10. I Found the Bottleneck in My Shop. It’s Me.

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Paul Van Metre’s book isn’t a general business book with a machining chapter bolted onto it. It’s built for this industry, and one sentence in it has been digging in my ribs for three weeks: “If precision matters on the shop floor, it has to matter in the business too.”

Reading it back made me realize something that I didn’t want to admit. What got me here isn’t going to take me there.

This one isn’t comfortable. It’s me admitting I’m not as good at this as I thought I was, and then doing something about it. Stick around for part 2.

What’s Covered in this Episode

• (0:45) Why I’m doing my first book review, and how Paul Van Metre’s manuscript blew my mind
• (3:58) Five or six evolutions since my wife dared me to start this company at 31
• (4:29) The harsh review I gave Paul, and wondering later if I was the hard reader
• (5:11) The six levels of machine shop managers, and why that early pain never leaves you
• (5:56) The one sentence in the book that’s been digging in my ribs for three weeks
• (6:59) Investing ProShop ERP is an investment in your business
• (8:38) The myth of heroics, and why being a great machinist doesn’t make you a good owner
• (11:30) Which shop am I? Admitting out loud that I’m not holding those margins
• (13:13) Why you’re better off doing nothing than doing something for a loss
• (15:00) Why we created Hire MFG Leaders (and why you should use it)
• (15:29) The Goal, the theory of constraints, and why your biggest bottleneck defines your throughput
• (16:38) Six new spindles, a 13,000 square foot building, and the same output as before
• (19:41) Quality control should be staffed like an emergency room, and the hire that erased that bottleneck
• (20:42) The bottleneck moved to the front of the shop—and it turned out to be me
• (21:41) Why we’ve begun implementing the EOS system at Marzilli machine

Resources Mentioned

• “Precision Manufacturing, Precision Business” by Paul Van Metre
• ProShop ERP
• Hire MFG Leaders
• The Machine Shop Mastery Podcast
• The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
• Traction and the EOS system

Connect with Jamie Marzilli

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Raw Material on Spotify
• Raw Material on Apple
• MakingChips