about to start working with a company, and you need to train the employees. Yeah. And you need to get them back, through that fear of technology, the fear of big brother, and also share with them the benefits and why you're doing that. So what does that first meeting do with the leaders and employees? How does that sound? What does that look like?Rish Gupta: Yeah, the good thing has been the concern about being big-Brotherly. It doesn't come much from our customers because most customers come with insight into their journey where they've realized that the existing video system is not up to demand.Like they're not able to access it. They have people asking for access because there was a manufacturing delay, and somebody wants to know why it is. Can I go and see the video of when the manufacturing line stopped? And they were like, oh, we don't know if it's easy to access, et cetera. So typically, there is an internal operational plan for these videos in the organization, which brings customers to say, " Okay, we need a more modern solution. And that's when they start talking to us. So often, they're like, Hey, we want to give access to our people. So they begin at that point, and they're like, can your system take care of that?Will you charge us more for more users? And we're like, no, we have unlimited users added at no extra cost. So you want to add your entire organization. You want to add some external stakeholders. So feel free to use it. This is your video, your security, like footage. You do it with it. So that's one premise that they come with.So that's helpful. The second thing they ask is, okay, there are three kinds of use cases they typically want to understand. One is, can I have multiple locations? So usually, most of our customers have more than one location because that's when remote viewing and being able to. So seeing something without being there really starts being helpful.So they'll be like, can I get all these locations in one dashboard? And that's a nontrivial problem because the way most and your customers might resonate with this might resonate with them. The way they bought these security cameras is in piecemeal 2007. They're like, oh, let us build these facilities. So we purchased ten cameras there, and then, in 2012, we added this other part. And so we all bought five cameras. And they end up smattering six, seven different camera brands across three or four other locations. And they're like, how do I even access these different camera brands in one platform?And we make that easy. We work with every brand of camera out there in the enterprise segment. So can I access it? Can my people watch all the videos without jumping from one system to another? Can it be all in one system second? Do you have good filters for me to find something quickly?If something happened yesterday, I don't want to spend hours looking for it. Can you make it happen in a minute? So that's the second thing we get them on. The third part is. They talk about either the artificial intelligence part of it or the collaboration. Can I comment on the videos? Can I annotate on top of videos?Can I share this internally? Can I get insights? How many what was the first time a person showed up during this day in this room? When was the last time a person left, and again, not a specific person? These are just. What is the total number of people counted? So then they can understand when the shifts are starting, when the shifts are ending, what is the maximum number of people in, at any point, sometimes they use it for OSHA guidelines saying these things should not be blocked.These entry pathways or exit pathways should be empty. So then they're like, wow, this system can not only help me find something which happened in the past or help me look into my business as it's operating now. But it's also generating some data, which helps me understand overall trends in my industry - days, weeks, months, and so forth. So those are the three pillars we will generally talk about. And then, some customers will talk about security to us, and we'll talk about the certifications we have and how we have the right people, but that's typically a customer journey. So they're coming in with some internal need for a modern system.And then they're checking boxes and realizing a few more things. Okay. So now that makes sense and that they have videos already. So it's not like you're suddenly coming in and putting in cameras, but because the videos are so piecemealed all over the place, there's no access from location to location.What you're doing is taking everything they have, putting a nice little package with a bow on it so that they can access it as needed from wherever. They want customers. So yeah, exactly what you said most. If you look at most...