Manufacturing Transformed
19. Jim and Ryan Carr

This third-generation precision machining business is thriving and growing thanks to a well-executed vision, a focus on culture, and the adoption of the best technology, like ProShop ERP. The transformation that CARR Machine has seen in the past five years has been nothing short of remarkable. Jim and Ryan are aligned in the vision of the company, they use their core values to drive the hiring, firing and alignment of their team, and along with a strong marketing focus, they have grown considerably, entering new markets, expanding their facility and moving from a low volume industrial shop to a high volume aerospace and defense contract manufacturer. Enjoy the inspiring story in this episode.

LinkedIn – Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-carr-6231a858/
LinkedIn – Jim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmycarr/
LinkedIn – CARR: https://www.linkedin.com/company/carr-machine-&-tool-inc-/
Instagram – CARR: https://www.instagram.com/carrmachine/ 
Website: https://carrmachine.com/

Jim Carr at 59:55:you’re welcome
Paul at 0:03:Jim Ryan welcome to manufacturing transformed it’s great to have you guys here
Jim Carr at 0:05: to manufacturing transformed it’s great to have you guys here
Ryan Carr at 0:06:thanks for having us
Jim Carr at 0:33: absolutely thank you for being so Jim you and I have known each other for many many years now I’ve been trying to guess you probably recorded more manufacturing podcast than anyone else on the planet possibly so you are an old hat at this but I would love to start with a bit of the background of car machine
Paul at 0:41: absolutely thank you for being so Jim you and I have known each other for many many years now I’ve been trying to guess you probably recorded more manufacturing podcast than anyone else on the planet possibly so you are an old hat at this but I would love to start with a bit of the background of car machine I know your father started it many years ago you took it over and now you know you’re in the transition with Ryan so let’s just get the background and then we’ll get into how Pro Shop has been a part of that over the last several years
Jim Carr at 0:41: Ryan so let’s just get the background and then we’ll get into how Pro Shop has been a part of that over the last several years
Jim Carr at 0:49: absolutely so I’ll try and truncate 52 years into about 5 minutes so I hope I don’t bore you all
Jim Carr at 1:12: yeah my my dad founded car machine and tool in the one car side of a two-car garage here in suburban Chicago quite frankly maybe just 3 miles from where we’re at where we’re sitting right today so very close my dad was a skilled machinist by trade he worked for
Jim Carr at 1:16: who did he work for I hope you can edit that out
Paul at 1:53:nice
Jim Carr at 2:07: he worked for two Circle tool and Manufacturing Company in Des Plaines Illinois and he was the shop superintendent one of his co-workers are purchasing agent decided to go out on his own and became successful quite right away my dad said hey I can do this too if he can do it I can do it so my dad caught the beginning of a good time right out of a recession in so we caught that way much like surfing you know when you catch the right wave that’s exactly how my dad did it he wanted to like a 1500 square foot incubator facility here in Elk Grove Village right in Chicago land and then started and that was December 2nd 1972 so we say that’s our Inception day
Jim Carr at 2:42: I came into the business right in high school I was a senior and my parents came to me and said we can offer you a four-year college education at University or you can go and and come into the family business by doing a machinist apprenticeship program at the local manufacturing association thought long and hard and decided that my family looked like they were doing fairly well and I wanted to continue that so you know manual Machining and then
Jim Carr at 2:55: CNC Machining and learned all those things from the the back door to the front door not all good things I picked up some bad things along the way because you know manufacturing back then was
Jim Carr at 3:37: not a great culture and the environment wasn’t certainly like what we have nowadays but literally you know learned all those things took over his president in 2004 after about 10 years of trying to convince my dad if this is the the right direction for us to go and when I did decide to and take over in 2004 I made some cognizant changes in my head that I know I wanted to network I knew we needed to get out beyond the four walls that we were and it was important to do that working on your business rather than inside of your business
Jim Carr at 3:53: and you know I’ve always I always had a passion for sales and marketing mostly marketing so I really start to focus on that and be around marketers and they kind of fueled my fire and my desire for marketing so
Paul at 4:05:would you graduate with Ryan
Ryan Carr at 4:07:sure yeah
Jim Carr at 4:09: and then 2014 Ryan came in he went to DePaul University in Chicago I don’t know what I don’t know what his what he graduated with business yeah so I’ll hand it over to Ryan because I can talk all day
Paul at 4:21: nice
Jim Carr at 4:23: university graduated with my business management degree and from that point on
Jim Carr at 4:30: I started working on the shop floor and my experience kind of mimics Jim’s experience some just
Jim Carr at 4:32: nothing
Jim Carr at 4:44:ager the programming
Jim Carr at 4:51: the Mastercam program in starting Implement new technologies throughout the shop softwares and Machine Tools
Ryan Carr at 5:01: yeah absolutely so yeah 2014 I joined the business right out of college I went downtown to DePaul University graduated with my business management degree and from that point on I kind of started working on the shop floor and my experience kind of mimics Jim’s experience just not as many years you know started working on the machines the old Fidel Machining Center is cleaning coolant tanks running the machines and then slowly kind of work to my way up to my position now as operations manager so you know programming by hand to Mastercam programming starting Implement new technologies throughout the shop softwares new Machine Tools all that stuff so yeah my day today is just handling all shop floor related problems a lot of firefighting but that’s what keeps it interesting I guess
Jim Carr at 5:01:a lot of firefighting but that’s what keeps it interesting again
Jim Carr at 5:08: and that’s the nature of the the industry and the business is that there’s always some fire to put out
Paul at 5:14:and that’s the nature of the the industry in the business is that there’s always some fire to put out did you guys have Mastercam when you joined or was it just all hand decoding at that time
Jim Carr at 5:18: did you guys have Mastercam when you joined or was it just all hands decoding at that time we did have Mastercam when we joined
Ryan Carr at 5:23: we did have Mastercam when we joined from what Jim tells me we’ve had Mastercam since the eighties
Paul at 5:24: okay
Ryan Carr at 5:24: so
Ryan Carr at 5:27: yeah
Jim Carr at 5:29: from Jim tells me we’ve had Master Camp since the 80s we have no we have I used to use it I used to use it I’m not even going to tell you how
Jim Carr at 5:41: educated I am in it but you know and how how little we used of the whole software but we yes we’ve been using it since the ’80s maybe the late ’80s but yes
Paul at 5:56: okay and when so Jim when you when you joined what size was the business and what size is it when Ryan joined and were you guys at today and if you don’t want to share Revenue it could be number of employees or machines or whatever proxy
Paul at 5:58: yeah
Jim Carr at 5:58: I can go by percentages so
Paul at 6:12: okay
Jim Carr at 6:18: when I took over that’s a lot of decades Paul try to do my best I think we are maybe bouncing between 3:00 to 5:00 employees at that time Revenue was under you know a million dollars maybe play about that much
Jim Carr at 6:20: but
Paul at 6:29:yeah yeah
Jim Carr at 6:30: it was it was a mom and pop shop it was a lifestyle business for sure
Paul at 6:41: got it of course
Paul at 6:46: oh that’s painful yeah
Jim Carr at 6:48: when Ryan came on I think what was yours about three of us for us and you know the we lost a lot during the recession in the 2008 recession too so that we had to lay off about 65% of our our staff it was very painful it is painful
Jim Carr at 6:54: but yet 2014 Ryan came on and what do we have Ryan about
Ryan Carr at 6:56:yeah I think when I joined it was
Ryan Carr at 7:05: four of us but then it went down to three for quite some time and then we slowly started adding more and more people
Jim Carr at 7:06: yeah
Ryan Carr at 7:09: probably like 2016 and on we added more
Paul at 7:13:and where you at today in terms of your team
Jim Carr at 7:13: and where you at today in terms of your team
Paul at 7:18: awesome
Ryan Carr at 7:28: we’re just under 15 people right now and hoping to add probably we’re shooting for 20 by the end of q1 trying to implement some middle management and maybe a second shift so
Paul at 7:29: oh that’s huge
Ryan Carr at 7:30: yep that’s the goal
Jim Carr at 7:30: people right now and hoping to add probably we’re shooting for 20 by the end of q1 trying to implement so it’ll management and maybe a second shift so yeah that’s cool
Paul at 7:32: okay
Jim Carr at 7:36: I don’t know that second shift is a little awkward to me it’s
Paul at 7:38: they’re hard they’re hard
Jim Carr at 7:40: it doesn’t seem it doesn’t seem
Jim Carr at 7:45: you know natural to me but that’s okay we’ll we’ll get a shot
Ryan Carr at 7:49:
Ryan Carr at 7:52:sure
Paul at 7:56: yeah well you do have sort of a second shift of sorts cuz you have some automated machines and robot loading and so you do have spindles running past day shift
Ryan Carr at 7:57: yep absolutely
Jim Carr at 7:59: absolutely that’s the goal for sure
Paul at 8:18: yeah yeah and you’ve really kind of specialized I think you’re just seeing your great marketing gym over the over the last several years you really change the focus of the business and the types of customers are serving so can you give a little bit of snapshot today I mean you were very much like a
Jim Carr at 8:18: you really change the focus of the business and the types of customers are serving so can you give a little bit of snapshot today
Paul at 8:30: were you more like a tool and die shop really low volume sort of one-off types of Parts a lot more industrial and now your perch are going into space and airplanes and all sorts of stuff like that
Paul at 8:40: got it
Jim Carr at 8:46: were you more like a tool and die shop really low volume sort of one-off types of Parts a lot more industrial and now yeah going into space and airplanes and yeah so it’s it’s been a dramatic shift Paul so back in the 80s 90s early 2000s we were heavily into the printing press parts so we manufactured new and replacement parts for printing presses
Jim Carr at 8:57: so printing presses that would produce newspapers magazines flyers and that was really lucrative and it was great until around
Jim Carr at 9:03: 2,000 we started to see a decline in the quantities what was once
Jim Carr at 9:27: 30 or 40 pieces went down to 20 went down to 10 went down to five and then it really started you know slowing down it was onesie twosie low volume High mix work we could see the writing on the wall we didn’t want to accept it but we know it was coming so we we really in when Ryan came on we said we’ve got to make a cognizant decision to
Jim Carr at 9:45: get out of this industry and start attracting some new ones so we we thought we had many discussions about it put a road map together and thought that you know Aerospace is probably be a good direction
Jim Carr at 9:47: Department of Defense
Jim Carr at 9:59:of our business right now and then emerging Technologies another big one as well so
Paul at 10:01:yeah well that include private space
Jim Carr at 10:04: it would include private space yes
Paul at 10:05: yeah
Jim Carr at 10:08: but
Paul at 10:09: which is a boon to so many shops it’s kind of crazy how many parts they need
Jim Carr at 10:40: yeah but I have to tell you and I’m sure your audience knows this too it wasn’t easy so to get there to get to attract that high level customer in in those spaces we had to do a couple of things we had to have a road map on how we were going to get from point A to point B and if we really wanted to grow this business how are we going to get there you know everyone can say oh I want to be doing 15 million a year and
Jim Carr at 10:49: in 5 years we’re going to be a 15 million a year well that’s great but you have to have you have to have a plan you have to have a legitimate written plan
Jim Carr at 10:50: to do it
Paul at 10:52:absolutely
Paul at 11:05: yep
Paul at 11:07: yep
Jim Carr at 11:12: as9100 was one of those things Pro Shop Erp was another one we hired a full-time salesman what else Ryan oh we read the book traction by Gino Wickman which is an entrepreneurial operating system a systematized way to run your business that was a key thing
Jim Carr at 11:14: and
Jim Carr at 11:18: I don’t know what the fifth thing was I know there’s five but
Ryan Carr at 11:24:I think it was me
Jim Carr at 11:25: yeah and it was Ryan so
Jim Carr at 11:36: yeah that’s how we entered into those Industries because otherwise we it just wouldn’t have been possible that first of all they won’t look at you unless you’re as
Paul at 11:37:sure
Jim Carr at 11:38: so
Paul at 11:49: yeah so let’s I think the idea of setting a road map is is just brilliant I think not a lot of not a lot of business owners really take the time to do
Jim Carr at 11:50: so let’s see
Paul at 11:57: you know intentional business planning and set the vision and work backwards and how we’re going to get there with all the steps so
Jim Carr at 11:58: you know intentional business planning and set the vision and work backwards and how we’re going to get there with all the steps so
Jim Carr at 12:13: so maybe a dovetailed nicely with you know me reaching out to you to be a guest on making chips many years ago and then we got to know each other a little bit and then yeah
Paul at 12:17: so maybe a dovetailed nicely with you know me reaching out to you to be a guest on making chips many years ago and then we got to know each other a little bit and then we started talking about Pro Shop did that dovetail with that sort of you know strategic plan and cuz yeah
Jim Carr at 12:37: strategic plan so yes I was I I was recording making ships and Paul was like boom in my in my in my DMs in Lincoln oh I got this great software oh I got to show it to you guys oh I want to be on your show and we’re like and I said to Jason you know this guy keeps bugging me let’s listen to him one day so finally reset yes
Jim Carr at 12:54: and we brought them on and you inspired me but I think more than anything Paul you inspired Ryan because we were using job boss and we weren’t we were only using it to maybe 30% of its capabilities
Paul at 12:57:super common
Ryan Carr at 12:57:yeah
Jim Carr at 12:59: yeah it’s super common and Ryan said you know Dad
Jim Carr at 13:15: this is a great thing this is going to help us scale it’s paperless it’s got the quality management system
Jim Carr at 13:31: and and that was the start of it but it was really Ryan because I remember after you gave him that first demo we hung up and we said you know he said to me we really need to do this if we’re going to grow
Jim Carr at 13:33: we’re going to scale
Jim Carr at 13:38: it really looks like this is the Erp system for car
Jim Carr at 13:39: so
Jim Carr at 14:10: about Pro Shop Erp and everything at that point kind of a line then we we had the demo with the one or two people that were working with us and then
Jim Carr at 14:11: we liked it and it kind of
Ryan Carr at 14:15:yeah it was kind of it was kind of funny how it all worked out actually cuz I remember sitting like in in the office with job boss in front of me and I’m trying to look into different ways to utilize it to like enhance our operations and I just couldn’t figure it out right and then Jim was just like well I I’ve been talking to this guy Paul about Pro Shop Erp and everything at that point kind of a line then we had the demo with the one or two people that were working with us and then we liked it and it kind of just moved on from there and eventually implementation so
Ryan Carr at 14:16: it was great
Jim Carr at 14:20: just there and eventually implementation so it was great do I dare say how the implementation went and be honest about it
Paul at 14:22:absolutely you should be
Paul at 14:31: yep yep parallel
Paul at 14:36: yep
Paul at 15:08:sure
Jim Carr at 15:14:and I distinctly remember that call and the next day I said I’m going to do this and I did and it it just flowed off from there because it really that’s the beginning of the process right is is the estimating process that’s where all the data is entered and that it all flows down from there
Jim Carr at 15:35: to have the same situation
Paul at 15:45: yeah well I appreciate you sharing that and yeah I mean I certainly didn’t want to have the same situation we’re using 30% of a software and just like barely getting value out of it that’s that’s not what you know we’re about so thank you for being receptive to my call and and glad you got on board and and I know that when we did a customer testimonial video like a year or two later you know I think you said like it tripled your throughput right an estimating
Jim Carr at 15:48: I’m bored and I know that when we did a customer testimonial video like a year or two later you know I think you said like it triple gear throughput right an estimating oh my God it was it was
Jim Carr at 15:53: Far and Away way more faster we were just you know I was using a spreadsheet
Paul at 15:54: sure
Paul at 15:59: oh yeah
Jim Carr at 16:09: sure and a lot of it was tribal knowledge I mean I have to admit you know being in the industry for 40 plus years I could look at a machine part and I could tell you I could pretty much guesstimate within about 15 or 20% what that part is worth
Paul at 16:10: sure
Paul at 16:18: yeah
Jim Carr at 16:22: now whether or not people want to pay that that’s what it’s worth so so that that helped in my estimating because of that tribal knowledge I knew I was estimating on the right track
Paul at 16:38: yeah but you need to translate that into a plan that the team can then execute on so I know that’s an important part but I’d love to come back to Ryan like what did you see in job boss it wasn’t allowing you to you know grow or scale the way that you guys had planned
Jim Carr at 16:38: please
Jim Carr at 16:42: yeah I think one of the specific things I remember was
Jim Carr at 17:02: trying to figure out the routing would I knew that other shops were using routers and all that stuff and our router was you pull the print out the filing cabinet and you see all the notes there pull up the cheat code unloaded to the CNC machine and you read the log of notes that people have added over time so we really weren’t even utilizing the routing step
Jim Carr at 17:05:s I just knew there was better way
Jim Carr at 17:12: so just being introduced though that whole side of Erp was was nice
Jim Carr at 17:15: and the fact that it’s paperless thing brow
Jim Carr at 17:19:ser Bay we have a fairly young staff so it was really
Paul at 17:20:sure
Jim Carr at 17:22: the fact that we were smaller probably
Jim Carr at 17:23: with that too
Ryan Carr at 17:26:yeah I think one of the specific things I remember was trying to figure out how the routings worked I knew that other shops were using routers and all that stuff and our router was you pull the print out of the filing cabinet and you see all the notes there you pull up the g code uploaded to the CNC machine and you read the log of notes that people have added over the time so we really weren’t even utilizing the routing steps and I just knew there was a better way so just being introduced the that whole side of Erp was was nice and the fact that it’s paperless and browser based you know we have a fairly young staff so it was really receptive and the fact that we were smaller probably helped with that too but yeah I think just
Jim Carr at 17:27: it just
Ryan Carr at 17:30: it being a modern Erp and
Jim Carr at 17:30: it being a modern Erp and
Ryan Carr at 17:38: having all the functional capabilities of an Erp should but easily usable was what really drove our decision
Jim Carr at 17:38: having all the functional capabilities of the year he should but easily usable with what really drove our decision
Paul at 17:39: sure
Jim Carr at 17:40: sure sure
Jim Carr at 17:41: when
Paul at 17:56: when so that sounds like you know the drawing with with notes on it probably that started an estimating where Jim you were writing down you know this side first that side second you know this much for material whatever and then
Jim Carr at 18:03: so it sounds like you know the drawing with with notes on it probably that started to estimating or Jimmy were writing down you know this side first that side second you know this much for material whatever honestly I don’t even remember how I used to do it but yes I I will honestly admit at one point I was I was estimating on the print
Jim Carr at 18:05: but what I would
Ryan Carr at 18:08:
Jim Carr at 18:09: grandpa did yes he did
Jim Carr at 18:12: and I used to what I used to do is I used to print all the prints
Paul at 18:33:yep
Paul at 18:57:of course
Jim Carr at 18:59: so I get you know 50 page of print and then I get my highlighter and I would go thickness with length tolerance tolerance tolerance material material finish finish I’d highlight all the details of the print and then I get the weight of the part and I put 50 lb on it right under the material right and then and then what what the material order I need to order 4140 pre-hard one and a quarter by two and a half by 23 and 1/8 long right and and that was all on the print along with some spilled coffee and some coolant and everything else because we have been doing that for about 15 years
Paul at 19:00: absolutely
Jim Carr at 19:03: crazy wow man I think about it it’s
Jim Carr at 19:06: crazy how far we’ve come
Ryan Carr at 19:14:yeah it is it is funny to think about the old process of distinctly remember you highlighting all the tolerances the lame times with that’s funny
Jim Carr at 19:34: you probably don’t remember as a kid though we get really busy it was busy slow busy slow that’s how it was and I we went camping one weekend and there I am because I’m the estimator right I brought a stack of prints and I’m out on the picnic table with my highlighter and my pencil going through all these prints on the picnic table
Paul at 19:38:oh well that’s dedication that’s dedication
Jim Carr at 19:39: that’s how it used to be there was there was no internet back then
Ryan Carr at 19:39:that’s funny
Paul at 19:43: it’s true so
Paul at 19:51: sounds and you so you must have also been using something like QuickBooks and just various spreadsheets and other systems for other parts of the business
Jim Carr at 19:58:did you have I know you had the ISO certification
Paul at 20:03: imagine you lots of different sort of desperate systems and did you have I know you had Isis certification at one point did that lapse and then you got it again later or can you share that part of it
Jim Carr at 20:04: at one point did that lapse and then you got it again later or can you share that part of it
Paul at 20:06: or maybe it was as time 100 or
Paul at 20:08: okay
Jim Carr at 20:08: I know we had it for about 15 about 15 years we had it
Ryan Carr at 20:14: we had ISO we had ISO but I think we let it go for a year and then we recerted with as
Jim Carr at 20:31: exactly death I think that’s exactly what we wanted to do because it just the writing was on the wall with I so we know we needed to go in Aerospace direction we knew we wanted to attract a higher level customer and that was that was what we needed to do so
Paul at 20:35:and did you get that as prior to Pro Shop or did you get that with Pro Shop
Jim Carr at 20:36: and did you get that as prior to Pro Shop or did you get that with Pro Shop
Jim Carr at 20:39: concurrent
Ryan Carr at 20:39:we got it with Pro Shop I think yeah
Paul at 20:40: yeah
Jim Carr at 20:40: yeah
Paul at 20:41: okay
Ryan Carr at 20:43: yeah we got the flying start and then
Paul at 20:44: oh yeah I got it yep
Ryan Carr at 20:45: and then we went that route
Jim Carr at 20:45: oh yeah I got it
Paul at 20:50: and did you I know we
Jim Carr at 20:50: and did you I know we
Paul at 21:09: we have a couple of folks on our team that that sometimes customer you know sometimes customers will have them come in and help help them through a gap on it and just like really kind of tailor it for themselves and then possibly support them through the audit did our team help you with that or did you handle that in in internally at that time
Jim Carr at 21:09:through a gap on it and just like really kind of tailor it for themselves and then possibly support them through the audit did our team help you with that or did you handle that in internally at that time
Paul at 21:11: I don’t actually remember
Paul at 21:15: okay
Ryan Carr at 21:16:I don’t actually remember either I know well no we had
Jim Carr at 21:17: I don’t actually remember oh with the flying go ahead
Paul at 21:20: got it
Paul at 21:22: okay yep
Ryan Carr at 21:27: we had Michael Collins help us for the first initial audit and then we had someone from the shop floor moving to a quality role
Ryan Carr at 21:31: but I believe that was after the initial audit
Paul at 21:32: got it
Ryan Carr at 21:33: but
Ryan Carr at 21:34: yeah
Paul at 21:59: yeah okay and I’m just curious in in general going to as obviously there’s a lot more documentation required besides that being sort of requirement for the for the industries you wanted to Target do you find did you find that it actually helped like make your business processes just more robust so you actually executed better as a company
Jim Carr at 21:59: yeah okay and I’m just curious in in general going to as obviously there’s a lot more documentation required besides that being sort of requirement for the for the industries you wanted to Target do you find did you find that it actually helped like make your business processes just more robust so you actually executed better as a company
Jim Carr at 22:05: oh absolutely our efficiency went up through the roof
Paul at 22:07: your efficiency went through the roof
Jim Carr at 22:09: is that what your is that what you’re asking Paul
Paul at 22:10: yeah yeah I think so
Jim Carr at 22:43: I know our efficiency went through the roof because everything was contained not you know we weren’t we didn’t have prints all over the place we weren’t using the Google Docs we weren’t using it seem like years ago we had things everywhere was in Google it was in the the prince Roar it wasn’t a natural it was in the customer drawer oh no it wasn’t in the customer drawer was in the Gibb drawer so it was just like everything was everywhere so when we went to Pro Shop when we transition everything is in one place
Jim Carr at 22:49: and it really isn’t one place now we’re in and still to this day we’re trying to
Jim Carr at 22:54: put everything in Pro Shop a One Source place to run your business
Paul at 23:11:yeah so coming back to estimating you said that you know just improve the speed at which you or that your bandwidth for for doing quoting did that result in turning them around faster and then winning more work from those customers that were asking you to quote
Jim Carr at 23:12: from those customers that were asking you to quote
Paul at 23:27: because we all know I think that often times the first stops to get their quotes in as long as it’s within the ballpark very likely to win those so just speed can increase increase win rate did you experience that
Paul at 23:39: got it
Paul at 23:48: yeah
Jim Carr at 23:56: because we all know I think that often times the first shops to get their quotes in as long as it’s within the ballpark very likely to win those so just speed can increase wind rate that you experience any upticks in win rate but I definitely knew that I was turning over quotes extremely fast because everything was templated you know what I mean I could create templated estimate Pages or it could I copied in existing estimate that was similar in structure or if the parts were similar you know I when I still to this day when I’m quoting you know a package
Jim Carr at 24:11: I’ll put all the 6061 I’ll put all the carbon I’ll put all the stainless steel all the titanium and then I’ll move on from that to that to that and so I can just keep copying the
Jim Carr at 24:17: the estimate page and then just tweaking it a little bit because once you have all your your cost breakdown and are you there Paul
Paul at 24:20:yeah I’m still here not sure why my camera disappeared
Jim Carr at 24:21:
Paul at 24:22: there we are
Ryan Carr at 24:30:oh nice
Paul at 24:30: I know it doesn’t matter it’s I use a DSLR without a card in it but
Jim Carr at 24:31: it’s flashing memory card for some reason
Paul at 24:34: okay yeah
Jim Carr at 24:35: okay so I forgot where I was at
Paul at 24:38: copying different estimates
Paul at 24:39: templatizing
Paul at 24:53:
Jim Carr at 24:57: copying different estimates yeah once you have all of those that information loaded in there you have your markup you have your scrap rate all your information on loaded in the cost breakdown it it’s it’s simple and then the the best part is you can tweak it
Jim Carr at 25:10: like the labor you can tweak the percentage of labor per unit if it if it’s a production job you can go in and you know knock off 20 30 40 50% if you feel that’s the appropriate
Paul at 25:34:yeah yeah so so even if your win rate stayed consistent if you’re just getting them through faster more volume of them did that help just increase your the revenue that was coming in the number of actual POS you were then winning do you obviously grown considerably over the last few years so that had been partly driven by new opportunities that turned into actual purchase orders
Jim Carr at 25:47: State consistent if you’re just getting them through faster more volume of them did that help just increase your the revenue that was coming in the number of the actual POS you were then winning the obviously grown considerably over the last few years so that hadn’t been partly driven by new opportunities that turned into actual purchase orders right well not only have we gone from low volume High mix we’re now a high volume low mix shop so we’ve really we’ve really transitioned over and I think that
Jim Carr at 25:50: it was a big Learning lesson for
Paul at 25:59: it’s very hard
Jim Carr at 26:08:really hard it’s really hard to be profitable you know every time you get a new job you got to program the job you got to figure out the tool and you got to figure the work holding
Jim Carr at 26:31: you got to inspect it and how many times you know is it going to go through quality it just really hard it’s I commend people who can do low volume High mix and I know you can get a lot of money for it but it will it will significantly slow your production down is that what we found out Ryan
Ryan Carr at 26:39:yeah it’s very hard to scale unless all your guys in the shop know how to pretty much take the job from start to finish entirely
Paul at 26:43:yeah and those people are exceedingly hurt if not impossible to find
Ryan Carr at 26:44: exactly
Jim Carr at 26:45: yeah and those people are exceedingly hard about it possible to find
Paul at 26:51: do you okay so that’s all good stuff
Jim Carr at 26:52: do you okay so that’s all good stuff
Paul at 27:13: when you have a customer come into the shop of prospective one or one that you’re trying to grow with how has how has Pro Shop featured in your you know your Show and Tell or showing them how you run the business and instilling that confidence that that you should be the place they send POS
Jim Carr at 27:13: when you have a customer come into the shop of prospective one or one that you’re trying to grow with how has how has Pro Shop featured in your you know your Show and Tell or showing them how you run the business and it’s still in that confidence that that you should be the place they send POS
Jim Carr at 27:15: do you want to take that Ryan
Ryan Carr at 27:19:I can start for sure
Jim Carr at 27:21:
Ryan Carr at 27:24: every time we have a customer in and we show them just
Jim Carr at 27:24: we have a customer we show them just
Jim Carr at 27:29: we kind of take them through our process from start to finish as far like
Jim Carr at 27:30: that
Jim Carr at 27:42: desktop record how we control all their files and our process steps they love the the manufacturing operations all the pictures and all the information
Ryan Carr at 27:54: we kind of take them through our process from start to finish as far like the record starts with the estimate how it converts to part record how we control all their files and our process steps they love the the manufacturing operations all the pictures and all the information that we have in there I’d say we’re a pretty heavy user of Pro Shop utilizing the tooling module and everything so when they truly see that we could create a process and control it
Jim Carr at 27:54: I’d say we’re a pretty heavy user of Pro Shop utilizing the toy mod on everything so when they truly see that we could create a process and control it
Ryan Carr at 27:57: through its entirety it kind of
Jim Carr at 27:58: through its entirety it kind of
Ryan Carr at 28:01: solidifies the deal a little bit
Jim Carr at 28:01: solidifies the deal a little bit
Jim Carr at 28:13: the fact that all of our two a mess is also in Pro Shop tracking our ncr’s are are following procedures and everything
Jim Carr at 28:25: I’m pretty sure whether or not it’s a good fit for them or not
Ryan Carr at 28:26: the fact that all of our qms is also in Pro Shop tracking our ncr’s our quality procedures and everything keeping it all in one spot they they really enjoy that and you know custom a couple of our customers have asked for referrals too to get connected with you guys I’m pretty sure whether or not it’s a good fit for them or not but
Jim Carr at 28:29: but yeah so so far over what’s been receptive
Ryan Carr at 28:30: yeah so far everyone’s been receptive
Ryan Carr at 28:34: yeah
Jim Carr at 28:43: and I think I think the one fact that it’s paperless is just people people still you know it’s almost 2025 people still it’s almost 20-25 and what 6 weeks crazy
Jim Carr at 28:57: the fact that we are truly a paperless company I mean we really are there’s no Travelers there’s no prints there’s just you know scrap paper I’ve got my
Jim Carr at 29:04: my book that I have for all my hot my notes that I take but
Jim Carr at 29:17: on the shop floor there’s computer monitors at every machine dual monitors mounted vertically with mini PCS out there and it’s it’s fabulous it’s fabulous
Jim Carr at 29:27: that hasn’t seen your shop it’s an absolutely impeccably clean beautiful first class facility
Jim Carr at 29:36:I get I get that really well
Paul at 29:41:yeah I mean in anyone that hasn’t seen your shop it’s an absolutely impeccably clean beautiful first class facility and I think hopefully Pro Shop pairs well with that like a like a fine wine and a good cheese or something is it good again
Paul at 29:49: was the idea of getting rid of paper was that a hard thing for some of your folks or even you guys to swallow in the first place
Jim Carr at 29:50: in the first place
Paul at 29:53: that’s that’s a fair point for many people
Jim Carr at 29:53: that’s that’s a fear point for many people
Paul at 29:56: it’s like a safety blanket or something type I know
Jim Carr at 29:56: it’s like a safety blanket or something type you know
Ryan Carr at 30:05:yeah honestly I think the hardest part was just getting rid of the physical prints in the shop because the guys like to hold on to the print and
Jim Carr at 30:05: yeah honestly I think the hardest part was just getting ready
Paul at 30:06: yep
Jim Carr at 30:10: paper protectors so they can highlight dimensions
Ryan Carr at 30:15: we had them in the paper protector so they could highlight Dimensions with a sharp I’m not Sharpie a Expo marker if they needed to or something
Jim Carr at 30:16: with a sharp enough Sharpie Expo marker if they needed to or something
Ryan Carr at 30:18: that was definitely the hardest part
Jim Carr at 30:18: if that was definitely the hardest part
Ryan Carr at 30:20: but I think
Jim Carr at 30:20: but I think
Ryan Carr at 30:22: once we
Jim Carr at 30:22: once we
Ryan Carr at 30:28: implemented the dual monitors throughout the shop it was pretty easy sell
Jim Carr at 30:28: implemented the dual monitors throughout the shop it was pretty easy so
Ryan Carr at 30:34: and you just kind of have to do it you know you just have to jump off the deep end you can do
Jim Carr at 30:34: and you just kind of have to do it you know you just have to jump off the deep end you can’t do
Ryan Carr at 30:40: half half of the prints are going to be paper half the prints are going to be digital you just have to go all in
Ryan Carr at 30:41: so
Paul at 30:41:yeah
Jim Carr at 30:41: half half of the prints are going to be paper half the prince are going to be digital we just have to go all in yeah
Paul at 31:17: no I’m glad that you mentioned that and especially the dual monitor setup that’s just a game changer you know a nice big 24-in monitor or something what are they 100 bucks these days you know and I know I’m getting to the point where maybe you two gym you know I have reading glasses and so if I can if we can just blow up that you know that 11×17 print that has tiny little text thinking just blow that up to be half the size of a monitor yeah it’s so much easier to see what’s going on and see where those lines are pointing to and just make sure you’re inspecting it right and all those things make such a difference
Paul at 31:22: sure
Paul at 31:27: yeah
Paul at 31:31: yes
Jim Carr at 31:41: I’m glad that you mentioned that and especially the dual monitor setup that’s just a game changer you know a nice big 24-in monitor something what are the 100 bucks these days and I know I’m getting to the point where maybe you two gym you know I have reading glasses so if I can if we can just blow up that you know that 11×17 print that has tiny little text thinking just blow that up to be half the size of a monitor yeah it’s so much easier to see what’s going on and see where those lines are pointing to and just make sure you’re inspecting it right and all those things well plus they can you know I mean it’s great nowadays to have CAD you know that we’ve got to start a model that we can look at I mean and even helps me in the quoting process years ago we only had that flat PDF print right and we had to really look at it is it a dotted line is it a straight line is something behind it now it’s really easy and we run the master cam demo versions of all of our
Paul at 31:52: awesome yeah that’s pretty cool
Jim Carr at 31:55: so the machinists can run the toolpath and see it run through at the machine before they run it as well so that helps them and gives them a visualization too
Paul at 31:55: yeah
Paul at 31:59: I remember making a part one time
Ryan Carr at 32:15:I don’t know
Paul at 32:27: where it was such a tiny little detail drawing and we didn’t have a model at all and there was like a line that was Dash that we didn’t notice was dashed or something and we made it like with a slot on the wrong side and it made it all the way through Machining and programming and quality and to the customer and then you know a few days later they call us up and they’re like What’s with these the slots on the wrong side
Jim Carr at 32:28: we didn’t have a model at all and there was like a line that was Dash that we didn’t notice was that after something and we made it like with a slot on the wrong side and it made it all the way through Machining and programming and quality and to the customer and then you know a few days later they call us up they’re like What’s with these the slots on the wrong side like that was easy to do back then
Paul at 32:30: I know I know
Jim Carr at 32:31: I was very easy
Paul at 32:32: yeah
Jim Carr at 32:32: so
Jim Carr at 32:35: we’ve come a long way
Paul at 32:36: yeah absolutely
Paul at 32:53: you mentioned Ryan you mentioned ncr’s can you describe a little bit about maybe hasn’t actually helped improve your actual quality metrics to be able to track ncr’s more in real time and do that dimensional and process inspection and
Jim Carr at 32:53: scribe a little bit about maybe has it actually helped improve your quality metrics to be able to track ncr’s more in real time and do that conventional and process inspection and
Paul at 32:58: versus I presume you were doing on you know paper paper inspection reports originally
Jim Carr at 32:59: versus I presume you were doing on you know paper paper inspection reports originally
Ryan Carr at 33:07:yeah it’s hard to say if it’s improved our quality just as far as scrap rate goes
Jim Carr at 33:11: yeah
Jim Carr at 33:20: either fat fingerie put the wrong dimension in it Pro Shop tells you if it’s a wrong Dimension at the end as the warning message and being
Jim Carr at 33:21: able there
Jim Carr at 33:27: but
Jim Carr at 33:32: being able to go through and just look at how many ncrs were created for that
Jim Carr at 33:37: work or problem I just rediscovered the NCR
Paul at 33:40:oh nice
Jim Carr at 33:40: work order
Paul at 33:53: yep
Jim Carr at 33:54: so I just have more visitability I guess and easier yeah just
Paul at 33:56: sure
Ryan Carr at 33:58: but being able to inspect the part and if you either fat finger or you put the wrong dimension in and it Pro Shop tells you if it’s a wrong Dimension as the warning message and being able to create the NCR right there without having to think is definitely a benefit but being able to go through and just look at how many ncr’s were created for that work order to point out the specific problem I just rediscovered the NCR breakdown page for each work order instead of just going to all of the ncr’s for each work order and I can see which ones are still outstanding or not which it’s been great so I just have more visibility I guess an easier traceability than just written tags I mean we still use the tags but
Paul at 34:00: we got a physically identify it yeah yeah
Ryan Carr at 34:03: yep having a dashboard that you can follow is great
Paul at 34:07: so speaking of the dashboard now that you’ve read discovered it
Ryan Carr at 34:16: and see our codes
Ryan Carr at 34:18: I
Paul at 34:18: have you seen the have you been using the filters down at the bottom to filter for like NCR NCR code or person
Jim Carr at 34:18: have you seen the have you been using the filters down at the bottom to filter for like NCR NCR code or person
Ryan Carr at 34:20: have not yet
Jim Carr at 34:27: yeah so I think that’s one of the keys quite honestly getting to the thrust of my question cuz I know that
Paul at 34:30: yeah so I think that’s one of the keys quite honestly getting to the thrust of my question cuz I know that one of my other guests that I interviewed a few weeks back
Jim Carr at 34:30: one of my other guests today interviewed a few weeks back
Paul at 34:57: you know he said you know they are now putting in place like tailored training plans for different machinists or different programmers that have different NCR you know causes it’s like this guy is not very good at you know doing his thread to drill tap you know like distances or this other guy is not as good with you know using my chronometers so
Jim Carr at 34:57:place like Taylor training plans for different machinists or different programmers that have different NCR you know causes it’s like this guy’s not very good at you know doing his threat to drill tap you know like distances or this other guy is not as good with you know using my chronometers so
Paul at 35:17: being able to just sort you know by Costco code or NCR code or which person is causing the most ncrs and then drilling into what’s why why are those happening can really help you narrow into an improvement plan for that specific issue which ultimately will reduce your scrap rate you know once you desist systematize that process
Ryan Carr at 35:19:yeah that’s
Jim Carr at 35:19: being able to just sort you know by cause code or NCR code or which person is causing the most ncrs and then drilling into what’s why why do why are those happening can really help you narrow into an improvement plan for that specific issue which ultimately will reduce your scrap rate you know once you to system systematize that process yeah that’s
Jim Carr at 35:22: it
Ryan Carr at 35:23: we definitely have all the data just have to go through and filter it all
Paul at 35:24: yes sure
Ryan Carr at 35:26: I guess that’ll be something for our new quality manager to do
Paul at 35:28: got it
Jim Carr at 35:28: got it
Jim Carr at 35:31: it really is all about process though
Ryan Carr at 35:32: yeah
Paul at 35:33: oh it is
Paul at 35:34: yeah
Paul at 35:41: yeah
Jim Carr at 35:45: it really is yeah I mean I keep hearing it from Ryan all the time and dad is process process process process process but we have to have a process and it is we’re scaling you know and I think that’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned
Jim Carr at 35:49: in in this transition to scaling
Jim Carr at 36:03: is you have to really like delegate give away and utilize things and create a repeatable process so we and our employees know
Jim Carr at 36:10: what the next if this doesn’t work what’s the next step if this doesn’t work what’s the next step or who to go to you know what I mean
Jim Carr at 36:20: when you do have you know an issue with something not going well or right
Ryan Carr at 36:26:yep
Jim Carr at 36:27: 9 times out of 10 it’ll come back to the process not being robust enough or not being understandable enough and
Paul at 36:33:yeah and when you do have you know an issue with something not going well or right nine times out of 10 it’ll come back to the process not being robust enough or not being understandable enough and it’s very seldom is it a person problem someone that actually just doesn’t care or isn’t even trying
Jim Carr at 36:34: very seldom is it a person problem someone that actually just doesn’t care or well there’s some of those too
Ryan Carr at 36:39: yep
Paul at 36:47: hopefully weed those out in your interviews but yeah but I still I still contend that most of the time people are trying to do a great job and if they don’t understand the process it’s yeah it’s tough
Jim Carr at 36:48: time people are trying to do a great job yes and if they don’t understand the process it’s yeah
Paul at 36:55: when when you
Jim Carr at 36:55: when when you
Paul at 37:01: when you I guess through this entire Journey we’re really there’s been a
Jim Carr at 37:01: when you I guess through this entire Journey we’re really there’s been a
Paul at 37:07: you know and I remember visiting you know your shop in the very earliest days to what it is today
Jim Carr at 37:08: you know and I remember visiting you know your shop in the very earliest days old car
Jim Carr at 37:10: old car
Jim Carr at 37:11: this is new car
Paul at 37:13: old car okay you’re driving the new fancy car
Jim Carr at 37:15: exactly that’s the old car this is the new car
Paul at 37:26: yeah I love that has the culture of the business changed with your employees and just yeah just the culture of the business
Jim Carr at 37:26: has the culture of the business
Jim Carr at 37:36: I definitely think so that was one thing that you know I grew up in an environment a poor cultural environment because you know
Jim Carr at 37:55: no discredit to my father but they just you know machine shop owners back in the day weren’t educated and they didn’t know people there wasn’t networking there wasn’t as much communication as we have nowadays and you know they were just going by the Sea of their pants it was work long hours work hard and that’s how you were successful
Jim Carr at 38:00: but I do General and that was part of the process
Jim Carr at 38:28: years ago and it’s funny I was in I used to interview people on our podcast and everyone to be talking about core values Corvallis core values and here I’d be listening and I’d be hearing about all this success these companies were having because they implemented core values and they really stuck to him and I’m like hey I better start walking the walk because I’m talking to talk and so we did we we developed our core values back
Jim Carr at 38:31: right after you started right Ryan
Jim Carr at 38:32: we had
Ryan Carr at 38:33:yeah when we started reading traction
Jim Carr at 38:34: yeah
Paul at 38:54:oh absolutely
Jim Carr at 39:00: and we had like 35 you know we had a list right and then you kill and combine well this one’s kind of like this one so we’re going to get rid of that one and we got them down to four so but the thing is you have to maintain it and you have to practice it you can’t just say it you can’t just get it put it in a pretty picture frame and put it on the wall you have to go out there and you have to do it and I think
Jim Carr at 39:01: that
Jim Carr at 39:08: if you get into the practice of utilizing those core values and
Jim Carr at 39:15: and showing your team that you’re serious about him and you care about them
Jim Carr at 39:18: you’re going to get that respect back and you know
Jim Carr at 39:23: that’s all you want and just for me Paul the whole thing was
Jim Carr at 39:53:mentality and and that perception of what a Manufacturing Company looked and felt like to work in that was really important to me and and it’s affected the quality of our business and success and you know growth and everything else so
Jim Carr at 39:56: Foundation of a good business
Paul at 40:14:yeah yeah I’m sure so Ryan you mentioned you have a lot of young a lot of young machinist a lot of young team do you feel like those values maybe combined with you know this beautiful shop that’s paperless and just all the things you’ve done is that really help attract that younger generation
Ryan Carr at 40:16:yeah absolutely I think
Jim Carr at 40:16: you feel like those values maybe combined with you know this beautiful shop is that really help attract than younger generation yeah absolutely
Ryan Carr at 40:34: when people come and walk into the shop and maybe the shop down the street you know having a nice clean bright environment with new machines computers everywhere it’s barely very high like technology involvement
Jim Carr at 40:34: people come and walk into the shop and maybe the shop down the street you know having a nice clean bright environment with new machines computers everywhere but barely look very high like technology involvement
Ryan Carr at 40:46: people come here they interview and they want to work here I don’t think we’ve ever had someone leave and said no I don’t see myself here or I don’t want to work with you guys so that that has been great because people come and see that
Jim Carr at 40:46: people come here they interview and they want to work here I don’t think we’ve ever had someone leave and said no I don’t see myself here or I don’t want to work with you guys so that has been great because people come and see that
Ryan Carr at 40:50: we do Walk The Walk
Jim Carr at 40:50: they do Walk The Walk
Jim Carr at 40:59: but having that core value is truly what we strive for like we’re not just going to hire someone cuz they check all the technical boxes
Paul at 41:00:yeah
Ryan Carr at 41:01: but having that core value is truly what we strive for like we’re not just going to hire someone cuz they check all the technical boxes but you really have to
Jim Carr at 41:01: but you really have to
Ryan Carr at 41:07: mesh with the rest of the team and share all of our core values at the end of the day
Jim Carr at 41:07: mesh with the rest of the team and share all of our core values at the end of the day
Paul at 41:15: yeah when you were saying that Jim I it was what popped in my head is you ultimately need to hire and Fire based on your core values
Paul at 41:18: right yeah
Jim Carr at 41:33: yeah when you were saying that Jim I was pumped in my head is you ultimately need to hire and fire they send your core values right we we interviewed somebody this morning and he left and we got an email within 15 minutes and he’s like the feedback was great he really wants to work for us but Ryan and I said you know let’s go through the core values is this personal line with our core values so
Jim Carr at 41:42: yeah you know it’s important but it’s not easy you know what I mean it’s not a slam dunk all the time
Paul at 41:43:sure
Ryan Carr at 41:44:you just get a glimpse
Jim Carr at 41:46: you get a glimpse you get a glimpse
Paul at 41:47: yeah of course
Jim Carr at 41:48: so
Jim Carr at 41:54: I want to ask about how
Paul at 41:55: so I want to ask about how
Paul at 42:01: and you know how Pro Shop but in and again this is the transformation you guys have had has been
Jim Carr at 42:01: and you know
Paul at 42:13: multifaceted right from traction I know you guys work with even a girl systems that’s been pretty huge for you obviously moving into the you know new facility and really
Jim Carr at 42:13: right from tractions that’s been pretty huge for you obviously moving into the you know new facility and really
Paul at 42:18: so all those things how has that impacted
Jim Carr at 42:18: so all those things how has that impacted
Paul at 42:44: you personally in terms of the stress level you have the hours you work obviously I feel like there’s some I mean often times we have customers say that you know like the the amount of firefighting goes down you know when everything’s connected and digital and they have information at their fingertips but at the same time you guys have grown substantially which adds a whole layer of challenging complexity and stress so
Paul at 42:56: I don’t know how you want to answer that could you have grown as fast as you did you know keeping the wheels on the bus you know without Pro Shop or would that not have been possible or yeah
Paul at 43:00: answer that anyway you’d like to answer that
Jim Carr at 43:00: you personally in terms of the stress level you have the hours you work obviously I feel like there’s some I mean often times we have customers say that you know like the the amount of firefighting goes down you know when everything’s connected and digital and they have information on their fingertips but at the same time you guys have grown substantially which adds a whole layer of challenging complexity and stress so I don’t know how you want to answer that could you have grown as fast as you did you know keeping the wheels on the bus you know without Pro Shop or with that not have been possible or yeah answer that anyway you’d like to
Jim Carr at 43:03: I definitely don’t think
Ryan Carr at 43:04:I got I can start I mean I I definitely don’t think we could have grown
Ryan Carr at 43:09: at this pace without Pro Shop just because
Jim Carr at 43:10:at this pace without Pro Shop just because
Jim Carr at 43:17: we had documented systems but it wasn’t like you said earlier Paul we had them documented but I don’t
Jim Carr at 43:22: necessarily so being
Ryan Carr at 43:23: we had documented systems but it wasn’t like you said earlier Paul we had them documented but I don’t necessarily believe we were actually following them and also being able to add
Jim Carr at 43:29: able to process is
Jim Carr at 43:32: kind of haven’t started buying in at the same time so
Ryan Carr at 43:39: more employees at the same time and onboarding them with these processes kind of everyone started buying in at the same time so short answer no I don’t think we could have grown at this rate without having Pro Shop
Jim Carr at 43:39: short answer no I don’t think we could have grown at this rate without having Pro Shop
Ryan Carr at 43:40: so yeah
Jim Carr at 43:40: so yeah
Paul at 43:44:oh yeah go ahead Jim yeah
Jim Carr at 43:49: and I can pick up from there so when I think of the growth that we’ve witnessed in the last
Jim Carr at 43:53: 5 to 7 years 8 years maybe
Jim Carr at 43:58: and I talked about this before
Jim Carr at 44:23: I remember years ago I’d be in these networking groups and with veteran business owners machine shop owners and they be talking about scaling and I remember one guy had a graph up and he’s like yeah it’s it’s the financial burden of scaling is and I didn’t really understand it guess what I understand it now because we have been reinvesting
Jim Carr at 44:30: nearly all of our profits back into our business consistently for about 5 or 7 years
Jim Carr at 44:32: and I mean
Jim Carr at 44:34: and I
Jim Carr at 44:50: I knew it was going to be a little bit of a burden but it it was a significant burden financially I can see you know everything is looking great out a year to three but still
Jim Carr at 44:57: that ramp up process is difficult not only not only
Jim Carr at 45:03: from a emotional standpoint but from a financial standpoint too
Jim Carr at 45:07: it’s
Paul at 45:08:yeah it’s incredibly cash intensive and expensive to grow
Jim Carr at 45:09: right
Paul at 45:10: yeah as you know
Paul at 45:12: all the equipment all the
Jim Carr at 45:35: especially if you want to buy all the latest and greatest Technologies and we do that’s what we wanted we wanted we want the latest and greatest Technologies because it attracts a higher level team member employee it attracts customers and it’s creating a better healthy environment for our employees so
Paul at 45:45:so what would you say to a shop owner that is hesitant to spend the money on the best highest Technologies
Jim Carr at 45:45: so what would you say to a shop owner that is hesitant to spend the money on the best highest Technologies
Jim Carr at 45:47: Brian
Jim Carr at 45:52: I have an answer but I’d like to hear his
Ryan Carr at 45:54:I mean it’s
Ryan Carr at 46:23: it’s rewarding I mean I think as like machinists we like technology we like the latest and greatest things so I mean I wouldn’t regret it I mean it’s going to make you grow whether you like it or not I mean you’re going to push yourself out of your comfort zone and that’s the only way to grow so I mean we couldn’t have grown to this level without reinvesting I mean we had old old Fidel machine centers so adding
Jim Carr at 46:25: hey watch out I grew up on those
Jim Carr at 46:28: yes they were
Ryan Carr at 46:35: they were good for what we use them for I guess but you know there’s you just you kind of just have to bite the bullet and and do it
Ryan Carr at 46:43: and you will get through it I mean it but it’s almost it’s a necessary evil evil so
Paul at 46:45:it’s a good answer
Ryan Carr at 46:55: yeah
Jim Carr at 46:57: and what I would say to that machine shop owner that’s thinking about scaling is be careful not to over invest don’t live beyond your means because you can go into debt
Jim Carr at 47:03: but we and you know many of my peers as I have a recession obsession
Paul at 47:17:sure
Jim Carr at 47:32: but we as an industry have not seen a significant recession in a long long time it’s it’s going to happen and let me tell you if you if you start down this path of scaling and you have a lot of debt and you don’t have the backing to get yourself out of it it’s going to it’s going to grab you and it’s going to it’s going to kill you
Jim Carr at 47:48: I’m going to be getting the auction notice on my in the mail in the future so just be very careful don’t live outside of your means take it slow but be prepared for the financial implications
Paul at 47:54:yeah that’s Super Wise yeah no one knows when that one’s coming but for sure
Jim Carr at 47:55: we don’t I wish we did
Paul at 47:59: yeah yeah we all wish we had that crystal ball
Jim Carr at 48:01: yep
Paul at 48:05: so this one
Ryan Carr at 48:30:sure
Jim Carr at 48:35:I think we’ve danced around this but I’m just curious to hear the actual what you say about it so many clients talk about Pro Shop as being the backbone of their business their operations and Ryan you said you’re pretty heavy you know you’re into the tooling module and you’re into all these other things that many clients use but aren’t aren’t essential to making it you know to using the system but would you would you say Pro Shop is the backbone of the operations of the business and
Paul at 48:39: I think we’ve danced around this but I’m just curious to hear the actual what you say about it so many clients talk about Pro Shop as being the backbone of their business their operations and Ryan you said you’re pretty heavy you know you’re into the tooling module and you’re into all these other things that many clients use but aren’t aren’t aren’t essential to making it you know to using the system but would you would you say Pro Shop is the backbone of the operations of the business and and what was that and if so what was that transition like of
Jim Carr at 48:39: what was that and if so what was that transition like of
Jim Carr at 48:42: putting it in place that’s it
Paul at 48:48: putting it in place that’s it spinal cord surgery is a really complex potentially dangerous surgery to do
Ryan Carr at 48:49: yep
Jim Carr at 48:49: spinal cord surgery is a really complex potentially dangerous surgery to do
Jim Carr at 48:53: yeah I definitely think it’s
Ryan Carr at 48:56: yeah I definitely think it’s the backbone of our of our company I mean
Jim Carr at 48:56: it’s
Ryan Carr at 49:04: just by walking through the shop and seeing it up on every screen and how many clicks it gets you can look at that too
Jim Carr at 49:04: just by walking up on every screen and how many place it gets you can look at that too
Jim Carr at 49:12: you know everything is driven from the work order essentially doesn’t start there but you know the work order is where
Ryan Carr at 49:14: you know everything is driven from the work order essentially it doesn’t start there but you know the work order is where everyone in the company goes to see the
Jim Carr at 49:14: everyone in the company goes to see the
Jim Carr at 49:36: the progress of the job and then from that point it gets pushed down to shipping or it’s the work order get started from the estimate so all facets of our company goes through Pro Shop estimating order entry qmass first article shipping and then even invoice me too so
Jim Carr at 49:39: and then Decay Drive
Ryan Carr at 49:41: the progress of the job and then from that point it gets pushed down to shipping or it gets the work order had started from the estimate so all facets of our company goes through Pro Shop estimating order entry qms first article shipping and then even invoicing too so and then the K Drive hosts all of our
Jim Carr at 49:41: hosts all of our
Ryan Carr at 49:48: and C programs and Mastercam programs too so it’s definitely in the background of everything we do
Jim Carr at 49:48: SC programs and Mastercam programs too so we do
Paul at 49:50:sure sure
Jim Carr at 49:50: sure sure
Paul at 49:58: I know that you guys have also implemented machine monitoring with the
Jim Carr at 49:58:I know that you guys have also implemented machine monitoring with the
Paul at 49:59: with
Jim Carr at 50:02: with Amber yes
Jim Carr at 50:07: and another example of just adopting technology to drive the business forward
Paul at 50:08: Amber yep and another example of just adopting technology to drive the business forward
Paul at 50:17: that as well and actually just as I’m pulling this up
Jim Carr at 50:17: that as well and actually it just isn’t pulling this up I’m actually looking at
Paul at 50:20: you just mentioned the hits so
Jim Carr at 50:21: you just mentioned the heads so
Paul at 50:26: yeah you’ve been hovering since since
Jim Carr at 50:26: yeah you’ve been hovering since since
Paul at 50:34: well I don’t know if this is your local time 5:00 6:00 a.m. you know almost 600 hits per hour
Paul at 50:41: you know plus or minus which is heavy usage for you know for a team your size that’s that’s good to see
Jim Carr at 50:44: well I don’t know if this is your local time 5:00 6:00 a.m. you know almost 600 hits per hour you know plus or minus it’s just heavy usage for you know for a team your size that’s that’s good to see oh is that is that right is it significant
Paul at 50:46: oh yeah yeah that’s
Jim Carr at 50:46: oh yeah yeah that’s
Paul at 51:20: yeah I mean every every time you know an employee you know puts it you know a dimension you know inspection in there or or add some photo or it goes even to looks at that you know at that work construction page or hits calibrate you know on an inspection gauge or you know or saves an estimate or whatever that’s that’s a hit on the system and you know to have you know 600 of those in an hour with you know with
Jim Carr at 51:20: yeah I mean every every time you know an employee you know puts it you know a dimension you know inspection in there or or add some photo or goes even to looks at that you know at that work instruction page or it’s calibrate you know on an inspection gauge or you know or saves an estimate or whatever that’s that’s a hit on the system and you know to have you know 600 of those in an hour with you know it’s
Paul at 51:30: 13 to 15 people doing that doing that work that’s that’s you know it’s sometimes when when we’re you know talking with folks about
Jim Carr at 51:30: 13 to 15 people doing that doing that work that’s that’s you know it it’s sometimes when when we’re you know talking with folks about
Jim Carr at 51:41: early stages you know you’re like yeah we’re 20 people so we might need like you know five or six seats of Pro Shop I know you’re going to need 20 seats of Pro Shop
Jim Carr at 51:43:s
Jim Carr at 51:45: at
Jim Carr at 52:06: the machine you know when you when you are paperless you can’t just hand to traveler and an inspection sheet and they just you know work on paper most of their day and straight with the controller it’s like they’re in there actually getting their information putting information back in putting in process development
Jim Carr at 52:15: you know taking pictures of the setups doing inspections it’s like they’re in there all day and sometimes we get the
Jim Carr at 52:28: the feedback well I don’t want my machinist to be in the Erp then there means they’re not making Parts I might well you actually got to think about a little differently it’s like we we believe it can accelerate the amount of time
Paul at 52:30: early stages you know they’re like yeah we’re 20 people so we might need like you know five or six seats of pro shop and I’m like no you’re going to need 20 seats of Pro Shop everyone uses it they’re like what do you mean everyone uses it that doesn’t make sense or machinists are just at the machines and I’m like well it’s different you know when you when you are paperless you can’t just hand to traveler and an inspection sheet and they just you know work on paper most of their day and straight with the controller it’s like they’re in there actually getting their information putting information back in putting in process development you know taking pictures of the setups doing inspections it’s like they’re in there all day and sometimes we get the the feedback well I don’t want my machinist to be in the Erp then there means they’re not making Parts like well you actually got to think about a little differently it’s like we we believe it can accelerate the amount of time that they are you
Paul at 52:41: finishing setups more quickly and keeping the spindles turning more often and it should be it should be an accelerator to actually making making parts and making chips because
Ryan Carr at 52:44:yep
Jim Carr at 52:49: that they are you know finishing setups more quickly and keeping the spindles turning more often than and it should be it should be an accelerator to actually making making parts and making chips because it’s all about information flow and if it’s if it’s all segregated and it’s on paper and they can’t find it or anything
Paul at 52:57: it’s all about information flow and if it’s if it’s all segregated and it’s on paper and it can’t find it or it got coolant stained in there they can’t read it it’s hard to it’s hard to make chips so anyway yes your usage is fantastic and
Paul at 52:59: and
Jim Carr at 52:59: coolant stained and now they can’t read it it’s hard to start to make chips so anyway yes your usage is is fantastic good that’s good that’s good for me to know
Ryan Carr at 53:00: good to know
Paul at 53:10: yeah yeah and actually this is the first time I’ve ever in an episode of the podcast pulled up and mentioned so maybe I’ll start doing that it’s kind of fun to to see that
Paul at 53:24: we mentioned Amber for a second I see some hits in your system that clearly look like their API hits do you know if you’re using the API with Amber and doing anything with Pro Shop
Jim Carr at 53:24: the first time I’ve ever in an episode of the podcast I see some hits in your system that clearly look like their API hits do you know if you’re using the API with Amber and doing anything the pro shop and hamper
Ryan Carr at 53:25:it’s
Ryan Carr at 53:34: try they’re trying to integrate it I know there are some communication back and forth going between the two but I don’t know
Jim Carr at 53:34: try they’re trying to integrate it I know there’s some communication back and forth going between the two but I don’t know
Paul at 53:39: okay
Ryan Carr at 53:42: the extent of where how far along that process is but I know I think Amber’s pulling part numbers and
Jim Carr at 53:43: the extent of where how far along that process is okay but I know I think Amber is totally part numbers and
Paul at 53:43: yep
Paul at 53:46: cool
Ryan Carr at 53:48: minutes per part I believe but honestly I haven’t looked into it
Jim Carr at 53:53: yeah it’s hard I believe but honestly I haven’t looked into it recently yeah I’ll I’ll pay you
Paul at 54:01: recently yeah I’ll I’ll ping see if we can help them there a little bit so that’s very cool yeah I love it when you know software is going to connect and talk and make that technology sort of amplify your results
Jim Carr at 54:03: help them there a little bit so that’s pretty cool yeah I love it when you know software is going to connect and talk and make that technology sort of amplify your results you know ultimately that can happen
Paul at 54:05: believe that can happen so
Paul at 54:09: as we look to kind of wrap things up here
Jim Carr at 54:09: as we look to kind of wrap things up here
Paul at 54:26: what what would you say for you know for other shops out there that a little bit you know earlier in their Journey you know in their growth of any kind what would you say are some of the best strategic things that you guys have done that you would suggest they think about doing themselves
Jim Carr at 54:26: what would you say for you know for other shops out there than a little bit you know earlier in their Journey you know in their growth of any kind what would you say are some of the best strategic things that you guys have done that you would suggest they think about doing themselves
Ryan Carr at 54:30:you start
Ryan Carr at 54:32: go forward Jim
Jim Carr at 54:33: I think
Jim Carr at 54:36: having a road map is really critical
Jim Carr at 54:44: having people on your team that really want
Jim Carr at 54:47: the company to be successful
Jim Carr at 54:54:is probably the number one thing
Jim Carr at 55:00: you know it’s just like automation right we’ve got it invest in automation it’s
Jim Carr at 55:08: it’s the neck I believe it’s the next big paradigm shift on for our industry much like
Jim Carr at 55:17: CNC technology was the paradigm shift for manual Machining back then I think automation is the big thing so
Jim Carr at 55:28: technology reinvesting in your business Automation and software Solutions but that’s part of Technology rolled in so that’s what I believe
Ryan Carr at 55:30:yeah I was going to say
Jim Carr at 55:46: and ultimately
Jim Carr at 55:49: firing Earth we’re here at least 40 hours a week
Ryan Carr at 55:55: I was going to I was going to say technology was like what Jim said Automation and just reinvesting but then also culture creating those core values and hiring based off of those core values and ultimately firing too cuz we’re we’re here at least 40 hours a week so being in being in an environment that you enjoy and of being around people that
Jim Carr at 55:57: to tolerate for those
Jim Carr at 55:59: 8 hours thanks
Ryan Carr at 56:00: you can you can tolerate for those 8 hours makes work a lot easier so
Jim Carr at 56:03: it’s true it’s true
Jim Carr at 56:08: having people that care about the success of a business
Paul at 56:16:for sure and I think it speaks also directly to what you said Jim having people that care about the success of a business they’re there caring because of the values you put in place and reinforced and hired them based on that because they’re those type of people
Paul at 56:17: right
Jim Carr at 56:25: they’re there caring because of the values you put in place and reinforced and hired them based on that because they’re those type of people hopefully I mean yeah I mean that’s that’s what I that’s what I believe in wholeheartedly I believe that’s what’s happening it’s hard
Jim Carr at 56:40: to put my finger on it but all I can do is do the best I can do and I I trying I’m leading with that mentality and I just hope that everyone’s soaking it up and giving it back
Jim Carr at 56:43: so
Paul at 56:47:yeah and I
Paul at 56:49: I mean
Paul at 56:52: I can imagine in that
Paul at 56:54: that
Paul at 57:04: you know seeing just seeing Ryan you Blossom over the last two years cuz I you know it’s been wet now almost 6 years it was at 2018
Ryan Carr at 57:05:yeah yeah 2018
Paul at 57:05: that
Jim Carr at 57:05: you blossom?
Paul at 57:10: so I think some of the most significant
Jim Carr at 57:10: so I think some of the most significant
Paul at 57:21: changes in the business and you really taking that leadership role which goes clearly deeply but into the culture and the success
Jim Carr at 57:21: changes in the business and you really taking that leadership role which goes clearly deeply butt into the culture and the success
Paul at 57:27: I my guess is that’s a huge huge part plays a huge part in the team you now have and
Ryan Carr at 57:28:sure
Jim Carr at 57:31: I guess is that’s a huge huge part plays a huge part in the team you now have and and them being all invested in and
Paul at 57:33: and them being all invested in and bought into the success of your of your business
Ryan Carr at 57:34: yeah absolutely
Jim Carr at 57:37: plus he’s married now
Paul at 57:39: that’s
Ryan Carr at 57:40: I don’t know what that has to do with it but
Ryan Carr at 57:42: maybe my blossoming
Paul at 57:48: absolutely awesome one last question
Jim Carr at 57:48: one last question
Paul at 57:55: I’d love for you to picture what car machine would look like today if you were still trying to run it on Dropbox
Jim Carr at 57:56: I’d love for you to picture what car machine would look like today if you were still trying to run it on Dropbox
Ryan Carr at 57:57:
Jim Carr at 58:01: wow
Ryan Carr at 58:07:I don’t know if I want to say
Jim Carr at 58:09: I don’t I don’t think we I don’t think we have the sales volume we’re at now
Ryan Carr at 58:10: yeah
Jim Carr at 58:18: yeah I think I think we’d be a lot more
Jim Carr at 58:21: stressed out because we wouldn’t have
Jim Carr at 58:24: the Erp running the company
Jim Carr at 58:27: it really does run our company
Paul at 58:30:and you’d be smaller cuz your sales wouldn’t have grown the same way
Jim Carr at 58:38: we would not have had that we would not have had the sales volume that were out right now headed if we were still on job loss no way
Ryan Carr at 58:47:yeah I don’t think our processes would be nearly as documented or followed just I feel like it would be way too sparsed we
Ryan Carr at 58:49: we would use like
Jim Carr at 58:51: yeah would we even have like as 9100
Ryan Carr at 59:04: maybe but I mean it wouldn’t it would if it was it would either be in binders like our ISO was or would you just be segmented different softwares
Ryan Carr at 59:06: instead of all Consolidated into one
Ryan Carr at 59:07: probably
Ryan Carr at 59:18:yeah
Paul at 59:22:that’s somewhat of a fun question to ask and just watch people’s faces think about that awesome well guys yeah
Paul at 59:51:oh well
Jim Carr at 59:55:there and they know how it works and they know how
Jim Carr at 1:00:05: integrated it and deep the depth and breath of the the software so I mean yeah there’s nothing there definitely for sure
Paul at 1:00:21:well I think that when you have machinists wanting to pull themselves to words Pro Shop I think that really speaks to the fact that it can make their jobs easier make their lives less stressful as a machinist and power them to do
Jim Carr at 1:00:21: to make their jobs easier make their lives less stressful as the machine is and power them to do
Paul at 1:00:25: you know the fun parts of the job without maybe as much of the
Jim Carr at 1:00:25: you know the fun parts of the job without maybe as much of the
Jim Carr at 1:00:28: not as fun parts and so
Paul at 1:00:35: not as fun parts and so I appreciate you sharing that so if people wanted to reach out and learn more about working with car machine and tool what would you suggest they do
Jim Carr at 1:00:35: I appreciate you sharing that so people wanted to reach out and learn more about working with car machine and tool what would you suggest they do
Paul at 1:00:45: oh there you go
Jim Carr at 1:00:50: first first class at carmachine.com that’s our email address or careers at carmachine.com we’re looking for we’re looking for a new people in mid-level management
Paul at 1:01:01: oh very cool
Jim Carr at 1:01:08: we’re always looking for good qualified machinists we’re looking we’re going to be seriously or implementing in an assembly Department I can I can show that to you personally when you come here in mid-December Paul I’m working on it right now and you’re not going to believe it
Jim Carr at 1:01:12: I’m doing it old school on grid paper
Paul at 1:01:14: yes
Paul at 1:01:18: yes for shop layouts yeah
Jim Carr at 1:01:23: works and and I don’t care if I don’t care if my young staff is making fun of me or not I enjoy that I can do it it’s to scale
Jim Carr at 1:01:27: I just got to use an eraser a lot but
Jim Carr at 1:01:38: we’re looking for assembly people always looking for you know anybody that wants to work in a healthy high-tech manufacturing environment
Jim Carr at 1:01:40: careers at carmachine.com
Paul at 1:01:43: and website is car machine.com
Paul at 1:01:45: okay
Ryan Carr at 1:01:48:or connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram at carmachine 2
Jim Carr at 1:01:48: yep
Paul at 1:02:05: okay so much for this time it was really fun to chat talk shop and and I’m so grateful for the trust to use Pro Shop in the first place and that it’s had such a positive impact on your business
Ryan Carr at 1:02:07: absolutely thank you Paul
Paul at 1:02:08: cheers guys
Jim Carr at 1:02:09: okay that’s your IG game going thank you so much for this time it was really fun to chat a talk shop and and I’m so grateful for the trust to use Pro Shop in the first place and that it’s had such a positive impact on your business thank you absolutely appreciate it pleasure yep