00:00:05:01 – 00:01:14:21
Unknown
Kevin, my friend, good to see you here on the show. Thanks so much for joining me. It is always a pleasure to talk with you and talk about JGR. You guys are such an incredible company. So for those that don’t know, JGR, tell us, let’s start with a little bit of the background of the company and maybe just a snapshot of what it looks like today, just so people have some context for that.
00:01:40:04 – 00:02:06:22
Unknown
Right.
00:02:22:20 – 00:02:35:11
Unknown
Yeah.
00:02:37:08 – 00:02:48:18
Unknown
It’s amazing.
00:03:02:16 – 00:03:33:12
Unknown
Pretty cool. Yeah. That amount of growth in that short period of time is wild. We will talk more about that. So, am I correct in saying the manufacturing equipment you had, was that for boat racing stuff or other fun things?
00:03:44:11 – 00:04:13:10
Unknown
But it was. Yeah. And vine for a hobby. And we’ll, we’ll come back I know. Brian, your brother was, was, I was talking to a few months ago and back into, you know, back into the boat thing, maybe a little bit more heavy. I don’t know, but, Sounds like fun. So, that, well, everything you just describes sounds like about the most.
00:04:13:10 – 00:04:37:16
Unknown
Sort of, like, intense pressure cooker type of job shop that I can think of. You know, it’s all aerospace. So highly regulated. Quick turn, low volume, not much. Repeat. That is, every you know, so you’re programing and quality plans and everything is new. New estimating almost all the time. That’s a that’s a heavy load. Can you paint the picture of kind of how you were managing all that?
00:04:38:07 – 00:05:05:19
Unknown
Prior to getting pro shop?
00:06:18:12 – 00:06:36:05
Unknown
Yeah.
00:06:54:13 – 00:07:32:10
Unknown
Oh, geez. Yeah. Yeah.
00:07:45:19 – 00:07:51:13
Unknown
Sure.
00:08:09:05 – 00:08:39:07
Unknown
Well, that’s very kind of you. Thank you so much. And when you, So you were really on job, I don’t think I realized that you were on a job bus for a short period of time. After. Well, how long was that rollout period?
00:08:39:09 – 00:09:08:13
Unknown
Oh.
00:09:08:15 – 00:09:22:10
Unknown
Yeah. What?
00:09:37:14 – 00:09:42:11
Unknown
Right.
00:09:48:00 – 00:09:57:19
Unknown
Right.
00:09:57:21 – 00:10:17:18
Unknown
Got it. Well, but that is a, tough nut to to or a tough, pill to swallow. That that sunk cost. I know a lot of companies that we talk with that really are not happy with their ERP. They just cannot get past this sunk cost. Things like we’ve invested so much money, we can’t change it.
00:10:17:22 – 00:10:30:07
Unknown
It’s like it’s not.
00:10:42:22 – 00:10:51:15
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:51:17 – 00:11:01:12
Unknown
Sure.
00:11:02:08 – 00:11:05:14
Unknown
Sure.
00:11:05:16 – 00:11:29:21
Unknown
And you could afford the Ferrari. Wasn’t that much. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s talk about this growth that you’ve had over 400% in four years. We, you know, when we did some testimonial videos you guys were talking about, maybe it was it was less because it was like a year and a half ago or a couple years ago, but,
00:11:30:00 – 00:11:48:07
Unknown
But. Yeah. What what really enabled that? I mean, it’s did you buy I mean, is there a bunch more equipment on the floor, bigger team.
00:11:48:09 – 00:12:37:21
Unknown
Yep.
00:13:38:17 – 00:14:01:00
Unknown
Yeah.
00:14:32:05 – 00:15:02:15
Unknown
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that. It is, it is. I would, I will, you know, as, as you often see in ads like uncommon results in small, you know, asterisk below you, you know, the the marrying of lean and pro shop, I think is, I mean, clearly, it’s a powerful combination. And I don’t think I quite had realized how how much you guys were, were leaning into that, to use upon, I guess.
00:15:02:17 – 00:15:21:20
Unknown
Wait until I came down and did that. You know, we did that sort of shop tour video or shop, you know, interview video and we’re there in your little Morning Huddle area. And you had two second Lean and Paul Acres on one side of your corkboard, and you had pro shops mission statement on the other side and our logo.
00:15:21:20 – 00:15:46:12
Unknown
And I was just like, Holy smokes, that’s a lot of, that’s a lot of Bellingham, Washington influence. Because that’s where, of course, Paul Akers is up here as well. But, yeah, it’s just, I’d love to go down maybe that a little bit, you know, on on the lean side and on the adoption and having your team clearly buy into it, so, so effectively.
00:15:46:22 – 00:16:36:07
Unknown
Because that’s the hard thing that many companies don’t succeed at is really getting the culture of lean and continuous improvement, like down into the base level of all employees where they’re they’re excited, they’re giving ideas, they’re working on improvements. What did it take for you guys to do that?
00:19:22:09 – 00:20:06:17
Unknown
Besides. Yeah. Besides the the common ones that you know, I saw when as would, would require on time delivery and scrap rate and things like that. What other internal metrics are you guys tracking to drive that behavior and see where those improvements need to be made?
00:20:13:02 – 00:20:22:11
Unknown
You know.
00:20:41:21 – 00:20:48:06
Unknown
Yeah.
00:20:48:08 – 00:21:21:07
Unknown
An hour per person or across the whole team. Wow. That’s crazy.
00:21:31:08 – 00:22:02:21
Unknown
Right.
00:22:11:03 – 00:22:36:15
Unknown
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:36:17 – 00:22:48:21
Unknown
Sure.
00:22:49:00 – 00:23:01:13
Unknown
Right.
00:23:01:13 – 00:23:20:17
Unknown
Just back on the on the overtime for a second. Did you have employees that were counting on that overtime? Because they make more money and, how did you. Yeah.
00:23:30:19 – 00:23:42:01
Unknown
Right.
00:24:28:14 – 00:24:34:17
Unknown
Yeah. Sure.
00:24:34:19 – 00:24:42:06
Unknown
Yeah.
00:24:42:08 – 00:24:53:03
Unknown
Kind of.
00:24:53:17 – 00:25:09:21
Unknown
Yeah. No I think that’s, that’s a good long term way to think about it. And you know, pay them enough that they can live comfortably without needing that overtime. Because a lot of times it’s like I need it, you know, I gotta pay the bills.
00:25:10:00 – 00:25:22:15
Unknown
I was about to ask that. Yeah.
00:25:50:16 – 00:26:01:15
Unknown
Okay.
00:26:01:17 – 00:26:05:16
Unknown
Got it.
00:26:05:18 – 00:26:16:15
Unknown
Are your shifts a four day and a three day? I get paid.
00:26:49:12 – 00:27:16:14
Unknown
Got. Got it. Yeah. I was going to say doing you know, trying to the strategy of, you know, setting up jobs and proving it out on day shift or first shift and then having them run it out on the next shifts. You know, that works, I think really well, especially in, in production environment. But in an environment like you guys have high max, low volume, that’s a hard sometimes there’s, you know, because there’s everything’s a brand new part number.
00:27:16:19 – 00:27:43:16
Unknown
There’s a lot of things to solve. How how are how do you like tactically trying to do that. You you have just like a, you know, a set up on one machine that someone proves out and then lets it sit for a little bit or.
00:27:43:18 – 00:27:56:22
Unknown
Okay.
00:27:57:01 – 00:28:22:11
Unknown
Okay.
00:28:41:16 – 00:28:54:04
Unknown
Right.
00:29:06:03 – 00:29:11:16
Unknown
Got it.
00:29:11:18 – 00:29:16:10
Unknown
Sure.
00:29:17:04 – 00:29:38:00
Unknown
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. You mentioned estimated times. And I believe I’ve talked to Brian. Is that his part of the business. But because he talked he’s talked about how you guys have really kind of doubled down on more thorough, accurate estimating, compared to the way it was done in the past. Still fast.
00:29:38:01 – 00:30:34:17
Unknown
It’s still faster, I think. And he said than it used to be. But just talk about the importance of accurate estimates.
00:30:42:03 – 00:30:50:06
Unknown
Yeah.
00:31:14:09 – 00:31:35:00
Unknown
Sure.
00:31:57:12 – 00:32:23:20
Unknown
Right.
00:32:23:22 – 00:32:37:21
Unknown
Oh my gosh! Hello.
00:33:14:19 – 00:33:19:08
Unknown
Just.
00:33:19:10 – 00:33:25:18
Unknown
Wow.
00:33:59:11 – 00:34:25:10
Unknown
Well, have you seen that impact your I mean your total lead times I guess. But on-time delivery as well.
00:34:25:12 – 00:34:45:04
Unknown
Right.
00:34:45:06 – 00:34:59:13
Unknown
That’s massive. Wow.
00:34:59:15 – 00:35:12:09
Unknown
Right.
00:35:14:12 – 00:35:43:20
Unknown
That is a massive improvement. What were some of the things that were causing late deliveries that you fixed?
00:35:47:16 – 00:36:03:18
Unknown
Yep. Yep.
00:36:03:20 – 00:36:11:03
Unknown
Sure.
00:36:42:12 – 00:37:05:16
Unknown
And they’d. And they’d reset their due dates based. Yeah. Okay.
00:37:20:15 – 00:37:31:20
Unknown
Yeah.
00:37:31:21 – 00:37:37:07
Unknown
Sure.
00:37:37:09 – 00:37:42:19
Unknown
Yeah.
00:37:42:21 – 00:37:55:15
Unknown
Yeah.
00:38:02:21 – 00:38:11:18
Unknown
Right.
00:38:11:20 – 00:38:22:17
Unknown
Yeah.
00:38:33:04 – 00:38:36:19
Unknown
Yeah. Sure.
00:38:36:21 – 00:38:42:03
Unknown
Yeah. Absolutely.
00:38:42:05 – 00:38:45:17
Unknown
Sure.
00:38:53:20 – 00:39:13:13
Unknown
Yeah. And I imagine at the same time it makes the day you mentioned earlier, you know your employees, their goal is to make their day easier with lean things. And like when you’re not rushing and scrambling and breaking down a job because you don’t have that tool and trying to put something else on and last minute, that’s not easy or fun.
00:39:13:15 – 00:39:19:18
Unknown
So there’s your.
00:39:27:19 – 00:39:31:06
Unknown
Right.
00:39:31:08 – 00:39:38:05
Unknown
Yeah.
00:39:38:06 – 00:40:08:14
Unknown
Okay. So I want to just ask a little bit of maybe a couple of specifics. On estimating templates because some people might not even comprehend what level of detail you might be talking about. So do you have some off the top of your head or, I can I can share from my own experience, but.
00:40:29:08 – 00:40:36:04
Unknown
Sure.
00:40:49:17 – 00:40:57:13
Unknown
Right.
00:41:20:01 – 00:41:37:16
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:38:12 – 00:42:03:15
Unknown
So one of the and I’m curious to know if you’re doing this, but one of the things I was thinking of that we certainly did is for example, you lots of your purse go out to get plated. Right. And when they come in, you’re going to do an incoming inspection. Right. If it’s anodized, you might look for you might look in the thread, see if there’s gunk or if they’ve damaged the threads or whatever.
00:42:04:11 – 00:42:30:03
Unknown
And since since we have part check information in the estimates as well, you can build into that template that any time you have an outside process, you’re going to have, you know, a an inspection plan for check the threads, check the surface finish, check the, you know, coverage. So therefore, you know, you put it in the template once and then every part you, you clone off of that.
00:42:30:05 – 00:42:55:02
Unknown
Now has those inspection requirements, has incoming inspection from plating. And you don’t have to build that every single time. Is that the kind of stuff you’re.
00:42:55:04 – 00:43:00:06
Unknown
Right.
00:43:07:14 – 00:43:29:09
Unknown
Right.
00:43:31:08 – 00:43:37:22
Unknown
Right.
00:43:38:01 – 00:43:47:07
Unknown
Got it.
00:43:47:09 – 00:44:00:13
Unknown
Of course.
00:44:02:04 – 00:44:25:10
Unknown
Yeah. Do, has has your actual quality rating changed and where were you previously doing inspection on paper or what was your process prior? What’s it today?
00:44:25:12 – 00:44:40:21
Unknown
Yep.
00:45:02:09 – 00:45:07:02
Unknown
Oh, wow.
00:45:07:04 – 00:45:13:10
Unknown
Yeah. For sure.
00:45:13:12 – 00:45:23:22
Unknown
Yes.
00:45:25:19 – 00:46:02:19
Unknown
Now that that, can you, can you speak to any of the impact that pro shop has had on you personally in terms of your stress level or hours you work or. I don’t know what else, but
00:46:40:05 – 00:46:44:17
Unknown
Right.
00:46:44:19 – 00:46:58:07
Unknown
Sure.
00:47:00:04 – 00:47:20:18
Unknown
Yeah. That is I mean that’s such a fantastic example of just being able to work on your business more and not in it. You know, you’re not surrounded in the details all day. So.
00:47:20:20 – 00:47:40:11
Unknown
Right.
00:48:16:06 – 00:48:39:21
Unknown
Right. Sure. Your comment about, checking status on a phone. I can’t remember if it was you. I think it might have been. Brian, told me a story a little while ago of, I think driving home. Got a, like, a call from a client saying, hey, we realized we had a discrepancy between the model and the drawing on one of the parts.
00:48:40:00 – 00:48:59:12
Unknown
There’s a whole that was drawn at the wrong size or whatever. We need to know what size that you actually made it. And it was like, pull up the phone. Look at the first article. Oh, yeah. It’s that number. As opposed to driving back home, going to find the job on the shop floor, looking to see if it’s written down on a piece of paper.
00:48:59:14 – 00:49:13:11
Unknown
You know.
00:49:25:11 – 00:49:29:22
Unknown
Right.
00:49:30:01 – 00:49:36:15
Unknown
Yeah.
00:49:36:17 – 00:49:45:21
Unknown
Yeah.
00:50:07:01 – 00:50:21:04
Unknown
Got it.
00:50:33:13 – 00:52:30:22
Unknown
So glad. That’s helping so much. So, I know you’re just in between your first and second audit, but have you had, customers that have come do audits and I’m wondering like what’s your maybe bigger question than that. Just what’s the feedback been from your customers about the way you used to operate and how you do today?
00:52:35:16 – 00:53:00:16
Unknown
Right.
00:53:00:18 – 00:53:22:05
Unknown
Okay.
00:53:24:13 – 00:53:47:21
Unknown
That’s super cool. And thank you. I know you’ve you guys have been very generous to open your doors for other companies that are interested in pro shop and wanting to learn more. And you’ve from around and told about, you know told them how you do it and I, I thank you for expressing and just the sort of selling your QMS, selling your business system and why that’s so important.
00:53:47:22 – 00:54:08:01
Unknown
I’ve been beating that drum forever. And, it’s great to hear a very concrete example of how you’re doing that. Well, Let me think what other. I know we’re getting close to, sort of our our here,
00:54:08:02 – 00:54:37:14
Unknown
If you. Well, maybe, maybe this is something you’ve actually done. If you were, you know, talking to another shop, that’s that’s not convinced that, you know, pro shop is the right tool or an ERP, you know, is the right tool. And, you know, it’s it’s, it’s really understandable that there’s a lot of hesitation out there because the, you know, the, the industry stats on like how, how poor ERP is often can go, they’re terrible, right?
00:54:37:14 – 00:55:26:09
Unknown
They’re really bad stats like 70% of ERP implementations don’t succeed. And the goal of improving or doing whatever their, their goal was. So what would you say to a shop that’s, that’s that’s rightfully skeptical?
00:57:33:22 – 00:57:54:14
Unknown
Yeah.
00:57:55:14 – 00:59:21:08
Unknown
Thank you. Yeah, I, I forgotten that you guys had tried to tweak a bunch of things and hijack fields and stuff. So it’s, funny to be reminded. So just, last couple of things, what has been the most rewarding part of just being a business owner, a shop owner? Like, what do you really get out of it that you love?
00:59:37:22 – 01:00:20:11
Unknown
Right. Right.
01:00:23:10 – 01:00:29:13
Unknown
Right.
01:00:39:03 – 01:01:04:05
Unknown
That’s a fantastic answer. I love it. Well, Kevin, if people want to reach out to you, learn more about JGR. How would how or talk to you connect. How would you suggest they go about doing that?
01:01:04:07 – 01:01:10:09
Unknown
Oh, nice. Cool.
01:01:10:11 – 01:01:29:22
Unknown
All right, well, thank you for for everything you said. I really appreciate it. It’s such an honor to serve, people with such a great mission like you of helping and growing other people, you know, and we can do that through some technology and art and our team. It just feels fantastic. So appreciate everything. And, great conversation today.
01:01:30:00 – 01:01:35:03
Unknown
Thank you so much. Cheers, Kevin.
01:01:41:10 – 01:02:01:19
Unknown
Everybody, how’s it going today? Oh, boy. I’m excited. It’s a good day. Yeah. So, what happened for you? I am extra excited after talking to Kevin Richards at JGR. I don’t believe you’ve ever been there, have you? I have never been to JGR, but, But the more I hear about them, the more I think I gotta go.
01:02:02:02 – 01:02:22:17
Unknown
Yeah. So we need to remedy this very soon. You would absolutely love it. You know, as a as a as a major proponent of lean and, of course, all in a pro shop, they have paired those two things to such an incredible effect that it’s almost mind blowing. So they’ve grown their revenue over 400% in the last four years, from 36%.
01:02:22:17 – 01:02:45:14
Unknown
I think it’s a, without without a ton. Or really any more significant, you know, investments in machines or people. So they’ve grown a little bit, you know, of course, but but most of that what it’s like eliminating waste, having got very efficient systems that they, that they used to process all their work and oh my God, that is magic.
01:02:45:15 – 01:03:04:17
Unknown
I just love it. Oh my gosh. So they don’t have 400% more people and 400 more machines. They just. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. They have about 30 people and they, they did out a second shift. So I think that’s a change. But, right. And that’s an important one because you get a lot more. You get seven days a week of spindle time.
01:03:04:19 – 01:03:27:16
Unknown
Yeah. It’s kind of like adding machines, except you didn’t have to buy any machines. Yeah. And no, the lease payments. But, yeah. And and, yeah. Pro shop has just been such a huge unlock of telling them exactly where to focus those improvement activities. And they’re, they’re like the, their inspiration for lean is Paul Akers two second Lane.
01:03:27:18 – 01:03:58:07
Unknown
Oh, nice. Lovely Paul Akers. Awesome. I made a post a couple of years ago. We would not add a testimonial video with them, and I shared this post and I can’t remember if you remember it, but in their in their sort of kaizen sort of group, you know, meeting area every morning, they have a big truck, a big corkboard, and on one side they have two second lean, with the picture of the book and, you know, and then on the right hand side, the, Pro Shops mission statement, our logo, and then a bunch of pro shop stuff.
01:03:58:07 – 01:04:18:07
Unknown
And it’s like, right there, that’s how they roll. Oh, that is so cool. And I first of all, I was like, Holy cow. Like, that’s a whole lot of influence from Bellingham, Washington, right? Yeah, right. All Lakers from from here to. So anyway, yeah, just and and one of the things I just love, just a couple of things.
01:04:18:07 – 01:04:44:14
Unknown
So they’ve, they’ve actually as, as they’ve quadrupled their number of parts, they’ve dramatically cut their NCR, you know, account or customer churn count by, by like 4 or 5 times as well. So like just a massive reduction, you know, or increasing quality reduced to quality. They’ve also gone from like 50% on time delivery to 98 plus percent all the time.
01:04:44:15 – 01:05:05:07
Unknown
Way to do it at all at once. I guess they’re also related. Just like that. They are massive proponents of estimating templates and a really good pre-processing checklist. Yeah, like dial those two things in together, and it’s like magic. That’s awesome. And I know, you know, I know new you. All the nuances of how that can work so well together.
01:05:05:07 – 01:05:30:19
Unknown
But they have just leaned into those two things so well. And then the last thing which you didn’t really talk about on the show, but we, we when I went down there, so they have standardized operations like, you know, final inspection is always up 2000 or, you know, something is 1500 or whatever it is. Right. And they have put signs on all of their workstations or the operation numbers that happen at those stations.
01:05:31:02 – 01:05:53:05
Unknown
Right. Okay. Yeah. Maybe not the same size because you get different numbers of cases, but like right, incoming inspection, final inspection, assembly. Those all have, you know, big numbers and they and they, they should match exactly what’s in the digital system. So they right. They redid all their floors to match Pro Shops operation numbers. Oh awesome. I love it.
01:05:53:05 – 01:06:12:19
Unknown
And that’s sort of the clarity of just like make the digital exactly like the physical and, but yeah. And no one’s confused when they come in like, this is where you’re going. That’s the dashboard you look at and the instructions are right there, and the plan is right there, and you do it digital twin stuff right? Like that’s exactly what people are talking about when they’re like, what’s the digital twin?
01:06:12:19 – 01:06:36:00
Unknown
It’s like, well, the real world looks just like, you know, the computer says it should look, and the more you can do it, the easier things get for everybody to understand. That’s awesome. Yeah. So wow. We’re super excited. Do we need to get down there? It was them. You’ll geek out like crazy. It sounds like maybe even getting, getting some some of our other team members down there to see that in motion.
01:06:36:00 – 01:06:51:18
Unknown
Right. So our developers and some of our, you know, the product people, I think it would be really impactful for them. Yeah. And if we as we have team members come to Seattle, it’s a quick trip to go by Woodinville on the way up to Bellingham to come and play. Yeah. So yeah. All right. We’ll do that. But all right.
01:06:52:00 – 01:06:55:22
Unknown
Great to catch up with you. Sounds good. Ready for 36? Cheers. Bye.
