00:00:00:00 – 00:00:18:10
Unknown
having a digital platform like Pro Shop where everyone, every single employee, both part time and full time, have an account and have access, so that they can, have complete visibility of what’s coming and what their involvement is going to be,
00:00:18:10 – 00:00:24:22
Unknown
speeds everything up and also mitigates things going wrong or things being overlooked.
00:00:24:22 – 00:00:50:18
Unknown
Welcome to the Manufacturing Transformed podcast, where we dive deep into the world of manufacturing and uncover the transformational journeys of companies that are powered by Pro Shop by Pro Shop. Get ready to explore the stories behind the machines, the people, and the innovations shaping the future of this industry. Welcome to manufacturing transform real shops. Real stories.
00:00:50:18 – 00:01:19:12
Unknown
Well, my friends, and welcome to another episode of Manufacturing Transformed Real Shops. Real stories. Today I had the joy of interviewing Hernan Ricard of Ricard de precision. Hernan is such a such an incredible guy. I love the way he approaches business and, the running of his precision machining company. he caught me, by the way, many times using the word shop, which we get into the distinction.
00:01:19:12 – 00:01:42:05
Unknown
And I really appreciate his focus on that. if we want to change the the image of this industry, I think he’s right. We got to stop using the word shop. and really focus on the precision aspect of, you know, in the incredible technology forward aspect of what we do in this, in this industry. But we had a really fun conversation.
00:01:42:07 – 00:02:09:10
Unknown
about all sorts of topics, including, you know, how Pro shop has helped them, obviously get rid of paper. they formerly used E2 and he said, well, that was, you know, a great step from using nothing. They quickly outgrew it and realized that they needed something that was not paper based, and could, be more aligned with, you know, the all the very sophisticated things that they do on a, on a daily basis.
00:02:09:12 – 00:02:29:05
Unknown
We talked about how, pro shop helps them find the right employees, weeding out the ones that aren’t going to be a good fit. we talk about the most dangerous words that an employee can say. that’s the way I’ve always done it. Or I don’t want to change. that’s like a that’s like basically raising your hand and saying, I don’t want to work here anymore.
00:02:29:07 – 00:03:00:05
Unknown
really fascinating insight into that. we talk about how hard conversations, transparency with your teams that what’s so important about leadership? and if you’re not willing to have hard conversations about performance, about accountability, you probably shouldn’t be in leadership. I haven’t heard, it described in such succinct terms before. Hernan is certainly a massive advocate for continuous improvement.
00:03:00:07 – 00:03:26:15
Unknown
the importance of processes and procedures. And one thing I just absolutely loved him talk about was talking about the sort of the and this is universally true in any shop, the cleanliness of the data. you know, on a work order, for example, if a job, if a work order comes into your area, onto your machine, if the work order is not clean and tidy, upstream of you, you know that all the checkboxes are checked off and the quantities accurate.
00:03:26:15 – 00:03:48:09
Unknown
And and your first article is complete and filled out and the checkbox is green. If that’s not true, it is up to that employee to raise the flag upstream and say something was not done properly upstream because he says once it arrives in your area, you own it 100%. And that includes owning the quality of what was done before you.
00:03:48:11 – 00:04:13:17
Unknown
So, it’s such an important concept, I think, because many companies have a challenge with data, cleanliness and data. consistency and just that concept right there alone, instilling that into all your employees is the solution, I think. So, I just love it. And, it was a great conversation. So without further ado, let’s go have a chat with Hernan.
00:04:13:17 – 00:04:37:23
Unknown
Or my friend. Good to have you here. Great to be with you. Oh. Thank you. Thanks for being on this show. You were on Machine Shop Mastery a while back, and, now we’re we’re on manufacturing transform. So for those that didn’t hear you on the other show, tell us a little bit about your background, and then let’s get into into what Riccati, precision looks like.
00:04:37:23 – 00:05:04:18
Unknown
And talk about your shop. Sure. So, yeah. So my name is Hernan Ricardo, president at, Riccarton Precision. We are a contract manufacturer, Precision machining, company based in Southern California, in Orange County. it’s sort of a hotbed of aerospace based defense and medical device. So, it’s a great white, big condensed economy with a lot of fragmented, smaller businesses.
00:05:04:19 – 00:05:26:01
Unknown
I, did not grow up in the, quote unquote shop. My father started the business when I was in high school, and I went off to college, moved to Japan, worked in medical device health care in Japan for a number of years. spent a total of ten years in Japan in 2016. my father was thinking of selling the business.
00:05:26:01 – 00:05:43:09
Unknown
He, wanted my sister and I to take a look at it. and that’s, at that period of time, I was spending two weeks, I was back in California, but I was living here two weeks. Tokyo. Two weeks here. Two weeks. Tokyo, two weeks. so it was very, very, stressful. difficult on the family?
00:05:43:09 – 00:06:04:17
Unknown
Yes. Yeah. especially with the young kids. my two boys. So, yeah, we, looked at the business, saw an opportunity and decided to give it a shot in 2016. Okay. yeah. Coming up, coming up eight years now. Yes. Changed since then? Yeah. So tell us about, regard to precision. What do you guys specialize in?
00:06:04:17 – 00:06:45:22
Unknown
What kind of clients do you serve? Industries. So, yeah. So. So, I would say we’re about, 50%, defense and, space. and we do about 30% medical, with 20% being, you know, energy and, other, other areas. we really specialize in NPI to production, prototype to production work. so when I came on board in 2016, from my perspective, my father was sort of in third gear and rightfully so.
00:06:46:00 – 00:07:10:23
Unknown
He, sort of lived the American dream. you know, immigrating, you know, from from Colombia, from South America and, you know, putting my sister and I through college and, you know, we, we, you know, I remember going to, 4 or 5 different elementary schools just because we’re moving into a nicer, bigger house and nicer neighborhood every time.
00:07:11:01 – 00:07:36:00
Unknown
but, so. Yeah. So when I came on board, we had just over 20 employees. We did not have ISO or as many 100. We didn’t have an ERP system. so when I came on board, there was a lot of tribal knowledge. in a sense, you know, we were living through sort of the prima donna, organizational issues that some places face.
00:07:36:02 – 00:08:05:04
Unknown
and so the whole my, my, my objective was really to, to drive, processes, procedures, culture, organization. and so today, you know, we’re from a revenue standpoint where, you know, well over three times the size that we were, we’ve got, approximately 40 employees. And, you know, we’re running a lights out, precision machining facility that continues to grow.
00:08:05:06 – 00:08:30:13
Unknown
That is super impressive. Wow, what a story. so, my next question is, what makes your shop unique? I mean, you already described a few things. It sounds like a lot of investment in automation. The fact that you can do that NPI, you know, new product introduction process all the way through to production. any of the things that kind of stand out between you and your competitors?
00:08:30:15 – 00:08:33:22
Unknown
I would say.
00:08:34:00 – 00:09:04:02
Unknown
So we’re, committed to heavy lifting. You know, nothing. You know, nothing worth getting comes easy, right? Whether that’s family, whether that’s sports, relationships, what have you. And, I think that’s the reality of what we’re trying to do here as well. we don’t run this business like a big corporation. You know, we we very much understand that we’re still very small, so we have to wear many hats, and we have to be directly involved.
00:09:04:04 – 00:09:37:02
Unknown
we, are very, focused in driving accountability. So, you know, putting plans together, follow up on those plans, you know, putting people as, as owners responsible for certain projects or what have you, and just really driving that the the accountability from my perspective, needs to be driven not only internally and externally as well. You know, with your your vendor partners, whether that’s a supplier or whether that’s one of your technology partners and also with your customers.
00:09:37:04 – 00:10:03:18
Unknown
Because if you don’t hold your customers accountable, they’re busy, they’re juggling a million things. And, if they just assume you’ve got the information you need and you don’t let them know that, you know you need additional information, or that if you know whatever engineering changes they want to make will directly affect their, their OTG or what have you, then then, you know, we it’s our job to let them know.
00:10:03:18 – 00:10:28:08
Unknown
So I think our job and one area that has allowed us to grow has been driving the accountability internally and externally. Okay. That’s good. so I’d love to have you paint a picture of what your shop looked like. before you decided that your previous ERP that you’d chosen, this wasn’t, wasn’t the right choice anymore.
00:10:28:10 – 00:10:52:05
Unknown
Wasn’t going to cut it anymore. You just so diplomatic. Yeah. so so I would say when when I joined in 2016, we were a shop. And, you know, I, I dislike that term just because I think it’s, you know, it doesn’t it doesn’t paint the right picture of what we do. you know, we are not an auto body shop.
00:10:52:07 – 00:11:16:23
Unknown
we’ve got very expensive equipment with highly trained individuals. we’ve got engineers that work for us. and we spend a lot of time documenting and planning how we’re going to machine apart. What pitfalls can we can potentially, you know, run into if we don’t plan well. So, you know, everything from deciding on, you know, what tools to use, how to program.
00:11:17:05 – 00:11:51:04
Unknown
You know, what machine to use it on, how to inspect risk assessment, quality assessments, first articles, final inspection, all the documentation required for like critical parts. it goes beyond what I would perceive as a shop doing. Right? Yeah. So, yeah, I still think, you know, it’s a little bit of an old school term, and, and, people are fond of, you know, working in a shop and being in a shop, but I don’t think it helps us, you know, validate the value that we bring to customers.
00:11:51:06 – 00:12:20:02
Unknown
And it doesn’t make us attractive to the new generation of engineers and technicians that are, you know, considering a career in precision machining, contract manufacturing. No. And I didn’t answer your question, did I? No. That’s good. That’s okay. I will be more careful with my words. And I totally agree. Like one of the things we all need to do is change the perception of this industry, that it is an incredibly high tech, high precision, you know, technology forward.
00:12:20:04 – 00:12:48:23
Unknown
industry. And yeah, the word shop just doesn’t. It’s kind of an antiquated term isn’t it. So. Yeah. And I think I mean to me and to us shop sort of you know signals that you don’t have processes and procedures necessarily, but you still have a lot of, tribal knowledge. are not, driving technology and implementing in a new technologies and processes and things like that.
00:12:48:23 – 00:13:12:02
Unknown
So when I, when I came on board in 2016, we did not have, an ERP system. and I recognize that has being an important element in, you know, driving the organization, the structure and the growth. So we went with one of the common ERP systems out there. it was actually, shop tech at E2.
00:13:12:04 – 00:13:37:01
Unknown
And, again, it’s a good system. It and it helped us a lot, you know, and, it worked well for us because it helped us bring some structure into place. you know, and, you know, so we went out there, we had the, barcoding systems. We were able to better, plan out, you know, which machine we’re going to be working on.
00:13:37:02 – 00:14:04:01
Unknown
You know who was doing what? So it did help in the initial stages of driving accountability and some structure. but, we quickly grew out of that. And, and, the thing with technology is that, you know, you also have to not only look at the technology, but you have to, of course, like anything, look at the company behind it and the people behind the technology.
00:14:04:03 – 00:14:27:19
Unknown
And, we felt that we needed to work with, technology that was growing like we are. and that was focused on, you know, driving efficiency in that pro shop by far. And it still is. It’s just you guys, you and Kelsey did such. And this is not just to brown you guys with Brown as you guys.
00:14:27:19 – 00:15:01:23
Unknown
But you guys did such an incredible job in really the architecture of the way Pro Shop has been designed. You know and you know, I think a lot has to do and it demonstrates, you know, your ability to run a very successful precision machining operation. because it makes sense to what we do. And, and it makes sense to at least especially in the initial stages in implementing pro shop as to, oh my gosh, we didn’t even think of that.
00:15:02:01 – 00:15:29:06
Unknown
Oh my gosh. You know, to drive accountability to this extent, we do need to keep track of this, that, this, that. So, it was it Pro shop was great in taking us to the next level of organizing, driving efficiency and driving accountability because, you know, and again, we as we continue to grow, we continue to make better use of all the features that exist in pro shop.
00:15:29:06 – 00:15:54:19
Unknown
We’ve been with Pro Shop for just over two and a half years, and we’re still learning, and, you know, we’re still, you know, finding ways to, to, make better use of the technologies that and then the features that exist in pro shop. Okay. What? yeah. What were some of the challenges you were facing? You know, as you said, kind of outgrew it, but, how did that manifest itself?
00:15:54:20 – 00:16:28:23
Unknown
And, so one was paper, Paul. I mean, just like, that’s like the super no brainer one. I mean, I hate paper, and it’s just, dude, you know, it’s it’s we’re in 21st century. It’s no longer 1956 or 1976 where we’re, you know, using, you know, paper as we were. So, you know, again, no matter how clean your precision machining environment is, you’re still going to get, you know, oily, hands on, on paper and that and, and, signing off on things.
00:16:28:23 – 00:16:51:22
Unknown
And then when you have to make last minute changes, which one does you not only get requests for changes from your customers, but you may have to make changes or edits to the programs or to move from, you know, one machine to another, which will require you to maybe change your ups, you know, or change your tool list or change your work instructions and all of that, doing all of that on paper.
00:16:52:00 – 00:17:28:04
Unknown
in a timely manner is, is not it’s not possible. So the digital aspect of Pro Shop was an immediate, eye opener. because that allows us not only to make changes on the fly, but also access these changes on the fly and notify everyone and because it’s on paper, we can mitigate, you know, team members, you know, in our organization from saying, I didn’t know, nobody told me, you know, when we do our gemba walks in the morning.
00:17:28:06 – 00:17:58:12
Unknown
Our machinists tell us, you know, if the material is there. What what what outside processing it did, you know, is required of this, you know, do you have the anchor, do you have the tools? Do you have the work instructions? You know, and it’s all there from a click of your mouse and everything’s hyperlinked, you know. So. And everything from receiving material, you know, when did we receive material, who received it, who released it?
00:17:58:14 – 00:18:24:00
Unknown
You know, with it, with a date stamp. You know, there’s there’s no hiding with it. Sorry. It’s you know, then then then again, like with one button, dude, with one button, you can do a complete audit trail of everything. You know, it’s just all at your fingertips with, with you. Was it was it not possible to see when something was received or who you know, who received it or when or.
00:18:24:02 – 00:18:47:08
Unknown
I mean, that seems like such a fundamentally simple concept. Gosh, yeah, you block that from your memory banks. I did I don’t even remember. I mean, again, there was some traceability in that, but it wasn’t digital, you know, it was all on paper. So you had to chase down the paper to, to really figure out, what took place.
00:18:47:12 – 00:19:16:01
Unknown
And if you lose that paper, you lost your history. Okay. So I know that, when people replace, E2 and other, other, more legacy systems, they often have had to scaffold that system with lots of other spreadsheets and whiteboards and other little databases and things for tools or scheduling or whatever. How many different systems would you say you also kind of had that, you eliminated or replaced?
00:19:16:03 – 00:19:35:09
Unknown
Yeah. So, so we played around with Google Sheets and Excel spreadsheets. You know, Google Sheets was great because it was, accessible by everyone. But at the same time, anyone can make a change and really screw things up, right? see, there’s, you know, at least the way we were using it, we were able to, to lock in, changes.
00:19:35:14 – 00:20:20:07
Unknown
So, in addition to E2, yes, we were using, some spreadsheets, for dashboard purposes. again, it was it was a good system. It helped us get, you know, off our to, to to the next level in bringing some structure to the organization. But it didn’t give us the flexibility. And yes, we were, sort of forced to, use, you know, spreadsheets in order to, schedule permissions, the way we wanted to and to, have a little bit more visibility with dashboards, which, you know, now we’re able to do with pro shop.
00:20:20:07 – 00:20:48:10
Unknown
And again, you know, no matter what system, especially with the ERP systems, it doesn’t matter what industry. You know, there are ERP systems for everything, right? I mean, absolutely for finance companies, for cannabis companies, even the cannabis companies have their own ERP systems. but and nothing’s ever perfect, right. But what’s super important for us is, we we don’t want to use, yet another system and another system.
00:20:48:11 – 00:21:17:04
Unknown
Another system. So we want to, you know, we really push our team to better understand the features that exist in, you know, in this case, pro shop, so that we can make use of the dashboards and find new ways of using instead of, you know, being silly and, and being lazy in a way, and going back to what you’re accustomed to, whether it’s a spreadsheet or any other, you know, all modality that you’re accustomed to.
00:21:17:06 – 00:21:40:08
Unknown
So, you increase you know, you said you’ve nearly tripled or more than tripled your revenue, which is incredible in eight years. how big is your team grown in that period of time. How many more pieces of equipment or what what would you attribute. You know, that just huge increase in throughput. well, yeah, it wasn’t to one thing.
00:21:40:08 – 00:22:19:13
Unknown
I think, again, it was the, you know, our ability to organize and, implement processes and procedures that work for us and to, to, in order to, to drive that to choosing the most practical technologies, for us. So, I would say in addition to being disciplined, it and it’s, it’s all related, right? We need discipline from my perspective requires, you know, appropriate planning, you know, and not knee jerking because a knee jerking will kill you.
00:22:19:15 – 00:22:58:03
Unknown
and, planning out the right technologies, having a plan and being and holding people accountable and then making giving them responsibilities as well. but the digital technologies, in addition to some of the automated machines were tools that really, really help desk, you know, leapfrog to to growth, you know, and instead still is. So, since 2016, over the last eight years, we’ve added, you know, a couple of, lathes with, with 12ft bar feeders.
00:22:58:05 – 00:23:35:02
Unknown
we’ve added, two very large, five axis pallet systems that are automated that run all night. we’ve added, you know, cmms, and then on the digital technology side, yeah, I mean, pro shop is the backbone of what we do. it’s a big part of our onboarding process for all employees. that immediately tells us if employees are going to be a fit or not when they’re exposed to pressure, even in the interview process, just how they react to it.
00:23:35:02 – 00:24:00:18
Unknown
I mean, absolutely how they react to it, how they think through it. especially, you know, that when we’re with machinist as well as programmers and engineers, you know, and, you know, we set up scenarios, and see how they, you know, think their way through the scenarios. And Pro Shop is a great tool to do that. And, you know, because everyone knows that they have to live with pro shop, you know, every day.
00:24:00:20 – 00:24:33:14
Unknown
Right. so, just going back to your question, I’m sorry. So that technology implementation and capital equipment, implementation super important, but also I think another thing too is appreciating the importance of data. You know, having it being data driven is so crucial. And again, that the relates to discipline. Right. you know, I, I, you know, data is super important and, evidence based decisions are super important for us.
00:24:33:14 – 00:24:57:03
Unknown
So whatever we can do to help us in as much of an automated fashion as possible to capture all of the data that is being spilled out on the on the floor every single day. And to collect that and organize that, is extremely important, because if you’re not making use of that data, then then shame on you.
00:24:57:03 – 00:25:23:07
Unknown
And you’re losing valuable opportunities to measure yourself and to better understand, the opportunities that exist for you as well. Yeah. And you are using, a bunch more technology beyond pro shop for that. Use data nomics to use paperless. Hi QR right. So correct. Yeah. So sort of partners that that kind of work together and share some of that data even.
00:25:23:09 – 00:25:57:10
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And we’re super lucky. Paul. Honestly, I think it’s an interesting time in our industry, because there is a flurry of different technologies and, and competition because competition is always good. Right? So yes. So pro shop is the backbone for quoting we use paperless which was a fantastic platform for not only, you know, helping to automate your quotes, but also communicate internally and with your, customers and your vendors.
00:25:57:12 – 00:26:25:13
Unknown
you know, they got the 3D, viewer as well that we make use of, ICA, you know, we use for, quality. You know, it has an OCR technology that helps bubble drawings and then helps us with, you know, do our calibration, organize our calibration. It helps us with, with that first article, final inspection reports in that paper as well, which we do quite a bit of, and then, data dynamics.
00:26:25:15 – 00:26:52:17
Unknown
so it’s automated machine monitoring. It reads a load of the, the tools we’ve worked with other, machine monitoring systems that just for looking at the spindle turning. So, you know, a machine is good just, you know, turn on the spindle, you know, and not cutting anything. So data load, you know, it, reads load. And also those guys as well just continue to add feature upon feature.
00:26:52:17 – 00:27:15:17
Unknown
And, and what’s great about those guys is that they’re adding these features but not complicating it. They’re adding features and simplifying. That’s like that’s such an important combination. you know, especially when environments like ours, we’re so damn busy, we’re juggling so many things with customers and vendors and, you know, keeping it simple makes it a lot easier for us to implement.
00:27:15:19 – 00:27:41:01
Unknown
Yeah. Greg and his team do a fantastic job. And, yeah, I love the fact that, it can you can match up, you know, the the program with the pro shop part number and have it pull the actual target times so it knows exactly you know, what you planned. Right. So we don’t have, data analytics on all of our machines yet.
00:27:41:03 – 00:28:01:04
Unknown
we’ve got them on eight machines, and we, initially, put them on our wire and our five axis because we wanted to know when those things were. We’re not running or or, you know, what was going on. If there’s, like, a tooling issue, which tool was it? you know, how long it was down. And, you know, the information goes to your phone and what have you.
00:28:01:06 – 00:28:42:13
Unknown
But then we began to realize, mate, hold on short runs as well, you know, and setups. So then we put them on, you know, some of the lathes and some of the mill. So we have them on a variety of machines running a variety of short runs, long runs, because there’s value in all of that information. And then the fact that whenever we we we just to be safe because we sometimes have to switch jobs from one machine to another, because, you know, changes in schedules or what have you, we have our programmers put the extra, you know, few, one line of code in order to name the, the part number
00:28:42:15 – 00:29:18:16
Unknown
so that in pro shop, I’m sorry, in the NC code. So that data nomics can capture that in that, part name from Pro shop automatically. So that allows us to get part count and other information and more details automatically. So again, thanks to pro shop and Data nomics working together, it it’s just like one added feature that we get that simplifies, you know, the way we do things and allows us to capture more information holding, you know, helping us again to drive accountability and to drive efficiency I love it.
00:29:18:21 – 00:29:43:10
Unknown
Yeah. That’s such and that’s such an as, such an essential part of, of a manufacturing operation is that spindle cutting time up time, you know, knowing that real time information of what’s happening in the machine so you can make those data driven decisions. All right? Right. In an automated for an amount of maintenance way. Yeah. Crucially, as you’re because you’re so busy doing everything else.
00:29:43:12 – 00:30:02:01
Unknown
so I know that, you hate paper, and I know that in a lot of paper based systems at the beginning of the process, it is very much, you know, waiting and queuing in different areas. Right. An order comes in, it has to go to contract review. It’s got to go to procurement, it’s got to go to whatever.
00:30:02:01 – 00:30:23:11
Unknown
And, you know, an a traveler may literally sit in an inbox on someone’s desk until they can look at it and sign off on it or do their job. and sometimes, you can dramatically cut down the that lead time, from when an order comes in before you’re ready to really start processing things. Have you seen that lead time collapse?
00:30:23:14 – 00:30:51:00
Unknown
And has that given you more time on the back end for making parts and outlay processing, all that kind of stuff? Of course. and then again, you bring it. That’s a super, obvious, point that, you know, it’s it’s, it’s just part of us now. So when we receive, it really from the coding stage, I mean, when we we again, I know Pro Shop has quoting, features.
00:30:51:00 – 00:31:11:13
Unknown
It has quality features, which are awesome. but, you know, we, we choose to go even a little bit deeper. so with paperless parts, we, we automate as much as we can and have it all accessible. You know, similar to Pro shop, you know, hyperlinks to all the quotes and everything from material or what have you.
00:31:11:15 – 00:31:39:07
Unknown
And then once we have that information in place, we have quite a bit, you know, good, history of the interaction with the customer. Then we move it into pro shop. Once we have it in pro shop, contract review, real time. Everyone gets involved. Everyone gets their hands, you know, dirty and quality review, risk assessment. You know, strategizing on, on, you know, and how we’re going to machine and what machine we’re going to put it on.
00:31:39:10 – 00:32:31:03
Unknown
So all of that happens real time. and, and then quality gets to it, pulls the, information off of pro shop, and then we start bubbling the drawings and then getting the that, in process inspection. Yeah. paperwork ready and it’s not paper again. It’s all digital as well. So yes, I mean, having a digital platform like Pro Shop where everyone, every single employee, both part time and full time, have an account and have access, so that they can, have complete visibility of what’s coming and what their involvement is going to be, is speeds everything up and also mitigates things going wrong or things being overlooked.
00:32:31:04 – 00:32:59:19
Unknown
Yeah. So speaking of mitigating things, have you seen your, scrap rate or, you know, issues related to, you know, making mistakes? Have you seen that reduce over the, over the years as you. Yes. Yeah. No, absolutely. so that’s an interesting question because we weren’t measuring our scrap rate accurately enough prior to pro shop.
00:32:59:21 – 00:33:31:08
Unknown
You know, and with Pro shop now, there’s no excuse, you know, there’s no excuse for us not to capture all of this. And it’s easier to identify if something has been overlooked. You know, if you start with, you know, job that requires, you know, 100 pieces to be, to be machined. And you, you know, you, you plan in an extra five just in case you, you scrap some parts or what have you.
00:33:31:10 – 00:34:00:07
Unknown
And, you know, the whole count and who touched and what happened is, is on the digital system. So if someone you know, if you’re missing one piece, you know, you know who was involved in that discrepant data, so you know, it just again, it just drives accountability. And it and it helps us drive efficiency and measuring of how we’re doing.
00:34:00:09 – 00:34:30:04
Unknown
So yes, I mean, it’s just in once you’re once you’re measuring then you’re managing. Right. If you’re not measuring you not managing. And so now we’re measuring and we’re managing and we’re able to address issues that pop up and we’re able to address those in a more timely manner because we’re looking at it real time. And if there’s a a number that that is discrepant or deviates from what it should be, the next person that touches the part is responsible to call, call it out.
00:34:30:06 – 00:34:55:01
Unknown
If not, then they are equally responsible because once a part hits your area, you own it. Yeah, I like that concept. Yeah. Have you adopted the practice of what we call it? We used to call documentation anchors. yes. Just a mechanism for tracking that, you know, that human error. yep. It’s it’s not a problem with the part itself.
00:34:55:01 – 00:35:32:19
Unknown
It’s a problem with the process. Exactly. Yeah. And it’s in in a sense, it’s it’s one in the same. Right. Because you, you can also get into a situation where you’re sort of overlooking these things or saying, okay, the parts okay, which is the documentation got a little bit screwed up. And then when you deliver the part to the customer and you have discrepant documentation, you’re screwed because, yeah, you know, for the most part, with most customers, especially in DoD and space and things, if your documentation isn’t consistent with the parts and you are not going to get paid and you know, you you got perfect parts with poor documentation, so you’re in trouble.
00:35:32:21 – 00:36:03:10
Unknown
So yes. No, that that that inquire for documentation in MREs is is awesome. And again it works the same way. You go put your mouse to the upper right side, two clicks and boom, you know, once again Paul Van Meter did not, you know, sign off on this or what have you. So, you know, then we have the list of culprits, you know, at the end of the week and and it’s fantastic because again, it helps us drive accountability because when we do reviews and things like that, we can go over these things and see how these individuals have improved or not improved.
00:36:03:12 – 00:36:25:04
Unknown
Well, let’s talk for a minute about the employee side. and I know from our previous conversations you had to you had to have some tough conversations. And I think even let some folks go that didn’t want to get on board with the whole accountability side of things or even just the digital workflows. and you just talk about that, that journey of, you know, finding the right people.
00:36:25:04 – 00:36:51:04
Unknown
You even mentioned when you onboard new employees, pro shops, a great gauge whether they’re going to be a good fit or not. yeah. Can you just just talk a little bit about that whole topic? Yeah. So. So yeah, culture is super important. It really is. and having the right people on board is extremely important as well.
00:36:51:06 – 00:37:11:19
Unknown
pro shop and the digital technologies that we’ve got have helped us weed out, people that may say they are a team player, but, you know, actions speak louder than words. And if they aren’t willing to raise their hand and say, I don’t understand or I need help or what have you, you know, that’s when we run into issues.
00:37:11:19 – 00:37:32:09
Unknown
So ultimately it’s our job. It’s management job to make sure we not only have the right people, but we set them up for success, you know? And if there are issues, it’s our fault because we always have to look at, you know, did we train this individual appropriately? you know, has this individual been given the correct support?
00:37:32:11 – 00:37:52:01
Unknown
because everyone’s slightly different. Right. And that’s the toughest thing is managing people. Right. but at the same time, if you, you’re not you’ll never be perfect. But if you are doing, you know, making a concerted effort to train everyone and they’re not reciprocating, then that’s when, you know, you know, things are not going to work out.
00:37:52:01 – 00:38:18:13
Unknown
And again, it’s never personal. but there’s no way in hell we’re going to allow one individual, ruin it for everybody else and take money out of everyone’s pockets. And, you know, that’s sort of the way we look at it. It’s never personal. You know, may not work out, but those, you know, I still don’t understand how companies can tolerate how this guy’s a great machinist.
00:38:18:13 – 00:38:36:06
Unknown
This guy’s a great, you know, program or what have you. But if they’re not abiding or changing with the culture or helping you implement the technologies and still trying to stick their feet in the ground and say, no, you know, I’ve been doing this, the worst thing you can say to us in our company is, this is the way we’ve always done it, or this is not my job.
00:38:36:08 – 00:39:01:19
Unknown
That equals I don’t want to work here. Right. And and if they that’s like an immediate like huge red flag for us. And those individuals don’t don’t stay within us. I don’t know. Sometimes I imagine those are hard decisions, but ultimately they’re the best for the company. It’s but I, I guess it’s hard, but it’s not really maybe just difficult conversations to have.
00:39:01:19 – 00:39:29:01
Unknown
You know, the decision maybe is easy, but the conversation about, hey, you know, if you if you want to try things, yeah. But again but that’s your job. You know, if if you’re afraid of confrontation, then get the hell out of management. Dude. Give it to someone else. You know what? Why? It’s it’s that’s the responsibility that we wield, you know, as leaders, as, you know, presidents, as production managers, whatever.
00:39:29:03 – 00:39:42:06
Unknown
That’s our job, man. You know, we don’t have to be disrespectful. But if we’re afraid of confrontation or we avoid it, that we’ve got to get a different job and we cannot be in a leadership role.
00:39:42:08 – 00:40:06:13
Unknown
As are sage words. I’m just taking down the time stamp so we can use it as a clip. That’s really good. I can’t spell confrontation, though. I have to have Google help me with that one. so let’s move and talk about customers. You talked about, holding your customers accountable, which I think is so true.
00:40:06:13 – 00:40:31:22
Unknown
You know, from having customers send pages without a revision on them or, you know, just the things that they always, always do. have you, I imagine you have audits, you have customers come in, they see your systems. can you describe what that process has been like, how they responded to seeing that the technology you’ve adopted and, you know, using something like Pro Shop as well?
00:40:32:00 – 00:40:55:12
Unknown
Yeah. So again, you know, as anyone who is using Pro Shop knows and and and if they don’t then you guys really got to think about this. My pro shop is a great sales tool. And if you are committed to, you know, processes and procedures, you’re then probably making pretty damn good use of pro shop,
00:40:55:12 – 00:41:34:13
Unknown
you know, I think transparency with your customers is sort of goes in line with the discussion we were having a moment ago relative to management. You know, I think that the best managers, don’t, hesitate in confronting hard issues. And I think the best companies are transparent with their customers as well, you know, and, you know, it’s it’s again, you know, not overpromising and under committing, you know, but letting customers know if there are issues, let them know right away because the good customers will try to help you be successful.
00:41:34:15 – 00:42:20:08
Unknown
And with pro shop for us, when our customers come in, we do video calls with our customers, you know, or, you know, 3 or 4 of our main customers every week, customers visit we, you know, you know, we we really ask them to visit when they visit. And we are as transparent as possible with them. because the more they know about how complicated or how much it takes to, you know, not only machine their parts, but source material, inspect their parts, document and all of that, the more understanding they will be, the more appreciative they will be and the more, information they’ve got in order to make our jobs
00:42:20:08 – 00:42:41:23
Unknown
easier. so with Pro Shop, yes, we, are we are always going over pro shop with our customers. They want to know about a part. This is where your part is is on it’s on machine 11. It’s on stage this. We’re doing three ops. Here’s the tool list. Here’s the work instructions. Look, we got some nice, set up pictures.
00:42:42:01 – 00:43:06:00
Unknown
You know, here’s your tool kit, you know, and it’s it’s impressive. It’s like, wow. You know, these guys really got their stuff together there. Well organized. And they really give a crap about, you know, the parts that they’re making for us. so again it provides a visual of all that is involved in the process because oftentimes the customer thinks it’s magic.
00:43:06:04 – 00:43:44:00
Unknown
You just take the you take the piece of material, you throw it in the machine and look at that. And and it’s not that. Yeah it’s anything but that. yeah. I mean I love that you said all that because I’ve, you know, I’ve preached for a long time that, that, you know, every, every company out there can say, you know, we have the best machines and great quality and great delivery, but when you kind of pull back the curtain, they’re often times like a chaotic mess, you know, and the buyers pick up and the quality engineers can pick up on that immediately and, and that, well defined process is really, you
00:43:44:00 – 00:44:03:06
Unknown
know, that’s what they want to see because they’re in the risk mitigation business. They want to know that you have your, your act together, and that when they place an order with you, they can have confidence that’s going to come in on time, good quality, good paperwork. and, you know, the systems behind it are what help ensure that that’s going to happen,
00:44:03:06 – 00:44:15:03
Unknown
so, Hernan, what’s a pro shop feature you just can’t live without anymore? yeah, I think that that really depends that that question.
00:44:15:05 – 00:44:42:04
Unknown
I think, every individual in our company would give you a different response. Right. So, you know, looking at scheduling what’s on the machines for gemba walks and things like that, the, schedule is a no brainer because you know what? What’s coming up next? if we’re having, delays in tooling or in material or what have you, we’re going to have to make quick changes.
00:44:42:04 – 00:45:09:00
Unknown
So, you know, I would say, leads and supervisors, which maybe say that is theirs. I would say probably and shipping and receiving would probably be dashboards, because they have visibility as to what’s coming in, what’s coming out. Again, shipping, receiving is, a very dynamic environment where, you know, you’re you’re dealing with, you know, different customers with different requirements and, and labels and bagging.
00:45:09:00 – 00:45:39:18
Unknown
And then you know, OSP and then dealing with quality and, and hours for person articles, finals and things like that. So they would probably say dashboards, I’m assuming, for me and again, just super boring. But I would say my for the fact that finance, sales, breakdown report is what I live by. again. So we have an a separate, accounting system, which communicates with, with pro shop.
00:45:39:20 – 00:46:05:16
Unknown
But, for me, it’s that and that, dashboard gives me immediate access to or visibility to how many posts have come in this month to date, last month, previous month, previous month, previous month. So it gives us a good trend in where we are with peers. It gives us, you know, what our sales are month to date and previous month, previous month, previous month.
00:46:05:18 – 00:46:27:01
Unknown
It gives us our open orders. You know where we are, you know. And so it’s just a quick snapshot of how we’re doing financially, how we’re trending. so for me, that’s it. You know, quality may turn around and say, oh no, it’s, the dashboard for on time delivery and scrap rates and things like that. So again, it’s it really depends.
00:46:27:03 – 00:46:56:09
Unknown
But, you know, I guess my response is just proof that, there’s so much data that is valuable and it’s so well presented in pro shop. and, and actually just by me making that response, makes me really happy to think, where we are now compared to where we were, where now, you know, so many people in our organization are able to track and manage their own metrics.
00:46:56:11 – 00:47:16:09
Unknown
Yeah. Do you feel like there’s more ownership of those metrics by those people? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and does that. Yeah. I mean off of, you know, the senior leadership to, you know, more of your direct, you know, kind of leaders in each area? Yes, absolutely. And that’s our job, right? Our job is to spread the load.
00:47:16:11 – 00:47:42:11
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah for sure. I like that. so has that we we’ve talked about culture a little bit, but I just want to talk maybe just for a brief second more about, culture as it relates to ownership of their areas. can you describe how that might have changed over time? Yeah. So.
00:47:42:13 – 00:48:14:22
Unknown
You know, so we’re we’re pretty, transparent. So everyone on the floor knows what our monthly revenue targets are. And then we have all hands meetings at the beginning every month reviewing, you know, where we were, where we came in, any new customers, any pitfalls, any successes. So we’re as transparent as possible. because, you know, I know it’s a culturally it’s a little bit different at every precision machining company.
00:48:15:00 – 00:48:47:20
Unknown
you know, I think some owners maybe are worried that if they talk about revenue and stuff like that, that the employees might think that they’re wealthier or what have you. but, you know, we’re all human, you know, and, you know, I think, you know, as long as you’re in an environment that’s, that’s safe, that is respectful, that is encouraging, that is growing, you know, that is is trying to support you.
00:48:47:21 – 00:49:16:14
Unknown
and you see a successful owner, you that gives you pride, you know, and, and makes it feel, comfortable that you’re in the right environment, that you’ve got something to shoot for. So, so for us, you know, we’re as transparent as possible. And at the same time, we want our employees to know, you know, which jobs are making money, which are they’re losing money because we don’t have eyes and ears everywhere.
00:49:16:14 – 00:49:57:01
Unknown
And we need their input to help us understand what we’re doing. Well, we’re we’re not doing well. you know, and, you know, and maybe where we should be making more investments, what type of machinery we should be purchasing, what type of tools we should be purchasing. You know, and, and how we can continuously drive improvement. So as far as ownership and and spreading that load, as we talked about a moment ago, digital technologies and pro shop helps do that because again, all the information, you know, maybe not all, but you know, the majority of information that is required in order to do a job successfully is on pro shop.
00:49:57:03 – 00:50:23:10
Unknown
And if it’s not, then you are responsible to immediately raise your hand and address the issue so that you know we can be successful. So yeah, I think, you know, digital technology is providing access to information. and transparency is extremely important because again, the last thing we should do is to walk around someplace and, and have everyone say, yes, yes, everything’s good.
00:50:23:10 – 00:50:58:02
Unknown
And at the end, at the end of the month, you’re screwed. That’s the worst. Yeah, yeah. No, that’s very insightful. Has that, has that don’t that paradigm shift, has that reduced your stress levels like as an owner or is it just as stressful as ever, you know, because it’s the hardest business in the world? Yeah. I think it’s, it so I think it’s sort of transitioned the stress level to like, different.
00:50:58:02 – 00:51:28:16
Unknown
It’s a different type of stress. Right. So it’s hard. Yes. This is a very, very hard business with so many variables. But from my perspective, it’s sort of like, you know, whether it’s sports or training or relationships or whatever, as long as you see improvement, you know, and what we always try to talk about is as long as we’re better than we were last week, you know, it feels good, you know, and it’s, you know, if you’re working out and you feel you’re losing weight or gaining more muscle or what have you, it’s hard.
00:51:28:16 – 00:51:47:19
Unknown
But if you see that progress, it feels good, you know? And from my perspective, you live life once and you have to make the best of it, you know? And that’s how we have to live as a team, you know, and we’re never going to win every single game. But as long as we’re getting better and we’re working better together and we’re growing, then it feels good, you know?
00:51:47:19 – 00:52:21:13
Unknown
So. So yeah, money is important. But having that satisfaction that you’re improving and succeeding, you know, that’s that’s that’s the best medicine there is. So, so yeah, I think that as far as stress is concerned, yes, it’s still stressful, but I would say the stress has gone from putting out fires. You know, is minimized for sure to stress of making slightly different, bigger purchases and dealing with bigger customers and then dealing with the in a contract.
00:52:21:13 – 00:52:41:19
Unknown
So, you know, it’s egg, chicken, chicken, egg and investments and things like that. So that’s maybe where my stress is transitioning a little bit more. but at the same time, Paul, I mean, I’m still involved in every single hire we do, you know, so I’m doing, you know, I’m being is that’s the ingredients, you know, to it to our to our culture and our success.
00:52:41:21 – 00:53:08:08
Unknown
Sure. Wow. Deep thoughts by Hernan Ricard I love the parallels of working out or relationships or just investing and always being better, always getting better at measuring that. And and that being a satisfying thing. yeah. There’s some things in my life that, that’s very applicable to right now. So I appreciate your your thoughts on that.
00:53:08:10 – 00:53:27:20
Unknown
I want to shift a little bit just for a couple of minutes, and then we’ll start wrapping up, cybersecurity. obviously you serve the defense industry in the space industry. I know that’s hot and heavy on your mind. we are doing a ton of work, on our side to, support our customers in that way.
00:53:27:22 – 00:53:54:02
Unknown
and as we pull certain customers that that serve the defense industry about their, their readiness or their mindset or where they’re thinking of where they’re on in their journey, it’s fascinating to me the incredibly wide disparity of answers we get. what would you, yeah. How do you think of, I guess I guess specifically pro shop, but I know you’re pretty far along sort of.
00:53:54:02 – 00:54:25:05
Unknown
Your nest’s 871 slash CMC journey. would you consider pro shop as, like, an essential part of that, that process or that solution? And, yeah. Yeah. So, so so we’re we are the pro shop is it’s like literally the backbone. Right? It’s infused into our into our organizational body. Right. And it if, if that is that sort of weird way of putting it.
00:54:25:05 – 00:54:56:16
Unknown
But you know, all the information that we deal with on a day to day basis is being pulled or pushed into pro shop. And so pro shops success equals our success, you know. And and so with Cmmc. So we got started about two years ago and and it from my perspective, it’s been sort of like living through Covid in a way where the government wasn’t really clear as to what they wanted you to do.
00:54:56:16 – 00:55:14:22
Unknown
And you’re like, oh my gosh, who do we talk to? You know, and who’s going to give us the right answers? And, you know, wonder what timeline and then when are these audits really going to happen. And and so it’s been a little bit frustrating in that way. and then you know, and then the the requirements have changed a little bit.
00:55:15:00 – 00:56:09:15
Unknown
we work with some pretty big primes. And it’s shocking to me. the disparity you just mentioned, the, the various responses you get from your customers, we’re shocked at the various, I guess, structure that, that our customers have relative to Cmmc. So with some of our customers, we have two provide a document, every time we accept a Po outlining, you know, where we are in our 871 with 110 controls and that, other customers we have to provide have a poem, you know, our plan basically to achieve, our cybersecurity or 110 controls, so every customer is a little bit different, with, with shocking.
00:56:09:15 – 00:56:38:08
Unknown
Also with regard to the lack of clarity, is that, you know, with some of these customers initially, especially initially when we were, submitting our documentation, we would ask them questions because we wanted to know, you know, you know, how do you define this? You know, would this pass, you know, and so forth. Crickets. Man, they’re basically, you know, interns or individuals that really don’t have depth of knowledge and are just like, get making sure that they have a document.
00:56:38:08 – 00:56:58:11
Unknown
So their liability, their liability issues don’t don’t creep up and and vitamin the boat. Right. there are other customers however that are going are very knowledgeable and there’s no escape and there is no escape. And these guys really know their stuff. Those guys have helped us, you know, and and it’s sort of like a good audit, right?
00:56:58:11 – 00:57:28:16
Unknown
A good ass 9100 audit is, you got an audit. But at the same time, if you take it seriously, it is helpful. You know, these some of the good audits will identify things that you can improve on. And at the end of the day, it will improve your business. It’ll it’ll lead to lead to more profitability. So with in that way, I think good customers that are pushing you and being pretty thorough relative to your cmmc requirements, they make you revisit and take a deeper look at what you’re doing.
00:57:28:16 – 00:57:53:18
Unknown
Because in order to be Cmmc compliant, we have to make significant investments not only in training our individuals, but also in, you know, encrypted email servers and, you know, firewalls and securing the building and, and, and training and digital training, right, of all of your employees and, you know, practice phishing, you know, emails and things like that.
00:57:53:18 – 00:58:30:20
Unknown
And seeing which knucklehead in the organization clicked on that, you know, that probably would have you or that link. So, so, you know, having, you know, customers that hold you accountable, especially in this situation, make you better. And so, our understanding is that so we, again, things happen and we’ve had to push out our program a little bit, but, with regard to Cmmc, our program, now has a, target of end of August to be Cmmc level two compliant.
00:58:30:22 – 00:58:56:09
Unknown
So you just got to two things that we have to to cover. but our understanding is that, beginning of 2025, that’s when, you know, the the arrests are going to happen and then we really do believe that if, if they’re not going to come from a third party organization, they’re going to come from those customers that are holding us accountable with regard to pro shop, just like all the other, you know, digital technologies that we work with.
00:58:56:11 – 00:59:13:00
Unknown
At the end of the day, if there is a cyber attack or, you know, some Russian or Chinese hacker or what have you, is is going to come in and try to infiltrate and pull data, they’re not going to hit us. We’re not the low hanging fruit process. Low hanging fruit. Sure. You know they’re going to come in and get it.
00:59:13:00 – 00:59:38:11
Unknown
Go into pro shop and and pull all of the prime information that exists in all of your customers. You know. So you know that’s that’s where, you know, we have to, you know, work together with Pro Shop and our other, you know, digital technology, partners to make sure that we’re on the same page, because at the end of the day, you know, if our customer comes in, does it not?
00:59:38:11 – 01:00:02:11
Unknown
And says, wait a minute, Pro shops not up to par, we are screwed. And we will have to then move all of our COI into encrypted servers, which would be I mean, it wouldn’t kill us, but it would definitely slow us down in the ass. Yeah. so we’re good. Yeah. I mean, just to clarify a couple of points, you know, you’re you’re hosted on our Gov Cloud site.
01:00:02:13 – 01:00:28:15
Unknown
you have your own instance, so there is no, like, mass, you know, attacking pro shop. It’s individual client instances and the data is encrypted and have you guys turned on the two factor authentication and are using that that tool yet. So not not with pressure. Not with pressure. Okay. So so that would the I imagine that’s probably on your poem.
01:00:28:17 – 01:00:54:23
Unknown
or are you doing that through your windows logins to, to get on the device. We already we already do through windows login. Got a two factor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. okay. Well good. I guess just last question. If you can imagine what your shop would look like today if you weren’t using Pro shop still going back, you know, two and a half, three years ago to, the E2 days.
01:00:55:01 – 01:01:13:17
Unknown
What what do you think the shop would look like today if you hadn’t made that choice to move to what? You sort of just said it? I mean, it would be. It would look like a shop. So now we look like precision machining company. Paul. that’s the best answer. That’s the best answer. Yeah. And that’s a big difference.
01:01:13:18 – 01:01:43:00
Unknown
I mean, which which, you know, from my perspective, means, travel knowledge is minimized. I’m not saying that it doesn’t exist because unfortunately, we haven’t yet pulled everything from every individual’s brain to document and have accessible to everybody. But, you know, we would definitely not be able to plan as well as we do, communicate as well as we do, and drive accountability as well as we do.
01:01:43:02 – 01:01:59:21
Unknown
Yeah. Critical parts. Awesome. Well, Hernan, if people want to know a little bit more about your shop, reach out to you for any of, about your capabilities, where would you direct them to. Well I if they want to know a little bit more about our shop, I would say go to our website and look at the history precision.
01:01:59:21 – 01:02:29:00
Unknown
And then and then, and then, if you want to know about a little bit more about US and services or how we, run things here. everyone, you’re welcome to hit me up on email. It’s, Hernan Herren and, Ricardo precision.com or our website. Riccati precision.com Riccati. we welcome visitors. we’re we’re pretty open here.
01:02:29:02 – 01:02:52:16
Unknown
sharing is is great because we always, always, always learn. everyone does things slightly differently. and, and we appreciate, you know, building connections and helping one another because, you know, there’s very this industry is a little bit strange as well, because there’s so many people that are sort of big fish and tiny little ponds and we are nothing, man.
01:02:52:16 – 01:03:18:00
Unknown
You know, you know, even if we reach a hundred million in revenue, we’ll still be a tiny, tiny, tiny little player. You know, this huge industry that we serve. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your openness. You’re sharing. I see it all the time. Whether it’s through an TMA or whether it’s through, you know, pro shop prospects or whatever. It’s just you’ve you’ve brought that in spades to, to the industry, with your involvement in Riccati.
01:03:18:00 – 01:03:40:13
Unknown
And I appreciate that about you. So thank you for being that way and for extending the offer to anyone. So thank you so much that we appreciate you guys a ton. Thank you. All right. Well appreciate the conversation today. And I’ll make sure all your contact information is in the show notes. So people can just click on it and directly to your website and learn about your precision machining company, not your shop.
01:03:40:15 – 01:03:54:06
Unknown
I appreciate the distinction and I it’s it’s hard to get that out of my head because it’s just so hard wired. But I will work on that. So thank you again for all your time today, Hernan. All right. Thank you.
