Lights Out Lenses: Inside an Automation Journey from the Operations & Production Frontlines, Ep #40

[0:00] Nick, what are you doing on this beautiful spring day, my friend? Oh, I’m about to have a beautiful spring break trip with my whole family. I’m excited. I heard. Yeah. Big, big things going on down there in Cozumel, Mexico, from what I understand. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what my wife said? She said, Hey, what are you going to do today to make sure I’m all ready and help me pack? And I said, you know what I’m going to do for you? I’m going to podcast with Eric. That’s amazing. While you pack. And that’s kind of, you know, that’s kind of, that’s kind of a great segue. Cause what we do on this podcast is we try to get like our listeners ready for automation and advanced manufacturing techniques. Right. And today I think is a groundbreaking episode. It’s the first episode of lights out lenses. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to invite some friends from Oklahoma in, and we are going to get the automation journey, right. But from the perspective of ownership, director of operations, director of production, and director of engineering and programming. So, you know, what were their business challenges, right? All those lenses. And then what did the journey look like for all those different people? And then last but not least, how did it like affect them personally, professionally, right.

[1:28] Post install. And you and I have, have been to, you know, okay, I guess the cat’s out of the bag. Our guests today are advanced machine and fabricating from Oklahoma. Great company. I mean, they do some really cool materials and they’ve got some automation cells that, I mean, blew my mind when we were down there. Yeah. This is some of the, my favorite people in the industry. One of the favorite shop tours I’ve been on in years. There’s so much to talk about. And I love like the concept we had while we were there. We talked around advanced technology and automation, but we talked to everyone on the team about it. And so it was like, everyone’s got a different lens that they look through when they’re exploring automation and how it’s going to work and what it’s going to take to implement and the results that they hope to achieve. So I’m super excited to get this kicked off with Randall here. I am too. Yeah. So that’s, so yeah, first let’s bring our friend Randall Hamilton in. Randall is the Director of Operations for Advanced Machine and Fabricating. And I just learned a fellow collector of action figures. So Randall, welcome to the Lights Out podcast. Good morning. Thank you guys. Happy to be here. I’m happy that you’re willing to admit you collect action figures like Eric, you know? Yeah. I usually keep running around with the cats out the back now, right? I think stuff like that is so cool.

[2:49] It’s fun. I mean, step one is… You gotta have a release. Step one is I am powerless over collecting action figures and my life has become unmanageable. I love it. So Randall, welcome to Lights Out. So, so gracious of you and your team to join us this morning. We’re really excited to tell this story. And I think just a great way, you know, to start is tell us about yourself, how you got into the industry and maybe some of the challenges you were facing as, you know, the director of operations that kind of pushed you into the automation zone. Yeah. Give us, if you could, like a little bit of your story. And then just since you’re the first one that we’re going through this whole lenses thing with, maybe give us a bit of a profile of your business too. And what kind of what you got in the shop doors. Okay. Yeah. So I’ve been doing aerospace stuff almost 20 years now. Um, right at 20 years, I guess. I actually started to kind of one of the big tier two suppliers and I spent bulk of my career over there. I did about 13 years at one of them. And that was all wasn’t really the machining world, but it was interesting. We had automation over there doing stuff more on like drilling and filling holes and doing things of that nature. So I had kind of seen it and been around it a little bit.

[4:10] And from that perspective of being there, I watched it. You went from having like four guys jumped up on a tool and all drilling holes. Then you had a robot that did it. And so from that perspective, I seen it more as like it removed kind of jobs. You have less people because you had a couple of robots to do it. And then fast forward. I’ve been here with advanced about five years now. And when I came in, they were really, they had the machine cell already. The cell kind of came in in 2017. Um, but it was not being completely used in the automated, um, this full blown automation, right? Like they had it still learning, still trying to get it tooled up for it. Um, there’s so much that goes into it aside from just like, oh, let’s just get a automated cell. And then you’re, you’re rocking and rolling. You’re good to go. Um, so I’ve kind of been part of the, the journey you could say on getting everything to where we are today. You know, it’s, it’s doesn’t happen overnight. It’s taken, uh, you know, a couple of years of just R and D and figuring it out and you try something and then we break it and then you go back and try something again. But I think, um, with what we’ve got going now and how we’ve done it, you know, we’ve really, we all work together, you know, the, the four of us specifically and getting our teams aligned and where we’re, where we’re trying to go and all trying to be on the same page with the same goal. And, uh, with the automation, there’s so much outside of the machine, right? Like that’s, that was where a lot of, uh, my challenges come in and say, forest and is, uh, you know, we’re going to run 24 seven.

[5:50] I got to have machine or, uh, material to be constantly putting on the machine. I’ve got to have more people out on the shop floor to be able to support the deeper operations, the quality. I got to get it all pushed through. I got to order more material and bigger quantities at a time. And then, uh, go back out to the vendors and your, your processing, Hey, I used to send you five parts at a time, but now I’m going to send you 12 because it makes more sense in the automation to run, you know, 20 at a time and not run four or five. Um, so a lot of my, uh, kind of involvement in the automation is everything around automation. It’s not, I don’t go out there and push the button on the machine. I try to make sure it’s fed and then try to figure out what are we going to do with it when it all comes off, you know? That’s amazing. You know, two things I really want to point out that you kind of described there that, you know, one is something we talk about all the time on this show, but the other, I think that is of a real valuable point for our, for our audience is that there is this like bit of like you built the plane while you were flying it right at a, at advanced machine and fabricating. I think that that’s important to know. I think a misconception is a lot of people think that we’re just going to buy a system or we’re going to pay an integrator and they’re going to come in and plug and play and, uh, and all will be well with the world. And I think you guys really embrace that.

[7:15] Like this is a journey, uh, you fix one thing, then three things pop up. Right. And that is kind of, I think what you were describing with making sure you have material and that you have all these like tertiary processes that have to scale with the automation. Right. So like we always talk about like the up, the upstream and the downstream bottlenecks that if you’re not careful can get created. And Nick always talks about like throughput, right? Like automation really only works well for a company. If your throughputs increased. Right. Not if you create a pile of parts in front of the quality door. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I like what you said about like everything around automation, cause there’s no, there’s no automation in and of itself that that’s successful back to the point Eric just made. So, and, and I like how you started, you know, your perspective on, Hey, I’ve seen it before. And, and it is true. I mean, sometimes automation does replace jobs, but what we often talk about is it replaces the jobs nobody wants to do the monotonous boring jobs where you’re not like using your actual real human creativity. So when, when you look back at kind of your mindset before you implemented the automation and then, and then now did it in fact replace some jobs or is there more overall jobs at your company or. Here with us? Yeah.

[8:39] With you guys, yeah. It’s made it more actually, I think. You know, we have with the way we run it, we may have five machines and you got a couple guys that can man those five machines because they’re kind of running on the road. It’s kind of feed the beast and just let it sit there and eat. Um, but man, like right off the bat, it turned into a, uh, you know, once the automation really got going, we were running more, we added, you know, the other shifts and keeping things rolling around the clock. And then all of a sudden you weren’t thinking about just deburr. That’s like the next step. So in, in one way we went and said, okay, well, let’s do more of that deeper in the Let’s try to clean up those edges and minimize what’s going over there. Um, that helped some, but then it still is like, we had one guy for 20 years that sat in there and he could handle deeper. And occasionally you’d have a floater that would go and help out, but it got to a point where it was like, man, we were just kind of backed up and really couldn’t, couldn’t do nothing with it. So we kind of did like a whole project around that and like, let’s get them all the tools they need. Let’s make point of use a big thing where, uh, anything you need is going to be right there. And then it just kind of kept growing and getting a step further. Okay. Let’s put pictures in our planning to show these guys exactly like, here’s how it starts and here’s how it needs to look like trying to cut out a minute here, a minute there.

[10:01] And then, uh, you know, now you walk out there and the racks are, they’re just flowing, you know, but we had a guy in there. So now we’ve got two where we had the one at one point we searched and had like three to get, uh, get a help cleaned out. What was nice is you’re backed up in deeper, but you’re not behind on shipping parts because you got the parts done faster. So like, it wasn’t like it was affecting anything other than just making us kind of scream. We’ll go, Oh, why are these all sitting here? You know? Yeah. I want to get in the technical for a second. Cause deburring always seems to be the operation where it’s like, well, should we do that in the machine or should we do it outside of the machine? It’s like the one that always gets talked about when you talk about automation and are you doing it out of the machine? Or did you decide to put that into the program? Both. It kind of, it really depends on the part, you know, some part, it makes sense. Other parts, you know, if I can just sit there for 15 seconds and do it by hand, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do a tool change and hold the machine up from making chips to make dust. Make a little tiny deburred chip. But I think, you know, I was looking at some parts the other day and it was a big gnarly part. And, uh, I would say, you know, 75% of it was done in the machine and there’s spots where it just really couldn’t reach.

[11:19] But the deburred then for the guys, you look at it and it’s like, oh, I’m going to be on this all day. And really we just went around and it took five minutes and you were done, you know? So it’s still a mix, you know, some things it’s just, it’s, it’s faster to have a guy do it. That seems crazy in this world, but sometimes a human can do it faster. That’s actually an awesome point and I’m glad you made it. You need to decide what’s worth automating and what’s not because it’s not everything. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And from an operation standpoint, I kind of love the mentality of, you know, too many people, they try to catch lightning in a bottle and it just, it just slows things down. We always say here, right? Sacrifice good for perfect. And I love that you guys really got hyper focused on like the incremental changes of moving towards the greater goal. Our president, Noah Goldner always says, you know, let’s just get 1% better every day. Right. And then what’s that look like over the course of a year? Fellas. Hey, well, I got you both real quick. So I’m really trying to drill in like our work holding options at Hill and all of our shops. Any advice? Mike, it’s as simple as RASRAM. As what? RASRAM. You’ve never heard of it? I have not.

[12:35] Paul? What Nick is referring to is the seven habits of highly effective work holding. That makes more sense. Repeatability, accessibility, scalability, reliability, adaptability, and modularity. If you want to find all of these principles in one catalog, check out the SMW Autoblock catalog. You can find it at smwautoblockblok.com. Thanks, fellas. Yeah. You know, quality side was kind of the same way. Luckily, Scott and they were smart enough when they put this cell in that we’ve got, like they realized we got to inspect these parts. You got to do it quickly and get it back in. If you have an automated cell sitting, it’s not automated, you know? So in our world and what we do, getting that first piece off and getting it good and validating it so you can rock and roll and get the rest of them done. And like that’s the name of the game here. So we have Duramax, kind of a portable CMM that’s right out there in that cell. So part comes off them guys, they walk 10 steps, they put it on there, run the program real quick, get a green report, and then hit go. You know? That’s amazing. But yeah, Randall, we did a whole story early in the Lights Out series with Eric and Dave, and it was the automation trap.

[13:55] You know, we like wrote a fictitious story. And that’s something that the hero of the story did. They were like, hey, let’s put automation right next to the machine and not have this huge pile in front of a department. But automation can be kind of like how we’ve expanded the job from somebody who maybe was doing a boring task like just deburring to now deburring and then quality and everything involved in the entire automation equation. Yeah. I would like to point out, if that fictitious story ever became a movie, the opening frame would be based on real events. You know, I just want to make sure that that gets noted in the annals of film history. You know, so Randall… And Eric’s like signing up to play the main character, but we’re not going to Hollywood. We’ll never get him back. Randall, you know, so one thing that I really think is valuable for the listeners out there is what did like, you know, this automation journey, what has it unlocked for you personally and professionally? You know? Yeah, sure. So, you know, one thing, kind of a cool, cool story that we had last year, we had our, we finished out, I guess it would have been 24. And we were all discussing and looking at the numbers and looking at the workload and kind of seeing what we’ve got.

[15:14] And we had some, you know, some contract work that we knew was there. We could see it. We knew what had to be done from January to December and leadership team. We kind of sat there and go, you know, okay, if we know what we’ve got to do, how do we maximize all these processes with the automation to try to say, let’s get all of the work in December. Let’s get that done by October. Right. We got through about July, August and was like, oh crap, we got to go get some more work. So we beat October by a couple months. Well, then that shifted me and Scott to like, we got to go out and sell. So I went from being kind of parked in here and just helping run stuff to like, we got to go get more work. And then going to get more work turns into, you know, when you’re out there, you’re trying to sell that. Like, I don’t want to go get two pieces on something that’s once every six months. Like I want to try to sell us as like, I can do 10,000 of these things. I’m set up to do it. I’ve got the, uh, the tools and machines and the capability, like feed me that automated style work. I wish it was that easy where I could just say, Hey, give it to me and we get it. Um, no, it really, for me, it shifted into more, um, the sales and the purchasing side of things and making sure that we’re, we’ve got the material on hand to be able to, to do that. And that was something that, um, I kind of took it on to, to help out.

[16:43] And then it’s just kind of become part of what I do, you know, with the, the purchasing of items and selling and, but it was not in the scope initially. And this is a lot to kind of pop in there, you know? But isn’t that a great point though? Like when you, when you add automation, it makes you think about the full process you have to, if it’s going to be successful. And then it makes your employees more entrepreneurial that, you know, they’re thinking like a bit like the entire business. You know, it’s not just, Hey, I gotta, I gotta do what we historically done. And I gotta get these parts through this machine. It’s oh crap. Now that, now that I got to feed the beast, I gotta make sure, like, I know it’s dietary requirements and I’m feeding it the right kind of work, which, which changed because of the automation. And so you’re getting into like, like you said, sales and purchasing and more of that full, well, well-rounded mindset thinking like an entrepreneur. Right. And to me, that’s the problem you want, right? So many times we hear people, you know, painted into a corner of capacity, right? The, the, the problem being, Hey, we gotta go sell more. We gotta go get more work. I mean, that’s, that’s the problem you want, right? Yeah. Not the, we, uh, we don’t have any more floor space and we need six more spindles, right? Yeah. Now that’s amazing. What about you personally, Randall? Has it unlocked anything for you? You get your Saturdays back or anything like that? Get more action figures, more time for the action figure collection.

[18:11] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, we have the majority of our shop. I mean, we run seven days a week, but all of us, you know, we, we have a setup to where the, the guys on the floor, they’re working four tens. And then we have a weekend shift that does a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they do three twelves. And then we have kind of a skeleton second shift that just keeps things flowing. It blew my mind the first couple of years being here. It was like, you know, in my, I’m, I’m kind of scrambling in my mind thinking we got to get this out. We got to get it done. And we take off on the weekend, you know, and it’s like, well, we’re still making our ship dates. We’re still meeting it. It’s nice that we’re not out there constantly begging and beating people to pay. I need you to stay late. I need you to come in early. I need you to work the overtime. You know, it’s like if we’re having to do that, um, there’s something that’s interjected into our process that isn’t automated. Right. And, and we try to, we’ve really done a lot of not just like an automated sell is one thing, but an automated business within every process, like automation, you know, can mean more of like, uh, you have a process like, and it does not change. Just follow that process every time, whether you’re getting a PO that comes in like me or a couple of others that are, that are on my team, they know, like you go through it, you scrub it, you do this, like follow the line all the way down until you’re done and you make the work order. And then the next process starts, right? Like drive your purchasing requirement, look at your ERQs, like, you know, putting those in place everywhere just does kind of free up some breathing room, you know, and it’s never a hundred percent. You’re always going to have the 80, 20, if you’re, if you’re lucky, where 20% is chaos.

[19:53] Um, but you want the 80, 80% to not be, you know, I mean, that’s still manufacturing is you’re going to have those, um, uncontrollables, right. Um, whether it’s the customer coming in and forcing it on you or, or occasionally you do it to yourself, but, um, having processes to get over that. Um, so for me, it’s really, uh, it has given me a lot more, uh, kind of skills in that side of things on seeing needs for processes, implementing processes, putting them in. And, you know, uh, I have some folks that I kind of meet and do some kind of consulting with every other week and help them with their business. And it’s not anything like this. One of them, it’s the housing market, you know, and he builds houses and flips houses. And I’m like, put processes in place and kind of, you know, it’s all transferable really. Yeah. Some of these are like universal truth. And, uh, you know, we have a little saying in our company, you know, you either didn’t have a standard process or you had a standard process and it was the wrong one. It doesn’t yield the right result. Or you have a standard process and you’re just not following it. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s like, all of our problems are one of those three things. Yeah.

[21:09] My right-hand guy, we kind of, um, we typically make most of the processes in our departments and we always kind of do the same thing where, uh, I’ll make it and I’ll give it to him and say, break it. And then we give it to somebody who has no idea what to do with it and then see if it works. So it’s like, if I sit there and walk you through it, that doesn’t, it’s not a very good process, you know, but it’s like, here, just follow those steps. You should be able to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If everything worked out right, you know, um, and, and sometimes that it’ll go back three or four times because I can read between the lines. The next guy can read between the lines, but the other one maybe missed something. And then they get to the end and go, well, that didn’t quite work. Okay. Tell me when I go back, we’re going to fix it and do that a couple cycles. And then next thing, you know, like, okay, there’s a proven process and not just a process. Wow. That what a phenomenal operational, uh, lens you’ve given us here this morning, Randall really want to thank you for your time. Um, yeah. What a, what a great story. Let’s ask them all like a, like a quick, uh, closing question for the end of their little segment of this. But Randall, uh, as we kind of close your section of this lights out lenses episode, um, give us a rating, your, your levels of like stress or like, you know, what the whatever that emotion is. Um, kind of the chaos was chaos one to 10 at, you know, Rick, give us a rating there and then give us a rating kind of now after you’re, you’re a little bit more seasoned with the automation. Has it changed at all? I would say it’s kind of a, uh, a five, uh, before and after, cause it’s like, it’s overwhelming at first, but then once you get rolling, you kind of start seeing those perks and it makes it seem like it’s really not so bad.

[22:57] So it may start as an eight and then it goes to a three and, and then even afterward, you’re still, you’re just kind of doing this cycle, you know, like, well, now I need new work. When I get new work, it starts over. How do I get this work? Yeah. The chaos doesn’t go to zero, but, uh, yeah, it never goes to zero. Um, uh, I think that’s manufacturing, right. But, um, I think if you can, if you can hover around that three, four or five, you’re probably doing pretty good because you know, a 10 in chaos world, and this is, that’s not good for anybody. That’s you’re not making parts. You’re not getting anything green. You ain’t shipping. You ain’t getting paid. And then when you get home, you’re just kicking your dog. That’s outstanding. Awesome, man. Well, yeah. In manufacturing, growth isn’t accidental. It’s engineered, but a lot of suppliers are still building their pipeline on outdated lists, inconsistent follow-up and hope-based marketing, hoping their website will somehow bring in leads. Gabe Draper, the founder of Factor knows that struggle. Years ago, he ran a shop that went bankrupt, not because of quality, but because he didn’t have a steady way to generate new opportunities. That experience is what led him to build Factor. Factor helps suppliers create consistent sales opportunities by combining targeted outreach with marketing that puts you in front of the right buyers. Their team finds the right companies, starts real conversations, and sets qualified meetings.

[24:25] So if your pipeline swings with referrals or seasonality, Factor brings a system that puts you back in control. And for listeners of this show, Factor is offering a free custom report that highlights the best opportunities in your industry, plus a list of real companies that match what you do. Request yours at factormfg.com slash chips. That’s F-A-C-T-U-R mfg.com slash chips. Wow. What an amazing story Randall shared with us. Hey, Nick. Oh, dude. I love the guy. I love the whole company, honestly. They’re just great people. And what I was saying before we even started recording, it’s like, I wish we could capture and bottle the tour that we got and share it with the audience before the episode. Because that’s where the magic is, when you see the incredible company that they’re running and then the great culture that they have. Meet the people. See the smiles. I mean, you experience some of those things Randall was talking about, right? 410s, 312s. And when people have that quality of life, it just shows up when you see them at work, right? Yeah, and they don’t have to come in and work on a Saturday. They just have to keep the beast fed. Yeah, just feed the beast, like Randall said. So that said, Randall, Director of Operations, right? So now I want to hear the perspective of the Director of Production. And is his assessment of the automation journey as peachy and squeaky clean as Randall’s was? So without further ado, Lights Out audience, please meet PK, the Director of Production for Advanced Machine and Fabricating.

[26:02] Welcome to the Lights Out podcast, PK. All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Let me introduce myself. I’m a Director of Production at Advanced. Joined Advanced in 2012. And I have a bachelor’s degree in production management. And I’m responsible for 14 plus million dollar shipment a year. I have 20 CNC machines. Okay, so that’s my background. And I’m responsible for my products and activities, ensuring efficient operations on time delivery with a high quality manufacturing output. So you said 40 million a year, 25 machines. Oh, 14. 14, sorry. 14. Okay, 14 million a year and 25 machines. That’s kind of like under your domain, PK? Yes. Got it. And then what would you say the biggest difference? I think the audience might be wondering what I was wondering when I met you and then I met Randall. You’ve got the Director of Operations and then the Director of Production. I’m sure there’s a lot of overlap in terms of how you think and what you’re responsible for. But what would you say the differences are between you and Randall’s role? Oh, my primary role is the execution side. Okay, how to make it happen, like on the backlogs and customer due dates and master scheduling when, where, at what time, which machine.

[27:28] I mean, that type of thing. So I need to schedule to get the real good output. Yeah, I’m more kind of like getting more output from the same machine. Okay, that’s my core goal. Okay, not without adding the resource like person. So whatever existing machine, how I can get more from that particular work center. So it makes a lot of sense. That’s the goal. But I’ll give you some like a real time or real example of what we have been doing here. Okay, so currently, we have selected FASTEM cell is our automation journey. Okay, starting. So that consists of two Okuma 5000 with 16 pallets. I mean, it’s connected with the FASTEM system, FMS with 36 pallets and with one KUKA robot. Okay, that’s the whole system. So there’s two Okuma, what are they 500 millimeter horizontal? Yes. And then there’s a big KUKA robot that’s on like a rail. All right. And that rail is taking 32 pallets, 216 pallet systems.

[28:44] And it’s just keeping both of those beasts fed. Exactly. I hate to be that guy. But we all know having been at your facility that that KUKA robot, his name is Pistol Pete. And I believe it’s only right to refer to him as Pete from this point forward. Yeah, PK, will you call the robot by his real name? Pistol Pete. Pistol Pete, I love it. Pistol Pete. So, okay, here is a reality, okay? So weekly, so how many hours in a week? Let’s see. Oh, jeez, I don’t know. 168 hours, right? There you go, yep. Yeah. 160 hours. Currently, we are manned start with 116 hours. So what’s the gap? 52 hours. So 52 hours a week is unused time, okay? So we are not getting any production. Not we are not. Out of 52 hours, we are getting only four to seven hours per week currently, okay? This is the current scenario. And there are a lot of challenges to get. Our goal is to get at least 80% or 80 to 90% out of 52 hours per week. Sure.

[30:07] That means it’s 40 hours per week. Okay, that’s the challenge. And we are working to mitigate that challenge. And from the lens of production management, I have like eight or nine points I pointed out. So as a team, we are working on that, okay? How to get 40 hours per week extra from that sale. And that 40 hours means around 2,000 hours per year, if you look on the yearly. And that will be the huge, huge. Yeah, that’s a lot of parts. A lot of parts. You attach a reasonable hourly rate for an impressive piece of equipment like those Okumas. And you add 2,000 hours of production that you’re getting that maybe you weren’t getting in the past. It’s around $200,000 worth of production. That’s how you pay for the machine faster. That’s how you tell the success story of automation is all those extra hours. And I love the way, you know, we think, what’s a work week? Oh, 40 hours. Well, that’s what a human might work, a full-time work week for a human. What’s a work week for a pistol piece? This guy’s a workaholic. So that’s what we’re trying to utilize.

[31:24] And from my lens, I would consider this, I mean, the whole automation thing as not a technology project. I would consider this as a stability project. What does that mean? It’s a process repeatability, tool life predictability, thermal stability of the machine, and reliable work holdings and probing. That’s called as long as, I mean, your process is stable, then only you can think about the automation. I love that you said that. We talk about that all the time. You cannot automate an unreliable process. You know, we always say you just multiply the bad things you’re doing. Yeah, you’re just doing chaos automatically. I love how you tied your job and your journey into two very important KPIs, right? High quality and on-time delivery. And, you know, as you’re trying to get this 80, 90% of that extra time, you’re trying to capture that for production. What are some of the challenges you’re running into? Would you mind sharing that with us? Oh, yes, yes. That’s why I’m trying to pinpoint these challenges, okay? I mean, it’s just a process capability under zero supervision. That’s our goal. It’s hard to get.

[32:49] Another one is very important, okay? On the automation is a part selection. Part selection matters more than equipment, okay? In our environment, I mean, it’s like a, what do you call it? In general, high volume, low mix parts goes to the automation. But we are in the reverse, right? We have a high mix, low volume, and that’s the huge challenge for us. And to get that, and then another thing is, we have a challenge with the tight tolerance parts also, frequent engineering chains, and exotic materials. We can’t work with that. But still, we’re thinking about working with that also. We are very selective, like on our part selection also. I love the emphasis you put on that. I think that’s something that’s commonly overlooked, right? Is actually like how important part selection, how important of a role that plays in automating the process. Hey, it’s Paul from Making Chips. If you’ve been burned by recruiters who don’t understand manufacturing, you are not alone. That’s exactly why we created Hire MFG Leaders.

[34:07] We’re not just recruiters, we’re current and former shop owners, and we know what it takes to lead in this industry. Whether you’re hiring your next operations leader, sales manager, or production supervisor, we’ll help you find someone who actually fits. Learn more at makingchips.com slash hire. PK, let me ask you a question about part selection, because from the sales perspective, we go out, we solve the customer’s problems. We say, hey, we’re capable of doing this kind of work, and they give us an order. We don’t necessarily get to say, well, you give us this exact type of order. It’s a perfect fit for our automation. They give you what they need, right? And you got to decide, you know, the scheduling and what job you’re going to run next. And so kind of walk us through a bit of that part selection challenge. Like, how do you work through that decision tree at your company? You know what? If we see, like, if a part is less than 20 minutes, okay, that’s not a good candidate for the automation. For pistol peak. For the pistol peak. Okay. I mean, we have a part like a 10-minute cycle time, 10, 15 minutes. I mean, that type of things. So it’s like, we will consider, like, high volume and low mix type of things. If you have more than 30 pieces, 50 pieces per order, and that would be a good candidate for the automation. Got it.

[35:37] Obviously, you’re involved in more than just what’s automated, right? I mean, you have to think about what jobs you’re going to run. Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. And what jobs you’re going to run in the pistol peak cell. Yes. The whole part schedule. I mean, we need to make sure, like, I mean, if you are working with the 24 hours, you need to make sure every single part you need to manage properly in the FASTM system. So what’s next? Or in the FASTM, it will pick and choose. And you need to make sure we have enough work holdings, fixerings, materials lineup. I mean, everything needs to be perfect there. And toolings. That’s something I don’t want to just, like, go over quick, right? I don’t want to pass that thought up. Because when we were there, we saw some really intuitive work holding designs. I mean, we saw everything from modular off-the-shelf work holding to dedicated fixtures. You guys do plastics. You do materials that are notorious for, like, deforming and just have, like, these, you know. When we were there, Scott, who we’ll meet here in a little bit, was talking about how much, like, heat and humidity. I mean, I was shocked at how much you can just throw the geometry of those parts off by just the temperature changing, you know, a few degrees. So how, you know, as the director of production, I’m going to assume you’re always looking at work holding.

[37:05] And how big of a role is that playing in those automated cells for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s where we’re very concerned about that. I mean, and based on your volume and your, I mean, it’s a lot of things. I mean, you need to keep in mind the work holdings also. If you are running the same part number, like, 10 times a year, right? Or 15 times a year? Or two times a year? It all depends on your frequency also. Hey, is it worth to make work holdings, extra work holdings from the same part or not? I mean, there are a lot of factors involved on that. It’s not, I mean, the behind the scene, I mean, a lot of, lot of work needs to happen. It’s to be happened. And another thing is quality control also must be embedded inside that process. That way, how we can minimize that inspection process, right? It can’t inspect single, I mean, every single time, right? Every single parts. And we have a challenge, like, for example, we’re working with someone, one of the customer, they want their every single parts to be checked. Okay? If you are running 20 parts, every single parts needs to be checked.

[38:23] Right? So how you can run those parts, right? I mean, it’s just a challenge. So, yeah. One of those scenarios where if you’re not careful, you create this giant pile of parts at the CMM essentially. And they’re all scrap or they’re all out of tolerance and you got to rework them and yuck. Yeah. So PK, obviously you’ve been an important part of this journey for advanced machine and fabricating, but like part of this is how has this journey impacted you professionally, personally, you know, really interested in hearing how, you know, maybe some of the things you’ve learned, some of the things that it’s unlocked for you as you create more and more success within these automated production cells. You know what? I’m more kind of, I mean, like a production guy, right? And as a production guy, I want more. We got a guy like that that works here. Now I can get more from the same equipment. Okay. I’m always thinking about that. Right? I mean, not only the faster cells.

[39:40] Hey, how we can automate the other cells also, right? What can be done, right? And imagine, I mean, even with the two machines, we’re getting 2000 hours, extra hours per year. Can you imagine if you add another 10 machines, 10 times 1000 hours? I mean, it’s a simple math, right? But I mean, it takes a lot of work, but it’s worth. At the end of the day, it’s worth thinking about that. My journey, I think I’m more thinking about putting more automation on other equipments also. So as a team, we’re working on that. We are talking with the forest, Randall, Scott, as a team. Hey, how we can automate other work centers also, not only the faster. And that’s the challenge. And we need to invest a lot of, I mean, on the tooling side or work holdings. I mean, there are other things. I think you guys can help also. Well, and I think one thing that you and I had a conversation about when we were there that was fascinating me was some of how you’re collecting the data too, right? You guys are using some pretty advanced techniques when it comes to capturing all that production data and using it for the power of good.

[41:03] Yeah. Even we are capturing the first pass yield, like, hey, how many times we failed to make one good part? Here is the result. Okay. We tried three times and on the fourth attempt, we pass. I mean, that type of data, I mean, we’re analyzing and how we can do it better next time. What I love is we’re big proponents of OEE on the Lights Out podcast, and Randall, he talked about making sure material’s ready and making sure the people are there and that’s the availability, right? And you’re talking about on-time delivery and first-piece throughput and quality. And it’s like you and Randall, just two people almost combined to ensure that advanced machine and fabricating has this remarkable OEE. Yeah. It’s really cool. Yeah. I’m excited to hear the next guy’s perspective too on just making sure we’re getting that performance. We’re hitting the target cycle times and how we program everything and all of that too. It’s going to be exciting to get into the forest part of this. But PK, what really jumps out when I hear from you is just how you’re always thinking about the numbers. You started your segment here with like, how many hours should be in a week? And this is how many hours I’m not getting.

[42:23] I’m trying to figure out, you know, I’ve got a bunch of kids and when I got to get dinner ready, it’s like, who’s the hungriest and who eats the most? And I’m trying to figure out who eats more. Who eats the hardest to feed? Is it PK or is it Thistle Pete? Because you always want more. Yeah. How we can use that 52 hours, right? That’s the time. And you mentioned Fastoms a few times and when you look at Fastoms, they’re speaking to people directly like you. People who think just like you. Because you look at their logo and it’s got 8760 in a big red circle. And I mean, I always just kind of saw it and thought it was maybe like a date or something like for a milestone within their company or I don’t know. And you guys are like, do you know what that means? And what is it? How many hours are in a year? Something like this. Yeah. Yes. 24 hours times 360. Yeah. So you think about that and someone’s thinking about how many hours are we really getting that utilization and are we getting the most out of all of our hours? And isn’t it kind of like, not to be too philosophical here, but isn’t that the point of life, right? Get the most out of the time you have. Yes.

[43:39] And so you take that to an art form at your company. And as we move into the next segment, I want to ask you the same question we asked Randall. Before the implementation of the automation and before the pistol peat and all of that, where would you say your level of stress or tension or chaos was if you had to go 1 to 10? Where would it be then? And then where is it at now? Oh, at that time, we were struggling. I mean, we were struggling. At that time, like to get on time delivery and customers were mad. I mean, it’s kind of chaos. Now with all this, I mean, we utilize or we implement a good process. I mean, automation in mind and like, hey, how we can get most out of the existing machines without investing. But I mean, we invest on the tooling side and other things also. Softwares, work holdings. So with that now, I would say, I mean, out of 10 to be around six, seven. Yeah. Yeah. It’s never perfect. You don’t you don’t get to 10.

[44:54] You’re like, I’m never stressed anymore. It’s just a different kind of stress. Yeah. You’re always going to have that gap that you’re trying to close. And that’s a great improvement. People are one manufacturing. We want everyone to go home. We want a phenomenal talking to you. Enjoyed every minute of it and can’t wait to see you again, sir. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you, guys. Hey, it’s Dave. And you just finished listening to Randall and PK. And you might have noticed something else. I wasn’t there. Yeah. Nick and Eric, they went and recorded this one without me. I think I got the calendar invite at some point after the recording, which is a pretty neat trick. But credit where credit’s due. They got some really good stuff here. Randall laid out the operations side. Automation doesn’t remove work. It shifts it. Build the business around the cell or the cell breaks the business. And PK followed it up on production. All of that unused machine time is money sitting on the floor. But only if you’ve got stable processes in the right parts feeding the system. That’s half the picture. Operations and production can feed the beast all day long.

[46:09] But if the parts aren’t right, none of it really matters. So next episode, Nick and Eric sit down with Forrest on engineering and Scott on quality, standardization and inspection. The half that decides whether any of this actually works. I’ll see if I’m invited. Subscribe so you don’t miss it. Because I clearly missed this one. Thanks.