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Episode 26: Getting Better Two Seconds at a Time
23 Plays17 days ago
Welcome to Episode 26! In this episode, we discuss Tucker's first couple weeks on the job, Two Second Lean and a recent example that shows off how this can be put to practical use!
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Transcript
Introduction of Tucker Holiday and His Role
00:00:01
HFW Industries
welcome back to the shop talk podcast episode 26 and we liked episode 25 so much that we're goingnna run it back again on episode 26 somewhat uh and by that i mean we have tucker holiday back on the podcast um he's still here so that's uh that's one win he's lasted this long and i guess that i mean with that No need for an intro. That kind of dives right into our first question. It's been, well, this point, it's been, what, seven weeks?
00:00:30
HFW Industries
That's somewhere around there. It started February, right? So, yeah, I mean, yeah, six, seven weeks, which is crazy. It feels like two. I can't believe how much time has passed so quickly. That's life in HFW.
00:00:44
HFW Industries
Well, so, yeah, I mean, obvious first
Early Weeks at HFW
00:00:46
HFW Industries
question. You're a month in, well, like I said, six or seven weeks. How would you assess the first couple weeks into the job? um There is a lot of learning I did when I had started here.
00:00:57
HFW Industries
i have very little background in grinding, which is the primary of what we do here at HFW. yeah um But having to learn a bunch of that, and um very humbling.
00:01:13
HFW Industries
I have learned a lot, but I have also just taken over the maintenance department and started just taking care of things that needed to be fixed, which is really my bread and butter of what I like doing. I like fixing things, but A month in, i am still learning.
00:01:29
HFW Industries
I'm still trying to figure out where everything is because I can't find anything and working to make sure that doesn't happen again. Well, and that's exactly what we'll get into. Some of that is just because you're new, but a lot of that is also because ah some of the systems are maybe there, but not necessarily adhered to as well as it could be.
00:01:49
HFW Industries
And there's a lot of room for improvement. That's why you're working on that. So I think that's ah and think it's funny because... I think it was good to start in the like you really see a lot from the maintenance perspective because you're all over the shop and it one, you, you dive right in.
Improvement of Maintenance Processes
00:02:06
HFW Industries
That's something you know, but then you're also learning a lot about the individual people and the machines and the processes while doing that.
00:02:13
HFW Industries
Um, Which has been, from my perspective, it's been interesting. just and I've learned a lot just talking with you and learning from you and and hearing what you're hearing, too. um Because, again, you're yeah you're you're and you're fixing some things, like you said, that have been broken for a while.
00:02:27
HFW Industries
that and They have been? All I know is somebody tells me it's broken and I try and fix it. Well, it's funny because certain people, people are funny. You have some people who are just adaptable, i guess I would say, and they will just work with it. And it's like, well, no, if it's broken and and you don't let it frustrate you, that's like we talked about two second lean, which we'll get into, you know, if it's bothering you, let's fix it.
00:02:53
HFW Industries
Um, and then you have the other people who, on the other side of the spectrum, who you know i want everything pristine. i think you I think there are good aspects to both, and I think that's where you kind of come in and um revamping the maintenance process and determining what needs to be done now, what can wait a little while, and what is ah is a want but not necessarily need right now.
00:03:13
HFW Industries
Absolutely. And if it's even small things, even if somebody comes to me, hey, this is broken, it's more of a, oh, I had no idea. Maybe we can look at making it so we'll never break again. Well, and even just compiling like the the list of like, because you hear all the different comments right through the shop.
00:03:32
HFW Industries
Oh, this has been broken forever. I love those are my favorite. This has been broken for months. Well, why didn't you tell me a months ago? Well, and just knowing about it, because then at least you can blame you or whoever it's not getting fixed. Or you might be able to say, okay, this is why it's not getting fixed. A lot times there is a reason that something's not being addressed at the moment, whether it's maybe it's a $200,000 repair.
00:03:56
HFW Industries
In some cases, I know like the sales are not the so the technicians for some of the machines are coming from like Korea or Japan, that there's like a six-month lead time on that. So sometimes there are reasons it's not being worked on, but then you kind of have that background, and now you're learning...
00:04:09
HFW Industries
a lot about that and I think doing a great job so far. Everyone's been very complimentary. Oh, thank you very much. So to put you on the hot seat a little bit, what
Insights into HFW's Interview Process
00:04:20
HFW Industries
what has worked well? I guess that we'll start with the easy one.
00:04:22
HFW Industries
What would we be crazy to change? um Crazy to change. This is a tough question. I think the one thing that you'd be crazy to change is your interview process. um I thought that was actually very good having me see the whole shop and you guys asked a lot of pointed and very good serious questions that I didn't actually have answers to a bunch of them.
00:04:44
HFW Industries
um as far as anything else on the shop floor ah don't get rid of your plant manager peter because uh he's doing a great job and uh we don't need to get rid of him anytime soon so we sorry peter we don't have any plan we were go we want peter stick around as long as he can but any everything else it's i don't think i've been here long enough to see anything that we should keep forever that's interesting about the interview process mean like to hear a little bit. I wasn't expecting to go in that direction. that's We're always trying to get better. I know what like with you in particular, um we did make sure it was a very, like there was some intention put into the way we do it. And when as far as like standardization goes, we've worked on standardizing the interview process.
00:05:28
HFW Industries
Now, do we actually follow that? A lot of times, no. But ah ah in your case, we did try to adhere to as much as possible. I did fill out some of the forms after the fact, but that's – I didn't have to admit that. But – um Honesty is the first step.
00:05:45
HFW Industries
I'm curious. So just seeing the shop and learning the whole process and kind of having the in-depth questions, you thought that was worth it? Yeah, that very good. And also challenging me on certain things like what what um what do you get most stressed about?
00:06:01
HFW Industries
Although you could probably add in some more brain questions like, hey, in my favorite, this comes from a Mr. Tom Lipton. at Ox Tools, if you look for him online, his favorite interview question is you have a bucket of water or like 55 gallon drum of water three stories down.
00:06:20
HFW Industries
How would you take the water and get it upstairs? And completely open-ended. I mean, you can go all the way from, I'm gonna get a bucket, carry it each time, hook up by an electrical pump to pump it up all the stairs.
00:06:34
HFW Industries
Or, um and my favorite answer was, um quote Have you heard of a game called Portal? Because they have a gun that allows you to make little portals on walls that you could then walk through from one portal to another. So you put a portal on the first floor, portal on the third floor, and you just walk the drum through.
00:06:53
HFW Industries
so it was just and more interesting questions. I like those, but that's just me. How much water are we talking? um That's a good question. Maybe a 55-gallon drum?
00:07:04
HFW Industries
Maybe $255? two fifty five don't know. If it's drinking water, I'd just drink it. That's a lot of water. That's really hydrated. That'd take me a couple days. Interesting. Yeah, again, I was not expecting you to go in that direction. That's cool. that's because And I think that, again, is something we just realized.
00:07:23
HFW Industries
um I know you and I have had this conversation. Over the last couple of years with COVID, I feel like COVID gets blamed for everything. this ah This is not necessarily just a COVID problem, but it's also... COVID made problems much more um amplified that we weren't aware of before 2020 happened.
00:07:44
HFW Industries
Absolutely. and And that's exactly this point. well because Because COVID also coincided with a lot of our – or a good number of our very experienced people retiring. We had a guy like Joe Fedario, who I know you haven't met yet, um who retired after 43 years, I believe. Wow. as a He ended as a grind or grind supervisor for the last – couple decades.
00:08:07
HFW Industries
um you know you A guy like that retires. Again, that was, yeah, i was 2022, 23. um So you know come coming out of COVID, you have that you have that this this huge shift in um the labor force, and then you have, you you throw in COVID on top of that, where you know the the knowledge and the learning base of what students are learning today is was already drastically different. Then you had COVID where know, you have high schoolers were coming out of high school and had barely gone to school.
00:08:37
HFW Industries
And so it's just been a lot of, a lot of change. I think we realized we weren't necessarily, What's the word? ah Finding some of these things out ahead of time that we probably should be. And so we wanted to make a more standard interview process.
00:08:53
HFW Industries
So it's good to see that. And I think you see the results between you and, and I mean, you look at the team we have now. I think we've got some really good guys. We are growing a good team. Yeah. For sure. And you can see it too, especially the young, like the younger guys, it's a longer path. We don't expect them to be, ah you know, ah Mark Petronsky tomorrow, but you can see like the progression that,
00:09:14
HFW Industries
It's painful at first, but you're starting to see it. Yeah, hiring for character before skill has been go-to win for anybody who has hired anybody that I am aware of. Skills are trainable.
00:09:26
HFW Industries
Your attitude is not. Well, you know something? and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this because I was – who was I talking to about this recently? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I forget who I was. But that we're just talking about – it's almost as important – oh, we were talking about the subject of – there are so many – it's so common now for people to jump around jobs every one or two years. and I mean that's just so hard to – really grasp your role and and grow that way.
00:09:52
HFW Industries
And I think some of it could come down to like the, I think the interview process has to be as much of an interview of you interviewing that potential employer as them interviewing you. And I think, i mean, you did that. and I remember some of the questions you were asking and you were, know, you weren't just coming in and saying, Hey, this is cool. I guess we could try it. like what you do. And I think I was more pointed of, Hey, where do you guys see yourself growing in like five, 10 years?
00:10:15
HFW Industries
Yeah. And that's, I mean, and that fired me up too. Like here those are the type of people that we want forward thinking. Yeah. And who want to see like, Hey, what's the future here? What's, what's the opportunity and and how can we go after that? So yeah, that was something ah that stuck out to me during that as well.
00:10:31
HFW Industries
What other questions you got for me? Well, the the opposite of that. What's something you would change? or what What do you see as the biggest opportunity for improvement?
Proposing a Cleaner Work Environment
00:10:40
HFW Industries
Everything. um that That's so difficult because there are so many small and big things you could try and work on to make better.
00:10:52
HFW Industries
ah For me, the number one would be soundproofing the spray weld area and help with dust control, that which would help propagate cleanliness through the whole shop.
00:11:03
HFW Industries
Because if we could get the cleanliness in order, that would help a huge amount. Because you look at the machines around it, everybody's so used to the way they look. yeah They don't see with the beautiful machine that's hiding under all of the dust and grime. It's just with slow progression back to something that looks really nice, I feel like would help everybody.
00:11:26
HFW Industries
It's either that or it's I'm really OCD about cleaning stuff. But at the same time, it's you come to work and you work in in a place that looks nice. You feel better. Yeah. Well, a couple of things. One, it's also my grandfather has always been.
00:11:42
HFW Industries
Like it's always been that's always been instilled in me. You take care of what you have. Like, you know, he every couple of years we paint the walls white. It's like, why why are you going to do that? They're going dirty right away. but because Because it is exactly what you said. that There's a standard and you you get used to your surroundings. So when you're used to the walls being white, even though, yes, they're going to get dirty with time, you're going to have to redo it or wash them.
00:12:03
HFW Industries
ah it's it's just It's the point of it. And the good news for you and so that that'll be a project you're going to help with, um which I think will be good. having your That's something you'll be very good at looking at. And that's, I guess, to give a sneak peek, that's something that's coming in and hopefully within the next year to two, I would say.
00:12:23
HFW Industries
A video shop tour? Oh, no. Sorry. I should clarify. Well, that is too. That that should be sooner. No, and new booths and enclosures for the... But more details to come.
00:12:35
HFW Industries
yeah We will let everybody know as soon as we're ready to tell everybody. Yeah, we're still working through the preliminary. it's It's more complicated. you you get You get into dust collection, which is you know either dry or wet like we have.
00:12:51
HFW Industries
um You have all sorts of different... The big the big thing is space. Yeah. And we're going to take a look at process flow because we want to make sure things go in and out quickly and easily. So we aren't just, you know, oh, we have to take it all the way around back to where the oil storage Oh, then walk all the way around the ah the the wall to the other side. No, we're going to try and do something where we can go straight from one right back to either the machine shop or wherever it needs to go.
00:13:21
HFW Industries
Yeah. I mean, ultimately with any job, we like our goal is to touch it the least amount of times as possible. yeah And if so that's what one thing that I think, and I know we'll get into two second lean here in a little bit, but the just this concept that is very easy for everyone to understand.
00:13:38
HFW Industries
We make, as a company, we'll make more money the fewer times we handle a part ah that's unnecessary. So like if there's only a couple operations in the shop that are quote unquote value added, right? So like when we're machining the part, when we're coding it, when we're grinding it, um those are all value added. Like we we get, the customer pays us to do those things.
00:14:00
HFW Industries
They're not really paying us to put, to get the crane, put the part on a cart, push the cart down, then move the cart back, ah have inspection inspected. Those are all things that like you have to do that, but we want to minimize it as much as possible, right?
00:14:13
HFW Industries
Mm-hmm. So that's that those considerations come into into play when we're discussing what what and how we're going to execute this booth. But having Tucker will be a big boost and in helping this push it across the finish line.
00:14:29
HFW Industries
All right, well, good good answer. i like that one. because I like it because that's something we can address and and will be addressed in the next year. but if if maybe Two months. We're going to get the floors cleaned within the next two months. That's my goal.
00:14:43
HFW Industries
I like that. All right, what was something that surprised you in the first your your time here so far? um That I needed to bring my tools in. um i came from a union based shop where everybody had their own tools and I couldn't touch them.
00:15:00
HFW Industries
So being able to touch the tools and use the tools to fix the things was awesome. wasn' it It was a little surprising only because i it's just a new workflow that I'm not used to.
00:15:13
HFW Industries
And then the next surprising thing after that was where I had to go in order to get some tools to go fix the thing. So I'd go to one end of the shop or plant as I will commonly call it a plant.
00:15:26
HFW Industries
I'll go from one end of the plant, grab a wrench, walk to the other side to our weld area, fix it, walk back to return it and then finish my job up, which is terrible.
00:15:38
HFW Industries
Just for reference, that the plant is about... How long is that walk? Someone told me it's about it's about a quarter of a mile. Oh, my God. So Peter and Fred have both logged like 15, 18 miles in some days. On a good day. It's 30 miles on a really bad day.
00:15:55
HFW Industries
Which is wild. It's bad because they have to go from one end to the other. Yeah, and we're not like the the goal isn't to all just be fat slobs and sit in place all day, but you don't at the same time walking 30 miles. Again, it goes back to the ah cutting out waste. So excessive movement. So is it really value added to walk from one end of the shop to the other and then back again just to get a wrench? yes So my plan is, in order to eliminate some of this wasted time, ah I'm planning on bringing my own toolbox in.
00:16:25
HFW Industries
um And I am compiling a list of specific tools I am going to bring in and share with John Burek, who is um fantastic repairer and helps out with maintenance.
00:16:42
HFW Industries
We will share both boxes. So if he's towards the weld area, he can grab certain things from my toolbox, just go fix it, then return it when he's done. Or if we're at the other end, we'll just grab from his box and we'll share it.
00:16:56
HFW Industries
collectively. If obviously things go missing from either mine or his, we end our friendship and we just go back to our individual boxes. But I don't foresee that happening, but I'm trying to figure out what tools i really need to bring in to make that really work instead of just, you know, buying all the socket sets, all the wrenches, the screwdrivers. i I really don't need that.
00:17:17
HFW Industries
Can we talk talk on something there? You touched on if one of us doesn't return we'll end our friendship. I think that's something that we're trying to... um That's something I've noticed. like I have an example.
00:17:31
HFW Industries
it It drives me crazy, and so I want to address it. um In the spray shop... You know, like because I have our R&D project that I'm working on, so I've got I've built a little setup of tools back there.
00:17:43
HFW Industries
ah And yeah know every time I go to use the air gun, there's no nozzle. I'm like, why is it not? Well, it turns out each guy has their own nozzle. Yeah, I just found that out today too. There aren't nozzles because what was happening is that someone would come and take one and then walk away with it and return. So each guy has their own nozzles. And i just think like that is, and so eli when Eliza explains it to me that way, it's like, okay, I guess that sort of makes sense. But I think we want to, what we're looking to get to in the future sooner rather than later is one, um have standardized setups for each, like what each work center should have so that you don't have to go searching for something like an air gun nozzle.
00:18:21
HFW Industries
Yeah. and to question why doesn't every air hose have a nozzle well i asked that question i don't have a good answer oh okay and so that will require follow-up okay yeah and i've been told they're only like five or ten dollars so again like if you because here's the point if you need to walk around the shop to find an air gun nozzle think of how much you know wasted time how much money you make yes exactly think ah and think of and so you can you can pretty easily calculate and then there's you know there there's the the labor rate and the equipment right you can calculate how much time you're you're Just go off the highest number you can, which is our equipment rate, which is X number of dollars per hour multiplied by how long you just spent looking for a $2 air hose.
00:19:01
HFW Industries
That is an expensive air hose. Yeah, exactly. That is a really expensive air hose. Well, it comes back to the trust thing too and in systems. Like when stuff goes missing, people then – when someone – you take an air gun and then it doesn't come back.
00:19:16
HFW Industries
you People are like, I'm not i'm never goingnna trust anyone to use it again. And then you – that's – goes to the situation we have where people have their own personal air guns it's like i guess that's fine but yeah i we want to get we want to have a standardization and we also want to build a system of of standardization and trust too um and accountability accountability is huge because if you go some go work on this work center and stuff's missing it should be brought to the attention of whoever was there last.
00:19:45
HFW Industries
Hey, this was set up like this before you got here and now it is a wreck. What happened and why? And this is the way and then we want to we want to instill like this is the way it should be and and make it easily to be noticeable when something's off and something's missing.
00:20:00
HFW Industries
and And not, again, ah like we talked about last time, it's not to point fingers, it's to say... It's to make everybody better. And make the job easier. absolutely the only reason. Yeah. So that's that's kind of where we're getting to. And again, I think you know something as little as an air hose, but I think it goes again to exactly what you're talking about.
00:20:17
HFW Industries
We all, I mean, everyone here, I think, is, we find ourselves walking around sometimes searching for things. Even in the office, it happens in the office all the time, just as much as it does downstairs, I would say. um Where, you know, like, you run out staples or um paper or, know, there's a million examples.
00:20:34
HFW Industries
ah And any time we can, any way we can reclaim ah that time, because like we said, time is our greatest resource. Time is the, that's what we're selling. We're selling time, essentially, if you think about it.
00:20:48
HFW Industries
you know because the the equipment yeah Yeah, we have the equipment, and we have we have people's skill, and we
Applying 'Two Second Lean' at HFW
00:20:52
HFW Industries
have their time. When you apply those, that's what that's how you make money. So those are the kinds of things we're thinking about.
00:21:00
HFW Industries
There's a lot improvements to made.
00:21:09
HFW Industries
right, so let's talk a little bit about Two Second Lean, because I know that's something that you brought with you to the THFW. You gave me the book. So Two Second Lean is a lean principles book written by Paul Akers, which is kind of his accumulation of usage and implementation of the Japanese lean mentality of make everything better, do less, fix everything.
00:21:35
HFW Industries
Lean's really more of a business keyword at this point or a button topic that really makes everybody go, oh, wow, that's so cool. We could save so much money, but it's really just this mindset that needs to be enveloped and believed to actually fully implement.
00:21:58
HFW Industries
Well, and what I liked about that book, and I think – I know you're having John Beark read it, which is awesome. Or I think he asked you to read it, right? Yep. Which is – it's not – this isn't like an – you can read academic books. is 150 pages at like 14 font. And a lot of pictures. Lots of pictures.
00:22:16
HFW Industries
Pictures are fantastic. He's got QR codes in there for all these videos. It is a highly – really, really good book recommended actually when I listened to the Henry Holster podcast with um it is the lean built podcast with um Mr. Henry. It's Jay Henry and Andrew, and Andrew Henry and Jay Pearson. Yeah.
00:22:39
HFW Industries
and when they had Saunders on to visit when he did a shop tour. and he And Andrew had said, every employee gets a copy of Two Second Lean. And I'm like, well, I'm just going to have to go read that and see what it's all about. And I loved it.
00:22:55
HFW Industries
I am now obsessed and I get what all the hype is about. it's It's awesome because it's so like you can you can read one chapter and pick something up just from that. And it like Tucker said, it's it's easy. It's quick.
00:23:06
HFW Industries
is you know You don't need to be a PhD to understand any of this stuff. Again, there are a longer, like more dense books you can read about it. like i love Toyota Way. would not recommend. to Well, I love the Toyota Way, but that's more of – you really have to enjoy it paul Paul's book, you you know first of all, he's a practitioner. He's not some like – a lot of these people that write these books are are academics or teachers. Ivory Tower sitting executives. Yeah. No, Paul's – he's a woodworker. He's a hands-on guy. He's run this business for however many decades.
00:23:36
HFW Industries
ah And you you will learn something from this. and So going implement it. We're going to force it on anyone, at least not yet. We're going to use some of its principles, though. Yeah. And and we're again, this is something if anyone that's interested in reading would we provide you a copy. It's a good read. It's an easy read. It's quick.
00:23:53
HFW Industries
You know, I was doing like a chapter to a day and you finish it in a week. um ah So i'm I'm curious, Tucker, how do we start capturing hearts and minds with that the mentalities that Paul describes? because Because the biggest takeaway for me, ah and I think Paul talked about this, he didn't necessarily force this on anyone, but he got some questions and there was a little bit of unease.
00:24:16
HFW Industries
But he's really like the the biggest thing is he's made a really dynamic culture where people are like in that mindset every day and want to come with ideas and improvement and and drive ideas. I think Paul had covered a little bit in his book, but it would little victories, small improvements that everybody has and just um i think paul had covered it a little bit in his book but it would be um victor a little victories um small improvements that everybody has and just how to save people their time in aggravation. Fix what aggravates the people, and they will start to go start looking in a different way at the issues around them instead of, oh, this bugs me. ah There's nothing I can do about it. It's going to be a, we are going to work together so that I never have to deal with this aggravation ever again.
00:25:09
HFW Industries
um one of the big things he had talked about was documentation. And it does not have to be a formal paper. It's literally grab your cell phone, take a picture of before, fix it take a picture after, and then say what it was.
00:25:23
HFW Industries
That should be all the documentation that you need just to show what is going on, what happened and why. and And for anyone that does that, we you know send us those. is if you Take a picture before, take a picture after. You don't need approval to do it well to do any like minor things like you know if you're moving stuff. like If you're moving something bigger, probably ask someone. But yeah know something at your workstation, if there's just the layout or the setup or something is is bugging you, you know take a picture before.
00:25:51
HFW Industries
you Organize it. Clean it. um put stuff in a different way and take a picture after, uh, and then send me and talk to the pictures and and we'll post it and we'll, we'll document that too. That's the great thing about Paul's book too, is like we said, you know, if you're not necessarily, I know there's some people that say, well, I'm not really a reader. He's got all sorts of videos, all sorts of stuff on his website where you can just scroll real quick. The videos are all short. They're not hour long lectures. They're like two or three minutes.
00:26:17
HFW Industries
And if you're not interested in the videos, because I was not, you can just read the book and you will get almost yeah as much. But he does refer to his videos all the time, ah which are very good. There are a ton of videos, so I didn't go through all of them. But i like and he he puts the titles on there in the book, and I was like, okay, that sounds interesting. I want to check that out.
00:26:36
HFW Industries
And you can always go back to them too. So that's what we're, you know, this isn't, I, I, with lean, this isn't like a flavor of the month. This is something that we're going to just do now and then forget about. This is really like a mindset.
00:26:48
HFW Industries
um And I think it goes toward the culture we're trying to build. And we have a lot, I think we're starting to employ a lot of this already, um but it's just kind of making HFW the best possible employer and and company we can be.
00:27:02
HFW Industries
So on that note, let's it was funny because i had I think I had just finished reading it, and we had a good ah learning point that I want to conclude with.
Team's Successful Customer Collaboration
00:27:12
HFW Industries
Tucker, I want you to walk us through.
00:27:15
HFW Industries
So we' we're working on a prominent customer job, right? like i I'll kind of set the backstory, and then I'll let you run with it. We have this a large customer job. We do several of these a year.
00:27:26
HFW Industries
each there's There are these roles. they're each they They come in sets. um These are a high-profile... ah You know, extremely there's a lot of eyes on them.
00:27:39
HFW Industries
They're a high dollar. There's something that's very critical to the to the customer's process. They're highly proprietary and HFW has spent years, if not decades, working with the customer to perfect the manufacturing process.
00:27:55
HFW Industries
And then over the last but over the last couple of years, there have been some things that have been going wrong, irregularities, um and things that have needed to be addressed because there were and issues popping up unexpectedly and and weird things happening.
00:28:09
HFW Industries
ah And so I guess with that, I'm going to pass you walk through kind of what – you know Because, we again, we were having an issue with ah these the roles were almost done, but there were some things popping up.
00:28:24
HFW Industries
Without diving into, the i guess, the technical specifics. So without diving into technical details, what had happened was it's an error of – documentation and knowledge transfer to the people who are out working on these right now so these roles came in were serviced by hfw a number of things were taken care of um which i unfortunately cannot discuss so but we had gotten it down to the last few details and we found a problem now there are a few people who are like
00:28:59
HFW Industries
Oh, my God, this is going to require a lot of work in order to rectify this problem that just popped up right at the end. This is a huge cost. Tens of thousands of dollars. A huge cost.
00:29:11
HFW Industries
and ah And thank you for clarifying for a real dollar number. a um But. going back to try and resolve the issue without redoing the whole role.
00:29:25
HFW Industries
We had one individual who has some experience in doing this, who was trained by the previous person who had left years ago, um came over, said, hey, I think I might know what's wrong.
00:29:39
HFW Industries
Let me try one or two things. I was right there with him following along, took a bunch of pictures of what he did so we can try and get some documentation. He had fixed it, and we had come to the conclusion that, oh my God, we really...
00:29:55
HFW Industries
do and don't know what we're doing here all at the same time, which is a terrible thing to say, but it's true. You only know what you know until you don't. So being able to go, okay, here's where we're at.
00:30:09
HFW Industries
We now know we have some things to improve. If we run into this problem in the future, we're going to have this documentation to go. Here's how you fix this. Here's what we need to do to even get here in the first place.
00:30:22
HFW Industries
And then from there, it's going to be one golden packet of here's how you do this whole process. So anybody who comes into the shop, if I took some stranger off the floor, handed them this packet and just watch them, supervise them make sure they didn't do anything crazy.
00:30:42
HFW Industries
They should be able to fix the whole role on their own. That is the goal. That's what used to happen. But, oh, and then I should, we should touch on that. So what to back up just a little bit. So there was frustration from from our engineering department because they felt, and I think it was well-placed that Well, certain engineers have been calling this out for you know a number of months.
00:31:07
HFW Industries
And there so there was frustration and and there was like oh, it's going to be a big rework and and you know on and on. and on And I think to credit Tucker, you were like, all right, well, let's back up a second.
00:31:18
HFW Industries
Let's take a look at this. We had Ben come over who's had experience doing this. ah And and we basically, we did, ah I guess, a Kaizen event or or you know one of these lean events without even like it wasn't like a form. We didn't say, oh, this is a ah lean event. But no, we just got everybody together and everybody talked to everyone. but And I wouldn't let anybody leave until the engineer and the person working on the role. We were all in the same place. We were talking right to each other's face. Nothing. and No, he said, she said. no no, no, no. No, absolutely none of that. I hate that. And it's such a waste of time.
00:31:52
HFW Industries
everybody said exactly what they thought we got real results and we have real end result of we had gotten everything fixed without having major rework costs In moving forward, we're going to, well, we already are.
00:32:08
HFW Industries
um Well, because again, to back up just a little bit, it was and during all this, when when we got everyone together, was ah the realization was one um that ah Joe Federo, who I had mentioned earlier, he had retired and he had overseen this before.
00:32:22
HFW Industries
So that experience was gone. And then, you know, no one had really taken the place of that supervision role because, ah well, you know, like Fred oversees that area, but he's,
00:32:34
HFW Industries
managing a lot of the shop and he didn't have the deep expertise that Joe had had. And then you also had like we talked about this this transfer of knowledge. We discovered that there was this book, there this Bible that everyone keeps talking about that for whatever reason no longer exists or, you know, it went home with someone and somebody who was trained to work on these roles ended up leaving sometime after and then trained the next person. Not so great. Who is then is just a um compound problem of poor training to a poor training to a poor training. Mm-hmm.
00:33:09
HFW Industries
course There was a lack of supervision on poor training, and then you get the the results we were getting. So I think it was great to get everyone together to have that realization. and and And because the other thing was it was very – I think the the snap judgment was, oh, this operator, he's just inexperienced, or doesn't doesn't know what he's doing.
00:33:28
HFW Industries
And then it was easy to blame him, but it was like, okay, well, wait a minute. Did he ever get proper training? did he Does he have documentation where he can refer back if he needs to write you know needs a reference?
00:33:39
HFW Industries
And we found out that there were some there were some deficiencies there, and now addressing them. And so that's the kind of stuff. um Well, I guess I'll call out Joe. Joe was frustrated by this, um and and rightfully so, and called it out. You were there and said, hey, like well, let's let's figure this out then. And we came to that, and I think already we've got um a much better process and a much better documentation in place. And also, I think a little bit better interaction between all parties there because we all realize together that, okay, we have a problem.
00:34:09
HFW Industries
And together we will work to solve this. Having everyone there was super helpful. I mean, even, you know, you have the engineering, ah you had you and and and even Peter was checking into, you had Scott, our engineering and manufacturing manager, and but then you had the operators too. Everyone everyone that was has literally been involved in this, whether from the engineering or the manufacturing side.
00:34:33
HFW Industries
um So we got everyone's perspective and the operators was most crucial really. um to you know You learn about what is their experience How are they going about this and where did that knowledge come from? And and you you start diving into and then you you realize what the actual issues were.
00:34:46
HFW Industries
And everybody had an equal say. The operator had just as much to say and was just as important as the engineers who were upstairs. Everybody had equal input and was fully considered.
00:35:02
HFW Industries
Yeah. So I think that's a good practical example of something. That's actually, ah i would say, a bigger example. project or bigger issue. like Normally, the these lean improvements won't miss or the two second improvements won't be as big as that, but they can be. If they're it was something that was bothering Joe, you know if there are things that are bothering you, that's why we have these you know people like Tucker that will can help you um sort these things out. and But sometimes it's not even something that big. it's you know Sometimes it's just cleaning things.
00:35:34
HFW Industries
yeah your workstation or you know you don't like the way that maybe something is positioned um and you change that. I mean, we think of a million ex people being annoyed at you know a broom that doesn't work.
00:35:46
HFW Industries
Let's get a new broom. Again, it's like $10. It's probably more now with inflation, but it still doesn't matter. you know like we we What I always say is ah I think we have a pretty good track record of if something's bothering you, if you have faulty equipment, we'll we'll get it fixed or we'll get new equipment.
00:36:01
HFW Industries
We'll get you what you need to do your job well. and And that's kind of... um the we want to our goal here and Tucker I know one of your goals is to reduce any impediments people have to doing that your job well whether that's an upstairs in engineering or whether that's on the shop floor that's the goal of all this and so um as we think about that that's the you know how can how can your job be easier how can we reduce ah waste and if we can do that well and I think we're on a great path we're already seeing some of the results we're going to have some great success in the future
00:36:37
HFW Industries
I'm looking forward to it, Jack. I really am. Me too. And and it's it's really fun because I think we're already starting to see some of the results and in the who knows where we can go in the future when we're on a path like that. so Well, I appreciate that you're seeing the results. That means I guess I'm doing an okay job. So I hope they don't fire me in the next month.
00:36:55
HFW Industries
and At this rate, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Oh, excellent. um Tucker, thank you. We appreciate everything you're doing and and appreciate everyone listening. And we'll see in the next one. Bye-bye.