Johnny Goode: [00:00:00] I have very little stress of an audit coming in. I’ve always told my staff, I was like, we’re going to lose customers or revenue before we fail an audit. That’s my personal opinion that your customers are going to start giving you signs that your process is messed up before an auditor does.
Narrator: 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 ProShop. Get ready to explore the stories behind the machines, the people, and the innovation shaping the future of this industry. Welcome to Manufacturing Transformed. Real Shops. Real Stories.
Paul Van Metre: Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of Manufacturing Transformed.
I’m your host Paul and you would think I would get tired of doing these because there’s a lot of the same questions, a lot of the same flow of the conversation, but holy smokes, I do not get tired of them. And this conversation with Johnny Goody of MSP [00:01:00] Manufacturing is certainly no exception. The transformation that they have had there, and he attributes a large amount of it to ProShop, is, it’s truly incredible. Just a couple of anecdotes from, taking what was two full time employees. Doing purchasing and the net result of having hundreds of thousands of dollars of excess inventory. Maybe that’s the problem. Too many people trying to buy things and putting it on the shelf. To now a four hour a week job for one person and dramatically cutting down their inventory.
It’s freeing up hundreds of thousands of dollars for cash flow. To them scaling 50 percent last year with less than 2 percent additional cost. Of overhead, really, I’d say it that way. Just absolutely astounding. Johnny is exceptionally good at what he does. You can just tell in the way he talks, and the way he talks about the business and what they’ve done with it over the last few years.
And I had no idea he used to be an undercover drug agent. So the fact that he went from [00:02:00] that into precision machining and manufacturing is just incredibly cool. So I’m a big fan and I think you will be too, after you listen to this. So without further ado, let’s go hear about the transformation of this business.
Johnny, welcome to the Manufacturing Transformed podcast. It’s good to have you here.
Johnny Goode: Thank you.
Paul Van Metre: First of all, I do just need to ask, your name is Johnny Good, is your middle initial any chance it’s B? What’s your middle name?
Johnny Goode: It does not start with a B, unfortunately, and I’m actually the third too. So had three opportunities to execute on that one and didn’t.
Paul Van Metre: Johnny Good the third is still a pretty cool name. So again, thank you for being here. So yeah, you and I. I got connected on this particular thing when you Emily from marketing metal posted a picture of visiting your shop. And I was like, Oh, hell yeah, that’s fantastic. It sounds like you met her through one of our webinars or newsletter.
She’s done a couple of workshops with me on the importance of marketing. So it’s very cool that you’re investing in that for your [00:03:00] business, but we’re here to talk about a little bit of your pro shop journey. And that starts with. Telling us about your business, about yourself. Yeah. So let’s hear the background and what MSP is.
Johnny Goode: All right. MSP was founded in 1943. As a Marion screw products in Marion, Indiana. It was founded to make tachometers for the war effort. And then it grew in a gentleman’s basement to start making, more avion, aviation based products. And then another family purchased it in the seventies and moved it to Nalbone, Indiana.
And then my dad purchased it in 2002 and then moved it to where we currently reside in, in Bloomington, Indiana. Since he purchased it, he bought a lot more product lines. Our core products are avionic instrument cases. And that entails, the glass, the bezel, and the case itself. Avionic switch guards cooling ducts.
And a lot of pretty much things that you’d be finding in the cockpit of almost every commercial aircraft. And then [00:04:00] we’re located about 30 minutes north of Naval Surface Warfare Station Crane. So we, a lot of a big part of our business is supporting their efforts as well as other defense industries.
So about half of our business is core product of which we have FAA, PMA authority on. So it’s nice that we’re not really competing against other companies for those. And then the other half is tied to Build to Print from our other customers. I joined the company in 2020. My background prior to this was I came from being a narcotics detective and being on SWAT to going into this industry.
Whoa COVID was a unique time and especially in law enforcement as well. And then my son, my first son was on his way. So I started trying to look at things and a more long term basis and buying dope and guns at 2 a. m. didn’t seem like a fun experience with a newborn, so I started trying to create a lifestyle that would be better not just for myself but my family as well.
Paul Van Metre: Wow, so you were like undercover?
Johnny Goode: Yeah, I did about three years of, [00:05:00] controlled buys
Paul Van Metre: and for narcotics and firearms. Holy cow. It’s only like things from the movies or TV shows. I guess that’s real life for some people. That’s incredible. Wow. So your dad is still active in the business, it sounds like?
Johnny Goode: He’s a little bit. He’s retired, somewhat semi retired. He lives in Florida and then he comes up here once or twice a quarter. The colder quarters. Usually once a quarter, but when it’s a little bit nicer it’s less humid up here than it is in Southern Florida.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah,
Johnny Goode: And then he comes and visits my kids too.
Paul Van Metre: Of course very cool. Wow. That’s quite a history designed originally for supporting the war effort.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, that is very cool. That is quite a legacy you’re continuing and building on. Yeah, and I did not know the whole PMA thing. And yeah, that’s a, It’s a well diversified, very interesting business you guys got going there.
Johnny Goode: Thank you.
Paul Van Metre: So tell me what you guys were doing prior to choosing ProShop, and why did you decide you needed [00:06:00] something new? What wasn’t working well enough? Yeah, anything about that.
Johnny Goode: When I came on in 2020, they were using a system called Evo, and I can’t really say many positive things about it, but what I disliked most about it is none of the modules seemed to talk to one another, so it’s like everything was so siloed and required so much You know manpower to do data entry and like purchasing was pretty much all people typing in everything and every everything had a part number and it was super inefficient and wasn’t super popular by coming in you know as the boss’s son and in a time of COVID where we had furloughed and people and then the first one of the biggest action items I did was.
Tell them that the software stunk and that I was going to look for a new provider. So I did some research and I really liked ProShop. I can’t recall exactly how I come across ProShop. I think it might have just been through internet searches at the time. [00:07:00] But spoke with the sales rep from ProShop and talked for a while.
And I, what I liked most about ProShop is your guys’s foundation seemed very similar to how our business was at the time too. Smaller machine shop. Largely focused on supporting Boeing. And so it seemed, and we were already AS9100, but it just seemed like the best fit than any other software and the implementation was, I think a lot easier because the, we had Michael Head, Headwood.
Yep. Michael’s legendary. Yeah. So I think it worked well with my people because it was, someone that had a manufacturing background, not just someone that works at a software company going through the process. And I think that there were a few of the management team that had been here, for over 10 years that were pretty resistant to change, not because of any inadequacies with pro shop.
They just. They knew how Evo worked better than anybody else, and at the time, my dad and I really did not know how [00:08:00] Evo worked well, and later find out that a lot of things were being hidden very easily in the old system that weren’t being hidden so well in ProShop. We were able to find a plethora of inefficiencies that were in our old system that we would have never caught had we not switched to ERP systems.
Interesting.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, no, I’ve heard about, I’ve heard that anecdote before that ProShop brings a level of transparency and visibility to the whole team that just they didn’t have in their old systems. So yeah, it sounds like those were turned out to be important to you. Yes, very. Can you share any anecdotes, without giving too much away, the kind of things that you discovered that helped
Johnny Goode: Yes, I think there was, there’s a plethora.
I could probably fill up this entire time slot talking about different ones. But I think the, one of the things I like most is the, how the purchasing works. And it’s there’s so much. data driving it, but it reduced almost, two people doing purchasing full time to I [00:09:00] do all the purchasing now and it maybe takes me four hours a week and I’m having the people in the operations actually tell us what they when they want the dates are quoting and estimating is putting in the quote.
So it’s, it just makes things flow better. And we were having our operations would take, sometimes multiple weeks between when we get a PO to when it was material was here and the work order was on the floor. And now that happens in less than 48 hours, generally. Now there’s always sometimes some material that sometimes have longer lead times, but generally it’s ordered within 24 hours of receiving the award.
Paul Van Metre: So are you saying Purchasing was a two person full time job, and now it’s four hours a week for you. Yes. Just going back, one of the things that sounds like you dealt with, and almost every single company does, is change management and people being resistant or concerned about their jobs or their, whatever, or just not liking change, even if their jobs are very secure.
Did you have any Turnover [00:10:00] related to this this implementation?
Johnny Goode: No, we did not have any any turnover. I think we repurposed or had people take on different tasks or things that were a better use of their time than just data entry, really. I think there was a huge, that perception like, Oh, if my job’s only four hours, I’m going to be fired.
I think that perception drove a lot of those. And there was a couple people here that I think had the mindset, If I’m the only one that knows how to do this, I’m extremely valuable. And one thing I learned in the military and I think the Army does a good job of is it’s, you’re always trying to train the person below you how to do your job so that, if something happens or if you get promoted, then they’re able to, execute without any major setbacks.
And that’s what I’ve tried to ingrain here. It’s if you want to be promoted or do more, you have to train the people below you to do your job. Whereas I think the older mindset was I’m valuable if no one else knows how to do that. And I think I’ve, after four or five years, I’ve gotten rid of that.
Culture, but just had to use a little bit of force to get there.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, that is a very common thing. I think people just being concerned about the safety of their [00:11:00] jobs, but Like you said, in the bigger picture, the companies will be more successful. The people will have more opportunities to do probably more interesting, valuable things.
And if they can let go of that concept that they’re just like holding on to their little tiny corner of the business and protecting it.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, I think manufacturing can have enough challenges outside of your controls, so it’s like why not try to maximize the internal controls so that we don’t have any issues inside and then, if something arises with a customer or supplier or something that we really have little influence, we can now dedicate a team to it rather than always putting out internal fires that were self induced.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, that is really well said. And how long had they been using Evo?
Johnny Goode: I think it had been, at least 10 years, but if not, between 10 and 20 years. So there was a ton of data in there. And I wanted to do an organic, typing things in to ProShop as orders came in and stuff. Cause I was like, I know there’s a ton of bad data in that old system.
The last thing I wanted to do was a big CSV upload and just have [00:12:00] the same garbage in that I had in the old one.
Paul Van Metre: Did you do any amount of bulk import while cleaning it up in the interim stage?
Johnny Goode: As we came towards the end of the implementation year, part numbers that had a demand for, or raw materials that were physically on the shelf, I did uploads of those.
Got it. But, very limited, and even after that I haven’t had to do. Much CSV uploads. I think we do a ton of CSV uploads now for like our dim tagging and things of that nature, but as far as just pulling that raw data, I think I did two or three different times. We did it with our contacts. So
Paul Van Metre: that makes sense.
So besides Evo, I imagine this is pretty common that there’s. Other spreadsheets and little mini databases and other things running different parts and keeping track of different things. Yes. Do you guys have a bunch of that kind of stuff too?
Johnny Goode: So I think they had one spreadsheet and we just recently phased this out for like first piece inspections.
So that was just like an Excel sheet that they would. Take something [00:13:00] quality type in their time in and so we eliminated that we had. I cannot unfortunately recall the software off the top of my head, but something to keep track of the gauging and equipment, which we use pro shop equipment module for that.
We use Disqus instead of NetInspect because it works better with ProShop.
IQA? I can’t recall the old software, but And there was a bunch of Excel sheets that they were using before and just straight PDF documents that they were printing off and using, so And it’s made all of our work orders live, instead of printing off a work order and have it get lost on the floor, and then you Not in a great position when you get audited.
And then we’ve used either tablets or laptops or computers for every employee. It’s been nice to have everything, like if someone updates something, it’s updated in real time.
Paul Van Metre: And I know you said before we hit record, but did you say how many employees you have in the company today?
Johnny Goode: We have about 34 employees of which we have two interns and two apprentices.
And then my dad and our CFO are more part time employees.
Paul Van Metre: Wow. Very cool. [00:14:00] So besides the obvious losing of paper travelers, what other impacts have you seen on going paperless or challenges you overcame or things that you had to make sure were, put in place to make sure that went well?
Johnny Goode: So one thing I had to compromise on is they still liked having the work order look better than I think the box label.
So they still print off the first page of the work order and that’s what travels. With the parts, but they still use the computers and tablets for inputting everything, they’re not handwriting it on there. But I think that just getting people away from the paper triggering their next step to using, the dashboards and what the system’s triggering you.
And I think it took a little bit of time to have like Complete faith in the system that like it’s going to do it for you so there was a little bit of testing on that and unfortunately at the beginning I think people weren’t truly utilizing it the way it was Designed they were trying to use pro shop the way that [00:15:00] evo worked and I was like no I use it the way it’s designed and what’s nice about pro shop is you it’s almost getting a business model with a software because it outlines how You’re supposed to run things, help when you receive an order in or even from the quoting process.
So we changed our processes to align better with how ProShop worked. And it’s just, I think, made our processes so much more efficient.
Paul Van Metre: Can you share any specific anecdotes of that efficiency gain?
Johnny Goode: Yeah. I can think of about I’ll give a couple different examples that follow this similar process.
I mentioned that when an order is received, it’s being executed on the floor, within that week. Sometimes. In a couple of days, depending on material, but before we get a ton of forecast from some of our customers, sometimes going out two years, but what was not being done very well is building, like quarterly runs for stock.
So we’d get all these, we get. Between 1 to 25 drop in orders a day from our customers, and there will be times where it’s [00:16:00] like, Oh, we don’t have the subcomponent run to a machine. We got to get this going now. It’s super disruptive. So they were doing the same part, setting it up one day, breaking it down and then the next week doing that same part.
So starting last June, after I had our processes, we started doing it. Okay. Quarterly or biannually releases for those parts. So by a time and most of the parts of the same setup too, or very little modification. So they started doing that and they ran through it so much quicker than we thought.
We thought we were giving them like two months of work and it was in like two weeks. They’re like, all right, ready to do the next one. I was like, my God, I can’t believe we managed that. But what happened was we had a customer with an urgent DOD come to us and we’re like, Hey, somebody on our team dropped the ball that should have been ordered a while ago, but we need to order this now, but we need it in four weeks.
And it had outside processing and paint operations. Cause we do a lot of paint internally as well. Sure. So we were able to deliver them ahead of schedule on all of those. And then at the end of December, [00:17:00] the DOD directly came to us with a kind of a mission critical defense project. And I think all of the other competitors were.
12 to 18 weeks. And because we’ve built all these forecasted and we’re had stock for these drop in orders, we had open machining time and it was three weeks with part having almost 12 hours of runtime and they wanted 25 of them. We’ve made a lot of investments in our machinery. So palletizing and automation as well.
So that factored with ProShop. We’re now able to take these projects and no one wants to touch because of the time constraints and able to get them to them even earlier. And this last one has had a lot of eyes on it from the DOD. And so we’ve created a pretty good reputation on this. And now there’s multiple phases to this project and they’re like, just give all the phases to this company.
That’s been. It’s pretty cool, too. And I think that’s what I like is that our foundations are really, we started supporting the war effort in World War Two, but we still have a big presence in supporting the war fighter. And there’s been a couple of [00:18:00] projects that we’ve worked on that I was the end user in the Army using that same product or service.
So it’s been really cool. And then anytime we can Show what it’s going to we try to do so in the note section on the work orders So like on some of our parts that go on like a Chinook I always have it there and the guys love knowing that like they’re supporting the warfighter and take a little bit of pride on that
Paul Van Metre: That is super cool.
Yeah. Yeah. You’re right about that. When people understand the end, the end product they’re serving it always helps and especially, and it’s something like that. It seems, I’m sure it seems very meaningful to them.
Johnny Goode: Oh yeah. Yeah. Our workforce is very pro American and just anything we’re helping the DOD with they take great pride in.
Paul Van Metre: That’s very cool. I love that we’ve helped you. Strategically get ahead of those orders and build capacity and do things better. You mentioned that that previously it could be a couple of weeks before, work order material hit the floor. Can you just go into a little more [00:19:00] detail about how lead time has been cut out of that process?
Johnny Goode:Yeah. So that’s because paper was the, how it queued the next stuff. There’d just be stock, there’d be bottlenecks of, Files on people’s desks of just oh, I won’t get it done today and tomorrow turns into four weeks naturally, and so that happens so many steps along the process where it’s Oh, I got to build the routing.
Take a couple of weeks. Oh, I got to, now I got to get new quotes for the material because everything the estimators done or, invalid. And especially during COVID, the quote times, it’s you don’t order within five days, get another quote just because it’s so volatile. So then purchasing had to, go through that process.
So it adds another week. And then let’s just say you get material in a couple of times, then they had to like, They had this big section of the company where all the work orders were, so it wasn’t like readily available which one and then matching the receiving inspection and trying to find the work orders.
Just a plethora of inefficiencies that are just, as ProShop kind of does for you. And one of the features I really like [00:20:00] is that bomb update every night. It’s so nice to see because we have so many of the same parts that we’re doing over and over again. It’s nice to see oh, we pulled stock and fulfilled this drop in, but now we have an order in 2027 that we’re going to be deficient on.
And then we use like minimal reorder points. So now we’re queuing our internal bill to build a print or. Built an inventory to go. Cause we, we have orders probably going out to 20, 27, 20, 28 now based on contracts. So it’s really our on time delivery has gotten significantly better because of ProShop.
Paul Van Metre: Do you have any numbers to share?
Johnny Goode: So there were times where we were, Exceeding in the high nineties in Evo, but it was during COVID when we had very little order. So it was real easy there, but once we started getting busy before and halfway during the implementation, we were in probably the 83 to 84 percent and now we’re executing between 97 and 99 percent on time delivery.
The, usually the biggest [00:21:00] driver is a supplier of raw material that, for some unforeseen reason gets pushed out weeks past when it was supposed to be here. And a lot of the most common raw material I think is glass. We do a lot of specialized glass with finishing and every now and again it just, the whole lot gets damaged at some point before it even gets to us and they have to restart the process.
That’s been the biggest reason for our late orders. So you’re machining glass? No, we’re assembling glass. So about half of our business is all assembly. So we assembled a glass to the bezel using epoxy solder, and then it’s painted and then attached to a case painted. And, but we buy a lot of glass.
Are those for like cockpit? Yeah. So it holds the actual instrument itself. So we’ll send the assembly and then the integrators will put the instrument inside of there and attach it to the cockpit.
Paul Van Metre: Cool. Yeah. At our shop, ProCNC, probably a good third of our business was. It’s like the back housings of cockpit display [00:22:00] panels.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Paul Van Metre: And in fact, people probably aren’t watching this or listening to it, we made tons of parts like this, right? That’s funny. And bigger back housings. And I have a, there’s a few other on my shelf right there.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, we do have a few of the back housings, but I would be interested to see if any of the front housings attached to your guys back housings.
Paul Van Metre: I mean in full candor that we did work for Cori Electronics a ton for IDD Aerospace, which became Zodiac.
Johnny Goode:Yep.
Paul V an Metre: Those may be your, I don’t know if those are.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, those are some of ours as well.
Paul Van Metre: That’s funny. Oh, fun. That’s, yeah, small world. Cool. That, those are some incredible improvements and it is music to my ears.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, so that’s where I use the CSV upload most on a regular basis outside of quality. Is every at the end of every month I run, I have a query based up in our part level in work order. So it runs our core product and contract pricing. So I have one sheet that says what’s in process, what’s an inventory.
And so I just export those and then [00:23:00] cross reference it with our forecast. And then all of the deficiencies is what I build up on. So I do every month. I’m looking out and that’s looking out. Six to nine months down the road. So we’re all we’re so far ahead, how, which is nice. Instead of being reactive, we can be proactive.
And the best case study is those do deep in defense projects that just they needed it quick. And we had the time to do it. And that’s why that’s what’s running one shift. It’s not even like I’m asking a night shift to come and know over time to justify that either, just float into our normal production.
Paul Van Metre: That is fantastic. Do you remember once you really got into it a feature that just stood out holy cow, this is gonna just be game changing for us?
Johnny Goode: I think it’s just that everything is hyperlinked. I could click on something, cause that’s what I hated about the other one. I’d see something and I’m like, okay, write this down, go into this other module.
And I couldn’t like, I couldn’t even like barely copy and paste out of the other system. So it was, so being able to literally go from estimate all the way to, an invoice, just with anything that’s [00:24:00] blue, being able to click on. And if I wanted to see like customer contact information, just click, I think how you can just drive through ProShop so quickly.
And I was like, this is going to be a game changer. And then when I started looking at the like QMS side of it and I was like, Oh, this is going to, audits are going to be easy. For this and to one thing we would have auditors do is they just pull up like a work order and try to find the person and signature and they’re like, what does this say?
And I like how everything’s timestamped person equipment and there was always this perception that like audits were like the worst thing coming. And now it’s there’s no issue. Usually the auditors are like, all right, I thought this was going to take longer, but our, we just had a change in auditors and.
Yeah. I think we’re the fourth company that this auditor sees that use ProShop. And right when we walked in and he saw that we use ProShop, it’s almost Oh, this is not going to, this is going to be easy. And I’ve always had the percept or thought that an auditor makes up their decision on how well the audit’s going to go, in the first minute and be [00:25:00] inside of a business.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah. Yeah. I heard and going to understand that sentiment for sure. Wow. Four other that That is pretty cool. We must be getting some critical mass here. That’s pretty neat.
Johnny Goode: What has been pretty cool is that, I don’t know if you’re familiar with this company called CloudNC. They have a product called CamAssist. Daniel was our sales rep at ProShop and then we used CamAssist also. And I saw he now works for them.
Paul Van Metre: Yes, he did go move over there and I yeah, hope he’s loving it. It’s a very cool product. Neat company. Yeah. Super cool. Sounds like those audits have been your AS, like recertification audits.
Johnny Goode: Yep. So I think we’ve done a re cert and two surveillance audits and then this next one will be, we’re re certifying again at the end of this year.
Paul Van Metre: So we have this concept that we call the zero prep audit. Do you feel like you have zero prep audits?
Johnny Goode: I do now. I think at the before the beginning, there was a couple, I was like, just double check this and it was just specifically on the supplier dashboard.
[00:26:00] They were not monitoring really the suppliers on that side, when they’re late. And I was like were they late or did they send the confirmation with a date and no one changed it in the system and they got marked late. So after we improved that process, and then we recently did that, like QMS 2.
0 overlay. Okay. So we did have to modify some of the paragraphs and stuff before that, but that was part of that process, not because of an audit, but I have very little stress of an audit coming in and I’ve always told my staff, I was like, we’re going to lose customers or revenue before we fail an audit.
Usually I, that’s my personal opinion that your customers are going to start giving you signs that your process is messed up before an auditor does some wisdom in that.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. Cause I guess the audit is somewhat a trailing indicator, right? Yeah. In some ways the processes you’re putting in place or the leading part, but yeah, it’s the performance to your customers that really where the rubber hits the road.
Yeah. Like the way you phrase that. That’s good. Have you had customer audits?
Johnny Goode: We’ve had a few, we’ve had a [00:27:00] couple of the defense ones. Boeing has come out and a couple other customers. And I think the ones that we’re not familiar with pro shop are pretty impressed with How we could just be like where’s that gauge?
And we had put pictures of all of them in there, but we could just show when it went out to calibration, all the details, who used it, how often it’s been used. And they really liked that part of it.
Paul Van Metre: That’s super cool. Do you feel like that helps in the confidence that customer has with you as a supplier?
Johnny Goode: I think so. I think that when we’re more stringent sometimes on ourselves than what the customer is requiring, I think it gives them a little bit more peace of mind. And then with some of our customers just being able to give status a lot quicker because, they can just pull up the customer PO and see the work order, Oh, it’s in this op and kind of get a either with somebody or look and give a loose estimate of when it’s going to be done.
So that’s, we’ve been able to give feedback to customers, sometimes instantly over the phone or in a short response period. So when sometimes it might take a [00:28:00] day or two.
Paul Van Metre: So I’m curious to ask about your PMA parts and. Most of our customers are contract manufacturers, although not all.
And in fact, the very first customer ever besides our own shop is an OEM. Of aerospace hardware. So they design and build and stock and sell their own. Their own products to Boeing and all those OEMs. So in some ways it’s quite fitting, but I remember, our shop doing work for some companies that had PMA on lots of different parts.
And I always thought it was pretty cool how that all worked. But yeah how does, how has that side of your business worked? That’s probably
Johnny Goode: The easiest one because it’s, the parts are really never changing or like they’re rarely, ever, rarely a rev change. I think our last one on most of our PMA was 2002 when we changed it from like MSP to MSP Aviation Inc.
We traded the legal name. Okay. So we had to update the drawings and then we purchased some of the product lines. So we took it from like a Dexter Wilson to MSP. [00:29:00] So that’s really the only time, but they flow pretty easily. It’s, I think it’s nice for us to see usage and being able to forecast ’cause. We, you can export all that data out of ProShop and especially now that it seems like more is it ADS out or what’s the no, that’s flying how to get information out of ProShop, not through downloading it, but where it’s talking to you out of the API.
Yeah, API. Thank you. I was spacing on that, but the API out and API in, I think it’s going to be a huge game changer because we’re trying to build almost our own internal AI network that’s going to be able to do like all of those. Excel things I’m doing manually, I’m going to just have AI being able to do it.
And I’m really pumped about that. So and then using that power BI function to have customizable dashboards is really cool too.
Paul Van Metre: That is neat. So the folks that were really hesitant about the change, how did it end up with them? Are they fans now? Are they enjoying their new roles? So when we
Johnny Goode: So when we were going through the implementation and it was.[00:30:00]
Two individuals that were resistant, but I made one of them love going to IMTS. So I made him go to your guys’s happy hour like two, two and a half years ago now. And I was just beating it down his throat. And then it finally it was a big OEM that came here for a visit. And in a meeting he was like, I’m so glad we went to Pro Shop.
It’s been so easy to go through this. And I was like, only took me two years, but I knew you’d say that. So, call it drinking the Kool Aid. They’re drinking the Kool Aid now, but it just I think it was more fear of the unknown than anything. I know how this system works so well. We don’t have any issues.
And then, they were just And, probably also, not a ton of faith in me being a young detective coming into a manufacturing thing, telling them their software’s garbage and that I’m gonna put new software in because I know better. Internally, I could have probably done a little bit better on bringing them into the decision making.
And some buy in instead of forcing it, but I don’t regret the decision, I just think I could have done [00:31:00] it a little bit more delicately.
Paul Van Metre: I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, the clients that we see that have the smoothest time overall are definitely the ones that, involved their leadership team at the very least in demos and the sales process and, really getting that buy in early so they felt comfortable and like it was going to be.
You know a good change even if it was going to be hard. Yeah
Johnny Goode: Yeah, and I think I did about 95 of all the implementation stuff myself so it was I reaped the Not but doing the buy in but I from talking to a couple other pro shop customers It seems that if there is going to be resistant It’s at the management level.
It’s not usually the guys on the floor or the owners. It’s usually the people that are managing the certain processes. And I think it really is just like fear of the unknown and they’re like, no, it can’t be that good or whatnot.
Paul Van Metre: Just the fact that you said the old system is working fine.
There’s no problems. But yet you just, talked about how you’re saving [00:32:00] weeks of time and lead time because of paper piling places. And that’s, I guess that’s just an inherent thing that comes along with a paper based system.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, and we had the saying on SWAT, don’t confuse good luck with good tactics.
So anytime someone says, Oh, we’ve never had an issue. And I was like, that doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing. It’s just mean you got lucky. Could have been, just been getting lucky for 10 years, but, and I think they passed so many audits because it was so difficult to show stuff. And that’s another system.
They had all of that QMS stuff. Every single substandard was its own Word document. So there was, like, a hundred different Word documents that they would have to go back and forth instead of just one quality manual. I remember trying to compare the two different quality manuals, and it looked comically it was like having a pamphlet next to the Bible on what ProShop’s quality manual was to what they had in place before.
Paul Van Metre: That’s funny. Yeah that’s the most common type of QMS out there. It’s just a bunch of Word documents and PDF files that are all in a [00:33:00] folder system on the network.
Johnny Goode: And then each document had its own second document that was like, this is the rev, this is what was changed and stuff. So it’s like you had two documents for every little thing, just on rev change control.
Paul Van Metre: When did you guys get your AS 9100?
Johnny Goode: I think it was in 2006
Paul Van Metre: Okay, so quite a long time ago. That was actually the year that ProCNC got it’s AS9100.
Johnny Goode: Okay.
Paul Van Metre: We got ISO in 2004 and AS in 2006.
Johnny Goode: I think we did them both in the same year.
Paul Van Metre: Okay, yeah. Yeah, we did one and then the other. Yeah, it was that exact time frame where we built all the QMS modules because we had an ISO consultant and AS consultant come helping us. And they were like, yeah here’s some word templates that you can use. And we were like, what the heck? , we could just already envision how terrible that was gonna be. Oh yeah. And we’re like, no, we’ll just build a bunch of QMS modules. And I remember her thinking like, or sharing with us, yeah, she was pretty [00:34:00] skeptical that we were gonna be able to do that. But sure enough, Matt busted it out and they turned into these modules. So, yeah. That’s funny. I imagine you’ve worked with Kelly on our team then?
Johnny Goode: Yep.
Paul Van Metre: Let’s talk about Kelly for a second. Okay. Yeah, what’s that been like? How is it helpful to you and especially going from the 1. 0 to the 2. 0?
Johnny Goode: She’s been extremely helpful.
I think I, I typed it in one of your guys webinars one time, but we had an audit and they didn’t like one of our goals, how it was written. They’re like, how can that be a goal? Because it wasn’t really measurable. And Kelly hopped on, we called her and she was like changing it while we were sitting in the room with the audit.
We had zero findings. That was going to be the only one, but she fixed the way it looked. But she’s been really helpful working with our quality manager. And just, it’s more been a lot of little things. I think building out like a custom link for the process development. Cause that was one thing we could never really show a good record of.
It’s what process improvements have you had? [00:35:00] Throughout the year, so we have that on that, the Q, QMS 2. 0 thing where it’s we just click the link and it shows all the process through the process that people have put in.
Paul Van Metre: So for those that don’t know what process dev means, can you describe a little bit about what it is and how you use it?
Johnny Goode: Usually the first step is, an operator seeing some sort of inefficiency in the process. There might be a disconnect between when it was edited, estimated, to how it’s being executed and, or, the setup may have been inefficient. So I, Usually have them looking for inefficiency, so let’s just say they saw something that was quoted as three setups, and they could do it in two setups on the five axis, so they’ll put in a note okay, because we usually have the programs locked down so that very few people can edit them, so usually like an approval process, but sometimes it’d be like, Okay.
Or just like the hardware during the setup, like this was garbage, get better hardware for next time, and they have to do very little work for that process. It’s usually going to the [00:36:00] operations. And then from there, a small team usually gets together and tries to figure out a solution. And then once that’s solutions tested, they update the part level to reflect those new changes.
And then the next time a work order comes as a new process built into it and There’s a, and everything in ProShop is traceable, you can go through the weeds in the edit log or you can, click through different revs and it’s really easy to show how things are changed. But every now and again, I try to go on the floor and work like half a shift with the guys and it’s incredible like how many good ideas just come from the people that are doing the job.
And that’s what I like about that process dev is you now give them something that they can input it. They can also see is someone actually doing something about it? Because, some shops have those comment boxes where they drop things in there, but there’s not a lot of faith that it’s actually being, read or whatnot.
But I think if you have a team that wants to improve and you can actually make those improvements happen, it just makes them more innovative and more willing to be innovative.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, absolutely. And especially when they see the improvements [00:37:00] being made. They’re like, wow, that was my idea. Now they’re doing it that way.
What impact has ProShop had on you in terms of your working hours or working from home part time or just the stress level? I guess you didn’t exist that long in the old system before you said, no, we’re getting rid of this darn thing.
Johnny Goode: So before we would have to use like a VPN and it was super dicey if you were not.
In the same city, it just was terrible. And then we’ve been able to and even while maintaining our CMMC kind of compliance levels, I can pretty much access ProShop or any of our systems anywhere in the world that has an internet connection, which has been nice. But I like being in the office.
If I really wanted to, I could probably work from home. But my hardest part about working from home is my family. looking at me working while I’m at home. Yes. But when I’m on the road or traveling to a customer show or whatnot, I’m still able to pretty much do everything from my laptop in a hotel room.
And we’re in automating even more and more [00:38:00] things within pro shop. Or plugins that talk with ProShop, so it’s becoming easier and easier. And then now when I leave the company, if I want to go, visit a customer for two days, I feel like I can come back in and not spend a week and a half to catch up just for missing those two days.
So it’s able for me to work on the business outside of the business a lot easier and a lot less stressful.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah. You meant you said work on the business. Yes. Sounds like you, you do both. You work in it because like you do purchasing four hours, four hours a week, but you’re also working on it.
Johnny Goode: Yep. And the purchasing is a short term thing.
I really wanted to understand it, but that’s where I think the biggest. My dad like just had so much faith in the management team where I just, I wanted to know how every single thing worked. And now it’s nice to be the person that knows the most on ProShop. And I have some pretty sweet custom queries and always getting those set up.
But I just wanted to know how everything worked. And I saw, our purchasing numbers just seemed excessive to me. So that’s why I took it over and I was like, Oh, they’re just not [00:39:00] using it the way it should be. They’re overpurchasing. And now we’re. Putting cash on the shelves for no reason. So it’s worked out really well with me doing it for the four.
That’s the only reason I’ve held on to it for a while. But the rest of my team is trained. So if I go on vacation or sick or stuff, they’re more than capable of doing the same thing I am.
Paul Van Metre: I think that’s smart to really understand the process. So you can make improvements to it, get it dialed in, and then train and hand off some, to someone else that can.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, I put myself through the internal AS9100 auditors course too. Because I wanted to see what is an AS9100 standard and what is just something that we’re handcuffing ourself because we’ve always done it that way. So it was nice to be able to shed a ton of things that we didn’t have to do.
We just, Some person had thought it was a good idea 20 years ago and no one ever said anything different.
Paul Van Metre: Wow. That’s insightful. That’s, can you think of an anecdote of something that you used to do that you realized was not part of the standard?
Johnny Goode: It was like for one customer they just put like a hundred pieces, a hundred percent inspection on so many different things.
Even [00:40:00] when there was no rejects ever in like that history, like they just had labeled so many, that’s just one example, but there was a lot of just way conservative approaches on things. And now it’s if we have a return, sometimes we’ll implement a hundred percent inspection, but there is a timeline of how to work it down, how to create a process that’s reliable enough where you don’t need a hundred percent inspection.
Now, there is like a one or two of our parts that are just we have a customer that’s real nitpicky on the cosmetics of it. So we do like a hundred percent cosmetic. inspection, but It’s a fraction of what it used to be.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you have any sense of an ROI on ProShop?
Johnny Goode: It’s hard to give like a giant generalized version, but I would say that we can’t capture the ROI is because we haven’t eliminated positions, but I think we saw, almost a 50 percent increase in revenue during this last year, and it was like our first [00:41:00] year of really executing on pro shop, and we only had to staff up for direct labor.
So we didn’t have to staff up, a purchasing department customer service. So I think the ROI is it allows you to scale up. And if you have automation on your machines, that’s great. But if you like our assembly department, it’s just it’s So difficult to automate that. So that’s really the only positions we had to add.
So we added two positions with a 50 percent increase in revenue. So our revenue went up 50 percent and our expenses went up 1. 3%.
Paul Van Metre: Okay. That’s a good, that’s a nice, concise statement. Wow. That’s very cool.
Johnny Goode: Yeah. And then our net income went up, a ton because of that. So yeah,
Paul Van Metre: that’s a lovely place to be.
What would you tell another shop owner? That’s in a similar type of, business, maybe not the PMA part, but maybe that too, but contract manufacturing that is considering ERP research or system that seems to be working okay, but, it’s had some of the same constraints maybe as what you dealt [00:42:00] with prior.
What would you tell them about it?
Johnny Goode: So actually I did, I’ve just introduced one of my a customer or a company I’ve been talking to for a while to one of the ProShop reps, but I think it just has it’s very customizable. From look to function, but we’ll still having a pretty solid base, but I think the amount of data that.
You can use for ProShop for making decisions is incredible. There’s so many times that people, there’s such a big difference between what the system’s doing and how you can interpret that data. So so many companies have these ERP systems or stuff, but it’s like, what’s your yearly usage and what’s your was that work order profitable?
What was the labor attached to it? Did you buy, why did you buy extra material? And cause we had an NCR attached to that work order. It’s like everything is connected where it’s so easy to diagnose. And make, almost live real time decisions in the rather than waiting a month because so many people look at their ERP system after they close out the month and then we’ll go back.
But it’s like you can look at the shop and period [00:43:00] progress in real time almost. On a daily basis, and you can see where people are attributing their labor. So are you spending 30 percent of your workforce’s time in reworks or setup, or you can start just like identifying the areas that really need work.
Paul Van Metre: So do you feel like it’s a real tool to multiply your process improvement initiatives?
Johnny Goode: Yeah. So I marketed it as a force multiplier. So it’s it takes what I could do in 40 hours. And now I can do way more than I could have done in our old system. Like it would have taken three or four of me to do what I do now in a weekly basis.
So people that are worried and I find that like AI Cobots. Has the same kind of people are like, Oh, I’m going to lose my job. It’s no it’s multiplying what you can do. So now we can start scaling up. We can make more money. We can give back more to our employees and we can all live more comfortable lifestyle because we have these force multipliers.
It’s, I was like, I’m not trying to eliminate anyone’s job. Now, if you’re doing terrible and it’s a performance [00:44:00] reason, absolutely. But I’m not going to eliminate a job because I made a more efficient way of it. We’ll have you do something that’s a better use of your time. And often the things that we’re automating are the things they hated doing anyway.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, absolutely.
Johnny Goode: Who really wants to do data entry 40 hours a week? Like I’m sure there are some people, but
Paul Van Metre: yeah. Yeah. There was a story of a pretty good size shop down in Texas. I think about 70 or 80 people. And The woman that did all the document packages for their orders, as tiny one of twos and all that stuff, it was a full time job.
She did that 40 hours a week. And when apparently the, cause we did a case study with them and the president, came into her office at one point and she was. I think he said she was crying and was like, just scared to death that she was going to lose her job when she learned about the create a document package button.
Yeah. But instead she was promoted to a full quality engineer, started doing much more interesting value added things and that paperwork pushing just became. You know [00:45:00] almost completely automated.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, I’m glad you said that because that feature too for us like it was someone hand jamming into excel Like the as9102 and taking like it took them weeks sometimes to get like a 200 character part and we would have orders being late They’ve been, they were done, a week or two ahead of schedule, but it took them weeks to get a first article done, and now it’s I think the first time our shipping corps was like can’t ship it, there’s not a first article, I was like, click on the first article, click, combine it in a PDF, and they’re like, oh, they, ever since then.
Pretty confident about it. Like you don’t need to wait on quality. It’s done. We do pretty much everything we do. We did tag every part, put it in every single part has an AS9102 for it. So it’s not and you can flag, first article required, but we just run everything the same all the time.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah. So you said maybe we can talk about that for a second. You said that, ProShop being a process built into software, you changed some of the things that you did. Did you always [00:46:00] prepare your quality plan up in, up at the beginning? Or how, yeah, how did some of those, maybe just a few anecdotes of how things have changed just in the process?
Johnny Goode: So at the, for the process, especially first articles, it’s like they didn’t realize they were having to do a first article sometimes until the, like the part was about ready to ship. So it’s they weren’t, didn’t have to go back and didn’t tag fine. What it was a cluster. I was like, how have you guys been operating for this long?
And, but quality would be complaining like, Oh we had to get special gauging. And we didn’t know about it when the job was coming around. But then when they were consulted, they wouldn’t offer any feedback now with the pre processing checklist. And then I. I put, when operations finishes their job, I have then put 25 percent in planning and then I made a dashboard where it says if it’s 25 percent now it’s on quality to finish.
the pre processing checklist so that everyone can see what they have on their plate and now it’s like we’ve we rarely have any of those issues and then we also sometimes catch things before they hit the machine rather than you know catching it way after the fact like the [00:47:00] for the earlier you can catch an issue the cheaper it is for everybody involved
Paul Van Metre: yeah a special thread gauge or something that
Johnny Goode: or even like a part that had a new rev change that just, maybe an old system would have just ran through as the previous rev.
Paul Van Metre: So that’s awesome. So has this is a big question, but do you feel like pro shop has helped change the culture of the business?
Johnny Goode: I think so, too. I think we’ve had so many. changes within the organization from, me taking over the president role for my dad to putting new tech into the company and then the ERP system and a couple other softwares that we’re using.
I think all in turn, all together, they’ve had a huge impact, but ProShop was really The first start to it because that was the first kind of purchase I made to improve our processes And I think once people started seeing the benefit like because the one hang up that the operators and programmers didn’t was I made them put in the g code programming [00:48:00] tool list and work instructions for every job and they’re like this is such a this We don’t need to do this, but then they had a repeat job come around and the intern was able to set or like an entry level person was able to set it up rather than taking their time.
And then they saw it and they’re like, okay, now I see what you’re talking about, but I think it has it. It’s, I think we just have this innovative kind of culture mindset where it’s anytime they’re looking at an inefficiency, they’re working on fixing it rather than just Oh, it’s always been this way.
And we’re always going to do it this inefficient way because That’s what they decided, and they have a much better voice to influence positive change.
Paul Van Metre: And that’s a new, that’s a new thing, really, since ProShop.
Johnny Goode: Yeah, that’s new resulted from ProShop, yeah.
Paul Van Metre: Yeah, that’s pretty huge. That’s fantastic. We all know the, what do they call it, the eighth wonder of the world?
Power of compound interest, right? That increasing curve. And I’m like, if you can increase the curve, actually it was one of them, I can’t take any credit for it, one of my earliest podcast guests, Ken Frankel of Three Sigma, said, [00:49:00] if you can increase the rate of learning within a company, it wasn’t just process improvement, but it was learning.
But that’s, so similar. You’ll just outperform your competition. Yeah, just all day long because you’re just accelerating at a higher rate than they are.
Johnny Goode: Yeah. And I think when I came on, like the company was behind the competition when it comes to equipment processes, software systems, and now like we’re having case studies and things done because we’re being more innovative.
And then we’re bringing even more business things. They’re like, Oh, they’re doing that as a small business. And I’ve marketed that we can offer a lot of the capabilities that a larger company can while having the customer service. That a small company provides and that best of both worlds. Yeah,
Paul Van Metre: That’s fantastic.
Okay. i’d love hearing that so I guess Bringing it back to the title of this podcast, manufacturing transformed. Do you feel like ProShop has helped transform MSP aviation?
Johnny Goode: Oh, 100 percent like for almost two parts of a decade, they could not figure [00:50:00] out why inventory was going up while while they just were not making money despite revenue and big contracts and everything that would suggest a business is going to have a great year.
And then just. They had no way of knowing where things were not going right. And you see it if you walked around just like, Oh, that just looks inefficient. And I think me not having any ties to the industry before gave a fresh look, but ProShock really gave us so many metrics to make better decisions, comes with a good business model outside of like right out of the box.
And I think I was so happy to just jump in. Cause it was like, yeah, this all makes sense. And I had no, no baggage to, to think anything else, but able to see that like purchasing was being done because, you’re having a person write something down and if they’re not checking the inventory, if people aren’t allocating like you messed that up a couple hundred times, that’s, hundreds of thousands of dollars sometimes.
So we’ve been able to just start shutting down our inventory. So now we’re operating with less. [00:51:00] Expenses and using things better. And I really think it has transformed the business. And I’ve been talking to a few people that are like, I’ve never had such a good feeling for the future of MSP than we’ve had in the, like the last year.
So we were talking to, our CFO and the machinists operators assembly, like everybody has such a, like a bright opinion of the future of our company, which is. I don’t think it would have been said before.
Paul Van Metre: Oh man, that is so good. It’s so good because it is exactly in line with our mission statement.
Yeah. Building powerful manufacturing software by deeply understanding our clients challenges in order to meaningfully improve their businesses and in turn their communities. And so if your employees are feeling more bullish than ever, about about the company and their jobs and the prospects of what you’re doing there, that there’s nothing better than that, as far as I’m concerned, as far as what we’re trying to do in the market.
So thank you for sharing that. That’s awesome.
Johnny Goode: Oh, no problem. It’s been an absolute game changer for [00:52:00] us. And I don’t even know if we would have made it through COVID and a lot of the other challenges had we not been able to diagnose those issues when we did.
Paul Van Metre: Okay. Johnny, thank you so much for this.
If people want to learn more about your company, where would you direct them?
Johnny Goode: So you can Google MSP Manufacturing or on LinkedIn and Facebook. Our URL is just msp manufacturing. com. And then Do you want to reach out to me individually or anything like that? I have a LinkedIn page. So John and Goody and yeah, be more than happy.
And if anyone wants a, opinion of pro shop outside of pro shop, I’m always more than happy to share my perspective. And I think I’ve walked a few potential customers just through sharing my screen, like what can be done.
Paul Van Metre: Oh, can’t thank you enough for that. Yeah, really really appreciate the advocacy and coming on today and sharing.
And yeah, it’s these conversations. Which I get to have every two weeks, are just so much fun for me. Yeah, I can imagine. Because hearing, hearing the impact is that’s why we [00:53:00] started the business. To, to support the manufacturing industry. It’s good to know that it’s really happening in a meaningful way for companies like yours.
Johnny Goode: Thank you.
Paul Van Metre: All right, Johnny. Thank you again for your time and I’m sure we’ll see you for too long at event or a show or something.
Johnny Goode: Absolutely. Hey, you have a great weekend ahead of you. All right. Cheers.
