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Leadership, Getting Advice, New Hands on the Tornos, Dedicated Machine Tools, Inventory Tracking & PO Software, & How to Make Credit References Easy.
232 Plays6 years ago
"You're in the business of being in the business of a business!"
TOPICS:
- Leadership & Internalizing Advice
- Self-Reflection & The Last Dance
- Grimsmo's Delegating & the Tornos
- Lean Manufacturing
- ERP systems
- Credit reference tips
Leadership & Advice Making the plans, the decisions, and having to steer the ship without a detailed map has its own set of unique struggles. The Johns mull over the abstract concepts of feedback, advice, and how timing and experiences affect their ability to receive and process it. Conviction behind the advice turns out to be a key concept.
A Flowery Moment of Truth Fresh as a peach on the couch watching The Last Dance (a documentary about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls), Saunders finds himself doubting Michael's empty gas tank. While digging up a rose bush, Saunders gets hit with some serious self-awareness. Click here for NYC CNC's Movie Recommendation List.
Hardcore Machining Stuff...Well, Sort Of. The Johns usually get into nitty gritty machining detail but today, they find themselves inevitably back on the subject of business. The deeper they get, these topics seem less and less mutually exclusive!
Delegating, Teaching, & Administering Responsibility Last week, Skye took the reigns of the Tornos; Grimsmo's definitive proof that he's growing as the leader of Grimsmo Knives. While he admits that handing responsibility over is difficult, he's very happy and excited about what this means for the future. Not to mention, Skye is crushing it!
Click Image To See Full Post
Lean Manufacturing Has Nuance (just like everything else)
After a night of lights out machining, Grimsmo arrives to find an oil spill and that brings forth discourse about chip conveyors and possible solutions. Lean manufacturing can be tricky to pinpoint. Being proactive about potential problems is certainly a part of it but going overboard is easy.
The old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," certainly applies here.
Even more, the solutions MUST be simple, scalable, and sustainable. In other words, "the juice must be worth the squeeze."
The Scope of Inventory Tracking Part of entrepreneurship is defining the scope of problems your business can handle versus the problems it should handle. Conflicted about investing time to develop custom inventory and PO tracking software, Saunders reaches out to the lean master, Jay Pierson, and gets a surprising response. Kanban cards, bar codes, and simple PO generation are tossed around this theoretical ERP skull session.
Fusion 360 & Dr. Phil Experience (the awesome machinist, not talk-show host) Stay tuned for in-depth adaptive CAM troubleshooting videos from NYC CNC. Speaking of Fusion 360, how the heck does Dr. Phil do that!?
Prompted by an IG story with "automate simple tasks" plastered on it, Saunders and Grimsmo can't help but marvel at Dr. Phil's ability to rapid prototype & machine complicated parts. Grimsmo's planning a YouTube video where they sift through his Fusion file--stay tuned! In the meantime, watch this incredible, free, Autodesk University Course by Dr. Phil on 5-Axis rapid prototyping.
Click Image Below For Dr. Phil's Awesome AU Course
Touch Points of Business - Interactions ARE Messages Every interaction a client has with a business is considered a touch point. They can be anything from calling customer service to how easy it is to order products.
For instance, at the mention of ordering mater
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Transcript
Introduction & Entrepreneurial Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 172. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. And this is a podcast for two entrepreneurs who are going through their journey of life and problems and issues in business, get to have a heart to heart every day. And you guys get to listen, whether you like it or not. Well, they don't have to listen. They don't have to listen. Some of them are pretty addicted to it though, which is amazing.
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm proud of the fact that we've done something that I think is a good thing, right? Yes.
Feedback & Decision Making in Leadership
00:00:35
Speaker
I think so often as an entrepreneur, you don't always get feedback like we're raised in this grade school, grammar school, college, report, whatever you want to call it, where folks are giving you direct feedback every day or week.
00:00:51
Speaker
I think that's something I didn't understand as a quote unquote leader. I certainly still don't master it, but I'm starting to understand a lot more of it, which is you've got to make decisions. You've got to project yourself without necessarily getting that feedback of what important to you and what do you want to do and how do you want to do it?
00:01:11
Speaker
Does it make sense? Yes. 100%. And it's leadership something that's been on my mind an exponentially increasing amount over the past few years. And I'm certainly in the vertical climb right now of learning it and wanting to be better. But you're right. As a leader, you have to make calls. You have to make direction. You have to orient people in a certain way and give them feedback without necessarily
00:01:38
Speaker
hearing back from them and getting the feedback to know if you're doing right or not. And the feedback that we get is in the proof, is in the results, is in the actions and the profits or the direction or the new products. We get a little bit of feedback from the customers, quite a bit actually, which is always phenomenal. But it's not like you don't get a gold star for every decision you make. You try it and then you wait and see. Right, right.
Customer Feedback & Leadership Lessons
00:02:08
Speaker
But for those that were breaking the third wall here, but for those folks that are listening, when you're running that business, when you're shipping parts, when you're running a shop, every once in a while, you will get nuggets of feedback. You've got to be open to it.
00:02:25
Speaker
You've got to recognize that those are validation points behind whether it's excellent customer service or shipping on time or the quality of packaging. There's all these things that you can do that you have to believe in and do. Sometimes it's even worth going out of your way to remind folks, plant that seed in a good way, making sure that that's backed up by your actions.
00:02:47
Speaker
to be a proponent of yourself like that is an awesome thing. But again, that's funny. There's sort of a derivative lesson of learning about leadership I found, which is not only are the things you and I just mentioned, but it's also
00:03:07
Speaker
Some of these things are things that we've all heard before, but it means a lot more when you're living it. And that in and of itself is a lesson that it's like, hey, those wise old people that I sought counsel from or gave me advice or I looked up to, when they said something, even if it didn't make sense to me or I couldn't relate to it, boy,
00:03:33
Speaker
That doesn't mean you should discount it because a lot of times what they have to say is said in good intention out of real experience.
Advice, Experience, and Self-realization
00:03:41
Speaker
I've noticed many times that it has to come to a moment of self-realization where I get to a point in my career where I have to make a change and I have to do something different and I have to lead stronger or more direction or make decisions or whatever. Then after I do it, I go, you know what?
00:04:01
Speaker
so-and-so told me this 10 years ago. And I nodded my head, and I said, yeah, that's really good. And then you know it, but until you do it, and not that you just follow every piece of advice you hear, but the point is that there is much good advice that we get throughout life that we're not ready to receive yet. It's like reading the e-myth the first time when I read it like eight years ago. It was too early in my career. I think it helped form me a little bit, but I didn't believe it. I didn't buy into it, because I was still a
00:04:30
Speaker
almost solopreneur at that point. It's a corporate book, even a small sense of corporate. It's a book for working with other people, for sure. I wasn't ready for that yet, but now I've read it three times, I think, and I'll probably pick it up again here pretty soon.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, those nuggets, you got to stick to them and you got to listen to them again. But then what's your response to this question? Okay, you're reflecting the first time you read it, it was too soon, but you can't read it a second time if you haven't read it a first time. Was it a mistake to read it even though it was too soon? I think it turned me off actually a little bit to
00:05:15
Speaker
the benefits that it talks about, oddly enough. Interesting. Because I, I mean, remembering what you thought eight years ago is difficult, but the, the takeaway that I remember leaving with and sticking with for a little while was that the point of business is to hire people. And rereading it now, I'm like, no, that's not what the book says at all. Right. But that's kind of what I walked away from at my current mindset reading the book and I was like, I don't know.
00:05:41
Speaker
And but now I read it and I'm like, you know, 84% of this book makes perfect sense. 93% of statistics are made up on the spot. Exactly.
00:05:53
Speaker
It's a fun, and there's no answer, right? But there's a fun thing to think about it, which is how do you solicit advice? How do you process and synthesize advice? How do you log it or write it down if you even want to, to come back to it later? Because you're in the business of being in a business of a business.
Core Beliefs & Business Reflection
00:06:19
Speaker
I love that. And I mean, yeah, I've been in the business of the business of being in a business for 10 years now. And what I'm noticing now is that I'm, since I like to listen, and I like to consume and I not so much anymore, but I used to listen to a lot of podcasts, business podcasts. Now I read a lot of books instead. And
00:06:40
Speaker
I, you know, you follow people on Instagram that you respect and you talk to people in person and there's local businesses and your business and a lot of our friends and everything. And what I like to do is I like to consume
00:06:51
Speaker
bits of oversight of like, oh, so and so does like that. And so and so also does it like that. And then over years, you start to develop this, this core feel of what you believe. And it's, it's justified by the fact that other successful people are doing the same thing, whether you're listening to them or realizing that they're right. And
00:07:12
Speaker
I'm coming to that point in a lot of different places in my life where it's like, okay, I'm ready to do this. And oh, what do you know? So-and-so does it, and so-and-so does it, and so-and-so does it, and they're crushing. Yeah, I'm late to the game here, but I'm glad that I'm here finally. And yeah, you're in love with your own ideas, right? And I hate to admit it, but sometimes I wait too long until it's my idea, even after people have told it to me.
00:07:37
Speaker
But again, I don't know if you're wrong, because then once you get to that point, you've got your own it. Yeah, you got so much conviction, the probability of the follow through of sticking with it. You know, the classic, still one of my favorite most things is, is something they beat into us at an early age at school is is for business schools, like, you know, look, ideas are a dime a dozen. It's about your ability to build a team around it and execute on that idea.
00:08:02
Speaker
I had a really funny parallel to all of this leadership and kind of self-realization and how you as an outsider kind of are participant in learning. And again, was this Michael Jordan
00:08:20
Speaker
the last dance. And when I was watching it, I was, you know, I was all fired up, I'm sitting on a couch, relaxing, but like, you're mentally very much into it. And he talks about a point in a game where he was really tired. And like, you know, you've already number of episodes into it, you realize this guy has insane willpower, stamina, dedication, like just everything is there.
00:08:46
Speaker
And so when he's sitting there saying that he's really tired, I was thinking, Oh, come on, Michael. No, you're not. You can do it. Like you've got more in you because I'm sitting here like as fresh as a pH like and, and then like the next day I was doing something like yard work or something digging up a rose bush and I was like, God, I'm exhausted. And the light bulb went off that I was like, Who am I to like,
00:09:09
Speaker
externally to project Michael Jordan through this show that like, Oh, you got more in the tank, Michael. No, he's saying it. He means it. And we've all been tired or overworked or exhausted. And so, but there's, I don't know if you have the, do you have the same kind of reaction sometimes where you're like, nah, you could do more when it's like, I don't know.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And I try to curb those thoughts. I mean, I don't watch sports, so I'm definitely not the armchair guy that's like, go, go, go. But I get that for sure, because it's so easy to stand fresh as a daisy on the sidelines when we've all been exhausted, just like you all said.
00:09:42
Speaker
It's very true and it's something, it's, you digging up the rose bush and realizing what Michael said was, was excellent for you, right? Because then you're not pity partying yourself. You're actually like, no, no, this is, yes, I'm tired. Sure. I get it. But am I going to give up now? Like, yeah.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed that. And again, I would say, look, I'm not a big sports
Inspirational Media for Entrepreneurs
00:10:04
Speaker
guy either. But boy, there's these, I want to do like a little NYC page of like, the video media of stuff that I thought was like, if you're an entrepreneur, or you're looking for motivation or direction or leadership,
00:10:19
Speaker
The founder is one I keep coming back to about McDonald's and The Last Dance with Michael Jordan. There's one other that I love that I can't think of right now, but of course office space when you're looking for some or the office with Michael Scott of what not to do.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah, you should. You should make that page. Books, things like that. People would really appreciate that. No, this was specifically not books because first off, we already have a books page and number two, I think there's something, you got to be so tactful about recommending a book because it's like the advice of when you first find out that you and your spouse are pregnant. It's like the hardest thing to do is learning to accept
00:11:01
Speaker
uh others advice graciously like like everyone can recommend books and it's like a taxi work movies are relaxing like you can go watch the founder at almost any point in time in any situation true uh and i like that fact of it love it um i feel like i feel like we need to like
00:11:21
Speaker
get hardcore into some machining stuff. All right. So I walked into oil all over the floor this morning. Oh boy. So I'll step back a little bit. Today's Wednesday. Don't trip when you're stepping back. Don't slip and slide. Today's Wednesday on Saturday. I posted on Instagram, but
Delegation & Business Transformation
00:11:43
Speaker
One of our employees, Sky, and I came in and I taught him the Swiss lathe on Saturday. And it was transformative for him and for me to be able to actually let go. And I could talk about that for an hour. But it was huge. And it's reformed the way that I think about a lot of things and opening up and sharing responsibility and et cetera, et cetera. And it's been great. And he's been running it most days since then.
00:12:11
Speaker
And it's great. So we ran it all night last night, put in, what, three and a half bars last night. So it should have still been running this morning, which it might have been actually. I haven't heard from the guys. And yeah, it must have overloaded with chips or something. I'm not sure the exact cause of it yet. But there was the stainless steel chip tray, like oil drip tray that we had custom made to go under the lathe, which was one of the smartest things we've ever done.
00:12:36
Speaker
was full and was overflowing a little bit onto the ground. It could have been a lot worse, but yeah, so I got to figure out. I think the chip trade just needs to be emptied and it was too full and the oil couldn't drain properly, so I had to find a different way out. That's my guess. I guess I don't understand. It's not a broken line. It's just literally oil naturally, it's like an overflow and then it returns?
Operational Challenges & Solutions
00:13:01
Speaker
Yeah, because probably the same thing in your life. You got a chip conveyor, right?
00:13:06
Speaker
Yes. Right. In our Swiss, I chose not to get a chip conveyor after talking to a bunch of Swiss guys and they're like, you're not going to make enough chips. While we don't make an insane amount of chips, it's also annoying to clean out the chips periodically with a scraper and a bucket. Okay.
00:13:26
Speaker
A chip conveyor would have been nice, but I think I would have lost a lot of oil through the chip conveyor too because oil is thick and heavy and it's not going to self-drain on the vertical section of the chips.
00:13:37
Speaker
And then guys get a chip spinner. It's like a colander salad mixer kind of thing to fling the oil off and drain it back. So there's ways around that. But anyway, it's a trough under the machining area where all the chips and all the coolant just drops. And it's a flat floor with perforated walls on the left and the right. So the chips stay there, and the oil just kind of flows sideways.
00:14:00
Speaker
And then drains into some tubes and then into the tank. And I bet you, if there are too many chips in there, maybe it just found another way out. It couldn't drain quickly enough through the perforated holes, I think. Got it. Well, I guess a good problem to have. I mean, if it's- The real question is, I don't know if all the parts from last night are good. I want to know.
00:14:24
Speaker
Because it would starve oil? Doubt it. There's plenty of oil. Just tolerances if a tool broke or something. Oh, unrelated to the- Correct. Got it, got it, got it. Correct. Yeah. I think about
00:14:42
Speaker
things like flooding and cooling and maintenance and all that and lean and being smart. And I'm still wrestling with an internal battle like, okay, so you had a chip thing flood or plug up like, okay, what can you do? You can have an IoT sensor. You could have an automated thing that wipes it out. You could create a schedule or an automated system that reminds somebody. And there's
00:15:06
Speaker
Those things are all potentially great, but I feel like it's also just the case that there's going to be stuff that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Going around and creating every single thing to mitigate every single possible scenario. The oil spill, it sounds like it's not a huge deal, right? Or maybe it is.
00:15:29
Speaker
No, it's not. Not a lot of oil left to the area. But it's going to be annoying to clean up, for sure. And it's obviously something we want to mitigate and something we haven't had this bad of a problem yet in the year plus that we've had the machine. That's great. So it's great. But it's eye-opening. Like, OK, it happened. Whatever. Let's fix it. Let's not happen again. And that's the whole thing with steadiness and automation and eliminating variables and problems is that as they come up,
00:15:57
Speaker
like fix it, fix it for good and learn from it. And then something else is going to pop up and something else is going to pop up. And yeah, so kind of baby step your way to it, but make progress.
00:16:10
Speaker
I've remembered what sort of started this. It's the idea of how to monitor the extra air tank ball valve in the far corner of the shop. And there are definitely some awesome solutions, including a simple solenoid that can open and close it. And it's not the cost of that. It's just that it's one more thing that
00:16:30
Speaker
In my experience, and I may be biased or wrong, but my experience solenoids have a pretty high failure rate compared to some other electromechanical devices in the world. And it's not that big of a deal to just have like the TV monitor solution is working out awesome. The shout out to everybody who recommended the backup camera because it works great.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's simple. If the camera fails, I really care because I just go back and look myself. Not that it has failed versus one more thing to monitor, to maintain, or oil, or check, or plug-in, or override. I value the simplicity in a lean sense sometimes.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, I get that. I like that. It's you and I are both super nerdy and want to default to overcomplicating things, me especially. Especially in the planning phase. You're like, oh, I could Arduino this, and I could air cylinder that, and oh, man, this would be such a fun project. And then literally, my first iteration is way too complicated. And then I have to step back and I have to be like, no, that's just not worth my time. But it was fun to think about.
00:17:37
Speaker
Yeah. Well, dude, I'm going back to the Swiss lathe and sky. That's awesome. That's a huge step forward. Yeah, it really is. I'm, I'm thrilled and it's, I let go, you know, and I feel it in many different areas. Um, the, just the release of, of holding something so tight and whether I was doing it consciously or not, um, it's going to change the way we run this business. And I'm very happy about that.
00:18:04
Speaker
Any lessons to share or for folks that are maybe in the similar shoes? Yeah. I guess I'm mad at myself that I took so long, but again, like we were talking about in the beginning, you have to be ready for it. It has to be your decision to fully own it. I'm at such a point right now where I've been resisting it for so long.
00:18:28
Speaker
knowing that it had to happen that I broke through and that the it's like a Over-center cam or whatever, you know, it's like it's like just about to go and then it pops and then it just goes the other way Yeah, I feel like that's that's where I'm at right now and I'm really happy with that it's You know sharing responsibility and letting go and and teach I love to teach but I feel like I'm not very good at it but
00:18:55
Speaker
That takes experience and feedback, and I'm not bad at it, and I just need to do it. But being afraid of doing something isn't helping anything, especially when you don't do it. Yeah. It's got to be sustainable and scalable, period. Even if you don't do either, it has to be just when think about those things as you're putting them in place. Mm-hmm. Now keep that in mind.
00:19:22
Speaker
I ran into a acquaintance recently and a very, very successful individual, not in our world or industry, but small business owner, self-made person, very successful, and he's a bit older than us.
Feedback & Leadership Empowerment
00:19:36
Speaker
What was interesting was that point we had talked about maybe one or two talks ago, which was
00:19:41
Speaker
You've got to be willing to accept that maybe you're doing it wrong or maybe somebody else, maybe somebody has some points because he, in this instance, was talking about how, oh, I have to be there still to be this successful.
00:20:00
Speaker
on a holiday weekend working your butt off, on a Sunday working your butt off. I love hard work and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's a difference between choosing it and the business doesn't work without that. You'd be a slave to it.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yeah, like it was an absolute example of you don't own your business, it owns you. But what was interesting was there was kind of this, in my opinion, and look, it's easy to criticize this externally, but darn it, no, this is fixable if you're willing to fix it because the attitude was kind of a, oh, I've tried, I have a GM or Foreman or I have a person that can, nobody else can drive the truck, nobody else can do this, nobody else knows how to do that. And
00:20:41
Speaker
That's not necessarily wrong. And he's not wrong, except he's not looking at a big enough picture of you're not in the business of those things. You're in the business of training people to do those things. Or you're not. You can continue as is. It's your business, your decision. But there's got to be a way. That's leadership. Leadership is the ability to think about that and realize, OK, we're at this point. Money's not the limit. Hiring people is not the limit in terms of being able to afford
00:21:09
Speaker
built it. It's not as though he's built a business model that can't afford that. What is that book, Good to Great? I should probably go reread that because I remember thinking it was a good list. Have you read it recently or do you recollect stuff in and out of it? A year or two ago. I feel like I read it. I was reading it when we went to Germany. That was just over a year ago.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah, excellent. Excellent. Written in the mid-late 90s or something, maybe early 2000s, but it's just excellent examples.
Streamlining Vendor Relationships
00:21:43
Speaker
You realize business is business. Even though we're all technological now, it's like, oh man, yeah. Leadership strategies in businesses hasn't changed that much. I've somehow managed to shift it away from CNC machining back to business. I apologize. No.
00:22:00
Speaker
How's the Kern fusion toolpaths, all that? Excellent. I guess I haven't touched the Kern in a few days, since last week sometime. Next parts I'm making, I'm waiting for some metal to come in. I guess we talked about it last week. Waiting for the metal to get delivered. Nice. Got the account set up. I think Barry sat on it a few days longer than I had intended, but I did not give him a deadline. So that's on me.
00:22:29
Speaker
But yeah, he said it's all set up and we're on credit card. And, you know, when you when you're.
00:22:35
Speaker
trying to create an account with somebody and you have to set up like you have to fill out all the credit forms just to be able to give them your credit card and like you have to set up at least around here I have to like sign term sheets with three references and all that just to be able to do simple like to have an account with them and I'm like this is stupid I don't need like net 30 is great I don't need it necessarily just charge my card right away if you want but sometimes net 30 is nice but I don't need like you don't need to hold credit for me
00:23:04
Speaker
Right. And a lot of companies around, it's just annoying to fill out the form. So I'm just like, dude, here's my credit card, put it on file. I will call in place an order and you will bill it and ship it to me. And calling and ordering is the last step I want to do. The only step.
00:23:18
Speaker
So what we do is I have a generic SMW vendor credit reference form. And we will always get an inbound, like the new XYZ Metal Company will send us their form. And I just reply with ours. And I think once in a blue moon, someone will say, oh, sorry, it really needs to be on our paperwork.
00:23:37
Speaker
And sometimes you'll yield to that but sometimes you'll just say hey you know we're looking for a great relationship and we need to be efficient and you know help me understand if there's a reason that this doesn't work it has all the information you look for the bank account the references we've got great credit like.
00:23:54
Speaker
It's that fine pushback of you're not trying to be stubborn or difficult, but we had a recent relationship with somebody who was just trying to give us a quote, and they said, unfortunately, on our system, you need to go through the full credit approval process before I can send you a formal quote. And that's when you just kind of say, yep, I don't think we're going to be a good fit. I'll look somewhere else because it's just, dude, I need to be efficient.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah, and one of the companies I was doing this for, they sent the credit for them. And as I was filling it out, I was like, I really need a template here. There's no reason I'm filling this out every time, trying to think of three vendors that are good references and all that. So we don't do it very often, literally a couple times a year, but it's still annoying.
00:24:42
Speaker
But I was talking with them on the phone, and I'm like, can't I just give you my credit card? And why do I need to, like, here's my address and my everything. And they're like, yeah, we've never really done it like that. I never thought about it. Let me talk to accounting and see if that's the thing. I'm like, that's how a lot of my other vendors are. Just hold my credit card on file, and I'll be like, hey, I need these end mills, and then move on. So I think they're opening their mind to a new system just to make it easier for the customer.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think some of that for sure happens here, but it's not the norm is my unscientifically backed opinion. Payables, net 30 credit is the norm. One of the things that we've learned, again, I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I'm pretty comfortable sharing that it's
00:25:24
Speaker
worked well is our credit references are major large organizations. So like MSC, McMaster, et cetera. So get term set up with those sorts of companies. That takes a little bit of work maybe. But then the key is when you then open up terms with somebody new,
00:25:41
Speaker
Number one, they're going to recognize those companies as your credit references, which in itself is validating. And number two, McMaster and MSC, et cetera, they are set up to process credit reference returns much better than your local mom and pop distributor who they get that fax or email and they're like, oh, well, we'll have to take care of that for Grimsmo again today or something. You know what I mean? Like they're just not teed up.
00:26:05
Speaker
Interesting. I mean, I can't help but wonder to myself if anybody actually looks into those credit references. Do they? Yeah, they do. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No, you and I are probably a little bit in a naive world in that we're pretty upstanding folks that pay our bills, but there's a lot of people out there that don't pay their bills. Yeah. Yeah, I forget about that side of the world sometimes. And we're back to business. Yeah. No.
00:26:33
Speaker
So we did a really fun video. I really enjoyed it. Kind of a back to the basics of a deep, deep, deep dive into a fellow Allen who was having a problem with an adaptive toolpath.
Educational Content & Continuous Improvement
00:26:45
Speaker
Simple part on his Tormach 440. And it's a great example of the fact that this is what he thought was how he should do it shows, hey, let's do a video that's walking through, kind of revamping that and teach it.
00:26:59
Speaker
It's both handing them the fish, but also teach them to fish like, Hey, here's these settings. Here's what you're not thinking of with high speed tool pass. Here's your linking moves. Here's your plunge in. You're using the wrong size tool potentially. Um, here's why the calculation is taking so long. And it was actually really refreshing to just go comprehensively through, uh, you know, 2d adapter, 3d adaptive talking about where pocket, you know, 2d pocket may make sense. Um, so I just, I just recorded video won't be out for a few weeks, but it was, it was fun.
00:27:29
Speaker
you
00:27:30
Speaker
Good. I wouldn't say intro guide, but certainly a comprehensive beloved. Yeah. Just like you said, it's hard to think back to what your mindset was eight years ago. But if I handed you a seat of NX or hyper mill and told you to start doing something, you would be flailing around doing things poorly or incorrectly. And so that's that kind of remembrance of nobody means to do it poorly. They just don't know. So let's keep putting out YouTube videos. Teach them and show them how to do it.
00:28:00
Speaker
love it. Yeah, and whether I mean, like you and I've done, we've just buried it with time and effort in order to learn this stuff. But there's, whenever I step into something new, like before I got the current, I'm like, Oh, man, five acts, it's like weighing on my head. Like, how do I even? How do you even function? Like, how does this work? And how does complete work? And you jump into complete, you're like, I don't get it. And it just takes time and a little bit of direction and leadership. And then shortly,
00:28:28
Speaker
you're navigating around like no problem. But in the beginning, so as I learn new skills and technologies, I get to remember how hard it is to learn new things. So I try to keep that in mind whenever somebody else here on the team is trying to learn something new and giving me that blank stare. I have to remember, OK, of course. Of course, you don't know what this means. OK, I got to back up. Let me explain it. Feel free to ask me every question that comes to your mind, and we'll get through this. Yeah, agreed.
00:28:58
Speaker
We have a nod to our tip of the hat to custom software. It's a combination of a few different things. It's both internal kind of work orders to say, hey, we need to make more mod devices or we need to make more soft trials, but then also potentially a system that will lead itself to interfacing with.
00:29:14
Speaker
ordering or purchasing from our vendors and distributors, creating a PO, a system that will track that a PO is outstanding. We've got so many different avenues here with our zero accounting software as a potential for POs and work orders, as well as rolling out ERP or ODU.
00:29:36
Speaker
I thought about it for a while and did some pros and cons. I realized I wasn't going to get any more direction or clarity unless I either implemented something or started reaching out. Jay Pearson is somebody I've always looked up to as somebody who's really put a lot of good thought and made some
00:29:55
Speaker
I know he's had some things he's changed or quote, unquote, mistakes, but often has done very well on this. And I said, hey, Jay, here's what I'm thinking. Any insights? Because I was pretty tepid about this idea of endorsing or rolling with custom software because we've talked about it before. Don't reinvent the wheel. You're not in the business of that. So I was kind of
00:30:17
Speaker
hedging against custom even though I knew we could do it and I knew what I wanted. And boy, you talk about just a complete 180, five minute phone call with Jay was absolutely you should do custom software.
Custom Software & Decision Making
00:30:31
Speaker
He talks to a lot of peer group and others, every single business that he's working with on like a
00:30:37
Speaker
peer group media thing. Every single one of them uses custom software. It's funny because it's almost seems bloating because you're not in that business, you're distracting, but it's the exact opposite. You're able to tell exactly what you need it to do and make it work for you.
00:30:53
Speaker
And what's funny is we have an internal tool organization system called Alex, not S tools that you and I have talked about. Alex is our kind of like library of sort of weird tools that we only have one or two of, but we need to know where they are. And Alex was written by drumroll Alex.
00:31:12
Speaker
And it's a WordPress system with a database behind it. I actually don't even know some of the details. Alex has just done a bang up job on it. And it ends up that Alex was built, even though it's designed for tooling, to be perfectly able to interface with anything. So we're putting a USB scanner on it for either barcodes or QR codes. We're going to redo our Kanban cards. We're going to
00:31:36
Speaker
be able to set trigger levels for inventory, create POs along with reminders if it hasn't come in to get sustainable and scalable. So if we have, we're at the point now where we may have seven or eight different material POs out with vendors, I need to know, I need to start tracking that in the head. Yeah, exactly.
00:31:58
Speaker
I mean, I was hot on that a year ago, and then I kind of trailed off and I forgot about it. And now, even just yesterday, I was talking with one of our guys, Steven, about simply implementing Kanban cards, which we've never done. And we're beyond the need for that. We should have done that a long time ago, I mean.
00:32:17
Speaker
But yes, we need something because he comes to me and he's like, we need a lapping compound, the diamond slurry for the lapping machine. And I'm like, okay, that's great that you're coming to me in like plenty early, so you're not going to run out. But how do we simplify the system so that he can do it? Or at least he can put it up on the board and then purchasing takes care of it once a week or once a day or whatever.
00:32:40
Speaker
There are small businesses that have a single full-time employee to handle procurement. I just look at that and I think, man, what if you have a system where there's a centralized
Automation & Workflow Efficiency
00:32:54
Speaker
You don't need to have a USB scanner at every desk or corner. You could just have one in one or two corners of the shop. You just pick up that Kanban card and Steven, an employee who you may otherwise not say want to trust with, quote unquote, purchasing power by saying, hey, you can log into our account and buy whatever. No, it doesn't have to be that way. He just walks over, he scans the card. That auto generates the PO, and then it drops it into an inbound
00:33:20
Speaker
card box. And when it gets in, you you've got to tie those two back together to triggers you to re put the combine card out that needs to generate a order query for it. That's great. Yep, simple solution. And I mean, I trust all the guys here, even if I gave them free reign on McMaster, they'd only get what they need.
00:33:41
Speaker
So I want to get to the point where the guys can just order what they need as they need it. The only variable is like, we don't need a shipment from McMaster every day. So to batch it up a little bit, I don't know, we got to figure out a flow for that.
00:33:56
Speaker
So that was giving me some heartburn as well. I thought, man, what if they scan at 10 o'clock, it sends a PO, then at 2 o'clock, they scanned a PO. Well, hold on. First off, these problems are actually probably worth solving, even if it means you end up with some redundant shipping charges. It's about somewhere between $8 and $15 from McMaster. Let's say seven times a month you have
00:34:23
Speaker
double orders the same day by accident. Well, okay, so you spend between $500,000 a year on extra McMaster shipping. First off, that's probably not going to happen. Second off, it's still actually probably a better gain. But here's the thing, the software writing it yourself, what we're going to do is
00:34:44
Speaker
Um, it'll hold orders until a certain point in time, or it can, um, depends on what we're ordering, but, um, you can just have it hold it for one or two days, uh, or hours or days, and then it will then trigger automatically. So batch them together. Or what you can do is then also have a system where, um, if somebody wants to override that because of the urgency, then they can go in and finish it right then and there, which is of course totally fine.
00:35:14
Speaker
You're always willing to say, oh, nope, this is urgent. Don't want to batch it. I want it. I want to send out this second. Great. Okay. So if you have a system where, especially with McMaster, if everybody has the same joint account or the corporate account or whatever, people can add things to the shopping cart. Oh, I need, I need tape and I need another screwdriver and I need, you know, four, 40 screws and I need yada, yada, yada, but I don't need it today. But then somebody comes in and says, I need this today, order everything. And then, you know, that could work. Um, what was I just thinking?
00:35:45
Speaker
I lost it. You talk enough. I'll think of it. Well, it's funny you bring up McMaster. I love that company, but one of the flaws that they have is their shopping cart is either browser or cookie dependent. So oftentimes when Ed, Jared, and I are adding things to the same, we're all logged into the same account, it will end up creating multiple different orders that aren't merged.
00:36:09
Speaker
But it's not the intended behavior or consistent behavior. I've tried to email them once about it, and they think they kind of acknowledged it. So the simple answer is, guess what? McMaster is more than happy to accept a PO. So we'll end up probably stopping their e-cart shopping system and just generating via PO, which again, on stuff where this is not about, hey, we need to order some new
00:36:33
Speaker
Dykem or never sees that we order once a year. It's this is the the stuff that we keep an inventory that has a Kanban card, etc. Hmm. I wonder, I judging by the size and complexity of McMaster, I guarantee this is possible. But if you could set your custom software to the second USB scan the Kanban card, it's in your shopping cart.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. You could write a script that may do that. I think that's probably the wrong approach, saying this humbly. I've heard about more things where people are actually interfacing with APIs for distributors and more handshake to handshake database stuff, but keep it simple.
00:37:17
Speaker
McMaster's happy to take an email PO with the part numbers and quantities done. The beauty of McMaster is it still ends up in your order history, so you get that benefit. Okay. Still. Sweet.
00:37:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think just make progress, man. Just try something. Be willing to adjust and do minor failures and that didn't work and then try something else. But yeah, stepping your way closer to building out Alex and adding whatever functionalities you need. You know what you need right now. You need to automate simple tasks. Phil posted on his Instagram last week. It was like, automate simple tasks. That's all it said.
00:37:56
Speaker
I feel like Instagram algorithm is frustrating me lately because I don't see some of these posts. Yeah. Those stories, but oh, okay. Well, darn it, Phil. But he was probably going through some moment in time. He didn't say what, but he was probably like, Oh, why am I still doing this? Okay. I'm going to automate that. And then he just made a Instagram story with a rainbow background that just words automate simple tasks. And I was like, you're right, man. That's good. Thanks. Needed that.
00:38:21
Speaker
Again, you can't bring up Phil without just my head fills with this vision of I'd love to be a fly on the wall because what he can do with that Matt Sura and Herco of taking this huge complex 80%, 90% material removal rate or removal percentage on this like
00:38:39
Speaker
aerospace, I think it's a motorcycle park, but it's got all those like nested pockets and cool. I mean, it just looks baller. And you know, it's like CAD, CAD is, you know, done at nine and holding the part in his hand at five o'clock. Who are you? I sent him a message last week and I was like, so can you help me? Like, can we do like a screen share filmed, you know, video recording of you and I?
00:39:09
Speaker
on Fusion for like an hour. And you can just show me how to design one of my parts and how to make it, like not design it. We have a CAD model. How do you put into Fusion? How do you run the toolpaths? How do you tab it off? How do you make it so it doesn't vibrate? How do you choose your toolpath orientations and yada, yada, yada. And he was like, yes, anything you need, done. But I'm building this bike in the next three days, so I'm going to be done. Right.
00:39:32
Speaker
After that. Yeah. So that's gonna be fun. And we'll record it and we'll post it on YouTube and it's gonna help me greatly. And it'll be sort of like a video podcast just on Fusion and his workflow. We're looking forward to that. It's gonna be sweet.
00:39:45
Speaker
I'm looking forward to watching that. We'll throw Dr. Phil's Instagram in the description for folks that want to see this magic we're talking
Manufacturing Updates & Expansion
00:39:52
Speaker
about. And we'll put in the link to Phil's AU class where he gives some of these examples real time, which includes discussion of brownies and blueberry muffins, if I recall correctly. Yeah. What's going on today? What's on tap?
00:40:13
Speaker
So we've been running screws on the Swiss, made almost 2,000 of them in the past couple of days, which is awesome. And then I'm going to switch over because we need to make thumb studs. And I'm making this thumb stud backwards now. I've got to flip it over in the layout and make it the other direction to utilize different tools because I'm going to thread mill it with a live tool instead of single point thread it with a single point tool, which keeps breaking on me.
00:40:37
Speaker
It's like the first time in the history anyone's ever gone from single pointing to thread milling on a lathe. I don't know, but I've had this problem recurring for years where I have insane breakage problems with a 440 single point threading tool. What do you mean by 440?
00:41:00
Speaker
The thread is 440 so it's very small bar. I thought you're talking about like the insert grade or something. Sorry. Okay. Yep Yes, it's a small skinny weak little boring bar, you know threading tool What's ID? It's ID and I think single point thread milling it will take you know seconds longer and will be super reliable and
00:41:24
Speaker
So, that's what I did for one of our other products, the spacer for the knives. I use a multi-flute thread mill, and I got a thread milling op. That code actually destroyed an $8,000 electric spindle last year when I got that code wrong, and the lathe moved straight sideways into my little electric spindle. So, that was an expensive replacement.
00:41:48
Speaker
moment of silence for- But I fixed that code. Yeah, exactly. I didn't talk too much about that one when it happened. I just grumbled and bought the new one and moved on. But yeah, I have that code dialed now. It was literally, I think, a G17 or G18 switched problem. That was the problem.
00:42:12
Speaker
It's like an XY plane or a YZ plane or whatever. Yeah. And anyway, I learned from that. And then, yeah, so I'm going to do the thread milling today. I'm at the point now where it's.
00:42:24
Speaker
I want to set it up, but I'm like, well, I wonder if I should get Sky to set this one up or he can, he can shadow me or something. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. This is this week's Barry's going to order the material. Well, my, my only caveat, I agree with you, but no, I was, I was rubbing, I was rubbing the lid last week and I was worried about a catching fire because the collet was rubbing the tool holder and I need to understand what's wrong. Does he need to understand what's wrong too?
00:42:53
Speaker
Yes, so we'll do it. Well, at the very least, we'll do it together. And I, yeah, have him do it. Don't have him get it ready. You come check it, put a piece of tape on the call it to push a couple of that. I mean, I'm obviously just being messing with you're having fun, but like, no, he can do it like, you know, no one wants to crash the machine. Neither. He sure as heck doesn't want to crash the machine.
00:43:18
Speaker
Right. But I've taught him how to set it up. He can set up tools. He can replace the two or three end mills that need to be replaced. He can touch them off, dial them in. The bar is the same. Yeah. He can do certainly 80% of the work, and I can come in and show him how I am finishing it or guide it. Yeah. We'll figure out a good way. But it's great. It's great. It's freeing. Yeah, it's awesome. What are you up to today?
00:43:43
Speaker
When am I up to editing some footage? We finished that Datron generative longboard truck, so we sent it to New Zealand. It just absolutely feels great. I did the film, the recap, telling the story of that part, and it felt very rewarding to share what we learned, the mistakes that we made, the successes we had with that.
00:44:06
Speaker
And then we're actually getting ready. I don't know if I really formally announced this or not, but we are going to be implementing, that sounds the lamest way to announce this ever. We bought two VF6SSs. What?
00:44:21
Speaker
The thesis or plan for fixture plates, which have been made to date on our Haas VM3, the bottleneck is that it takes us a fair amount of time to switch between OP1 and OP2 the way we make the plate. So the plan had always been to add a second vertical to when the fixture plate demand justified it. But what we're also seeing is demand, and we know there'll be demand for larger plates that we can currently make.
00:44:47
Speaker
and for everything from Haas and vertical machining centers, but then also like our shape OCO plates are selling super well. People love it. Like it's two complete opposite ends of the spectrum and it's just absolutely great to offer those solutions. So we wanna make a shape OCO XXL plate. So we were gonna buy one VF6, but then the bottleneck would still be the fact that the VM3 is too small. Honestly, we could use another vertical for mod vices and other stuff.
00:45:16
Speaker
The plan is the VM3 will become a vertical for smaller plates, but then also things like mod vices, and then the two VF6s will be set up and dedicated to OP1, OP2 on fixture plates. It's fantastic. That's good. Yeah, really excited. Yeah, and then you're tooling them up. You're dedicating them for production. So that's great. You have now quite a few dedicated machines, and you can keep the tools you need in those machines, and they just churn. They just run.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah, the two sixes will be dedicated, but the VF2 and the VM3, they'll be a little bit modular. I mean, we do our own products, but not super all over the place. I mean, they're pretty focused in on what they do. So yeah. You've got quite a few machines now. Yeah.
00:46:05
Speaker
TM, you got the Robo drill. That's good, man. Yeah. Well, look, if I, and I'm talking out loud here, but if it weren't for proven cut, I would probably start thinking a lot more about parting ways with the Robo drill and the TM. They're both excellent machines for their own purposes. I love the Robo drill. I'm glad that we've had the TM, but
00:46:29
Speaker
From a Saunders MachineWorks business plan, we would streamline into more of that. But Provencut's going really well. Jeffrey's doing an awesome job with it. And having those machines as different data points, tool testing, and so forth for now is working out. And we'll get our work done on those. And then maybe we will part ways with them and bring in some new stuff.
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting to think, to be flexible like that. Like I've grown attached to all my machines and I haven't fully even considered getting rid of any of them, but the day may come, right? Where it's like, actually, this would be much better for us. So let's get rid of this one, get that one instead. But in a way, they're kind of like my children and maybe I'm too close to them, you know? Yeah. Time to sell your children, John. No kidding. Oh yeah. It's fun. I'm excited. Good. Awesome, man. Good for you. Awesome. We'll talk to you next week.
00:47:20
Speaker
Good, buddy. Take care. I'll see you. Bye. Take care. Bye.