Dimming the Lights: How to Build a Shop Ready for Automation, Ep #17

[0:00] Nick Goellner: We believe that automation is a necessity in the future. It’s not optional. It’s not like, oh, maybe we’ll do it. It’s if you wanna compete on a global scale. You have to start thinking about automation. You won’t succeed, you won’t live, you won’t. Survival of the fittest will happen, and you will be one of those extinct dinosaurs if you don’t do it.

[0:30] Mike Payne: Hey, male Working nation. I don’t think it’s any secret that I like numbers. Started a whole podcast called Buy the Numbers to talk about numbers. That’s why I’m telling you if you wanna know how your shop really stacks up. You need to take the Modern Machine Shop Top Shop survey. It’s your chance to get a customized benchmarking report that shows exactly where your shop stands and where you can improve.

[0:50] I’ve done this for seven years now. It’s a crucial part of my business cycle. Tells me where I’m at, where I can improve, and where the industry is going next. Plus, you could earn top shops recognition. Proving your shop’s one of the best in the business. Don’t guess, let the numbers tell the story. Take the survey today@mmsonline.com.

[1:10] That’s Modern Machine Shops website, MMS online.com.

[1:20] Narrator: Talent is scarce experience, even more so driving a cost in sleepless nights. You may even think to yourself, can I do this? But this new era brings new technology and a different perspective on your operations. What you will hear will turn on a light bulb in your mind so you can turn out the lights in your shop.

[1:50] Get ready to sleep soundly while your shop never stops. Get ready for making chips. Lights out with your host. Nick Goner, Caleb Merck and David Buick.

[2:10] Nick Goellner: Caleb, Dave. What’s up? How you guys doing? Let’s, uh, why does that sound sad? No, what’s up there? We we go.

Kaleb Mertz: That sounds, there we go. The lights

[2:20] Nick Goellner: haven’t turned out yet. Okay. I’m wide awake. I’m ready to record.

Kaleb Mertz: It is 1:00 PM Hopefully the lights are still on.

Nick Goellner: I used to wake up at 1:00 PM but that was a different version of myself.

Kaleb Mertz: That’s for another episode.

[2:30] Nick Goellner: Speaking of, you guys have gotten to know me a little bit at this point and knowing me, would you say I am a guy who needs more or less structure in his life? What would you say?

[2:40] Kaleb Mertz: Oh, man. I’ll really have to think about that one.

Dave Vuyk: You’ve known him a lot longer than I have. Caleb, take the lead on this one.

Kaleb Mertz: A little more. Yeah, it could take a little more wouldn’t hurt. Yeah. Probably a lot

Nick Goellner: more.

[2:50] Dave Vuyk: I think everyone needs a little structure in their life.

[3:00] Nick Goellner: Yeah. So we learned that on making chips our flagship podcast ’cause I don’t know, eight years. We were just kinda like randomly having thoughts and making episodes and there wasn’t really a rhyme or reason.

[3:10] They were great stuff. It would just jump all over the place. And then now what we’re doing, which I’m super excited about, is this machine shop NBA series. And we’re pretty well into it. The feedback’s been awesome and natural. It’s been great. Yeah. Thank you. I’m glad you listened. Caleb, do you listen? I haven’t listened to all of ’em.

[3:30] You haven’t listened to one of ’em. You freaking liar. I can see it in your face. Yeah. What we’re doing here is. Or what we’re doing on the Making chips Machine Shop, NBA series is often like intersects with automation and what we do on lights out. And so we all, the three of us had a conversation like, let’s just follow that best practice and let’s put more of a series together.

[3:50] So this Automation Academy is what we’re calling it starts today and I’m super excited to get it kicked off. Thanks Dave for being like, Hey, we ought to be a little bit more structured. Because I agree with you, brother.

[4:00] Dave Vuyk: You know what? I just saw what you were doing over on making chips and it was just a good opportunity to rip off what you were doing and call it my own idea.

Yeah,

[4:10] Nick Goellner: there go. It’s our idea. Friends, what would you say to set the table for anyone who’s gonna listen to the Automation Academy series that we’re doing for a while, like what are they gonna get from it? What’s the point of it? Why Listen.

[4:20] Dave Vuyk: Yeah, that’s a. Super great question. I think from like a high level, the way we think about automation in the machine shop is changing, especially for small shops.

[4:30] I know I used to have some like limiting beliefs about automation. I’d say that it was just only worked if you had a certain kind of work. It was only for the big shops. I think there’s a lot going on in the world right now when you look at supply chain disruption, political tensions, tariffs, reshoring.

[4:50] All that stuff is hitting the shop floor. That’s the reality, and I think. Shop owners big and small. If you’ve been on the sidelines of automation, I think it’s time to start laying the foundation, learning as much as you can, and I think part of what we’re gonna try to do is help to equip folks with that.

Yeah.

[5:10] Nick Goellner: I think Caleb and I hear all the time, like what you just said, we’re really not the right fit for automating. And there’s some truth to that sometimes. Like you shouldn’t automate all work. You need to be ready. We’ll get into that in this episode, but how often, Caleb, would you say that someone says.

[5:20] In your experience, okay. For those that don’t know, Caleb’s like an automation integrator, automates cncs. That’s like basically what he does for our company. How often when people say they’re not the right fit for automation, do you totally agree? And how often are you like, ah, you probably need to get over that mental hurdle?

’cause I. We can make your business better.

[5:40] Kaleb Mertz: Yeah. I think a lot of it’s when to say they’re not the right fit for automation. They’re picturing something very specific that can be different for everyone, but in most cases, they’re picturing some robot loading parts, let’s say. Right? Just ’cause the industry is saturated with that, which is awesome.

[5:50] That’s the way a lot of it’s going. But that is not the way to automate many things. It’s the right fit for a lot of things. So I think half the time it’s honestly just like defining that and what’s the low hanging fruit that you can automate. And I think we’re gonna go through a lot of that in this episode, which I’m excited about.

[6:10] ’cause like what are those first tangible things you can be doing? It doesn’t have to be this big, crazy word that you have to spend a million dollars on. There’s things you could start with day one, and so I think sometimes it’s just the definition of it, like getting back to the basics of what that really means, but yeah, ’cause 99% of the time, there are many ways that they could automate to help their

Nick Goellner: business.

[6:30] Yeah. That picture in their head. Of, I can see what they’re thinking when they say it. So they’re thinking like these big industrial robots on rails loading a series of 10 horizontal machines in a row that are all making the same automotive part. And they’re like, I, we’re really not an automation type machine shop because we have a high mix of work or whatever.

[6:50] And it’s like, well, hang on. There’s like a big spectrum between what you’re picturing in your head and not automating at all and getting no unattended time and. As we get into the first few episodes of Automation Academy, the series within the series is really like about dimming the lights. You don’t just turn off the lights and start running lights out.

You have to figure out, okay, maybe we’re getting one hour here or two hours here, whatever. You eventually just get into it.

[7:10] Kaleb Mertz: Yeah. Start installing some dimmers in your shop. Apparently, that’s how we’re gonna go.

[7:20] Nick Goellner: We did some research. We had a funny conversation about. Like this show, you know, now that Dave’s a host and changing the structure a bit and being a little bit more focused and having a story arc to it, one idea that I still wanna see us execute on is, this is a technology and automation podcast.

[7:40] So we’re gonna talk about AI and it would be really great if we had a robotic friend, an AI driven friend that supports the show, would, gives us research like, and so we were just kicking names around. Do you remember what I. We ended up with, or what we started with and then what we ended up with. What was the name of this imaginary co-host?

We have

[8:00] Dave Vuyk: know where we ended. I don’t remember how we started. I think we were landing somewhere on like auto, the sassy German AI bot that gives us little drops of wisdom throughout the episode. If anyone listening knows how to make that a reality, just let us know.

[8:10] Nick Goellner: Yeah, we’d love to be able to ask it a question and then have.

[8:20] Kind of a arrogant, stereotypical German engineer. Like, fuck, you don’t already know this. But in lieu of having that done, ’cause we don’t know how to do it. We did do some research. Research is a million times easier than it was when I was in school. And I think, Dave, just quick sidebar here, like you pointed out when we first started this, Hey let’s check this, make it site its sources.

[8:40] ’cause it was giving us some weird data, like basically. Suggesting that like a full CNC programmer makes less than a machinist. And I don’t know where it got that hallucination, but we refined it a bit. And the, what we’re asking it, I should be clear, is we believe that automation is a necessity in the future.

[9:00] It’s not optional. It’s not like, oh, maybe we’ll do it. It’s if you wanna compete on a global scale. You have to start thinking about automation. You won’t succeed, you won’t live, you won’t. Survival of the fittest will happen, and you will be one of those extinct dinosaurs if you don’t do it. As we dug in a bit deeper, basically what I prompted it with was, so compare the average salary of a machinist in the United States with other low cost countries.

[9:30] I said experienced machinist and. Then it used like the Bureau of Labor Statistics and salary expert.com and a few other sites that do like international and global analysis. And so like if the average annual salary of a machinist in the US is right under 50 K, then Taiwan is like half of that at 25,000.

[9:50] China, 41% at 19,000 Mexico. Which, okay, like everyone wants to compare low cost labor with China. That’s like what the first thing, everyone goes to Mexico, 10,000. So 22% Turkey, 30% Vietnam, 9%. Labor’s not the only gain getting unattended hours. It’s not like the only gain, but obviously if it’s just. Pegged internationally and all things are equal.

[10:20] They’re gonna have like a lower cost. There’s actually a lot of skilled people over there. There’s great machine tools in other parts of the world. So like the only way to be competitive from a labor lens is to run machines unattended have one person running 3, 4, 5 machines, and that’s really the only

Dave Vuyk: way to compete there.

[10:30] I think another just important point to stack on top of that is that labor gap, that cost advantage that countries like Mexico and China have right now. I think that’s eroding a little bit. I think the gap is tightening up. And don’t forget they have automation technology too, and. So we wanna reshore work.

[10:50] We know labor’s more expensive here, so how are we gonna get more done with the same workforce and remain competitive technology? And to your point about how using AI as a research tool, you give it bad prompts, you get bad data. If you want to implement technology on the shop floor, you still need smart human beings to get the best outta that technology, to get the best productivity.

[11:20] And so in addition to. Maybe addressing the misconception that automation is killing jobs. It’s, no, it’s a great opportunity to automate that boring, repetitive work and then upskill your existing staff and elevate them into more advanced positions. So I think you know that there’s a win-win there too.

[11:40] Kaleb Mertz: I think I wanna, actually, it’s kind of a, one way to look at it is I actually wanna see that average annual salary increase for the us, but it’s not looked at as a negative thing.

[12:00] It’s looked at well, because we’re elevating our average machinist and what they’re doing right, and we’re able to automate the portions. That make less sense for that and upskill like we’ve used that term little bit, those machinists. I think. So that’s a neat way to look at it, even as a business owner’s like, and I’m willing to pay that and want that to go up because the things that they’re doing are very high level.

[12:20] Nick Goellner: Yeah. You talk about skills, so like our research continued with in 2022, nearly 25% of this sector’s workforce was aged 55 or older. That’s crazy. As these experienced workers leave the industry, they’re not being replaced, definitely not being replaced at a sustainable rate. So the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I copied a quote here.

[12:40] The employment of machinists is expected to grow by only 3% in the next five years. We’re not adding as much as we talk about it, every talking head in this industry is, yeah, let’s kill the skills gap and do more podcasts and go watch Titan’s videos and all that stuff. Like it’s not happening. It’s not happening near enough.

[13:00] So we’re actually like losing people. We’re losing the most experience, most talented people. The labor for the people we do have is high. So what’s the answer to stay competitive globally? I would like to compare, I, and I don’t think this research exists, but it would be incredible. Like what’s the average shop utilization in a 24 hour day of, of.

[13:20] Us, Germany, Switzerland, Japan versus Taiwan, China, Mexico, Vietnam, because like, I think that’s the gap. That’s where we can actually be more competitive is just getting more out of our shops.

Kaleb Mertz: Something we should look at maybe for future episode would be there’s, what are the precursors to that, to getting more utilization, right?

[13:40] And we’re gonna talk about a lot of those today. Maybe looking at data for that. What type of machines are they bringing in, what type of automation? The ratio of machines with pallet pools compared to machines without pallet pools. Just things like that, right? That might be a way to get a little bit of that data without it directly being the actual amount of unattended time or utilization time.

[14:00] Dave Vuyk: So in addition to the wage gap with low cost countries, there’s also the problem of shops that might want to address low efficiency or low productivity within their business. They want to be more competitive. Perhaps there’s a an ROI opportunity there, just make their business more successful. In general.

[14:20] Some of the things that you need to consider with that, of course, is don’t. Automate for automation’s sake or because it’s cool, ’cause it’s trendy. Tie that back to a specific business objective that you’re trying to reach.

[14:30] Nick Goellner: So we always say at our company, don’t make the metric the measure. And what we mean by that is like you measure your business on should be real business results.

[14:40] Like basically, if it doesn’t connect to your profitability or the growth of your business, don’t focus too much on one metric without connecting it to the result. So if it’s like, yeah, all we’re focused on is unattended hours and you don’t have your process dialed in and you’re creating five times more scrap than you were.

[15:00] Yeah, you’re hitting that metric, but that shouldn’t be the measure. The metric should lead to the measure, which is better operating profit or something that makes your business more valuable.

[15:10] Dave Vuyk: Yeah, absolutely agreed. In addition to that, I think there’s just a reality that machine shops in America, they shouldn’t have to struggle.

[15:20] We have the skills, we have the technology. Maybe what we need more of is just an understanding of how to apply those things in a way that helps. Manufacturers win, and that’s ultimately our goal, having these discussions. Yeah,

[15:30] Nick Goellner: this is the land of opportunity. People say that in the United States and Canada too, maybe even Dave.

[15:40] Maybe it goes north of the border. But yeah, it really is. We have. Within a a hundred mile radius of pretty much most shops, you’re gonna find companies that are there to support you with automation. You can call us if you want help. There’s just resources available and technology available in our country and smart people to help you.

[16:00] It’s very possible. That’s why it’s so frustrating for us when people get locked into the, we’ve always done it this way, or we’re not the right shop for that because like. They’re only thinking about the next three months or six months, and they’re really not gonna survive that mentality long term.

[16:10] Dave Vuyk: Ultimately, guys like Caleb. Nick, what’s at stake here? Like why do we believe this is so important? What happens to shops that. Are ignorant of this, either willfully or just because they don’t know what happens if they don’t adapt with the changes in technology.

[16:30] Nick Goellner: Not to stretch it. This isn’t even a stretch to say, but like it’s a matter of national security, like our manufacturing base shrinks and becomes less competitive globally.

[16:40] You need to make things to have a strong nation. Economically. From a military perspective, it’s bad for our country. It’s bad for future generations. It’s bad for our economy. It’s bad for our pocketbook, our communities, there’s a lot more at stake than just one little machine shop. There’s a whole.

[17:00] Integrated ecosystem of manufacturing that needs to be strong and competitive. And I will use the word North America for you, Dave, to include you in it. Thank you. So let’s get into like, it’s pretty clear we’ve defined the problem. It is a necessity to focus on this and to start adding everything that is lights out to your business.

[17:10] So like, where do we start and what’s the solution here?

[17:20] Dave Vuyk: Yeah, I guess the question we’re trying to answer is what is automation when implemented well, because if that’s not the case, you have just super expensive paperweights, but when automation is done well, what does that do? For a business. One of my favorite things, I think you said it Nick, maybe someone else, but it was like, it just moves the bottleneck somewhere else.

[17:40] In a sense that automation is a component within a workflow. And so if that bottleneck is your production, now you have a new bottleneck. ’cause you solve that with automation and now you can go to solve the next challenge. But there’s a lot more to it than that. So why don’t you guys fill me in?

Nick Goellner: Yeah.

[18:00] Obviously like people think of. Spindle utilization, which is an important leading indicator of a good shop. But like Caleb, you always talk about making the right chips. So if you’re automating, you theoretically have more spindle utilization than if you weren’t. But how could that be a bad thing?

[18:10] Kaleb Mertz: It’s not always the goal, right?

Sometimes if you’re just focusing on that, but your scrap rate goes up.

Dave Vuyk: Yeah. Don’t make

Kaleb Mertz: more

Dave Vuyk: scrap faster with automation.

[18:20] Nick Goellner: What did you just say before that, Dave? I can’t even remember back to it. Like, how do I segue? You were talking about moving the bottleneck.

Dave Vuyk: Yeah, I was just setting up what does automation do for your business?

[18:30] And then I jokingly said, it moves the bottleneck to a different spot, but there’s more to it than that.

[18:40] Nick Goellner: We talk about that all the time. If you automate one part of a process and you don’t think about the process as a whole, like you’re just adding a bigger pile of overproduction to the next step, that step can only hit, you know, it’s like a hose, right?

[18:50] It’s kinked over there. You’ve got all this pressure, something’s gonna burst. It’s not good for your company. Anyone who knows anything about Lean can understand that. So it’s not just about improving your spindle utilization and getting your machine running all the time. If you have a bottleneck further downstream, like you’re gonna be making a lot of chips and they’re gonna be the wrong chips at the wrong time for your company.

[19:10] So I think the point is. As we get into like the implementation and the action steps and where you should start in this first episode, the point is like really map your process. This connects so well to an episode. We just recorded on making chips as we’re going through the machine. Chop NBA. We get to the point where it’s like, okay, we’ve.

[19:30] Got orders now, how do you manage those orders? And it’s like really understand your entire process and map that out. And there’s some techniques to doing that with value stream mapping or any shop has some form of process planning, even when they don’t have a plan, like their processes that they wing it.

[19:50] So if you really think about how everything flows through your shops. All the operations, all the outside services required and how that all flows. That’s where you should start. Before you even like really automate anything. You should just understand your process and then make sure it’s stable and clear.

[20:10] And once it’s stable and clear, then you have the ability to think about like, okay, where are the right places to add automation? That’s gonna improve our overall throughput, not just like build a pile of overproduction for the next step in the process.

[20:20] Dave Vuyk: When folks are going through that process of mapping out their process, do we want them to zoom out, like start with quoting all the way through to fulfillment and shipping, like really look at the whole process?

[20:30] Nick Goellner: I would say, yeah, that’s a best practice and you can hear about that more on making chips, like if you’re jumping over to this series from there, like you should already be sold on that and you should already have that done. Because I think there’s a point that you’re making there too, Dave, like.

[20:50] Automation isn’t just like the physical loading and unloading and moving a material through a shop in your role. There’s a lot of automation in the software side. There’s so much automation that Caleb and I have utilized on the pre customer side of the business like, but I would start by like making sure you have a mapped process that you can do manually and then figure out like, okay, where can automation really make improvements from that?

[21:10] Mike Payne: Manufacturers, what is your biggest headache? Is it measuring, improving profitability, gaining efficiencies with AI and automation, maybe tightening up your cybersecurity, maybe getting your business ready to sell. CLA. Their goal is to know you and help you with challenges like these and more every day.

[21:30] CLA helps manufacturers tap into millions in revenue and cost savings, like one manufacturer that boosted capacity and revenues by 15 to 20%. Visit c connect.com to hear real success stories and learn how you can grow your top and bottom line.

[21:50] Dave Vuyk: Yeah, absolutely. I think that lends to hardware automation and software automation alike these days. There’s automation for quoting cam programming, et cetera, which are equally significant in, in many regards as robot loaders, bar feeders, and making sure that you got the shop floor hardware piece as well.

[22:10] Nick Goellner: Yeah, I think without a clear defined process, shops that don’t have a clear defined process don’t have clear defined standards. Standards are something that’s essential for automating. So Caleb, you’re the automation engineer of the group. Talk about someone gives you a task, Hey, can you automate this entire process?

And what are some of the questions you start to ask to figure out if it’s even feasible to add automation?

[22:30] Kaleb Mertz: Yeah, so let’s say that the value is there and we’ll talk about more of those KPIs and what to look at in a second, if it even makes sense, and what areas to hit on that low hanging fruit. But if it does, like you guys were just talking about, setting that stable process doesn’t make sense to build anything extra on something that isn’t stable already.

[22:50] So that is. Across the board, everything you do that’s from standardized programming using macros. It’s from consistent tooling. It’s your work holding and fixturing. Good example there is we have a customer who we’re doing some work holding for who. Came in and said, Hey, I wanna make sure my machine door isn’t open as much, and they’re setting up the machine in the vertical right now.

[23:20] So we’re like from a work holding perspective. Yeah. Zero point makes a lot of sense to have a system where we have a fixture on the outside and inside and we do the exchange. Right. Bring that set up external to

Nick Goellner: the machine so it can be running while you’re getting the next job set up.

Kaleb Mertz: Yeah, exactly.

[23:30] That’s square one. But then we started looking at details of their cycle times and they’re still. Gonna have to have someone standing in front of that machine constantly. So we’re like, Hey, honestly, it makes a lot more sense for you guys to take a step up from there and automate what, what we wanna do is start you on the zero point where you’re moving it in and out manually.

[23:50] Make sure you feel good about that process. Make sure that runs well for you. They, they know their parts better than we do. Of course, go through that operation, and then once that’s ready, then we’ll implement the automation using that existing zero point system. So you’re not adding a ton of costs by starting with the fixturing, but.

[24:00] You’re moving it through a process and you’re not investing in something right away that might not work for you. Yeah.

[24:10] Nick Goellner: It’s like a beautiful example of we might say, Hey, before you automate, let’s fix this. And I think that’s just like the natural evolution of our business too. We were doing work holding and fixturing and then it evolved into automation.

[24:20] ’cause once you have that dialed in, automation makes sense. But the same goes for like cutting tools too. Like if you don’t have standardized tooling, like. You’re gonna crash. ’cause the robot can’t think like a person. It’s just gonna do the task and crash the tool. So

[24:40] Dave Vuyk: plus if you think about the efficiency gains that you’re gonna gain with zero point work holding in a standardized tool library alone, just even before you had the automation element, like not having to touch off your work, coordinate with every setup, having shorter setups right away, like that’s all more margin because your process is better already.

[25:00] Kaleb Mertz: Exactly, and yeah, and we learned a long time ago that, you know, I’ve been through enough of these to where if the customer hasn’t gone through some of that and if we can’t guide them through that efficiently enough, then it’s might not be something we wanna take on anyway, to be honest. Because there’s so much of it is like how it’s utilized and utilized correctly.

That’s not fun for anyone in the end if we sell something that someone’s not ready for. So being able to start. And be part of that whole process is really fun.

[25:20] Nick Goellner: I love that. I think the, if we were gonna do a readiness checklist, it’s okay. Mindset first. ’cause the wrong mindset. They’ll know if they’re just like.

[25:30] Hey, we just like to find the nearest tool that’ll work and our process kinda wing it. We don’t really wanna change. That’s the culture here. Forget about automation ’cause you’re just gonna crash everything. It’s gonna be the worst thing that happened to that company. And then from there, let’s say, okay, it’s not them ’cause we’re not gonna even worry about them because there’s people who have the right mindset.

[25:50] Maybe they need to start at some building blocks before we’re doing any automation, like you said, like zero point quick change fixturing that is. Set up, external to the machine, located exactly where it needs to be. It’s repeatable, predictable, stable tooling is repeatable, predictable, stable. Okay, great.

[26:10] Now we can start to talk about that. So I would say do some value stream mapping, learn those skills, process planning, and then have a standardized, stable process. And then from there, move into considering automation.

[26:20] Kaleb Mertz: Yeah, and you can mimic that process fairly easily. I’ll say in many cases, not with everything, but in many cases you can mimic that with a few upgrades in your current workforce, right?

[26:30] So if you are looking at something like we just talked about, right? If you’re looking to automate something like that, you can do that with a human standing there the whole time monitoring it. But start, you know, use tool centers, use part probing, act as if it is. A mechanism loading those parts or pallets into this machine instead of a human, have them.

[26:50] If they have to intervene at all, that has to be recorded. Why did they have to intervene? They had to intervene because there was chips around the tool right after a certain cut and they couldn’t continue. Okay, well that shows that you’re not ready to automate that portion of that process, right? So have someone sit there and almost like be very clear that that’s their task, is to see how long can I go without intervening?

[27:10] The only action I’m doing is maybe loading it right? And besides that, if I intervene any other way, what’s the reason? Okay. That’s our next bottleneck, kind of that process. That’s a

Nick Goellner: beautiful way to do it.

[27:20] Dave Vuyk: That’s so smart. Like you basically, you really reduce the risk to making that technology investment.

[27:30] You’re basically doing a time study. Without having to spend extra money and kind of understand what the exact outcome’s gonna be before you go and buy a pallet pool or a robot loader or a bar feeder, or whatever the case might be.

Nick Goellner: Yeah. Even if whoever’s gonna sell you the automations, like, Hey, well, we’ll walk you through it.

[27:40] We’ll be a part of the process. Yeah. For a fee. It’s like they make money doing that, and so if you can do what Caleb just suggested, do it. Maybe even act like a robot the whole time, and I’m kidding. But it helps your team think about automation in the right way. Like as soon as you do that thing or make that adjustment manually, that wouldn’t have been a part of the program, the automation process.

[28:10] Okay. Like nothing’s gonna do that for you when you’re not there, when you’re trying to run lights out. So that’s the moment you would’ve lost all your free hours or crashed the machine or whatever else could have happened.

[28:20] Kaleb Mertz: And from the cultural standpoint, it helps a lot. So we’re talking about that too, is if the operator, the fear might be being replaced or this is, you know what I’m doing right now.

[28:30] There needs to be a clear communication on. This is why we’re doing this so that we can elevate you to this role. So that’s like first and foremost, obviously, but then also it’s going to allow for them to really understand that process and have less to fight against it. ’cause sometimes when we’re implementing new stuff, right, they’re gonna find every reason to be like, this isn’t gonna work, this isn’t gonna work.

[28:50] So what that allows though is like, oh, it’s not working because of this. Oh yeah, you’re right. So what do we need to implement to make sure that that works on the next unattended cycle that you’re testing, right? Okay, what do we need to implement next? And eventually they’re in front of that machine for hours of time doing that test run where it is functioning much longer and you’ve just overcome point by point.

So I think it wins them over to over time if you do have sunlight,

[29:10] Nick Goellner: which would’ve been way more expensive and way more painful, and way much more of a headache to fix. Like after automation has been installed, then it is to figure it out before automation is installed.

[29:20] Dave Vuyk: But I mean, that change management piece is so important when it comes to changing the way work is getting done on the shop floor and getting team buy-in.

[29:30] I was talking about something totally different with Mike Payne the other day, but I was like, Hey, well I got you here. You’ve invested in automation. What’s something you know now that you didn’t know when you made that investment initially? And he said some really good things. One of the things that stood out is he said, don’t underestimate the importance of making sure you are.

[29:50] Communicating well with your team about why you’re investigating this technology and make them a part of the process. Ask for their feedback on it. Help them test it out and troubleshoot it and work hard to get that buy-in and help them see that it is a. Not something to be fearful of, but something that’s gonna help everybody win.

At the end of the day, you

[30:10] Nick Goellner: could be like, look, we all agree we don’t like Gary. Okay. And right now Gary runs that lathe and wouldn’t it be great if that was a robot instead of Gary? It’s actually not. Yeah. I think, uh, some good advice here would be like. Make what Caleb just described or what Dave just described in terms of change management.

[30:30] Make that part of how you do business. So like, okay, you guys come up with what we could call like Andon, or things that you had to fix that would’ve screwed up the automation and whoever brings me the most of those and the most solutions for those, they really didn’t have to go in there and touch it, fix it, and okay, it’s still going.

[30:50] Whoever brings me the most of those fixes, that’s who I’m praising. That’s who I’m rewarding, that’s who’s getting paid more. That’s who’s getting the promotion. So now Gary is excited about that robot

Dave Vuyk: course. I feel bad for Gary right now. I hope he’s not listening. Sorry.

[31:00] Kaleb Mertz: I’m of Gary. Listen,

Nick Goellner: I think what we talked about when you’re investing in automation, and I want to take a step back for a second.

[31:10] I remember when Mike got that first robot and I. One of the things that I wanted to make sure we cover is make sure you’re set up to automate too, beyond just your processes and your people and your culture. Like what about the actual infrastructure of your shop needs to be considered?

[31:20] Kaleb Mertz: Yeah, so if we’re looking at this kind of as a checklist, which is people of a checklist, which is good, we went through this a little bit with stable process, right?

[31:30] So everything under that from programming, tooling, workholding, but beyond that. Power and shop air is actually a huge deal that some people get it if they’ve gone through it and some people haven’t had an issue with it. But having actual, like clean and reliable power and air is huge. ’cause you can’t have your system going down every few hours because of, uh, voltage flux.

[32:00] Right? So there’s solutions to that for UPS systems and things like that, that, that can help with that if needed, depending on your facility. And then, yeah, making sure you have clean air, right? Air dryers, even monitoring potentially if you know it’s an issue. And then also networking. If it’s a more modern solution, just about anything you’re gonna wanna be able to monitor remotely.

[32:20] Maybe if it’s a larger system, you’re getting a lot remote support for that. Right? So that’s something that we, as an automation integrator. Love to be able to have, if possible, that doesn’t work in every shop, but being able to switch on that remote support is huge because we can solve a problem in two minutes in most cases, instead of a couple hours over the phone if we are able to see the inner workings of the system.

[32:40] So keeping your machine running, that’s massive. And then floor layout plans like that, depending on where you are in the country and what your towns look like. Space may be a big issue. It may not be an issue in some areas, but I think the thing to think about is it could be very different from a layout you’ve previously created based on your current.

[33:00] Process flows and it’s actually very likely, it’s very different if you’re gonna be jumping in between two cells that need manual intervention regularly. But everything in between is automated. It might make sense to move those in a different area and reorganize that

[33:10] Nick Goellner: like, like when we visit the west coast or the East coast in certain areas, like everything’s crammed together and so.

[33:20] You could actually get a lot more throughput for less machines, but you might need to keep some space for a robot to tend the machine or further to be a pallet loader on the machine, things like that. So just plan with automation in mind when you first drop that down. Just got a hot tub delivered at my house.

[33:30] I’ve been excited about and I knew what, once they put it down and after they fill it with 2000, 4,000 pounds of water, whatever it is, like I’m not gonna be able to move it. So you gotta get that in the right place. Way harder to do later than

[33:40] Kaleb Mertz: when you first get that machine dropped. Yeah. Build upward if you have to start adding levels.

[33:50] I mean that, I’m just kidding. That’s really hard. I will say though, like at IMTS, that’s one of the most amazing things at McCormick is like that top floor with all those machines and the amount of weight that’s there and you’re like right underneath on the floor underneath it for certain areas. It’s, we were talking about that I last time ts, it was, it’s freaky, almost like

Nick Goellner: I remember those days when our company was small and we were in the basement.

Look how far we’ve gone.

[34:10] Kaleb Mertz: Attention. Yeah. And then I think there’s a few other things on that checklist, right? Yeah. Chip management. You gotta get chips outta the system. That’s like the number one killer of automating just about anything. So conveyors, high pressure, missed collection, just to name some of those.

[34:30] The monitoring, consider a monitoring system. That’s not always a necessity day one, you know, if you’re getting one system, two systems in, but you want something that’s gonna. Work for your entire process, not just one machine. And there are systems that come with that, which is always good. But if you can monitor across machines, across systems, processes, that’s really what you wanna go over.

[34:50] And it’s not just monitoring, right? It’s actually using that data to increase or decrease whatever metrics you’re looking to think or decrease, right?

[35:00] Nick Goellner: So I don’t wanna talk too much about our own business. That’s not the point of this, but it. It should be stated that like a work holding company, a chip conveyor, a high pressure systems like coolant management company, like why are they so focused on automation?

[35:10] Because those are the things that kill it. And if that’s not sorted out, nothing else matters with automation. So you’ve, you really gotta consider, I loved your example of any intervention you would have to make. It won’t be made without you. So you really gotta consider all those things and have, that’s part of disabled process.

[35:30] What’s a stable process with a person operating the machine? Might not be a stable process with a person gone sleeping while the machine’s operating

[35:40] Dave Vuyk: by itself. Absolutely. And that might underscore the importance of. What Caleb was talking about. When it comes to a monitoring system, like capturing process data automation typically thrives when you’ve got a steady flow of good data, good being the operative word.

[35:50] ’cause obviously if there’s bad data going in, that’s not gonna be helpful to the process. So some way to. Capture that and understand cycle times and tool life and scrap rate, why you’re having downtime, all that kind of stuff.

[36:10] Nick Goellner: Even if it’s not sophisticated machine monitoring, having a metric, a way to track things in place early on, you can get pretty relatively sophisticated monitoring for a very affordable rate.

[36:20] I would just do that, but just making sure you’re measuring things and monitoring the process, and I think some of that is less to do with. Just ensuring you’re running lights out and more to do with proving the ROI of it. Even if you’re proving it to yourself, let’s say you’re the decision maker, it’s your company, it’s up to you.

[36:40] You still wanna have KPIs and prove to yourself how it’s working. Back to the point of connecting it to the result of your business. Not just being like, Hey, look, there’s a robot. It’s working.

[36:50] Dave Vuyk: Yeah. So important. Caleb, I wanted to ask you a question just because you consult with people on implementing automation.

[37:00] What do you say to the folks who would say, I’m just gonna buy a big fancy robot, or whatever it is, and the work will come, the ROI will come, I’m just gonna buy the technology and it’s all gonna work out. How do you deal with that? Because I know it happens.

[37:10] Kaleb Mertz: Yeah, I think in most cases, if that’s like an off the wind thing, it’s tough to see because what makes me sad about it is usually it’s the decision makers making that choice, but everyone else is gonna pay for it and then have a bad taste in their mouth.

[37:20] So honestly, just I. For how my brain works is like when I hear that, I ask a lot of questions of, okay, what are you getting? Why are you getting that? What are you doing? It just in my world, a lot of that is like someone buying a cobot. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great for the right applications, but there are many applications.

[37:40] It’s not a good fit, and it’s just what people see all the time and know that’s I. Why they go for that. So I start asking questions of what they’re running, what their cycle times are, what kind of part mix, how often are they gonna have to be reprogramming that. And so usually there’s a way to try to redirect that a little bit.

[37:50] But if they choose to go for it, then I’ll just make sure I’m following up in a couple months to see how that went and see how I can help with that. I want to

[38:00] Nick Goellner: talk about that in a future episode, like the cobot versus industrial robot saying, a lot of people listening probably don’t even know the difference.

And why one is better or worse than the other for different applications.

Dave Vuyk: One costs about half as much of the other. Yeah,

[38:10] Nick Goellner: yeah, exactly. From what I hear, it requires a lot more fixing and finicking and like, is finicking a word? It is now. Finicking with it’s finicky.

[38:20] Kaleb Mertz: What’s actually interesting is they just the standard for what is considered collaborative just shifted.

[38:30] I don’t remember the exact code for it, where the actual process has to be collaborative and not just the one item itself, which is a huge shift in the industry. A big deal. But it’s exactly for that reason, is you could put a chainsaw on the end of arm tool of a collaborative robot, and it’s obviously not a collaborative.

Product. Right. Even though the robot is collaborative. So anyway, that’s for a future episode, like you said. But yeah,

[38:50] Nick Goellner: Nick, I think we should set the time. I think we should set the table for like, okay, this would be like a pre automation checklist. And the next one, like one thing that’s clear here is we need to set KPIs before we automate.

[39:00] And in the next episode we’ll just spend. The whole time breaking down KPIs, what they mean and why they’re important. Yeah.

Dave Vuyk: That’s such a meaty topic.

[39:10] Nick Goellner: Yeah. ’cause otherwise we’re just gonna blast through it and like no one will be able to give anecdotes for each one. So I think basically this becomes the show structure, what I’m highlighting here, and we give anecdotes like under each one.

[39:20] Like when it’s a great metric, what, when it can go wrong, like what it takes to get there.

[39:30] Kaleb Mertz: So we were just talking about a second ago about monitoring systems and how that can be essential to your process across the board, not just on specific items. And so I think the next clear step would be to get into KPIs, not just ’cause of that, but also KPIs.

[39:40] You have to set those at the beginning stages of like, okay, what do I even care about before I even start? Going through some of those checklists that we just talked about, but then also, how do I even know if I’m actually achieving what I was trying to achieve in the first place? If you throw automation on something, you’re not gonna know unless you’re tracking it.

[40:00] Nick Goellner: Is it making my company more valuable? Higher growth rate, more profitability, like all the things that go into the value of your business. At the end of the day, like our job is to make our businesses more valuable. So if you can’t connect those automation KPIs to that result, like you’re probably wasting your time.

[40:20] But I agree with you, there’s a lot of different things you can measure as it relates to automation, and that’s a meaty topic. So we should probably end this one and go into Automation Academy, episode two, where we get deeper into KPIs.

[40:40] Dave Vuyk: Yeah. Sounds like a plan. We covered a lot today. I think if we’re to give some takeaways to the listeners as it pertains to this episode alone, you know, it really comes down to starting off with perhaps a bit of a mindset shift as you’re thinking about automation.

[40:50] Trying to understand, okay. I. What needs to happen to our existing operational process today to prepare for that shift? And that could be tooling and work holding and these other things we talked about. And also doing a bit of a pilot, right? So understanding which processes are worth automating first, what’s the low hanging fruit?

[41:10] Conducting those time studies and starting down that lights out path. Dimming the lights, as we alluded to earlier, initially, that could be a smaller percentage of your parts could be only 20%. That 20% time savings could free up significant labor and other resources that are gonna take your business to the next level.

There’s nothing wrong with starting small dimming. The lights can

[41:30] Nick Goellner: be not automating yet. What we talked about with, uh, maybe it’s a work holding improvement or adding more standardization in your tooling process. That’s where dimming the lights can start. Like it doesn’t start with a robot or a loader or a bar feeder or anything like that.

[41:50] It starts with standardization. To your point, Dave, like a mindset shift. If you don’t wanna become obsessive about standards and being very procedural, like you’re probably not gonna be good at automating.

[42:00] Dave Vuyk: Learn to see waste and do something about it. That’s a great place to start. The other point too is just understanding that automation doesn’t mean replacing human workers.

[42:10] And I think again, it’s what can cause a lot of fear. It’s doing more with. The team that you already have. It’s being more competitive, stronger paychecks for your workers, I think is a reality there, and upskilling them to work alongside machines and technology. That’s a much more compelling story than automations coming from my job.

That’s a misconception.

[42:30] Nick Goellner: It’s about respecting and believing in the potential of your people, not replacing your people. Next time KPIs with Caleb with a K, let’s freaking go. But with that, nothing makes me ready to turn the lights out more than talk about KPIs and data. So turn the lights out on the episode guys.

[42:50] Hey guys, it’s Nick and I’m so excited about Machine Shop Mastery being part of making chips. So my good friend Paul Van Mader, he’s been a partner. He’s been a sponsor, he’s been a friend and he’s been involved with making chips for a long time, and now his podcast that I love is part of our group.

[43:10] Here’s why you should listen to it. Paul doesn’t just run a software ERP company for machine shop leaders. Paul was a machine shop leader. He loves machine shop leaders. He’s the one leading the charge to thank all the machinists out there for all the incredible work they do. And the best thing about him is he actually knows how to make their incredible work turn into an incredible business.

[43:30] So when you listen to Machine Shot Mastery, you’re gonna hear Paul and his guests talk about exactly what they’ve done to overcome their challenges and make their business successful. You’re gonna get those kinda like heart wrenching stories that tell you what people have been through, things that you can empathize with because you’re a manufacturing leader too.

[43:50] So check out Machine Shop Mastery and learn how to master your machine shop. Hosted by my good friend Paul Van Mader, under the Making Chips Network. Thanks.